There's rarely a better feeling in gaming than when you stare at a puzzle for what feels like eternity thinking, "this is literally impossible", to then suddenly having the solution click right in front of you, and you feel like a literal god. Fittingly, I think you do play a god in this game, a little ol' dog running around barking commands and leading souls into the afterlife (open to interpretation!).

It's a strange sci-fi-ish existential/spiritual plot overtop weird liminal architectural puzzles, full of platforming, movement via flow and direction, and even some surprising gameplay changes halfway through. I'll try not to spoil much, but once weapons get involved, I was really onboard. The puzzles, powerups, and terrain are constantly evolving and it's never stale, which is a huge plus for a puzzle game.

Humanity reminded me in several ways aesthetically of Tetris Effect and Rez, which makes sense since it's the same studio; it's very trippy, full of warpy ethereal music that ranges from peaceful and tranquil, to upbeat and frantic. But the gameplay itself reminded me in ways of a Frankenstein hodge podge of Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, Command & Conquer, and even the hacking minigame in Bioshock (or... for 90's kids, Pipe Dream on Windows 95).

Now, for purists, you can go big brain and collect all the Goldy's (bonus golden dudes you can get in every level) and beat every level yourself. HOWEVER, the devs included solution videos for every level if you're so inclined. I did use these a few times, sometimes only when I knew I was on the right track, and sooo close to figuring it out, but just kept getting stuck or failing at a certain point. The videos don't show you how to get all the Goldy's though, so you'll have to resort to good ol' YouTube if you wanna get all of them.

I was able to do a lot of this on my own, but yeah some trophies needed for the Platinum here require you to do six specific challenges on six different levels, and I looked at guides for all but one (which I got without even trying somehow). This game ain't easy! But like I said at the start, when you do figure it out, man do you ever feel smart.

This was a very pleasant surprise and an experience that just kept getting better and more interesting; seriously, there's some really awesome combat stuff here that was so cool to partake in. Check this one out!

Wow, what a goddamn thrill. A little indie title by a small developer, yet this feels like a million bucks. Smooth as hell, lightning fast and tight gameplay, it's lightning in a bottle.

Throw Doom Eternal + Hotline Miami + Mirror's Edge + Superhot + Max Payne in a blender and you'll get the delicious concoction that is Severed Steel.

Do you want to slide across the floor, jump into a wall run, then dive through a window into a room full of five guys while shooting them with an assortment of pistols, machine guns, shotguns, grenade launchers etc. etc., all while in glorious slo-mo? And then drop kick one of them when you run out of ammo, grab his gun out of mid air, and then blast him in the face splattering blood all over the wall? Then buckle up, baby!

Oh, and you also have an arm cannon that can strategically annihilate enemies into a red mist or blast holes in a fully destructible environment that you can use as a quick escape if you're overwhelmed; you can pull a Trinity from The Matrix and wall run up a wall, kick straight off the wall and jump through a hole in the ceiling you just made, while headshotting people as you do so. Come the fuck on!

The only thing stopping me from giving this 5 stars, is the lack of a plot (it really doesn't need one, it's all shooty shooty bang bang but some voice acting, cutscenes, etc. would be cool aside from the very minor animated snippets we get). Also there's only really one boss battle. Not a big nitpick, but whatever. Also, and probably my biggest gripe - I'm not totally in love with the whole cyber/tech/neon/whatever aesthetic; every level looks like you're in this metallic chrome cyberpunk box, it's all enclosed and tight but honestly feels like you're fighting inside some dude's custom built PC with cool lights inside for his CPU and fans. Some levels change it up a bit though which is nice. I'd be more into a gritty realistic look for a game like this (think John Woo's Stranglehold or Max Payne), and I'd love to see the developer's do a real world style game, exactly like this. And with some cool story elements and voice acting! Right now it feels like they have all the gameplay components, it would just be neat to see it presented differently.

