An easy game to love, but also a surprisingly easy game to dislike.

The islands look so cosy, the protagonist is cutesy-cool, the animals you can become are lovely (not to mention that the ability to poop as any bird was a great success with the kids), there are many fun little touches (like being able to pick up animals above your head and deposit them in your bag for later use, or how you can dance on your boat while it speeds into a sunrise), and seeing Tchia kiss another girl made my queer-loving heart jump with joy.

And yet when I had taken photographs of a factory for a mission and the game then asked me to take pictures of three more factories, I couldn't help but feel my finger twitching for the “skip gameplay segment” button.

Because the problem is that the game doesn't have much to offer. The story tidbits can be cute, but most of the game is threadbare and just filler, sending you running across the island back and forth on boring fetch quests while filling the map with icons to gather like you’re in an Ubisoft game (and it's just as exciting as you can imagine). The possession mechanic isn't even as fun as I had expected - you can only possess a handful of things and creatures (no possessing a chair that somebody is sitting on), your stamina for possession is limited per day, requiring you to sleep and eat (boring things) to use the most fun mechanic of the game, and even then possessing items is nearly useless, as none of them have any actions that remain fun beyond the first introduction.

But the clearest sign that the game didn't respect my time wasn't even the factory quest, but when I had to talk to another girl to progress the story, so the game sent me to the other side of the island from her home village where I got the quest, and then gave a short cutscene when I arrived which ended with the girl standing up and walking up a path, calling me to follow. The cutscene ended and I didn't see her anywhere so I checked the map to see where she was and she was back at the village where they had just told me to find her here! A backtrack followed, because I was not ready to quit yet; unfortunately that didn't last.

There are things that are legitimately impressive about Tchia, but unfortunately I couldn't love it, and as it left PSN before I could finish it, hence the grade.

And what's worse - I had plenty of time to return to the game before it left PSN; but remembering the factories I still had left to photograph, I just didn't want to.

Had some fun playing it, but it's just so dumb and clunky and the “story” moments of the missions are no fun on repeated playthroughs (which is an inevitability when playing without friends). When I needed more space on my PS5 for another game, this was an easy pick for the first one to go. I might reinstall it some day when I'm in the mood for some rather mindless online shooting with a few somewhat interesting mechanics (mainly the class differences), but I don't know, man. It just ain't that good.

What can I say - it's Worms, man. As a person with a lot of nostalgia for the older games, that's high praise.

I haven't really tried any of the Worms games since the old World Party, because looking at the reviews there just wasn't much point. I played the old ones to death (I still admire my one-worm solo games against a map filled with the hardest AI - I have no idea how I managed to consistently win), but that could only last for so long. The Hedgehogs’ version was a great replacement when the old games became, well, too old (especially as it was free and online), but it's nice to see the Worms back in action, even if the game’s strongest part is doing well what it did great ~20 years ago (the vehicles are so-so).

But to have the ability to play some good Worms in this day and age without going back to an ancient game is quite appreciated (though I guess by now this is also getting there). And as it’s on PSN, even moreso.

Not a game I'll play often, but I'm glad that it exists, and is so good at what it's doing. I won't play it often, sure, but I'll play it again and love it every time.

Writing has never been Wild Hog's strong suit, and Evil West doesn't really change that.

At the very least the writing is more palatable than the Shadow Warrior series, exchanging its nerdy wannabe cool guy for a comparably toxic example of masculinity, but at least he isn't such an annoyingly nerdy incel smartass. Still, with a bit of #NoHomo the moment a man dares to show he cares about another and not enough actual feminism in the portrayal of its only positive female character to convince you that they know how to write female characters, it could be unbearable, and yet they manage to somehow keep it bearable enough to not skip the cutscenes, even if they do add little to the enjoyment of the game, just enough context to string the McGuffin-filled missions together.

It's a good thing the game is otherwise enjoyable - while it begins slow and promising little, it starts becoming increasingly complicated (but never too much) and hence more enjoyable with each new weapon you unlock and with its rather neat upgrade system where most of the upgrades actually feel like they add something new to the game, be it considerable damage or a fun effect (my favourite - grenades spawning electric tornadoes) as opposed to just rising some minor thing by 2% like half of these games that saw upgrade systems are all the rage but don't know how to make them actually interesting.

