Game Reviews

50-Game Dash Results Prelude: It has been a wild ride deliberating and playing through 50 games these past few months. Out of all the games selected, there was only a handful of "big" games: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Control, Detroit: Become Human, Frostpunk, and Prey . I voted against buying I am Dead and Crypt of the NecroDancer . There was only one game that couldn't start: The Swapper . Although I made my fifth attempt at playing the game, Dust: An Elysian Tail was dropped before making any insightful progress in the game. I would have also liked to play a little further in Okami , but the old game had its fair share of problems - watching a 14-minute introduction on a half-resolution screen without being given access to a controller were all pretty painful reasons. The games I played instead were: Hob, Cloudpunk, Rime, Minit, and Night in the Woods. The following games are  rated from best to worst which was really hard to do with so many decent games. T...

Game Title: Night in the Woods Released: February 21, 2017 Game Length: 9 Hours Grade: C+ Expectations: What a surprise! Epic Games released this little gem for free on December 27, 2020. So I went and decided against playing Oxenfree or Crypt of the Necrodancer and chose this little Kickstarter Project by Infinite Fall . You'll notice its quick abbreviation "IF" on the splash screen. Initially I voted against playing this game for one reason or another. Perhaps it was how its stylized art made it appear too pretentious. Or it could have been how a number of posts made it sound like a masterpiece without specifying any sort of details. In any case, I was ready to try this game out. Reality: You play as a cat who came home after the death of her grandfather. As a 20-year old dropping out of college, you sort of try drifting back into your old routine with the gang. You never held a steady job, never had any desire to do anything with your life, a...

Game Title: Minit Released: April 3, 2018 Game Length: 2 Hours Grade: A- Expectations: I know what you are thinking. How can a black & white game based on playing one minute at a time with the file size of 200MB be any good? Well it was either that or I try out Half Minute Hero again. I don't know how the whole "Groundhog Day" approach will work for this game, but I'm hoping they don't let you build-up more seconds through upgrades or something. Reality: There was a lot more to this game than I originally expected. 156 runs in 2 hours just to complete the game. So I'm not the most delicate of a player. I wasn't worried about that 25 runs or less achievement . You literally have 60 seconds to perform whatever action in the world that you can before you automatically die. Of course, you could always manually kill yourself with a press of a button before the timer runs out. You have to know that it is just you who resets and not ...

Game Title: Rime Released: May 26, 2017 Game Length: 6 Hours Grade: B- Expectations: How many free games has the Epic Game Store given out? Looks like we are approaching 170 games in 2 years. There are plenty of games to choose from and Rime so happened to come out for free in May 23 - 30, 2019. It looks innocent enough. The following is printed in the description: "Explore the beautiful, rugged world of RiME. Armed with your wits and a will to overcome—and the guidance of a helpful fox—you must explore the enigmatic island, reach the tower's peak, and unlock its closely guarded secrets." It shouldn't be too bad. Reality: Exploring the island isn't exactly interesting. There are 5 different chapters , with chapter 4 coming out rushed with a small little epilogue constituting as the fifth chapter. It was nice going through all the different settings. You initiate your fox friend to help guide you when you get lost, you "turn on" some win...

Game Title: Cloudpunk Released: April 23, 2020 Game Length: 10 Hours Grade: B+ Expectations: With Cyberpunk 2077 being refunded after its 7 years of development , I wondered if there were a few more games who also decided to take refuge in the "Cyberpunk" idea. Well good news! Someone actually formed a convenient flow-chart for those looking to play an alternative title. While browsing the list, I decided to take a glance at the Ghostrunner trailer and voted against playing it for its Mirror's Edge quickness. Then I stumbled upon something unexpected. There was a game I have never seen or heard about called Cloudpunk . You mean I get to drive around in a hover car like in Fifth Element , something I wished I was able to do while playing Neo Cab ? Sure, let's try it out. Reality: One thing you won't be able to do is dive straight down, that's for sure. I guess you can always wait for something like Hover Cabby to pull a crazy maneuver like that. Wh...