I didn't Platinum this, there's some grind-y stuff and some difficulty based trophies that might give me a rough time, but I definitely will be hopping back into this to do some more stuff (there's tons of replay value, bonus missions, challenges, score attacks, and even level/gun modifiers and unlockable arm cannons, there's a ton here!).

Fuck yeah, Severed Steel. Fuck. Yeah.

My experience with Inscryption is similar to what I had with Bloodborne; I got stuck in the first few hours of the game several times and gave up, then much later jumped in again, devoted myself to getting past the tough bit and getting to see the rest of the fucked up brilliance the game had to offer. Of course, both times I was rewarded with exactly why I love the medium of video games and what they can do.

I regret it now, but back in 2021 when I first played this on my work laptop (which ran like shit, and I also hated gaming on it after work hours), I was convinced I wouldn’t get to see the ending and what everyone was describing online as this crazy unpredictable game, so out of curiosity I skimmed through a YouTube walkthrough. I really regret it!

You won’t get any spoilers out of me, but Inscryption is the kind of adventure that is a nightmarish mystery wrapped in really fun strategy and puzzles. And then you turn a corner and are hit over the head. Then you wake up and forget where you are. Then you’re hit again and suddenly everything is different yet the same. And it keeps going and going. You genuinely will not find many other video games that does what Inscryption does, and does it so fucking well! It’s constantly surprising in the best possible way.

It rewards you for experimentation, messes with you constantly, and my god does it ever contain so many layers and secrets all over the place. There is so much stuff here you’ll either miss, or stumble upon by accident. Ideas upon ideas, the wild shit that the developers come up with minute after minute, I can’t stress enough how admirable it all is. Absolute dedication to ensuring we all have this mindfuck experience that leaves you chomping at the bit to tell others about it.. but you can’t spoil it.

One thing I slightly wish was different, is the speed that actions are displayed during the battles. You’ll have your cards down, ready to ring the bell, and the opponents will have their cards down, plus whatever comes in behind them, and you ring the bell and everyone attacks as well as activates whatever effects/mods the cards have, and sometimes it’s all so fast that you think you’re about to win but suddenly you’ve lost and you couldn’t even see why. I get why the speed is there, but sometimes rounds are suddenly over and you’re like “what? How did I lose?”. I’ve had the same react from winning too. A small nitpick, more of an observation.

Inscryption is a game like Killer7 where there are layers upon layers, not everything makes sense, shit is all fucked up, it’s constantly winking at you and smirking, and it’s just a joy to behold. Love it. I can see this breaking into 5 star territory for me and being an all timer.

Reading some mixed to negative reviews of this on here before I played this one, I was a bit surprised. I played the original back in 2010 on Xbox 360 and really enjoyed it, and wanted to check out the remaster to get brushed up for the sequel in a few months. Now that I’ve played it again, I can understand some of the mixed reception. But I still really like this game!

It’s weird, kooky, creepy, features a writer as an action protagonist, and has so many tributes to other pop culture things I love. Wake as the narrator works so well, Barry is fun comic relief, and the spooky woods/factories/lumber yards/small town etc. setting is perfect for this tale. And Remedy as a developer are so good at action gameplay mixed with weird challenging narratives; loved the segment where Alan is doing a late night TV interview along with Sam Lake next to him and the host tells him to do the “face” referencing Max Payne - chefs kiss. And in terms of shooting, it’s smooth and never gets old blasting the Taken away with the slo-mo rag doll effects as they explode into light fragments.

Now… what got to me here was the annoying difficulty spikes, sometimes clumsy dodging, and the gunplay felt uneven. The game gets real frustrating at segments where you are being chased and attacked at all angles, as well as poltergeist items flying at you and taking huge chunks of your health. If you could just blast away at your hearts content, it would be different, but this is Alan Wake; you need the light to weaken enemies. The flashlight and even regular flares sometimes take forever to destroy the dark aura shields on the Taken, and when you’re overwhelmed and surrounded it can be hard as hell. Especially when there’s no automatic weapons in this. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good old handgun, shotgun and rifle and I’m glad Wake doesn’t turn into a machine gun wielding generic badass, but some situations almost call for it to survive. Thankfully the rocket launcher-like flare gun helps. Dodging though, as cool as it looks when pulled off, can be iffy where you feel like you should’ve easily dodged a particular attack, but nope. And there’s also the typical brute bullet-sponge enemies. It gets a bit repetitive.