Playing it on Normal I also found the game to have an optimised sense of difficulty where it always feels like you might not make it, and yet usually do - it keeps the player on their toes, trying to use all the game’s systems to the best effect, without ever becoming frustrating, the few bosses I had to try again once or twice hardly a bother.

Which is good because the game has no problems throwing insane-seeming amounts and combinations of monsters at you, most of the bosses showing up as cannon fodder soon enough, what first seemed impossible soon what you eat for breakfast, even if you have to crunch extra hard to make it.

Which is good because it's so enjoyable to tackle them, and it covers up quite nicely that some of the places you're fighting in have very little to show for themselves, half the finale taking place in a huge empty room right out of a 00’s shooter.

But there are some really nice looking maps as well, and I captured more than a few screenshots of some especially gorgeous-looking moments, even telling my partner to look up from the Switch. The character's movement and action also feels nicely weighty, a far cry from Shadow Warrior, another thing I disliked about that game.

All in all, it's a solid 7 - a game safely skippable by those who have little interest in shooters, but a surprisingly fun time to everybody else thanks to its varied and meaty combat system and adequately challenging opponents. Enjoying westerns also helps. If the writing was any good, I might even love it, but as it is, I just enjoyed it, but hey - that's better than half these fuckers I try.

A bananas game, and one I had very little interest in due to its seeming dudebro humour and funky physics, but actually giving it a shot allowed it to reveal unexpectedly enjoyable depths in its gimmicky seeming gameplay. Humour’s still shit.

Well, okay, I laughed a few times, and I've played games with worse writing, but it really is there to just give some context to what you are doing, and nothing more.

But what you're doing is a surprisingly fun gun ballet through well constructed levels where each one introduces something new for you to take into account, be it a new weapon, a new enemy, a new environmental detail, or a new twist on an old one. There aren't many weapons and nothing out of the ordinary, but they all feel good to use and offer some interesting approaches coupled with the game's weird character physics and unique movement.

It wasn't long until the start of every level filled me with excitement, both to see what the game had come up with now and to just enjoy its movement and shooting down the artistically adequate corridors (that I did enjoy in some way).

I'm not sure if I'd include it in my favourites list, but the fact that I'm even considering that is such a leap from not even wanting to try it out and doing it only because it was leaving PSN and pushed some button in me. I'm glad I did as I enjoyed the hell out of it, even the somewhat lacklustre finale. I never expected it to blow me away, and it doesn't the way a great game would, but for what it is - fuck yeah, I'd be up for now.

When a game makes a reference-based joke early on and then flat out says "those who know will understand", and I don't understand, it's pretty clear the game's not meant for me.

Gorgeous-looking, but with a backward-looking writing and mechanics I can't vibe with, an hour was enough. This is less a review than just logging my personal preference.

Would have been cool if this game was amongst that, and perhaps I'd learn to appreciate it further in, but when the game itself is telling me it ain't for me, who am I to argue?

Visually gorgeous and with a strong beginning, it quickly gets lost up its own bum as this twee little thing that I'm not sure I'm a big fan of. The big-name stars first impress but then add this feeling of slumming it to a game that isn't really much of a game, nor that good a story (though thankfully they aren’t phoning it in - the quality of acting is really good; it’s just too bad what they’re given to say isn’t). .

The game tries to make up for its lacking gameplay with some of the shallowest platforming I've ever seen, and while the Simon Says rhythm game has its moment, it is, like the lead’s playing as often commented by other characters, made up for by other things - in his case, lasers, in the rhythm game’s case, lots of pretty colourful effects and some nice music.

And now don’t get me wrong - there is a lot of enjoyable music here, and the game looks beautiful, and the acting is good; but the writing struggles to be good enough. Incidental writing is the most notably weak part of the game, with the lead often pointlessly commenting on things we can already see, ruining the mood of the moment and the potential for quiet awe.

And then there are the dialogue choices you can make that are utterly useless, except for a few cases where they decide your background that the lead will later quote. But nobody you are talking to ever actually reacts to what you specifically say, instead saying what they were going to say anyway, and hence you can pick whatever you want, it just doesn’t matter - the game and the character are already written and the options don’t even have the illusion of mattering.

And what a waste of money and talent on a story that for the most part runs in place repeating “be yourself” until the culmination when the lead finally gets it. But it’s a meaningless choice on his account because he doesn’t actually have anything to lose. It doesn’t help that he’s also one annoying dumbass, that gets more annoying the more self-assured he becomes.

