Finished my replay of this game on hard mode. There wasn't much of a difference with normal except that obviously you take fewer hits before you go down. Perhaps one day I'll play on realistic but something tells me that will cross the line into being annoying for my playstyle.

If you've followed me for a while or even if you've been in the same room as me for more than 15 minutes you might now that I despise stealth games. I've tried, but I genuinely hate them all. MGS, Thief, Dishonored, even stealth sections in games I like (shenmue, max payne, disaster report 4). I've had bad luck with so called Immersive Sims because of it, as most of them are essentially stealth arpg hybrids like Deus Ex, but so far its basically only the OG (and consortium by virtue of not having stealth) that I mess with. Its not exactly a mystery why, and consider this a plea for other games to follow suit : let me murder everyone. Give me an actual choice between stealth and combat and not just stealth and "you fucked up the stealth you idiot! you might as well reload a save"

Importantly, Deus Ex's combat is deceptively fun to get to grips with. Its so simple but really effective the way that you start out as someone who takes 2 business days to line up a pistol shot to being able to run around with the gep gun blowing people up like nothing. I'm surprised no one else has tried emulating the system, with your RPG esque weapon stats determining how fast your crosshair takes to narrow and become fully accurate, presumably imitating how it takes someone to aim down the sights and prepare to fire a shot.

Now, obviously for this kind of game there has to be push back, and even with a combat build your ass is not going to last if you're trying to play the game like half life, which is precisely why its satisfying to completely forgo stealth and murder everyone through traps, ambushes etc. This playthrough I discovered how useful the non lethal gas grenades are for murder runs (ironically) cause it makes enemies freeze up to rub their eyes, lining up to get headshot with the pistol for maximum murder efficiency.

The playthrough did however highlight Deus Ex's biggest flaw : the save system. Its one of those systems which is simultaneously too annoying and too forgiving. Its annoying because I am forgetful, and losing 15 mins of progress because I forgot to save is just... frustrating. On the other hand, there is basically nothing stopping you from hardcore save scumming every 5 seconds. Ironically, there is nothing more appropriately "mean" for a choice based rpg than an aggressive auto save, as it is, you can basically game most of the big decisions and encounters. Maybe even a save room system like RE4 might be appropriate? Could even lock them behind doors with an interesting weighing up of resources if its worth risking a loss of progress for a lockpick or multitool? Idk now Im playing armchair designer but either way.

Area 51 is still kinda annoying, I didnt use console commands to noclip through it this time but I still fused with Helios because it was the fastest way to complete the level, the later bits of the game are kind of a downgrade from the initial half of the game.

essentially the video game equivalent of that one south park production story about how trey and matt made an entire episode centered around baseball just bc they thought the idea of the cast in baseball uniforms was cute. princess peach as a cowgirl or a pastry chef is rlly rlly cute and it does kind of seem like the devs and artists behind this came up w cute looks for peach before actually designing the levels or their structure,,, and that’s perfectly fine w me lolol. idk obsessed w how often mario games mess w artifice and play in rlly cool ways,, possibly some of the better meta design elements in pop-game philosophy. cool stuff I love tonya harding princess peach,,, apjvff Ass game

personally I think more games should be eight hours long and allow u to wear cowprint dress and also only use one action button idk !!

You have probably heard a gazillion times that this game is my favorite game. For those that know me, you should know that my most favorite game of all time is this one, Terarria. Developed by Andrew "Redigit" Spinks with Re-Logic in May 16th in 2011, Terarria I done hell of a unique sandbox game for it's time period, featuring  a lot of elements of exploration, combat, and even building! Every feature that the game provides us useful in every way, and I believe that this review will be the ultimate guide for those that have asked me, why is Terarria the game of all time.

Well  for starters, I do want to also get into a point that a good amount of players are familiar with: Terraria is just 2d Minecraft. Before you start ge/gathering the pitch forks, I'm an here to say that there's reason for everything, even if its a saying like this one. The reason for this? Terarria came out 2 years after Minecraft's 1.0 release, if I'm getting my information correct. And during both of their early stages, they lacked features that made the games unique. Yeah there were still bosses, NPCs and such within Terraria, but that wasn't enough to change people's comparisons of the game as a whole. BUT as time goes, more features for the two games have been added, and at the time of 1.2.4.1 (last 1.2 update for Terraria) it would've made sense for at least the veterans to stop making the comparisons because there's clearly a difference. Probably much earlier when 1.1 was done, but 1. 2 I believe would be a good solid point.