I decided to check out the DLC episodes that come with this that I missed originally, and only managed to finish The Signal before putting the game down - the final “boss battle” segment is so unbalanced, especially without a flare gun. You’re overwhelmed from the front and behind in a small space and it just wasn’t fun. I’ll check out The Writer at some point, but I think I’m done with the game for now.

Still, 4 stars for just being a very “me” game! I love the character, the 3rd person action gameplay, the setting, the weirdness, and when it does the cool Matrix-y bullet time 360 camera spin when you light up a flare or shoot a flare gun into a group of enemies gets me every time.

Legitimately can’t wait for the sequel!

When I first played Until Dawn in 2016, I remember being like "Damn these facial animations are scary real! These graphics are photo realistic! There's no way it can get better than this!" Now, in 2023 playing The Quarry, I'm sitting here going "Damn these facial animations are scary real! These graphics are photo realistic! There's no way it can get better than this!". Supermassive Games are working some crazy magic over there, I've never seen skin and pores and sweat and blemishes and everything look this insanely good on faces before. Naughty Dog and Sony Santa Monica are also up there, but Supermassive Games, considering their titles are narrative, mostly cutscene-heavy games, can hone in on this with ultra precision and make your brain constantly feel like you're watching the real actors instead of animated likenesses.

I really enjoyed The Quarry, in some ways more than Until Dawn and others less. The cast is great, the personalities all varied and some you like more than others, and the setting is fun to explore/be trapped in. Some characters clearly outshine others, not just in how they act in the game but the performances themselves. I especially liked the performances for the characters of Laura and Travis. The latter is portrayed by Ted Raimi, just one of many horror affiliated actors in the cast. And like Until Dawn, the game references and pays tributes to so many horror movies and tropes/cliches/easter eggs.

Supermassive also give NetherRealm studios a run for their money in terms of graphic violence. The Mortal Kombat games go as hard as possible on the levels of gore in their fatalities, and Supermassive are right there with them; some of the deaths and gruesome outcomes these characters face are downright insane. Not for the faint of heart - some show you the death as it happens and that's it while others are like, here's a super detailed close up, check out all the detail we put into our gore!

The things I didn't like, is how the story wraps up near the end; they really pack a lot into the last few chapters and it feels like shit just happens all of sudden to certain characters and you're like "What? Huh? But... Okay" and then you switch to another and it's all very quick. Definitely some anti-climatic resolutions when so much time is spent on the build up, setup, mystery, everything else. However, my main gripe with this game: the fucking songs that play! I'm sorry if I sound like a music snob, but there's so many absolutely terrible songs that play here, all the time. A quiet walking segment, a dialogue moment between 2 characters, after a big shocking moment happens, they just pop up all over the place and none of them are good. Some twee cover of "Wise Up" by Aimee Mann plays at one point instead of the original and it was just eye-rolling bad. There are a few here that are so cringe-y and terrible that it had me shaking my head that anyone thought they were a good idea to include. Not just in the context of the scene, but at all. Bad bad songs! The only one I enjoyed was the using of "Daydream Believer" by The Monkees at the end as you see the results of the night before, and that's only because I'm a big Monkees guy.

Anyways.. enough curmudgeonly whining about bad pop music, this game was great and definitely worth a playthrough for fans of this type of gameplay. It's a blast to unravel the mystery and decide what to do with all of these characters, as these games are so good at making you think you made the right decision, only to have it blow up in your face.

