So this is Thatgamecompany's second game, originally built for PS3. It's pretty beholden to whatever deal they had going with Sony imo, much like their previous endeavor flOw. Both of these games are designed to find some kind of functionality for the DualShock 3's movement controls, which were transferred to the DualShock 4 but ultimately they were much less focused on. The trend for motion controls had kind of died out beyond being thought of as a cool bonus, as evidenced by the feature being relegated to optional camera control in Thatgamecompany's third title Journey, which was released on PS4.

This game being the middle child makes it kind of a strange entry in their legacy. While flOw could be seen as kind of gimicky as well as short, it at least presented some level of challenge for the player which is lacking here.

This game is entirely casual. It's the kind of game that also works as a screensaver. So going in, be aware that it's a chill and peaceful time, to either be barrelled through in an evening or played in short, relaxing chunks.

You use the motion controls to guide your flower petal to new flowers to collect more petals to ride the wind with on your way through the level. Simple enough, although the motion controls do take some time to get the hang of, which may be why the game lacks challenge. Another feature it surprisingly lacks is multiplayer, making it the only game developed by Thatgamecompany to be an entirely single player experience. That being said, the casual nature of the game does make it a nice entry-level experience, say, if you have a friend, family member, or partner who hasn't played very many games. Some single player games can make for good co op experiences if you're willing to pass the controller I guess.

The game is divided into stages, which do have a few collectibles to find for eagle eyed completionists. Each stage will have a slightly different theme or mechanic, but the objective in each remains the same: Gather more petals to open new parts of the level, engage with some bare-bones puzzles to bring the environment to life, and make it to the end where you'll get a short and beautiful Okami-like cutscene of the whole barren stage becoming lush with plants of all different colors.

Much of this game is wrapped up in its beauty. It's got a very storybook subtextual message about the magic of nature and how it should be respected and whatnot, so the nature of it all should look beautiful. And it serves the game's casual pacing and presentation, allowing for 2009 players to explore in awe. Some context at the time for graphics engines; the way developers loved to show off their power back in the seventh gen was largely through foliage. The water, character models, and particles weren't usually quite there yet. You can see the effect of this shift in games like Halo 3, and you can see the effect of the shift away from that in Thatgamecompany's very next game, which of course chooses to show off the PS4's power through lighting and tens of thousands of grains of sand.

All this being said, flower still happens to look pretty good these days. Added another easy 100% trophy collection to my belt. I think I liked flOw a little more for its comparative uniqueness and challenge, but this one's a nice, chill time. Solid, but not great.

By the way, if you're wondering how to get through that one section where shit's falling on you without losing any petals for the trophy, you should literally just fly above everything as slowly as possible.

I just got a PS5 for my birthday, and I am finally truly unstoppable.

I didn't experience the original game, The Playroom, on PS4. I remember being annoyed that there was an app on my system that I couldn't delete. I don't even think I knew it was a game for a while. I guess I figured it was kind of like the Sharefactory, which I've also never used.

Anyway, all this is to say, I've been thinking about checking that out for a while, and having never gotten around to it by the time I got my hands on the PS5, I decided to just jump right into Astro's Playroom. I think the PS5 does a great job getting you to play it. When you get your account up, it's one of the first things the menu shows you, and it's much more obviously being advertised to you as a game.

So, this being a pre-installed game that comes free with your PS5, I'm sure you're curious about one thing: how's it hold up? Should you bother? I can imagine there being a few people who are unlucky enough to get a PS5 without any games, but I think most people are going to have something expensive and highly anticipated to jump into when they first get the system. Even if that's the case, I actually think PS5 owners should try to find some time to check this out.

It's basically a quick, modern take on a classic genre: the 3D platformer, which the original PlayStation naturally helped popularize. This game is a level-based platformer, so it doesn't have the scope of a modern collectathon like Yooka-Laylee. In tone and effect it reminds me a lot of the Super Mario 3D Land/World games. There are 4 stages connected to a small hub, which also has a few other areas of interest, including a large room full of PlayStation memorabilia along with a large gacha machine. This is where your collectibles come in. Littered through each level will be a number of puzzle pieces as well as various pieces of PlayStation software and hardware to collect. In the gacha room the puzzle pieces will slowly reveal a wall of art representing the history of PlayStation. With the hardware and software you collect, a large-scale PlayStation museum will also be built out of the technology. If you're the type who's nostalgiac for this stuff, or just interested in what is quickly becoming ancient tech, you're going to enjoy this room. The gacha machine will have its own unique puzzle pieces and artifacts to grab, each costing 100 coins, which are the last thing you can collect in every stage. They're everywhere, so if you're curious and thorough you'll get everything out of this machine before the end.