Another problem that I notice within this game is how new players tackle this game. From my experience, a lot of them would tend too mess around with the game, figuring out the absolute basics on what you can do in pre-hardmode, and using the wiki to guide them whether it comes from the in game guide, or the wiki.gg guide that's lore helpful. Anyway that you look at it, there's nothing wrong with looking up something in this age to figure out what you're supposed to do. For my first consecutive playthroughs on 1.1 mobile, I've done the daunting task of figuring them out myself too even find a flaw in the games system to make me create duplicated of my characters to cheat and such, and was sticking to the same method for a while until I've learned to get over it. Whichever way you learn, the result will be you learning more about the game though it's many ways. Normally, I would've said that cheating would make the experience bad and morally speaking it still applies, but cheating does have it's perks: it makes you feel what the game is going to become in the future, having later game stuff in the progress that you've had, and when it comes to figuring out how you've normally get it, its rather easy to find it out becsuse it'll become one of your most favorite weapons to use against enemies and bosses. I've done this primarily with modded Terarria (Which I  over in this review) due to the different nature's of the other mods.

Coming from a  veteran, there's no bad way to play this game. Using the wiki.gg wiki is your best bet in terms of playing the game as normal as you cam. Or using the Guide works! Whichever way you play it, it'll help with connecting you into the world of the game had to offer, and that's where I talk about it's gameplay. When I usually review games, the gameplay is one of my most important details rhat I discover about, and for Terraria? The gameplay is magnificent in every way. EVEN if pre-hardmode is boring. Wanna know why it's boring at least in my opinion? Because it's the initial test to see if you've done enough of what tbe game has to offer before you move onto hardnode. No matter what difficulty you're playing on, you're going to always see pre-hardmode as the most boring part because barely anything is happening. You don't know what to do. You need help with what to do. Now the Wiki has you covered in terms of figuring out what to do next, along with the in game guide! But yet despite this, a lot of people would never end up past even Skeletron because the game can't seem to have it's essnece be captured by its viewers. It's all of a matter of time and dedication. Becsuse the game can't play by itself. A good way to circumvent this is by playing the game with the person that introduced you to it and purposefully take long within that stages of the game so they can get used to the task of having to deal with said obstacles. They won't like it and they will usually say to hurry up to the better stage of hardnode but you need to make them learn about the importance of pre-hardmode and hard mode once you finally get into that point.

I'm going to take this paragraph to talk about the goblin Invasion one of the many kinds of invasions are going to get into Terraria. pretty much what happened is that a bunch of goblins come from the west or the East at a random point in the game  to come take over your world. They're not that hard of a challenge because most of the enemies just have the usual fighter ai and can be a easily defeated the more they are. If you want to hear more about invasions, just stick to reading more of this thread (even if it's long) because pre hardnode in terms of invasions is honestly not interesting outside of the goblin tinkerer, an important character that is rigged helps you with modifications to your tools to give them upgrades to make them the worst or the best.

Speaking of Hardnode, why don't we get into that stage of the game? Hardnode is one of the well known parts of Terarria, and honestly makes things much more streamlined and linear to the path into defeating the god of this game, the moon lord. But, from just beating tbe Wall of Flesh to either beating your first mech or queen slime is going to be definitely rough. The game will introduce you to hardnode with keeping the gear hay you've have but the core elements of hardnode will make things difficult. Your job at this stage is to take a long gander at your evil biome, to break the altars that lie there in order to gain access to better ores with the molten pickaxe that you've crafted from hell stone. After that, it's a matter of going through another adventure throughout your world because hardnode doesn't being anything extremely new to the table in world generation outside of the hallow, a place that's supposed to be the purifier of both of the evils in the story. Idrk if I can really get more into the story in this review because I am a little fuzzy on what this game provides officially and the developers stating that some of the info are false and just a better way to mess up with some popular things fans theorize about the game. Back to what I was saying though.