Lake is weird, its endearing and cozy, a word people always use for cutesy games with no combat and nice environmental settings, but it does feel that way. It's kinda like a mild cousin of Stardew Valley where you come to a small town from the big city and spend your days doing your daily tasks and making friends, possibly falling in love and also doing optional errands and hangouts with people you meet. But it's very watered down, its a very barebones experience with stiff controls (both the walking and driving are painfully slow, even the fast walk is slow as hell, but I understand it's probably the whole mentality of "take it easy, there's no rush, not everything has to be go go go"). Thankfully, there is a fast travel option on the map that I only discovered a few hours in.

As someone from a small town with lakes and countryside, I liked the setting, and getting to calmly cruise the roads in your mail truck. The mail delivery aspect, despite being the main objective everyday, is barely there though, just slowly walking to a mailbox and pressing X, or getting a parcel from your truck and pressing X to drop it off. There's literally nothing to this. I don't mean to shit on the small team of developers, this is an indie as hell video game. But it's not very involved.

Also want to mention, hats off to the music department, because the songs that play on the radio sound exactly like the dull generic adult-contemporary music I used to hear growing up on my local radio station, they nailed that aspect. And the video store too, all of the parody/fake VHS covers were incredible. They went all out, with references to Repo Man, Stand By Me, Flashdance, Gremlins, but all with humorous altered titles and artwork. As someone who is a movie nerd, I got involved with the owner of the store, and we went to see Blue Velvet at the movies for a date. Loved that! Although... and this is me being a total nitpicky loser - Meredith picks up a copy of the Albert Brooks comedy Lost in America at one point and reads the back, and they completely get the actresses name wrong that plays his wife. It's Julie Hagerty! Come on folks, do y'all not IMDb?

I try to strictly Platinum games I either love, or really enjoy, but there is a small handful of ones I have that I just kinda liked. Lake is definitely one of them, but the trophy list is so small and easy, and the 3 endings are easily achievable if you save before the final stretch of the game and then can go back and make all the different choices to see all the endings. Which I wanted to do, because I legit was curious about what each ending was like. Who does she get with? Where does she go? What does she do? Is she happy?!?!

This might be up your alley, and it's nice and short, but I wouldn't put it past anyone that might give up on this for being too slow and tedious. I did get wrapped up in certain characters and was curious as to what happens, as there's plenty of dialogue choices and directions you can go. It's a special breed of game, but there's absolutely stuff to like here.

Total grimy/warbled VHS analog-horror throwback with Goldeneye looking characters and a fun nightmarish setting to explore. Laundromats suck ass and I’m so happy I have a portable washing machine in my apartment and don’t need to go to my local one anymore!

This game relies on jumpscares heavily but it’s also good at just being creepy without them too. Definitely feel the hard R rated horror movie influence here, nasty stuff.

A very easy and quick Platinum too, for a couple bucks you get to experience a short little freaky time. It’s like an obscure horror movie you rented from the video store back in the 90s fused with a crappy low budget PC game you found in a bargain bin. Cool shit

Definitely worth experiencing for all of the inventive and playful stuff jam packed into this game. So much hidden and bizarre little jokes/gags/mini games/whatever. So many good video game references, some which were a huge surprise.

The humour didn’t always work for me, sometimes it was enough to crack a little smile or even chuckle but other times it’s kinda “LOL omg random!!” stuff that gives me the feeling of mid 2000’s NewGrounds flash animations meets lewd and crude Rick & Morty. But the amount of comedic silly styles here is pretty remarkable; big Monty Python and Warioware vibes too. It’s all over the place.

Just playing the game and experiencing all the weird shit is fun enough, but the Platinum is also easy and a blast to get too. I’m late to this one but it’s a kooky time and I’m very glad I went in blind and didn’t get anything at all spoiled for me.