Once you find every artifact and puzzle piece in each level, the level is mastered. Each of the 4 stages has 4 levels, which can be quite varied. Every other level Astro climbs into a robot suit and becomes something else, such as a frog, a monkey, and a Super Monkey Ball. As you can guess, this changes the gameplay considerably during these levels, and as alluded to by my Super Monkey Ball joke, not every suit will be a hit with every player.

The rest of the time in this game you'll be playing as cute little Astro, who honestly makes a pretty great mascot, although he's no stand-in for Sackboy. He can jump, and shoot a little laser at the ground to prolong his jump, going both a little higher, and much farther. This laser also works on enemies, though not every type. The hostiles you encounter in Astro's Playroom are varied, cleverly designed, and pretty cute in their own right (everything in the game is pretty or cute, hope you're chill with that). Astro can use a pretty unstoppable button-mashing punch for most foes, but some enemies require a laser attack or for Astro to wait for the right moment to, like, pull a cord on their head.
Every stage is themed toward one of Sony's last 4 home consoles, which you will collect for your museum at the end of each. Because of this, you will occasionally find yourself holding a popular weapon or flaunting a remarkable ability from each era. For example, in the level themed around PS4 games, you'll open a chest and suddenly find yourself wielding a bow. This is very funny, but it also comes in handy, even though it only shoots plungers (You even use it to take down a boss! Oh yeah, this game's got pretty good bosses). In the PS3 stage, repeated use of climbing mechanics are comparatively less funny as you have to contend with them.

Complete all the stages, and you'll be able to unlock the end of the game. You'll also be able to play all 8 of the speedrun levels, which represent each stage, but they're actually new levels uniquely designed to be sped through in under a minute. It's a nice addition, but I'm not the type to compete for a spot on a leaderboard, so it doesn't make for much replayability in my case. This being such a short game, I kind of wanted more at the end, but I suppose I knew it would be that way when I jumped in. Playing this kind of blew me away, because it just made me feel like a little kid again, and that's not actually that easy for one of these modern nostalgia based platformers to accomplish. I guess it also supplemented that by making me feel like Matt Damon getting old at the end of Saving Private Ryan anytime I was in the museum.

I went back through and got every trophy, many of which are level specific and situational, and many of which you get by messing around with things. With the haptic feedback and sophisticated rumble tech and all these cool things about your PS5 controller the game is designed to show you, one cool outcome is that you're heavily encouraged to punch and otherwise mess with everything. There are little robot buddies just hanging out everywhere, making cute little films and videogame references. This game wants you to beat the shit out of all of them and the stuff they're working with too. This kind of thing makes for instant fun, and I think more games should feature it.

Well, I think that covers most everything. If it had maybe one more proper stage I might rate it higher. Although it was pretty sweet the whole time, I ended up wishing it wasn't so short. That being said, I've played much worse mario clones that I actually paid for, so I can't be too mad at a good game with a measured length that I got for free.

Technically I got it as a free bonus for buying a $600 console, but still. Anyway, I say check it out. I had a great time playing it deep into the night for that platinum, remembering my childhood while getting hyped for the current gen. Glad I'm finally a part of it.

Hoo boy. I'm gonna try to be kind, but this game isn't put together very well. You play as Dawn, an imaginary friend (so it seems) of a young girl named Didi. Didi's parents argue a lot, mostly because her father keeps writing bad checks and coming up with crazy schemes to get money, the latest of which is an attempt to get a mysterious magician to headline at his makeshift carnival. Oh and also, he's in deep with the mob. With the use of Dawn's shadow-person powers, you'll help Didi keep her parents together, as well as alive, and make sure the carnival goes off without a hitch.

This plays out through a series of clever puzzles and platforming sections where you blend into shadow form to traverse shadows cast by other objects. But despite this cleverness, the game is extremely frictionless in a way that takes a lot away from the experience. This is not helped by the fact that the world is small and chokingly linear, even by indie game standards. There are a limited amount of collectibles to find, some of which give a little more info about the story, and some of which can be used as currency to fix malfunctioning electrical appliances. Despite the devs' best efforts, I found every one of them on my first playthrough. The only reason I jumped into the game again was to mop up a couple of situational trophies I missed.

The story is okay, and on a more positive note, I quite like the music. I also like a lot of the voice acting here, aside from the young girl, Didi, who is very annoying. One thing that really hurts the game is this kind of waxy, lifeless look to everything that I don't think was totally intentional. I mean, I know they're doing their best here with Unity and certainly going for a unique style, but just look at this drab mess. Can you believe this was one of the "launch titles" on PS4?