Still, there are moments where the themes managed to spark some interest, and I liked the parallel between the lead’s socially-imposed desire to repeat the glory of the past and the older musician’s self-imposed desire to relive the glory of his past, and how they come to a head.

But the game still feels somehow wrong, like an octogenarian putting on a cap and saying “dope”. Plus every level takes twice as long as it should as the “platforming” sequences drag interminably (quotes on purpose); the best part of traversal is when you slide because you move faster through the damn thing. Every time I thought I might still like this game, there was another platforming sequences that reminded me why I won’t.

And it never really rises about its twee shallowness, partly because of its insufferable characters, and while there are moments where the game feels nice, it can’t really make up for how much of a wannabe it is - it wants to be serious, and be taken seriously, compared to real art with its important themes and beautiful visuals and important actors; but it’s just not fun or deep enough and is too often stupid without understanding that it is.

And when an apparently major character shows up again at the end of the game, and all the characters are “holy shit, it’s you”, and I’m just “wait, who was this?”, well done setting this up.

I’m probably harsher on the game than I should be, but I really thought I was going to love it based on the first hour or so, so the disappointment is just that much more painful. Hell hath no fury as whatever scorned, and so is the biggest critic the one that once loved.

It's rare a game that makes you reconsider a whole genre that you expected to hold certain feelings about and now witness yourself to have a wholly new perspective on.

Here then enter, The Talos Principle, and my dislike for puzzle games.

I've played a few in my time (mainly Portal and Braid and Portal again) and enjoyed them well enough, but the genre always seemed one I could not get along with, or more precisely, was afraid of approaching, fearing that moment where you stand in front of a puzzle having beaten your head against it for a while and yet find yourself no closer to solving it.

I hadn't considered that one could then just play a different puzzle game. After all, despite loving FPS games, I have not played all of them and haven't loved nearly as many as I have played. So why should puzzle games be any different?

Of course they aren't, but it was witnessing the joy I got from solving the puzzles in Talos that really opened my eyes. To then also go through a thoroughly enjoyable existential crisis due to the quality of the writing just solidified it. Puzzle game with great writing, ain't that a peach.

And to imagine the writers were only brought in when most of the game was done! Well, it's not hard to imagine really - most of the writing takes place in computer consoles and graffiti that are easy to place wherever you want whatever the rest of the game is. But it is most impressive how the game still feels whole, the world building merging with the story revealing itself from broken blog posts and personal diaries, the existential quandaries of the people who created this world and those within it.

It's a fantastic game, that makes you think on several levels - first on how to solve these delightful puzzles, and then on how your minuscule existence fits into the larger scheme of things and what the hell can you even do with that awareness.

There are a few nitpicks, mainly how convoluted finding some of the stars is. But I never really had that moment I fear, the one that sends me questioning my very intelligence (YouTube certainly helped with a few of the stars); yet the game also didn't feel too easy. Some puzzles certainly were, but you have to have some easy ones for learning, to work up to those that require serious thought (never used YouTube for any of the non-star puzzles - something I'm sillily proud for).

It's a splendid game, and such a nice surprise from the company behind Serious Sam, and I can't wait to see what else they come up with.

Wanted to play this on coop because it looked like fun, but:
- You can play the tutorial only in single player, with the door to the tutorial blocked off; however the game doesn't tell you that and I had to Google to find out what was wrong. That's bad design right there, both the blocking and the fact the game didn't bother to inform us. Had to do the tutorial with one of us looking on.
- The game treats the coop player as a second class citizen - they don't get to choose a character and hence they don't get a second weapon, just some boring peashooter, and the NPCs flat out refuse to talk to them about anything of importance. I haven't seen another coop game where the game itself has such disdain for the coop player.
- Because treasure chests are tied to revival in coop, you don't get any loot from them if you use them for that, leaving you under-equipped for the boss.
- Also it's just plain boring playing with the most basic weapons.

To be quite honest, the game isn't really my style either, this kind of arcadey bullethell beat/shoot-em-up. But I loved Helldivers 1 and not just because it looked prettier, but it instantly gave you more interesting choices, and it didn't treat your partner as some shit stuck to your shoe. Far beyond bad design, this is just mind-boggling.

The game probably gets better after the first level, but if you want your players to come back, you should give them some reason to do it. Actively blocking them from enjoying your game without any explanation hardly does it.

So take my low-star review with a huge grain of salt, but also fuck this game.