This is a title I downloaded for curiosity sake on PS Plus and ended up falling deep into; cowboys, the wild west and isometric top down stealth/tactics/strategy, I was really intrigued but didn't expect to get so invested. After 40 some hours later and literally having dreams about it the past few nights due to how much I thought about it, I think I can say I really liked this game.

Love my guy Hector, he's like if you could play Hitman as Kraven the Hunter. Lots of hiding in bushes, hiding bodies in bushes, sneaking around the eyesight cones of enemies, and even walking around in disguises, creating distractions and taking out enemies via "accidents" with environmental objects. And like Hector, the playable characters are all very likable, a blast to play as and mess around with their abilities, and you get attached to them really quick. The banter during missions really adds to this, and when 2 of them (or 3, or 4, or even all 5!) pull off a coordinated attack at the same thing via the "showdown" mechanic, it's the cherry on the top and is so damn satisfying.

There's a ton of game here - the main story is a generous length, all of the levels are highly replayable due to the several ways you can tackle them, as well as a ton of additional challenges, and there's even free DLC missions, and additional bonus missions from "The Baron" that are sometimes hilarious remixes of existing levels with new challenges. One of them you have to mow down every enemy in the level with a gattling gun on a mine cart, and another you play as a dog, cat and chicken. Enough said!

Desperados 3 is an incredible mix of strategy and tactical gameplay, combined with quiet stealth that rewards you for waiting for the perfect moment to strike. It's also just as fun to unleash hell on an unsuspecting group of enemies in one fell swoop with guns blazing too.

Evil West reviews read like the famously-memed Batman Arkham/Spider-Man reviews, "This game makes you FEEL like it's a Friday night in 2010 and you just rented this awesome Xbox 360 game from Blockbuster". We've officially reached the point where the early 2010's are nostalgic, good lord time is cruel.

I was really eager to finally play this one, it came smack dab in the middle of a few major releases last year and kinda got buried, but I knew it was going to be up my alley right away when I saw a trailer. Big chunky main character with big chunky movement and combat, linear levels and environments, glowing objects showing you exactly where to go and which items to pick up. It holds your hand very tightly along these straightforward little paths, but then let's you go to play hard in its various battle arenas.

This game feels very very similar to the new God of War games, no doubt. But it kinda feels like a mix of the new and old too; the exploration and tight levels, and wandering off the main path to find little chests and collectibles, felt like the original God Of War trilogy to me.

What really differs this is the super fun gun combat; throwing Kratos' axe is awesome and all, but getting to blast away with revolvers, a rifle, crossbow, shotgun and minigun, really bumped the game up for me. I constantly obsess about a modern third person action game with melee/beat-em-up combat, mixed in with tight over-the-shoulder shooting, and Evil West comes pretty damn close. I do wish they included the human enemies more, as they're perfect for gun-only combat. I know they're basically fodder for the player to wipe out easily but if they threw tons and tons of them at you to up the challenge, I would've loved to see that.

The battles are like a Doom arena where you're running and dodging and punching and shooting all over the place, with enemies coming in at all directions, attacking from afar or getting right up in your face, and there's even environmental objects you can use such as spiked traps and explosive crates. There's a really fun move where you can uppercut enemies and then punch them from the air into items or other enemies, but once I got the upgrade that makes enemies explosive once you do that move, I found I wasn't bothering with the environmental objects anymore. Nice to have them for variety though.

The plot is basic "monsters wanna take over the world, we need to stop them" stuff, but who cares. You're just here to pulverize vampires and werewolves and slimy-ass weirdos that wouldn't look out of place in Bloodborne. The game does feel a bit underbaked in its story presentation, where levels end abruptly, a cutscene plays out and then you're suddenly transported to a completely new level with little to no explanation. From a snow covered mining camp deep in the mountains to a hot desert town in the blink of an eye. The characters are mainly forgettable, aside from a nerdy sidekick dude I found endearing, and an over the top asshole guy who's there to piss off the good guys and try and foil the whole operation; who has by the far the funniest lines in the whole game. Main character is generic ruff, gruff n' tuff cowboy dude number 4754, but I enjoyed him nonetheless.

