man, I love Remedy. I almost never come back to a game for DLC after beating it, but Alan Wake II was one of my favorite games last year so I wanted to check it out.

This is a pretty short DLC that I completed in one sitting across 2 or so hours. It's broken up into 3 "episodes", each of which has its own style and gameplay. The standouts for me are easily episodes 1 and 3. Episode 2 was just alright, although I was nice to see Jesse again from Control.

Episode 1 is a fun time with a focus on humor and combat. It was fairly easy, but the charm was enough to carry it.

Episode 3, on the other hand, encapsulates everything I love about Remedy. This is easily the most enjoyable of the 3 and I had a smile on my face throughout the entire episode. I feel like Remedy keeps coming up with weird storytelling methods that few others can even come close to in the modern gaming landscape.

I won't go into any further detail so as to not spoil what's in store, but I would recommend checking it out if you enjoyed Alan Wake II.

For the sake of full disclosure - I started this game sometime last year and got frustrated at one (what I now know to be easy) puzzle and quit. But... after playing Pikmin 4 I was inspired to restart my save and boot it back up again!

I love the Pikmin franchise! Pikmin 3 feels like a good, middle of the road Pikmin game for me. The graphics are smooth, the gimmick with the 3 characters is fun, and something about playing on the Wii U with the tablet just makes the experience all the more charming (Do people still hate on the Wii U? Is it based for me to praise it?).

What really makes Pikmin 3 stand out to me is the atmosphere changes the devs were able to display with the weather changes. I loved when I would log into a rainy day. This helped break up the monotony of grinding through multiple days in the same area. Just something about the graphics and music was so cozy! Especially for 2013 Wii U capabilities.

Pikmin 3 would be a great starter for anyone looking to get into the series. The performance is clean and it is not too challenging! ... Well except that last area, I struggled with that and recruited the help of my gamer bf :3

But really, it's not that hard I just dislike combat.

Insert Pikmin noises

Another Crab's Treasure feels like it was made as a psyop to get me specifically to buy and play a video game.

A mechanically competent souls-like with a vivid, super-cute art style featuring a ton of great jokes and some genre-best platforming? I've been following this game since its announcement and I'm so pleased that Aggro Crab pulled this off. To be all these things while managing to tell an interesting story is massively impressive for the small studio's sophomore title.

As much as I love the game, I can't dismiss the significant bugs and other performance issues. ACT is magnitudes more technically ambitious than the studio's first game and it comes close to buckling under that pressure at times--particularly on console. What should be seamless transitions into new areas had me wishing for a AAA-style "squeezing through a crack in the cave wall hidden loading screen." There are other moments and monsters that can completely wreck the game as well. At the time of this writing, there's a blue pufferfish in the late game that the dev is requesting no one kill because it can crash the game (I killed it twice and it made things super crunchy until I reset the game but don't tell anybody). I played on Series X and experienced these issues. Apparently the Switch version of the game is notably worse with some folks feeling scammed by the markedly poor experience.

So if you're on the fence, give this one more time to cook. The dev is actively putting out patches and hot fixes for the big things and I'm hopeful bigger fixes will come with the game's success. In spite of all that, I was enamored for my entire playtime.

Aggro Crab has become one of my day one purchase developers.

There are many games with quality visuals that keep moving the goalpost forward and Hellblade II (in my mediocre opinion) is one of them. The most visually impressive game I have played.

What carries the game for me are the dark story elements and overall intensity of the narrative. Playing as Senua is not a delightful experience but one caked in psychological, emotional and physical adversity. She struggles through dark themes but sees them through with an unwavering will to keep fighting.

The environmental puzzles are whatever, I guess just a means to keep the player from breezing through the game. Ended just in time before it felt like overstaying its welcome.

now this right here is 2D platforming. I feel like this game has all the sauce that was missing from the "New" era of Mario games. This game actually reminds me of Mario Wonder in the way that each level has its own unique twist. No level feels the same as the last and each one brings something new to the table.