While you have your ore collecting, enemies drop other items and materials to further expand the items you're able to craft and collect. Most of them are usually optimal into beating the hardnode bosses whole some of them can be shown as gimmicks just for fun, but it's always best to try them out against the bosses to make you know which item is for next. But primarily, the mech bosses are your main targets: Destroyer, Twins, and Skeletron Prime. If you're a master of the bosses they're based on (Eater of Worlds (no brain variant LOL), eye of however you're supposed to pronounce it, and Skeletron), most of these shouldn't really been an issue. Although It's still best to understand how the boss works by either playing the game or for more specifically finding out  using the wiki to find some tactics. It's much better fighting them and suffering the consequence yourself though be sure you're able to easily develop a strategy to fighting the bosses even if they appear officially in the wiki or as a strat other people say.

Now we are at post mech, and honestly, this part of the game is the mort confusing one of the bunch. This is before Plantera, and there's not much in stock. While you have the Pirate army (another invasion similar to the Goblin invasion talked about previously), you also have an upgraded goblin army, the frost legion, the solar eclipse, and the frost/pumpkin moon. All of these are great ways to becone stronger in Terraria, and it's up for you to figure that out because I'm probably reaching that hidden cap on this site. With that said, I should talk about post Plantera. There's a bunch of opportunities opportunities that you can do at this stage like fighting Golem,to then tackle the pillars and then eventually beating moon lord finishing the game. Or actually doing what this paragraph has originally talked about, fighting the invasions again! At post plantera, most would say that this is the most confusing part of the game because you're so strong that you're able to cheese through most of the bosses with the gear that you've have. With the difficulties it can make things a bit mroe challenging than just running into the bosses, but still if you know what you're doing, you're better off just finishing things off with Golem and the rest.

But after you finish the Moon Lord, what do you have else to do? All I know is that THAT IS NOT ENDING SHIT. you might believe that you have no reason to play this game anymore, but YOU'RE WRONG. you're always free to play this game by yourself again changing certain elements (the class system you can follow within those restrictions Melee, Ranged, Mage, and Summoner), you can play adventure maps (pre constructed maps made by fans that have their own little objectives and such), play the game with more people doing what I've already said, building, cleaning your entire world's evil, whatever you can possibly think of. If you ever wished to play with me, I am almost ALWAYS down to play it. Especially if you're new! But, this unfortunately concludes my ultimate Terarria Review. I will be editing this sometime to include a tldr and to remove this message because it'll be good for those that don't read through these long reviews and only learn information through small increments. I hope you had an AWESOME time reading this, and to reconsider your last playthrough if you didn't touch it much.

Press on, employee.

My friend Larry has been acting a little weird lately. He keeps standing in the corner staring at me, telling me we should play Home Safety Hotline in a voice that's not his, and there's this really horrible smell like rotten eggs that's been filling up my apartment. I don't know if it's related, but Larry - who has taken to crawling on the walls and ceiling - showed me the trailer and explained that it's created by Nick Lives, who previously worked on Hypno Space Outlaw. I was intrigued and then partook in a large feast of cornmeal that had been curiously laid out on the dining room table, as the voices in the walls demanded.

Home Safety Hotline sits the player down with a bestiary of common home hazards ranging from bees to Boggarts, house flies to Dorcha, which the player must refer to in order to properly diagnose the problems of callers who are currently in various states of duress. True to the real-world experience of working in a call center, the loop of taking a call and finding a solution can be a bit rote, and much of the challenge is borne from callers providing inaccurate or conflicting pieces of information. On some level, it almost feels like a Loveline simulator. Lot of calls about kids getting eaten tonight... Must be a full moon.

Caller: It... It... It stole me...! It stole me!! I'm not me anymore, I'm... it took me! I can't see myself anymore, I'm gone! Help me!! Help me get b--

Adam: Alright, I'm putting her on hold. Sick of her already... Drew, how many times do we get calls like this and the answer is always carpenter ants?

Drew: All the time.

Adam: Helen? Get yourself some Raid, babydoll.

