t has been 10 years since Hitman: Blood Money, what many probably still consider the pinnacle of the Hitman franchise. Soon after the release of Hitman: Absolution, many Hitman fans like myself believed the series was as good as dead. It was streamlined to be more of an action/stealth game than a puzzle/stealth game, and the story beats really didn't line up with the rest of the series. Fast forward to January '14, where IO Interactive actually puts out an apology letter for Hitman: Absolution, and ensures the fanbase that next time will be different. The future of Hitman will return to it's roots, and boy, did it ever. HITMAN released in a (for some reason controversial) episodic format featuring heavily varying locations, a plethora of creative ways to take out targets, an unobtrusive story that doesn't rewrite the 47 character, and a host of new modes that add to the freshening up of the franchise. Custom contracts, elusive targets, and escalation contracts really give players reasons to keep coming back to the game. IO has also continued to listen to the community and patched the game to make it better and better. I'm excited the HITMAN franchise is a platform with a second season on the way, and I think that IO has finally surpassed Blood Money.

I didn’t expect to like the new God of War as much as I did. I grew up with the series and I wasn’t sure how to feel about this completely new over-the-shoulder direction. My worries were quickly put at ease however, with how much fun Kratos’ new axe was to use and all of the abilities you could unlock throughout the game. Perhaps my favourite part is the map itself; while it is an open-world game, it is the exact right size. It respects your time and you never take long to get somewhere interesting, and your exploration is rewarded adequetly. This design philosophy seems to be lost on a lot of modern open-world developers and its refreshing to see it done right in God of War.

As for the story, it goes in a very interesting direction and the dynamic between Kratos and his son Atreus unfolds in some satisfying ways, managing to give Kratos some real character development beyond angry bald man. They are definitely using this one to setup more God of War games, and they have revitalized my excitement for the future of this series for the first time in a decade.

In the never ending pursuit to make a rogue-like out of everything you can think of, here is Balatro which has turned Poker (kind of) into one. The basic premise is, each round you draw a pool of 8 cards and you have (typically) 4 hands and 3 discards to make as many high-scoring Poker hands as you can and reach the Blind value. Each hand has an associated point value and multiplier, and each card that contributes to the hand also adds its own card value to the points. Once you defeat the current blind, you go to a shop where you can use your hard-earned cash to buy various upgrades.

Celestial cards upgrade the value of a particular hand, spectral and arcana cards have various abilities to manipulate your deck by adding, removing, or modifying cards, and then there are Jokers. Jokers are where the real meat of the game comes from, as their varying abilities and large selection allow you to build out your strategy. You can really stack your multipliers into insane values, and as you climb through the increasing antes (and boss antes with often annoying effects), you try to ultimately defeat Ante level 8 for a "completed" run (although there is an endless option after you make it there).

There's a handful of decks as well to choose from with their own unique effects, and as you beat the game with each one you can choose to increase the difficulty with that respective deck for more and more challenge. All that is to say, I really don't have much else to say about Balatro other than it is damn addicting. Easy to pick up and play a few hands, try out different combos, and build out your collection as the game keeps track of which cards you've picked up before. Definitely recommend if you want a nice, chill time-killer that you will also slowly grow to hate.

There's a lot that does shine about Tactics Ogre, and a lot I do enjoy about it. It tells the tale of a man as he is trapped in a bloody war, with difficult choices to make and ultimately no truly right answers. In this respect, it is probably one of the best games to depict war and put the question to the player - do the ends justify the means?

It's not perfect - I do have some hangups regarding the plot. The antagonists are cartoonish villains, and one party member in particular (at least in the route I played) makes bafflingly stupid decisions as the game tries to guilt the player over it. It's a bit silly, but it's something easily overlooked in the grand scheme of the plot. The english voice acting for the most part is great. The main character, Denam, has an excellent performance from Max Mittelman who carries the game on his back, and many of the side characters were well done too. I felt the music to leave a little bit to be desired, but I did have a couple of standouts that I enjoyed a lot.

What really brings down my score here is the gameplay experience. Tactics Ogre is a slog. I normally love tactical games, but in this one there is just too much downtime and too many ultimately meaningless battles that feel like filler. There are some decent maps, but most are pretty lackluster and can be steamrolled, with the only real tactical decision I often needed to make was - do I need a dragoon here or not? There are definitely some great fights that do invoke just the right amount of challenge - the final dungeon in particular is fantastic. But the midgame is a bore with not a lot of payoff and retreading constantly over maps you've already beaten. The final chapter somehow both escalates the plot while also ensuring you have a mountain of trivial things to do if you are so inclined. I totally understand why people love this, but it's a bit too grindy for my taste and the fast-forward button is an absolute joke. If it was even twice as fast, maybe I wouldn't care so much.

For a tactical game, I feel I should also mention how strange it is there is no complete glossary of things like buffs/debuffs in-game. A handful are listed in the tips menu, but for most you can only get a description from a character who is actively affected by it. A lot of information is tucked away in those menus, so its strange we didn't get that but we did get a robust explanation of the calendar, which is mostly inconsequential.

Tactics Ogre is very impressive when you consider it came out for the SNES in 1995, and there is no doubt that it is among the best games on that platform. But I feel like it has not lived up to the expectations that its fanbase has left for me, which is a shame because I was really hoping it would. Maybe I'll go back and check out the stuff I missed sometime, but I think 69 hours was enough.

A very solid arcade racing game for the PS1 that still looks pretty damn good. Great soundtrack, and even a little bit of a story for the different teams you can join in Grand Prix mode that seemingly adapts to your performance. As an example, in the second heat I got first place and then second place, and afterwards the manager commented on how "it wasn't as good as last time" which was a very neat detail.

Only reason I am docking a star here is because while the tracks themselves are pretty challenging, the fight is actually more with the ridiculous turning that the cars do so it's hard to focus on good apex's. Still, definitely a blast regardless of that.

In some ways it feels strange to review a picross game because it's like, dude check out my review for this book of crosswords; but Logic Paint S is a solid game regardless.

It's genuinely impressive how they got several hundred unique pieces of Miku art for each puzzle (and each puzzle has something to do with said reward image). This is an extra mile that would be appreciated from the official Jupiter series. There's 18 songs on the soundtrack, (which seems pretty low given the massive catalogue of Vocaloid music) but they are all great picks and have something to do with puzzles too.

Gameplay-wise, it's serviceable. It's missing some QoL that the Jupiter series has (square counter, different types of markers) and because of the star system which you use to unlock songs, any mistake effectively means a restart if you want to "perfect" a puzzle as the game will also tell you immediately when you do so. I much prefer to be able to make mistakes and have to figure them out later as I fill in the rest.

Still, if you enjoy picross and you like Vocaloid, this is a pretty safe bet. I got around 80 hours out of it so the content is definitely there!