It also fixes a problem I had with the recent 2D Mario games which is the difficulty. Mario games are always fun but they can be a little too easy in my opinion. This game has some really intense platforming, especially once you get to the last world.

The boss fights are also a highlight, some of which are also fairly difficult. I think I died around 30 times trying to beat the final boss, but it made overcoming the challenge that much more satisfying.

The overall ice theme of the game is alright. I feel like all it really brings to the game is sometimes the floors are slippery. Thankfully the game is so good regardless it doesn't really matter that the theme is slightly underwhelming.

2024 is actually the 10 year anniversary of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze releasing on the Wii U. As time continues to move on, the hope of a follow-up to this game continues to diminish. Maybe it'll happen one day, but until then DKC:TF stands tall as one of the best 2D platformers of the 21st century.

I am feeling a bit conflicted on this review. On one hand, I am so impressed with the writing and the unique world created within Sable... while on the other hand I found myself often frustrated with the performance issues and the lag that gave me motion sickness. I combatted the motion sickness by turning up the FOV, turning down the camera sensitivity, and windowing the game on my screen.... but the way the graphics loaded in and out of focus still really challenged me!

If it weren't for the aforementioned issues, this would've easily become one of my top games this year, and I likely would have spent more hours exploring. There is so much to love and explore in this world! I would love to see the devs come back together with an amped budget and create more for this story. It truly is a 10/10 concept, just needs a bit of tuning up.

Also - love the presence of Japanese Breakfast in the soundtrack. It is the perfect addition.

I hope to circle back to Sable some day and continuing exploring.

5 stars for concept - art, music, lore, writing
2 stars for performance

Lets even it out to a .... 3.5? Idk. This story IS worth hearing. Just expect some bugs (and beetles) along the way.

"people shit on the library mission all the time, but they forget that the rest of the game is designed just as terribly"
~someone who didn't know shit about shit (2020)

i've been a halo fan for nearly my entire life, but the earliest memories i have of combat evolved are hazy at best. in reality, i am a halo 3 diehard and that game has been the benchmark i've used to judge the series by since 2007

such was the mentality i carried into CE's 2011 anniversary release, where i not only completely misunderstood its level design, but also willingly botched its incredible visuals via the god forsaken toggle for 343's flashlight-phobic and all-around heinously unfaithful overhaul

where halo 3 boasts a wide range of vibrant landscapes and fast-paced, mostly bite-sized levels, CE takes a slower, more methodical and surprisingly tactical approach to shooting (mostly because meleeing isn't as useful as it would later become). stages are designed less around their geometry and more their enemies - all of which are competent foes that pose reasonable threats, especially on legendary, which i feel is the best and only difficulty that demands a solid grasp of the game's mechanics and highlights how useful every weapon really is

the assault rifle particularly gets a lot of undeserved flak. it's a real piece of shit if you just spray and pray, but if you know how to manage your recoil (i.e. tapping the trigger in bursts) it becomes a nigh invaluable midrange tool that can effortlessly dispose of anything that isn't shielded. and when you can keep elites busy dodging grenades (which should be simple, because you usually have 8 of them stocked) it's pretty effective on them as well

and regarding the elephant in the room that is "the library": y'all are still babies. how can you be upset about the stage that finally allows you to use a shotgun nonstop?! the flood are some of the most fun to fight enemies in any shooter, the weapon selection they offer is infinite, and yet you're upset that the halls are same-y in a game where all of the halls are same-y?? are you fucking mad?!?!

that last remark isn't a slight towards the stages at large, either. in fact, i find myself commending levels i've previously bitched about vehemently - most notably "assault on the control room" and its counterpart "two betrayals". the fuck was i even thinking before? one variant is purely ground-based and the other spends half its duration in the air. that's not even mentioning the completely remixed enemy variety or how differently paced the two missions are altogether

oh yeah - cool narrative too. it's simple, but still very interesting especially after completing the marathon trilogy and knowing how similar the two franchises are; right down to details like the flood initially being a scrapped concept from marathon 2 and the forerunners being very similar to the jjaro in general

anyway, very good game. 3's still better though!