I might be willing to give this 3 stars if it wasn't so short, yet so glitchy. It's easy to be brought out of an experience when it looks like this game does, while having little in the way of engagement, and yet it also has a tendency to completely freak out if you don't watch your step. That's really what makes this game a shadow of its meager potential.

I picked this up with Flower because I really liked Journey when it came out.

I think this is pretty neat for Thatgamecompany's first game. It's clear that when this came out on PS3, Sony really wanted the developer to get some use out of the DualShock 3's motion controls.

With a top down overview, you play as various tiny ocean organisms that can evolve by either eating the various food that litters every level, or defeating the more advanced creatures you come across.

The game is fairly forgiving, giving the player a lot of room for mistakes and plenty of time to get a hang of the controls. There are red bubbles and blue bubbles, that take you down or up a level respectively, and the goal of each stage is to go down every level until you unlock the next creature you can play as.

The game has some exciting things to see, and good fun to be had. It's extremely short, as to be expected by its price point, but there's some cheap dlc you can get that adds a few more stages and creatures to play as. Each creature also gets their own control feel and ability, which make them fun to experiment with.

I got all the trophies, except the 4 player one. I might get it someday but i can't be asked to find 4 people to sit on the couch for this. Still, it's pretty cool that your friends, siblings, and lovers can jump in anytime with another controller. My favorite trophies to get were the Vegetarian one, and Cannibalism. I like a game with a good pacifist/murder run. Weirdly, the Cannibalism trophy is the hardest one, because it's actually way harder to avoid those little floating white veggies and only go for the fish. I recommend using the yellow guy.

I've mastered this game enough to be comfortable calling it completed, and to say that I feel people are too harsh with this one. It's not supposed to be the greatest thing in the world, it's supposed to be a game you play as a palate cleanser between your Assassin's Creeds, and Call of Dutys, and what have you.

I played this back when it came out in 2013 as a high schooler, and always really liked it. This is kind of the exact game Lara Croft needed to be reintroduced to the world with slightly more depth, and to appeal to a younger audience.

I played the definitive edition for the first time in 2019, and on this playthrough I sweeped up all the single player trophies I was missing, such as "Get Over Here!" and "Chatterbox," to name a couple.

I'm pretty good at getting 100% in the game by now, aside from a few challenges which I need guides for. Some of those things are remarkably well hidden, but I'm always glad to see at least one collectible in a game like this that's not on the map.

Now, as an uncharted fan, I admit this game never tickled that same sense of adventure for me. But as a fan of action games in general, especially ones with well-implemented skill trees and upgrade systems, I have to say this game delivered on a lot of ends. It's got a lot going for it. To make Lara seem like she's turning into a survivor/killing machine slowly over the course of her adventure (kind of like in Far Cry 3), late game, powerful skills can't be unlocked until you reach higher skill tiers by purchasing a specific number of skills in all categories. Everything you do in the game gives you XP or salvage to get new skills and weapon upgrades at campfires. You also have to find weapon parts in containers around the game to unlock better versions of your weapons, but it seems like the game kind of feeds you these as you make progress in the main story. For a game that lets you fast travel to previous areas at many points to gather any collectibles or explore tombs you might have missed, it has a way of pushing you right to the next objective. Like, the main quest is so urgent at all times, that it feels like Lara is being a huge asshole when she abandons her friends to go hunting in the forest. Major ludonarrative dissonance anytime you backtrack. But I do love backtracking and collectibles.

The game's not a metroidvania or anything, in fact it's exceedingly linear when you're not fast traveling around the map. Some optional collectibles do require upgrades from later in the game to get to though, which is pretty cool.

Now, I have to criticize the game on some ends. The hunting, for instance, while a nice distraction, is not nearly as deep as it seems like it will be at the beginning of the game. I do like that you can hunt every area in the game with animals completely dry though. They don't stop spawning, but once you reach that limit the game won't allow you to get very much xp from them, and it's a good way to make sure players don't spend hours grinding upgrades from animals.

The combat is smooth, and fun, especially when using the bow. Since Skyrim we have been in an era of fantastic strides in gaming archery, and I couldn't be happier about that. It's almost a cliche to include a bow in your action adventure game now, but Lara's bow is a vital part of the toolset in all three of these reboot games. In the next two installments, combat will improve and become more complex though.

The stealth will be improved as well, as it's honestly pretty situational in this one. There aren't a lot of opportunities to really get into it, aside from a couple of larger levels. For some reason, the only area in the game enemies respawn in is Shantytown, which makes backtracking in that level a nice change of pace.