Those expecting the heavy puzzle solving and obtuseness of Hypno Space Outlaw might then be a little disappointed with how straight-forward Hotline is, but it's really more a vehicle for some very imaginative and entertaining writing, and the excitement of seeing new entries in the bestiary unlock during each subsequent shift dulls how samey most nights are on a mechanical level. You won't hack into a bunch of weird databases or decipher codes here, and Hotline's central mystery doesn't leave many unanswered questions by the end of its short 3-4 hour run, but that's fine. In fact, after biting into several incredibly long games over the last couple of months, it's preferable.

My only real complaint is that the game only leverages audio queues once, and calls rarely share the same answer, which trivializes the late game through a simple process of elimination. Otherwise, I am so into what the game is going for that it feels like targeted content. It's hard to dig into specifics without spoiling some of the more inventive entries or giving away the plot, but I do appreciate how ranged and varied a lot of Hotline's creatures are. You'll frequently diagnose problems caused by benign beings like toilet Hobbs, which enjoy cleaning your bathroom and can be placated by providing them a single egg at night. You'll also have to deal with more abstract and frightening entities like memory wisps, which essentially give their victims Alzheimer's. No cure for that, you have to let them run their course. What can you say other than "good times?"

Maybe I'm predisposed to whatever kind of weird horror Nick Lives is putting out into the world (Night Signal looks interesting and I'm way into the premise of Please Insert Disc), reviews on here appear more mixed, but I do think this is worth checking out if you want something short, simple, and backed by some really fun writing. I have to go now, the soil is calling me...

What did I even want out of Dragons Dogma 2? I began this game with a severe sense of disappointment, frustrated that it wasnt something “more”. But Im glad the game has a much greater sense of itself than I did, unwaveringly retaining its unorthodox core with a much more grand presentation. When I get over myself, I see theres just as much here to love as the first game - I would be ungrateful to not appreciate its weird and rare nature.

However it must be said that I hate these characters and their side quests and Im glad half of them are sitting in the NPC Lost And Found (the morgue). I would have liked a slightly less vast open world full of nothing but caves and aged beast skags, but I had the most fun carrying pots down ancient cliff faces than I did trying to council Hugo on how to live his life after being a bandit patsy (with that council being "Ill throw you off the cliff myself")

I know people cream their jeans about the first Psychonauts game but that wasn’t really my experience with it. Big uppies to the visual style and really unique level-design, but the controls and platforming were uhhhh… POOP?? It was still a really fun game, but I just didn’t find it to be the game that everyone held up so high at the time. There were things I found odd with it like how some powers were only useful for short sections of the game and then never again, and generally just how annoying it was to platform and move around. The story though? That shit rules, dog. Psychonauts uses everything in its crayola box bussy to personify ideas and mental concepts into living designs, be it through the enemies or the overall builds of the levels as they shapeshift around you. The levels were just as much characters as the characters were, and the exploration was rewarded with interesting character writing that was shown instead of told without force feeding you a novel of it at the same time. It’s a game that I wish I liked more and I think I’m only babbling about it because I reviewed it when I was new to this site and didn’t really understand how to barf up how I felt in words yet.

Anyways, this is a review for Psychonauts 2 and the short of it is that it was by and large a tremendous upgrade from its predecessor. My main gripes revolving around the game’s controls and camera angles flew right out the window pretty much immediately. Movement and platforming was so buttery smooth and that dodge roll they gave Raz might as well have renamed him Rizz instead. I was so happy that they gave most of the essential powers in the first few minutes, allowing you to play around with them from the get go. With the added addition of the new enemies, now just about every power has a place on the table, allowing you to dish out pain in any way that you see fit in the moment. While there are particular enemies that require certain powers to be exterminated, the Pyrokinesis and PSI Blast abilities still carried most of the weight. The Time Bubble power is pretty much a must have moving forward, and the upgrades to all of the abilities makes them so much more useful than some of the abilities from the first game. My only minor gripe with the combat was having to assign powers mid-battle through the power wheel. For whatever reason I just would not budge from removing Levitation from LT and anytime I had to remove it during a wave of Panic Attacks and Enablers, I did audibly groan but that only happened a few times in the late-game. I definitely appreciate the challenge even if it meant swapping hotkeys like I was playing a speedrunner’s version of ball in a cup. However, hitting the objects that dropped health would send them into the fucking stratosphere sometimes, which made them pointless in my time of dire need. I would say that my least favorite boss fight was the plant one just because it was probably the most restrictive, but that’s one boss out of several who generally made for some really fun segments.

