this plays it so safe that I'm not sure why they even bothered making it. gyro aiming is not what I'm here for, that's not exactly new or exciting anymore. the touchpads are easily the most unique aspect of the hardware and they barely get utilized. it's the one thing that's unfamiliar enough to need a tech demo as an introduction to its possible uses! did they hold back to make it easily playable on desktops?

one of the first things I did when I got this thing was play peggle nights, a game from 2008 that lacks conventional controller support. that's the sort of thing that excites me about the steam deck as a mobile console, but it's not a feature you can really convey through a tech demo game like this. it's fine enough as a short little experience and it has fun moments but it's not memorable as a game.

considering this game doesn't have much purpose as an introduction to the steam deck, its status as a portal game is really the biggest reason to check it out. it doesn't really have me convinced though? it's very blatant portal 2 fan service that doesn't have much of its own to bring to the table. sure it's short by nature, but what little is here is just really hit or miss for me.

portal 2 was at its best when it was allowing you to interact with the game as dialogue played out. it's fun to let the quips wash over you as you puzzle about. even when there's no immediate way to progress you get to move around, or at least look around, it helps you get immersed and connect with situation. there's a few moments in desk job where you just have to sit and wait for a voice line to play out and you just kind of have to sit there and endure it. you can't really do anything other than fidget with your desk. it makes it a lot easier find annoyance in the writing. maybe this is just a me problem, but the experience was like getting strapped to a chair and forced to listen to a mediocre stand-up routine performed by a tired burnout who doesn't seem totally convinced by his own jokes. less talking at you and more talking for you? saw other people say it was classic valve writing so maybe I'm out of line here. I did like some of it. the cave johnson bit was pretty good.

but yeah I don't feel cheated for playing a free game for 30 minutes or anything, but I am a bit disappointed. in comparison valve's vr lab game was a pretty good introduction to the tech and had a lot of charm, I guess it got my hopes up a bit too much

It's impossible for me to rate this objectively since the series was so integral to my childhood.

I don't care about being objective though. This shit goes hard. The aesthetic is wholly unique and endlessly charming, the customization options are endless, the level creation and sharing were revolutionary, and the soundtrack goes so hard. It has 4 player multiplayer! Any flaws that the game has are completely outshone by everything it does right.

However with the online servers dead, this is a shadow of its former self. You can't publish any levels you make, and while levels that were already published are available in the PS4 version of LBP3, they often run poorly and look slightly off.

It's hard to recommend anyone to go back to it or any other entries in the series because of what it's lacking in modern times. People certainly aren't wrong to complain about the floaty controls. I'm personally not a fan of the lives system considering the difficulty spike it introduces when playing with multiple players. The difficulty of the story mode is a bit too high considering the game's tone and intended audience. I would still easily recommend this to anyone that is interested in this era of gaming, but in the end it's part of a series that is conceptually and (mostly) literally stuck on the PS3.

Trying to explain to my friends why this game is so compelling to me makes me feel like I'm going insane. On the surface it can look a bit rough, so it's hard to describe exactly what I see in it. It's a coming of age story, which isn't exactly uncommon, but the way it communicates the hostility of the world and the drifting of old friendships from a kid's perspective really resonates with me. Growing up is confusing, the world can feel hostile, and at the end of the day you might not have the chance to return to what you thought of as home. The way it's told can sometimes be a bit stilted and campy to the point of losing its charm (darkness, light, heart, key, etc), but the music, visual design, and gameplay all come together to make it work anyways. The Disney stuff walks a fine line between supporting that tone perfectly or destroying it in favor of brand recognition.

Beyond all of that, it's just really fun to play! This is peak PS2 era platforming level design! Playing through these worlds genuinely feels like exploring, even if it's a bit too easy to get lost in some of them. They're also just really fun places to fight in. The combat system is simple but engaging. There's a crazy amount of enemy variety and a steady progression of new abilities and items that keep it fresh throughout. The camera is your enemy more often than not (my fault for playing the original, I guess) and I really dislike the flying/swimming sections but any further complaints feel like nitpicks.