Evil West isn't a game you put dozens of hours into exploring a huge map and doing tons of shit, it's a blazing hot action-horror experience you get your kicks with and then move on from. Definitely something you'd come back to after a few years and play again from time to time, start a new game plus file and upgrade your moves and weapons to the max and try on a harder difficulty. And this game will wipe the floor with you if you want it to!

Overall, just come for the awesome combat - it's one of those games where the battles can look cinematic as fuck when you pull off the right moves and you realize you've forgotten to breathe for the past minute.

"What's the password?"
"John!"
"John who?"
"John Woo!"

Finally did a full playthrough of this, having only played the 3rd installment (a stone cold masterpiece IMO). There's a reason this game is iconic as hell.

Hong Kong-style heroic bloodshed set in grimy New York City during a massive blizzard, with scummy crooks, mafia and government henchmen wrapped up in a conspiracy murder mystery. Dual wielding all day everyday baby!

James McCaffrey's voice and delivery is the perfect dry tone to the hardened don't-give-a-shit detective, and as much as I like Sam Lake and his famous face, I wish he wasn't so smirk-y. They went on to perfect Max in the third game appearance wise (at least I think so) - here he looks like Johnny Knoxville. Is that a bad thing? Not at all, but it's not as grizzled as the character feels it should be.

I'm gonna gripe a bit, I'm sorry, but yeah sure - this is a 2001 game with jank all over the place. I was a GameCube guy during the early 00's, and didn't get a PS2 until like 2006, which by then I had so many games to catch up on; San Andreas, Shadow Of The Colossus and The Warriors took up a ton of my time, and Max Payne got left in the dust. So yeah it feels of its time, but the charm is still there.

However... the fucking platforming can get fucked. The nightmare/trip out sequences presentation wise? Amazing! Loved the horror, the surrealism, the psychological torment of it all. Remedy clearly love doing twisty hallway sequences as they returned to that in Control for a really cool section. But the pitch black blood trails you have to traverse here... Jesus Christ. Never again, please. Walking through slow molasses on a tiny path that feels like Max can't walk a straight line on without slipping, navigating a maze and jumping from spot to spot. Painful as hell. No thank you, nope. Any other jumping required in this game to get onto a box or ledge or whatever was bad. No jumping please, just diving!

I cannot wait for the remakes of this and the second game to come out, Remedy is gonna deliver, I'm sure of it.

I feel like I ripped the developer of this game off by paying less than $2 for it. Nowadays I spend over $2 for a piece of shit snack that I eat in less than a minute and feel crappy afterwards from!

This is a quick cutesy nostalgia platformer with fun little linear Sonic-y levels to run through, and then there’s some other cool elements I won’t spoil. But my guy NitroRad recommended this in a video about indie platformers and for that price, I mean, come on. Bananas ain’t even that cheap anymore folks! Def checking out the sequel

As per usual with this type of game, you wanna go in blind but chances are you know at least a little bit about what you’re getting into. If not, just enjoy the ride, experiment, see what you can find and uncover, and what the game reveals to you. Does it all work? Not always, but at the same time.. it kinda does?? It takes playing it to understand - even if that doesn’t make much sense at all typing it out.

For others looking for a bit of context: without spoilers, it’s dashes of Inscryption, Paper Mario, Minit and also what I would
call a heavy Petscop creepypasta influence. Take that as you will.

My buddy’s name was Poopy, and he showed me a good time, warts and all

I would easily play through something 5 times the length of this with an actual plot, a short ass Rareware-like collectathon that pays homage to the good ol’ days when cheery all-ages platformers would suddenly have these out of nowhere weird sections that just didn’t seem right. Nothing outright scary, just… off. Textures are different, colors are strange, things have… faces.

Loved the little kiwi dude and zipping around the stages. Please make sure to seek out the hidden secret level too, you’ll know it when you see it