Aside from this game basically Kingdom Heartsing me by being a direct sequel of a 2nd game that I don’t own the console to, it was still a groovy time from start to finish. While none of the levels hold their own version of “Milla’s Secret” nearly at the same intensity, it was still a rather warming story about a group of friends working through their regrets with the help of Raz. It’s a story that still “went there”, just in different aspects. I don’t personally need the most fucked up thing to happen that lands this game into another 4,000 Top 10 Darkest Moments in video games lists until the end of time for it to be compelling. People are still DYING, Kim. I found the deep dive into the other Psychonauts to be rather interesting as it helped build the world that exists outside of the levels to a higher detail, closer to the ones that represent the actual brains where all the showmanship is. Of course the actual brain levels are still the best part of the game too and a whole heaping of them really delivered. I found both the cooking and concert levels to be the stand outs, as they represented the chaotic unraveling, or re-raveling, of their mindscapes so well. Like honestly, is the character losing his damn mind through sensory overload or am I, because that was quite the adventure into horrible ASMR that I didn’t expect to fall into.

And that’s where this series really shines because who else is crafting level design in a way that really puts you in the shoes of it’s characters in the same way that Psychonauts does? Where it really asks you to maybe reflect on your own trauma by dousing you in colors and sometimes difficult climbing; where mental healing and overcoming your obstacles is truly the ultimate goal at the end of the day. As someone who has mental illness in my family, it’s such a tender way of showcasing forgiveness for not just someone else but also yourself. It’s exquisite art design that is packed in just about every crevice and corner with some sort of metaphorical punch to each character’s inner turmoil, whether they have an addiction, horrible regrets, or unimaginable shame. There was care in connecting the platforming mechanics to the overall visual storytelling that combines into this whirlwind of gameplay that tells its story, with narrative twists that really make ya go “ZOINKS”. Interactivity is so fucking cool, bro!!!!

With that too, the game still has its comedic beats of course. The comedy is still written in a way that isn’t competing with the more downer sides of the plot because it’s written in a way that understands when each tone has its place to shine and both lift the cutscenes up without overshadowing each other. That is an aspect of both games that still rings very true. Unrelated to this though, Raz is voiced by Richard Steven Horvitz who also voices Billy from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, which made his blood curdling screams that he makes upon falling off a ledge really funny to me for some reason. Dying really wasn’t an issue because I genuinely laughed every time he screamed, as horrible as that sounds.

Related to Raz’s voice though, my real complaint of this game, that is still rather minor, is that Raz honestly talks way too much. I know that I’m 3 years late to this game, but I’ve been noticing a trend lately with any game involving a puzzle that if you don’t solve it in 2 seconds, the characters feel the need to just blurt out the answer for you as if you can’t figure it out for yourself. I am all for accessibility features for kids and everyone else but I really wish you could turn off tips without having to mute the voice audio in the menu. Sometimes I just want to examine what I’m working with before jumping into it and I don’t need Raz backseating the shit out of me- “I need to focus more with my Clairvoyance to-” at every chance- “I hear some emotional baggage around”- he could get- “I think I need to connect blank with blank in order to progress the level” Raz, please, I beg of you.

But all in all, this was a really good time and I felt like it would be. I really wanted to like Psychonauts 1 a lot more than I actually did and when I heard this sequel turned out great, I was more than excited to play it. Overall, I found the levels to be a lot more memorable here as well. I’m sorry Milkman fans, but I have made a solemn oath to never lie in a Backloggd review unless it was about how good I am at the games I’m criticizing. While this game does have things that irk me, they’re really not something that dings it in any grimy way. I guess they’re just more of a personal preference. But, having played this and Portal immediately after beating Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, it was a huge breath of fresh air. Give me more games like this pretty please, please, please please.

Also, stop posting this fucking meme every November, you goddamn selective assholes. Whoever made this image and then dropped it into the piss ocean that is Xitter needs to answer for their crimes.