As a kid I only played Kingdom Hearts 2, so I didn't really know what to expect when I started playing this one in preparation for returning to 2. I enjoyed it way more than I expected! Not life changing like it might've been if I had played it when I was 10, but still very fun and touching. It definitely deserves to be revisited and remembered.

can be a nice way to play some levels from some great games! as long as you don't mind worse performance and worse object pop-in and worse balance due to new mechanics and worse writing. there's some pros here like a new game+ "go really fast" mode and like 2 new levels, but hardly anything essential even if you're a fan of the series. the remixed soundtrack has some highlights but feels less consistent to me compared to the PS2 entries in the series.

it's also a little off-putting to me that it doesn't really seem to advertise that it's more of a level remix/repack than a full new game? maybe I'm being unfair or maybe I'm missing something but nothing on the game's case really indicates that fact. when I picked this up at a retro gaming store I was under the impression that it was brand new stuff like the xbox 360 one, so it was a bit disappointing to figure out that wasn't the case.

well it's still katamari anyways, so it's still fun. not much of a point in seeking this out now that the modern HD ports exist. maybe listen to the soundtrack on youtube?

Playing this for the first time I was shocked by how well it holds up. I used to take 5th generation 3D games for granted after hearing so many people say that they "hadn't figured it out yet" or "feel dated". I mean, talking to most people their interest in older video games caps out with whatever generation they started playing with when they were kids, and going beyond that is just not worth the annoyance. I bring this up because it kind of was my perspective as well for a long time. I grew up on PS2 and PS3. Why play anything older? I was convinced that it would bring nothing but tedium because obviously the later generations had "figured it out".

I credit this game a decent amount for changing my perspective. Convention doesn't necessarily mean perfection, and any gameplay traits that died out due to some kind of natural selection aren't inherently inferior.

Specifically I want to mention the camera and controls here. They're actually fantastic. Right from the start you're running down a tight alleyway as your perspective swoops and swerves in a way that I haven't really seen in modern games. Since you have tank controls, this doesn't even affect your movement. You can control your character independent of the camera, so the camera is free to do a lot more. The game exploits this heavily and it contributes a lot to how atmospheric the whole experience is.

So right from the start, a supposedly dated and inferior control scheme actually provides an advantage that modern games lack. For me, realizing this was mind blowing. I know for a lot of people this isn't anything new, but it genuinely shook the foundations of my views on one of my favorite hobbies. I kinda have a deeper connection to this game for that reason alone.

Beyond that personal revelation, this really is just a fantastic game. It's moody, it's tense, it has an interesting world, and it looks fantastic. I genuinely love it, and I don't think I have anything else to say that hasn't already been said by people that are much better at describing why it does all those things so well. The biggest mark against it is the weird emotionless voice acting and cutscene direction but everything else works so well that it hardly drags things down.

Anyways, I would highly recommend this to anyone that can appreciate a good horror experience, even if it's out of your personal comfort zone for "retro games".

It's hard to write about this game without getting too personal. I think that the type of person that will be drawn to the game's aimless exploration will also resonate with it the most. For the protagonist, the dream world is an escape. Video games can fill the same role. My relationship with my favorite hobby is always changing, but in my worst moments it's hard to treat them as anything other than a place to hide.

As you explore the game, the more that it becomes a physical location in your mind. Dreams connect to dreams, loops lead back to the nexus, and you start to push out deeper and deeper as you become more familiar with the space. I feel like I could chose any specific location in this game and make my way there by memory. I genuinely find more fulfillment here than I do in most open world games.

The different locations you visit are surreal and have no consistent logic, but the real world is constantly seeping through the cracks. No matter where she runs to, Madotsuki can't escape the reality of who she is and what she's experienced. As the player we don't really know anything about her character or what she's been through, but I found a lot of emotional resonance with the world anyways. Just enough detail is left out to force your own imagination to fill in the cracks, which made my lasting connection to the game inevitable. I don't think there's any "correct" interpretation of the story, the emotions and concepts conveyed are enough to create a memorable experience.

I do wonder how it would've turned out if development on it had continued, but I also don't blame the creator for abandoning it. If they had any kind of personal emotional investment in the themes presented in the game, I imagine working on it only became more exhausting over time. I hope they're doing okay.