Codenames is a fun game that really emphasizes lateral thinkers who can make unique connections between words, and risk takers who trust their team to put the pieces together. There's a lot of really interesting social play where you not only need to think of clues that connect many words, but also that your teammates would understand, and that also avoid drawing undesirable connections.

One of the arguable downsides of Codenames when compared to other multiplayer games is that you can't really do much actual communicating with the other players. The codemasters can't talk because anything they say could be seen as a clue, and often you don't want to talk when it isn't your turn as the guesser because you don't want to give ideas to your opponents. So, on the sociability scale for games that might be played at parties, this isn't very high. Where something like Secret Hitler forces interaction between all players, Codenames encourages (or for the codemasters requires) you to play all of your information as closely to your chest as possible. Strategically this lends the game a lot of depth, but it makes it slightly less appealing for some people who want to socialize with others during their games. Still, this is an undeniably fun time.

The most interesting things about Escaton are easy to miss. There are some interesting environmental details to pick up on that aren't immediately obvious, like how each of the figures you find is also represented in a painting inside the mansion, or how the painting by the lake changes after the horses rise from the water, reflecting the new state of the lake.

The sound design is also really good. The most unsettling moments in this game are carried by the audio, which genuinely got under my skin at points. It really helps carry the game's atmosphere.

If you want a vibe, this is an alright game to check out. The actual plot left me a bit confused. I think I follow what happened, but I am not entirely sure what it means, or what I as the player am supposed to take away from it. Pretty much all of the dialogue in the game is spoken in riddles about philosophy and existence, and that sort of writing can work pretty well in concert in a larger work, but for a short game like this I find there isn't quite enough to contextualize it. I didn't really get the writing, and even now its hard for me to remember the proverbs. I still enjoyed the game, though I think its strongest as a mood piece, or as an exploration in level design. Its worth looking into if you can snag it on sale.

Chuzzle is an extremely ok puzzle game. It's a match 3 style game where you drag rows to complete sets of colored chuzzles. You can identify moves that will cause combos when chuzzles of different colors fall into place, but in this case it feels like those matches are very incidental and reliant on the game spawning the right colors of chuzzle. Its not unenjoyable to make these combos, but rounds can go on for so long that the gameplay loop becomes a bit tiresome. My first run of Chuzzle lasted for 80 minutes, and admittedly I'm not the fastest player but by the end of that 80 minutes I was very ready for things to be over. I think part of the issue is that I don't find its loss condition to be very compelling. It's the same loss condition that Bejeweled uses, where a game is over once you can't make any more moves. It makes sense, and in Bejeweled it's easier to end up in a no move situation, but its not exactly a loss condition that has a lot of tension. It doesn't have the slowly encroaching doom of something like Tetris of Zuma. Chuzzle does gradually lock up your chuzzles, preventing you from moving certain rows and columns. That does add some tension back to the game, but it's a threat that can be worked around by making certain matches.

Overall, I think Chuzzle its fine, as in its not unenjoyable. It has some fun twists on this style of game, and some of its ideas are pretty neat. It's worth a play if you are into puzzle games if you can get it cheap.

This review is a lot like my CSGO review in the sense that I'm writing it about a game that no longer exists, and thus am writing this review exclusively with aid of my years old memories. However, I'd like to document my thoughts on the original Overwatch before they are too overwritten by memories of the sequel, and also I'd like to leave a record that I did play the original.

Overwatch was a super appealing game. I remember playing it at a friend's house during it's pre-release phase, and I remember loving it. The game was clearly inspired by other team based shooters, but it did a great job at making the game feel approachable. Hero abilities were easy to understand, but their depth came from understanding the right time to use it, where to deploy the ability, or just getting better at actually executing the move.

I really liked Overwatch because the characters had a lot of personality. Each character had an appealing design and personality that helped them stand out from the rest of the cast. I remember being so into the characters at the time that I was rewatching trailers and reading the comics to try to think about the lore of the world and how these characters related to each other. The great art extended to the maps as well. Every location feels so fleshed out with cute details that made spaces really fun to explore.

Overwatch was a good game, and I wish that it's original release was preserved in some way. Historians will want to study this game. Perhaps they might want to understand the way that moving from a 6 player team to a 5 player team changed the gameplay, but now that isn't really available to study. It's a shame that multiplayer games are now erasing their prequels to make way for the sequels. Yes, I understand that sequels might create a split playerbases if both games exist alongside each other, but I don't think that justifies destroying a game forever.

The best way to play one of the best competitive turn based strategy games.

AWBW actually has a lot of improvements over the original games, like having map designs that eliminate first player advantage, an approach to CO balance that recognizes that the COs aren't balanced at all and addresses this fact by splitting characters into tiers and assigning each game a different tier so players can experience both the high and low end of the tier list, an ELO system so you face roughly equivalent opponents, and an extremely convenient play by mail (through web browser) experience. If it wasn't for Advance Wars by Web, I wouldn't have played this legendary game nearly as much. Anyone who loves Advance Wars, or even just has a fondness for turn based strategy games, should visit this website.

Such a strange take on the Battle Royale, but definitely memorable. Turning the original Mario into a multiplayer battle royale is such a bold move, and the execution is about as good as you could expect. I respect it for the boldness alone.

The idea of spawning enemies for opposing players works really well. It creates moments where you can turn the tides on others by taking your hinderances and turning them into attacks by using a koopa shell to wipe out a ton of enemies and give another player a lot to deal with.

Super Mario Bros 35 is a silly, goofy game that was unlike anything else, and it will probably stay that way. It's a shame it's gone forever.