princessbeach
6 Reviews liked by princessbeach
Prey
2017
Maybe my favorite imsim. Taking what is essentially a dungeon crawler genre (FPS RPG, aka "immersive sims") and synthesizing it with Metroid is a stroke of genius, and I adore basically everything about this game. How it looks, how it plays, how it sounds, the plot, the twists, everything. I recommend it to everyone forever.
The best indie game I've played in the last couple of years -- great brain teaser puzzles focused around a really narrow set of answers/clues, integrated in a (lightly) myst-esque way into the setting, reasonably well paced, some clever stuff. The text throughout the game is competently written, but the Plot (and to a lesser extent setting) is exceptionally hokey.
Love this game.
The campaign design is a little scattershot, and it shows the seams of the scope-tightening it reportedly went through, but the result is still great. Unparalleled ambience, looks fantastic to this day, an all-timer OST (in my top 5 for sure), and a goofy sci-fi plot about climate change made in the late 90s.
Less solid as a game than its successor Red Alert 2 for sure, but still effortlessly iconic.
The campaign design is a little scattershot, and it shows the seams of the scope-tightening it reportedly went through, but the result is still great. Unparalleled ambience, looks fantastic to this day, an all-timer OST (in my top 5 for sure), and a goofy sci-fi plot about climate change made in the late 90s.
Less solid as a game than its successor Red Alert 2 for sure, but still effortlessly iconic.
El Paso, Elsewhere
2023
Really wanted to like this one, and there are some parts of it I do like - the broad brush strokes of the narrative, the soundtrack (sans the rapping; lyrics were too cringe for me lol) - but ultimately it felt easy, repetitive, hollow, and boring. Making most of the enemies in a Max Payne homage melee was not a good move, and there's way too many levels. You don't have to slo-mo or dive-dodge basically at all in this game, and in fact will actively hurt you in the boss fights as the roll-dodge is how you get away from the boss tracking. A strong effort for sure, but a weak outcome.