Despite the advances the sequels do make, I think most fans find themselves coming back to this one, because it's just a relatively quick, sweet ride, even if you go for 100%. The story is pretty good in places, but also fairly cheesy, because every single character is a broad stereotype. There's even a nerd who does something dangerous and stupid to get Lara's attention, so all the gamers playing this with a half chub can relate to somebody.

On that note, let's talk about Lara. She's not just a sex object like the way she was portrayed in previous games, but she's still a sex symbol. What results is a plot that revolves around the writers trying to justify ways in which Lara gets tied up, scraped up, dirty, and covered in blood. She's the outdoorsy type of sexy, which meshes better with the survivalist tone of the game, although it definitely feels fetishistic. Over the course of Lara's adventure, her outfit will get torn to shreds in all the right places as well, but there are other outfits you can put her in if you want, and they aren't designed to deteriorate. Then the game becomes the story of Lara Croft and the Invincible Clothes.

One last thing. This game has a tacked on multiplayer mode, and the trophies are not separated into their own category. So if you want the platinum for this game, you have to play a lot of multiplayer. It's still functional if you can believe that, as of this review date, and I am going to try to chip away at these trophies because I love getting platinums, but I won't hold my breath on it. Who knows when they'll discontinue support. As it stands, it can be hard to find matches in the game sometimes, but there are still people playing. They'll probably heavily outmatch you when you spawn into a game, but they are there to help you get started if you want to. You will get xp no matter what, so soon you'll be able to get some new tools and characters to play around with. As far as quality goes, the multiplayer is underthought, chaotic, kind of glitchy, and it's got way too much to do for what it is. There are 4 modes which are pretty standard. On a positive note, it's got some pretty quality multiplayer maps. The one everyone always votes for is the one with a vision obscuring sandstorm, and a few maps have neat path changes if you blow something up. The multiplayer also relies, to my excitement, on setting traps for other players. It can be a rush when this is successful. Overall, despite its flaws, I think this is a fun multiplayer mode, but I think it has more to do with the fact that multiplayer is just fun. There are much better options out there than Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition for multiplayer enthusiasts, and I can see myself tiring of it eventually. One cool thing about it that players may be drawn to is how based on movement it is. There's a lot of jumping, climbing, sprinting, ziplining, and general agility that goes into a single match. It makes the whole thing a little more engaging to master.

I'll probably be cracking away at the multiplayer from time to time, as an occasional distraction, while I move onto other games. For now, with all the single player trophies and another 100% game file under my belt, I feel satisfied enough to log the game as completed. Most people who play this don't really engage with the multiplayer at all, because it's simply not what Tomb Raider is about. I would recommend giving the single player a shot for sure, it's very solid, and there's a lot of fun and adventure to be had.

This game has been done pretty raw by brainless "gameplay comes first" type of gamers. I hope one day we can get past the archaic sensibilities of arcade gaming, where story never matters. This game didn't win Indie game of the year just because it has a cute cat in it, you absolute cretins. You buffoons. As it happens, there's a lot more to the story than that, and there are a lot of considerations that go into whether a game is considered good besides gameplay.

Obviously gameplay is important, but frankly it's not as important to a casual indie game like this. If the game weren't designed for casual gamers, it would be doing itself a great disservice. But that doesn't matter to pissy hardcore gamers, because they take offense whenever any game invites a wider audience to their, oh, so exclusive hobby.

That's fine, whatever. As long as I don't see any more reviews on this game from players who abandoned it because it has automatic jump prompts. These dudes are gonna lose their minds when they figure out that most Assassin's Creed games control pretty similarly. If you're the type of gamer who seethes with rage any time a game is easy, just don't review this game. Spare us from your insipid ranting, and let us enjoy the fun cat game, please. It's not the greatest game in the world, or even the greatest released last year, but it's solid, and it has a pretty good cyberpunk angle along with some pretty stellar environments to explore. I thoroughly enjoyed my time.

This game does have gameplay, despite what naysayers will tell you. There's a lot of exploration, some fairly well done stealth, and even some chase sequences. It's got good puzzles, and some light backtracking for side missions and collectibles. Just because the cat is relatively easy to control doesn't mean there's nothing to the entire game. I encourage players to take their time seeing and doing as much as possible. And if you want a greater challenge, there are even some rather difficult trophies to grab for the platinum. Everyone was telling me this game was easy, but I didn't think it was easy to get the "Can't Cat-ch Me" trophy at all. So if someone tells you a game is too easy, ask how far they got before losing their patience. Maybe yours won't be quite as fragile.