Game Title: Prey Released: May 4, 2017 Game Length: 16 Hours Grade: A Expectations: Back in 2006, Human Head Studios developed a game revolved around a man trying to save his girlfriend from aliens. They called it Prey . At the time, I heard from a lot of people how disgusting the plot was regarding their motive of invading Earth. So I obviously avoided the game entirely. Later, Bethesda obtained the rights to the game while a sequel was being produced but it was ultimately canned in the end. Then they came out with a "new" game - with absolutely no connection to the original - and decided to call it Prey ... because it sounded cool . After watching the trailer , I was terrified of what it had to offer. However, my friends reassured me that the game isn't as scary as it appears from the promotional content. I decided to play the demo on Steam without spoiling myself by watching any Youtube videos and found it really intriguing. It reminded me a lot of Be...

Game Title: Hob Released: September 26, 2017 Game Length: 10 Hours Grade: A Expectations: About a week ago, I was reminiscing how certain older games left you all alone to play in their giant sandbox. There has been a lot of interesting games like that lately for consoles, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or The Last Guardian for example, but you'll never see them ported to the PC. That's when I decided to seek out an older game that I might have missed with the same kind of true world-building experience. In among the list of games on the forums, one specific game fit that criteria - Hob . Given out for free from the Epic Games Store in April 2020 , I was surprised to see it was developed by Runic Games of all companies - the makers of Torchlight . However, there seems to be a split in the reviews. Some say that the game is boring and has a lot of technical issues . While others enjoyed their time in its beautiful world . There's only one way...

Game Title: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Released: November 14, 2019 Game Length: 16 Hours Grade: C Expectations: When was the last time we had a good single-player Star Wars game? We had Star Wars Battlefront II disaster in 2017 ( and the Reddit post still holding one of the most down-voted posts of all time ). Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO is still going strong this past decade. We could have had Star Wars: 1313 telling Boba Fett's story, but Disney buying Lucasfilm messed that up (which is kind of alright now that we have Mandalorian ). I guess Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II was the last single-player game back in 2010. So when word came around of a brand new Star Wars game made by EA , I was highly skeptical. I went searching for a demo to test the waters before downloading a 55GB game , but the only thing I was redirected to was some gameplay "demo" from E3 . Then I pulled up Steam ... Promotions: The "original game" is priced at $60. The ...

Game Title: Bullets Per Minute Released: September 15, 2020 Game Length: 2 Hours Grade: C- Expectations: Alright. Here's a game that I already have a bad feeling going in. I'm not sure what it is about the style of the game, but it reminds me a lot of Doom and Overwatch . Now I'm not generally a fast person, but Borderlands was actually a nice game with its health recovery system and variety of guns. What does this game have? For starters, there is a lot of red and small rooms filled with monsters. Alright, let's give it a shot (literally). Reality: There is a good chance it's just me, but everything about this game is wrong . I probably broke a record somewhere with my first death being under 30 seconds. Running into a monster without having a clue what button reloads your gun or a way to melee your enemies made it very difficult since there is no tutorial . The bright red colors made it very difficult to see anything and the movement sensitivity w...

Game Title: A Short Hike Released: July 30, 2019 Game Length: 2 Hours Grade: A Expectations: People were always quick to point out this one game whenever a bundle came out with it attached. The previews of the game definitely makes the $8 price tag feel a bit steep. Probably the reason why this game gets thrown around in so many indie packages. Even the Epic Store offered the game for free during the week of March 12, 2020. Since the game got recommended so many times and it will only cost me a few hours, I figured it might be a fine time to try it out. If anything, it just has to be better than playing through Firewatch again. Reality: This game is adorable ! I had no idea I was going to enjoy it so much. The number one thing I had to do when starting the game was change the pixel size from "big and crunchy" to "minimum" and watch the game instantly become a hundred times better. I understand some people would prefer the pixelated style, ...

