certainly very enamored with residence evil: remade (two). the shooting & looting is very fun by itself, but they throw a bouncy ball in with Mr X's random appearances, changing how you think about pathing and planning. i enjoyed the game enough to play as both characters and finish all the side modes, which is not really something i often do so that's got 2 say something.

i did find the "Leon" character's personal playthrough to be quite weak in comparison to Claire's though. he feels somewhat limp, has very little chemistry with Ada, and despite his more frequent appearances, the delightful mr X felt relegated to the role of gimmick, as he spends too much time chasing you in scripted set piece sequences rather than dynamically roaming around the environment, jumping you at unpredictable intervals. yet it was still good fun, so all complaining is basically meaningless! gonna play this one again some day for sure

the demos were great and left me excited to see how they would further expand the gameplay and aesthetics in the final release. and then they just kind of didn't. the final game was just the demo but bigger, with more cards and jokers and shit to gather in your runs. more Numbers. more Gaming. not to say there isn't artistry creating and uncovering that strategizing, calculating, number crunching gameplay loop, but i think i'm kind of done with endless, repetitive games that have nothing to offer you beyond the pursuit of landing bigger and bigger numbers. a disappointment, but i had a some fun

blood... is good... (wait that doesnt rhyme like how i thought it would)

doom uses it's garish colours and primitive but expressive graphics to create a world that feels alien and martian in so many ways. it's stylish, but it never fully worked for me. blood - with its trimmed down colour palette and more familiar spaces - goes the opposite direction, creating this 19th century sci-fi horror setting that still looks incredible all these years later.

game still plays damn well too, and still feels so unique for how it eschews the archetypal fps arsenal in favour of its own set of weapons. sure there are some classics like shotgun, machine gun and rocket launcher, but then there's the handgun being replaced by a flare gun which can kill in a single shot but takes time and can damage you, the voodoo doll which can hitscan enemies but damages you if you miss your shot with it, and the delightful, wonderful dynamite sticks, which graciously remain viable - no, essential for almost the entire playthrough. their mere existence shifts the whole dynamic of the game from boomer shooter run and gun to a more tactical style of play, something which i feel suits it much better.

"I live.. again..."

the sourceports for this game are pretty nice (i tried one way back) but the fresh supply remaster by nightdive studios is the way to go. on top of being far more convenient for most players it adds new difficulty options that allow you to customize the way the game is played to better suit you. which is very handy because the basic cultists can be disproportionately difficult compared to other enemies on the vanilla difficulties, something that the remaster explicitly recognises and gives you the option to turn down their range and damage. this is how i played most of the game while cranking up other stuff like enemy density and i think it was a good decision overall

where the game does begin to stumble a bit is with the level design. mind you it started off great! episode 1 and 2 have many baller levels between them, and while some of the later levels in both episodes felt a bit meandering and languid, i felt like that vibe was always leveraged in a way that felt appropriate to the tone of those levels. episode 3 struggled a bit but had a great aesthetic and used the city theming with its levels very well. episode 4 was a disorganized mess all the way through, and was the hardest to slog through. the farting demon intestines level was a low, low point for the game. if one is to play this game i'd say there's no shame in stopping at episode 3.

despite that i thought that this shit very much ruled, and it's a game that still feels so modern, both graphically and gameplay wise. i would definitely be pointing anyone who wants to try out a boomer shooter in Blood: Fresh Supply's direction

thoroughly enjoyed this game where you play as silly swashbuckling swordswoman Adalia who has to defeat a cartoon villain with a handlebar mustache. my initial verdict upon beating the story mode was that it was too good, too short, but then i stumbled on the excellent arena mode, which pits you against up to 6 arenas of enemies with wacky (but horribly balanced) modifiers being added to the mix with every escalation. and it just revealed to me how well the game's mixture of spectacle fighter gameplay and slapstick comedy works even outside of the context of linear, scripted sequences. adalia and the count-duke's henchmen slinging a never-ending supply of dynamic one-liners, banter and occasional compliments back and forth while trading blows somehow always stays funny, and watching a lackey teeter on the edge or blowing a duelist across the room by luring him into the path of a cannon never gets old. some games can't even be funny with carefully controlled cutscenes and dialogue, but "en garde!" can do so without

oh and the music! can;t forget the music!

i've literally never been able to get into fighting games, but last year i picked up street fighter 6 for some reason thinking that it would be different. except it was. modern controls definitely got me started early on, but it was also just the fact that sf6 has such elegant, easy to comprehend mechanics that are still so endlessly dynamic and interesting. making "Drive" the main resource for basically everything works very well, and it's balanced out of by the looming threat of burnout. the tools you have at your disposal are both highly functional and impossibly stylish. "drive impact" is a star here, the flowing splash of character-specific colour paired with the sublime sound design make this one of the most exciting moves to successfully land in the game. and that's the other huge reason sf6 worked for me so well, the presentation. the detailed backgrounds, the way it blends multiple different rendering methods together, all without ever sacrificing visual clarity, the animations, the sound design, the phenomenal dynamic soundtrack. it's all so sick. and i love how the overall vibe of the game is kinda cute? like the way you and your opponent come out together in local matches, the pre match face off where you get to pull faces at each other, the funny announcers who commentate on your matches. none of these things needed to be in the game, but they add so much to the vibe just be being there, even if you dont use them.

i'm still in awe of how much dynamism there is in sf6's highly robust but conceptually simplistic mechanics. there always is, and always will be so much to learn. it's been incredibly fun climbing the ranks, learning to play on classic, memorizing combos and getting better at reading the opponent. and i hope it continues to be fun. capcom really have lightning in a bottle with this one, yet the post launch support has been quite poor for a "live service" game. only time will tell how it shakes out. but as of now i'll say that my 100 hours with street fighter 6 have been indescribably worthwhile. Five stars out of Five

well the presentation is great, lovely and scary pencil drawings and a surprisingly varied soundtrack, both offered up in this very matter of a fact way. the podcaster-esque voice acting may be grating to some but i enjoyed the performances here.

the writing is the real meat of the game and i am in two minds about it. it's veers heavily into metatextual territory but ends up feeling kind of soupy and hard to parse, something which is inevitable for that style of writing but is still kind of annoying. i think it works much better as an existential work, a topic that it explores in a way that is in equal parts horrifying and cathartic. and poking and prodding at the boundaries and corners of the narrative makes for a nice rumination on the nature of reality. good game, doesnt overstay its welcome

delightful little game where you are a little fox. has its flaws like the combat system being pushed a little past its limits but it remains a very tight and well paced experience, whether you're picking through the different levels in the world for the first time or combing back over them for secrets, the vibes are always immaculate.

the game's gimmick of being in a different language a la fez initially appears to be a clever dual subversion/reinforcement of gaming norms and a challenge for the player to intuit where to go next, but it soon reveals itself to be much more than that as your expectations and hypotheses as to how the world works are repeatedly proven wrong. more than that, i am not saying

after spending years languishing in my backlog i picked it back up and after finishing the entire thing in two sittings. i am delighted to report that it is Good. a more minimalist take on dishonored 2's gameplay, but with a new set of great levels to play around in, along with memorable main and side objectives (i particularly enjoyed robbing the black market on each level). a lot grislier than 2 is, with chaos no longer being a factor in play, but not as dark as dishonored 1 was. the level quality does begin to flag a bit as time goes on, but i can excuse that, especially since it doesnt impact the pacing. good game, maybe not worth €30? but worth picking up on sale along with dishonored 2