Charge your controller, order a pizza, get your mates online and travel back in time: Shredder‘s Revenge makes you feel like the kid again, that’s just getting to know video games with decades of games ahead of ya. It’s not an homage, it just feels like it’s straight out of a time capsule and yet manages to feel at least a little fresh because of its responsiveness. It’s addictive and massively satisfying and with its short runtime a perfect game for one sitting with friends. I will definitely revisit this game from time to time - to beat enemies up while listening to the coolest soundtrack out there.

See after finishing this game,, I took a good amount of time to think about what to write and how to convey the feelings this game made me feel. Instead I would like to refer you to an amazing review, that says everything better than I ever could.
Check out the following review and leave my good friend crimson2877 a like and a follow there: https://backloggd.com/u/crimson2877/review/400677/

Additionally, I recommend watching this short youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoDhW8g5xks

(Some of the images and vistas you are offered in Norco are among the most distinct cyberpunk vibes I've ever seen in a point and click adventure.)

It’s not like the ideas Anodyne 2 lives off are totally unique, but the way they are built so wholeheartedly, so creatively will make the entire time you play this game a pure joy. It doesn’t matter if it’s PS1 aesthetics open world or the 16 bit top-down snes era vibes, exploring the world is simple but addicting. It’s such a welcome change to play something so cozy and wholesome, listening to a wonderful soundtrack. I can’t recommend the game enough, If a weird little rather experimental indie sounds like it’s something for you.

Citizen Sleeper is my GOTY so far. I am extremely surprised by how this game has consumed me with it’s world, it’s characters and the overall atmosphere. I’ve not played ‘in other waters’, but I’m in love with it’s soundtrack. So it’s no surprise that Amos Roddy (yet again) delivers one of the best soundtracks to a game you will hear this year, giving off huge Nils Frahm vibes and perfectly underlining the melancholy of this space station. I didn’t even know about citizen sleeper until I saw it on the Xbox game pass, so I went in basically blind and got out a fan.

I’ve always said that I wanted more good sci-fi point and click games and this delivers on that front and on many more. It’s gameplay loop is rather unique, mixing big chunks of well written text, with table-top rpg like actions using dices and a round-based structure. It makes the station explorable in addictive ways, where dangers wait to be avoided, stories wait to be heard, where meaningful interactions happen and decisions matter.
Great little stories are told here and there, but the overarching goal I had set my eyes on, led me to a conclusion that literally left me in tears.

Even playing this right after Elden Ring, the demons souls remake looks and plays absolutely beautiful, feels a lot more next-gen often times. I will keep it short here as well, as there is not much left to say about the from software games for me. It’s as fun and addicting as all of the other souls games I’ve played, it won’t be my favorite location-wise and the more puzzle-like boss fights were a bit underwhelming in difficulty (seriously, the game is harder between the boss fights. Not a single one did pose a real threat, but I have like almost 150hrs of back-to-back playtime now, so I might just be good by now). But it seems like no souls game will ever disappoint me. I’m just a fan.

What can I say about a game, that’s been dominating the conversation since it’s release and everything has been said already? Most of what you read is true: Elden Ring is a masterpiece, it might even be From Software’s best game yet and I truly wonder, how they want to follow this up. It’s been bigger and more beautiful than it’s predecessors. But at it’s core, it’s still exactly what you would expect, if you know the series. The core gameplay loop is as satisfying as ever and the sheer endless possibilities this sandbox offers to outwit the game with an insane build or a new strategy, makes it a pure joy from beginning to end. I did not want this game to end, and even after many many sights to behold (and I say this right after finishing HFW) and many many enemies and bosses beat, I still found new things after 100 hours.
I don’t think Elden Ring necessarily will convert from software skeptics into believers and I also don’t necessarily think it’s the best entry point into the series, but to me personally it’s been the pinnacle of from software design, most probably the best game of this year and one of my favorites of all time.

I adore these kinda games. I've always been as much of a film nerd as I was a game nerd and therefore I have always loved when the lines between those two started to blur. Indie games like this provide a beautiful small scope framework for interactive storytelling and in A memoir blue and also so many others, it's inspiring what creatives put out into the world. I would love to see more of that mix of 3d and cartoon aesthetics, I think it worked wonderfully here. And of course another given in recent years of indie gaming, a gorgeous soundtrack rounds this up as an experience I would recommend.

Horizon Forbidden West is more Horizon, more of the open world formula that’s filled the last decade of open world games and more of the visual fidelity that seemingly only PlayStation first party studios can deliver.
It’s not bad or a problem to be the default, when you excel at building a world with a fidelity that I would usually only expect of a rockstar open world game. When you create lore and stories that fill this staggeringly beautiful places with life. When you deliver a robust combat system, with a huge variety of enemies that are beautifully animated and distinct enough to keep you engaged for at least into the later parts of the game. What also separates this from the pack, is that you are not forced to play through the more generic and tedious parts of the game. Everything in your journal is split up so pedantically, that you would basically be able to play through the game in a very linear fashion, leaving out all the errands, the camps and other collectibles. They are waiting for you however, if you decide to spend more time with the game - and you can spend hours upon hours in it if you choose to. When I think about my favourite parts of the game, I always think about the exploration. Arriving at and being in awe of the intricately designed settlements or just wandering into the hugely varied wilderness have got to be my favourite moments of this current gen so far. And especially one place in the desert, later into the game, will always stay in my mind as one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever experienced in a game. In that sense it reminded me of the vistas and places I didn’t want to leave in CP2077. It’s not only the visuals from a technical standpoint. I asked myself if I’d still be so in awe if I’d play the game in 10 years from now and the answer is yes: the art direction and environmental design on display here is definitely top notch and will be a reference point for quite a while for me. The soundtrack is mostly beautiful as well, mixing traditional and natural sounds with artificial deep bass and synth sounds matching the same mixture of old and new around you. But not only the visuals and sound design in the open world are what make it a joy to explore, there are also a couple of activities which I thought were a lot of fun: first and foremost the Tallnecks. I love how they made every Tallneck basically into a puzzle and the payoff in the end is always an insane view. The Ruins were also my highlights, often times I just naturally came across them and really felt the urge to explore the places and solve the environmental puzzles. The design of the machines is absolutely mindblowing. Coming across a new type of machine is always interesting, their patterns and how they move and are animated in general is unrivalled imho. Some of the side quests were really well made as well, telling great stories and introducing a bunch of very cool and interesting characters. Not all of the side quests are delivered with the same quality however, this is were CP2077 for example knocked it out of the park. But the same goes for the story in general. It’s good, there are moments that exceeded my expectations by far and it’s filled with great characters for sure, but in the end I won’t remember too much of it, because I wasn’t as emotionally invested as I was with my favorite open world games like RDR2 especially.
Horizon is a very good game, it’s the best iteration of what you would expect in an open world game nowadays. It doesn’t play in the same league as the very best, but it comes close and I’m happy for everyone involved in the creation of this, that it has been such a success.

I can't remember a game (other than maybe the Mass Effect trilogy) that fed my inner space-nerd as masterfully, as Outer Wilds did. Whereas Mass Effect was a great story of humankind in the future, with familiar conflicts, characters and locations to explore, Outer Wilds throws all that away and gives you what space probably would feel like to us: hostile, unknown and incomprehensible. Who regularly reads recent developments in the understanding of our universe, will find many of that concepts in this game beautifully interwoven in a subtly communicated, but heavy weighing story of survival in a universe, that seemingly does not want you to survive. The game constantly wows you, with scenery and music coalescing into the best video game moments of at least the last decade.