Game Title: Spiritfarer Released: August 18, 2020 Game Length: 23 Hours Grade: C Expectations: One of my favorite reviewers decided to pick this obscure title out of the blue one day and become "emotionally engaged" with what it had to offer. I figured a $30 game with more than 20 hours with colorful and wholesome characters would be a perfect game to try out. First Impressions: Going into the game was a breath of fresh air. That Charon fellow that took souls on a boat ride is retiring and assigned you of all people to take the job. You can practically do whatever you want since you do not sleep and do not tire-out. You always have a smile on your face as your optimistic attitude takes you across tiny little isles like Legend of Zelda: Windwaker to pick-up passengers of all kinds. The first three you come across personally know you and are very encouraging to your cause. Not long does it take you to learn all the mini-games they have to offer: fishing, weav...

Game Title: The Sojourn Released: September 29, 2020 Game Length: 15 Hours Grade: B Expectations: The Sojourn Game , not to be confused with Signs of the Sojourner card game or The Sojourn Web-series, is another game that agreed to have a year-long exclusive contract with The Epic Store . That's probably why it doesn't have that many reviews on Steam . From briefly watching the preview, I perceive it being some sort of world exploration game where you interact with certain elements within various ruins. People say it is a great puzzle game. If it is anything like The Witness or The Talos Principle , I figured it was worth trying. Reality: The very first thing I had to do was solve a minor sound issue . Unlike the other games I've tried, I didn't find myself having any motion sickness. Contrary to what I originally believed, there is barely any substance to the game. All the puzzles are self-contained and built before your very eyes as you venture from ro...

Game Title: Trine 4 Released: October 8, 2019 Game Length: 10 Hours Grade: A Expectations: After the failure of Trine 3 , I was still holding on hope that the developers could come back with a "true" sequel to the series. The ratings of the new game were decent enough with many thanking the company for dropping the 3D interface and reverting back to its original 2.5D environment. I believe I saw the words "not as good as Trine 2 , but good enough to play" somewhere among the pile. I would have played this a lot sooner, but I wanted to wait until Melody of Mystery released on November 19, 2020. So how does a $30 game fair with an $8 DLC package? Reality: For one thing, you definitely won't be criticizing the game for being too short. After adding the 6 levels in from the DLC and the "fun" level of Toby's Dream that was patched in a couple months after its release, you'll be spending a good chunk of time going through 25 levels str...

Game Title: Trine 3 Released: August 20, 2015 Game Length: 5 Hours Grade: C- Expectations: Among the many indie developers came a company by the name of Frozenbyte that decided to make a series based on rotating between three different characters. You may not have noticed Trine when it came out in 2009, but it got a bit of attention when the free update of the Enchanted Edition came out with online and local co-op in 2014. That's all because they utilized the multiplayer aspect with Trine 2 and later the awesome Trine 2: Complete Story Edition with the expanded Goblin Menace update that I played with a bunch of my friends in the following years. Then I briefly saw an article about Trine 3 and... nobody was talking about it. I don't get it! What in the world happened that made the game so terrible? Reality: Wait, that was it? That's the game? Now I understand why Trine 3 is sitting at a 66% positive rating on Steam . It is extremely short and blatantly left ...

Game Title: Detroit Become Human Released: June 18, 2020 Game Length: 12 Hours Grade: B+ Expectations: If you aren't familiar with the company Quantic Dream , all you need to know is that they were the ones that made Heavy Rain . Yes, the game where you yell Shaun and Jason a lot. In my eyes, that means heavy story-telling, multiple branch stories, and maybe some weird comedy bits. What you might have not known is that they also produced a weird psychological thriller Beyond: Two Souls with motion-captured Ellen Page playing as a growing girl with supernatural powers. Their latest game, Detroit: Become Human , really came out in May 2018 on the PS4 , and then ported to Epic Games in December 2019. How they managed to skirt past the one-year exclusive contract is beyond me. Somehow they managed to release a physical copy too. Basing the idea of the game on their PS3 Tech Demo in 2012 and the book The Singularity Is Near , I'm kind of interested on how much David ...