This was the lesser of Control's two DLCS for me, but it's still just more Control so it's solid by default

I kind of went into this expecting more of a full on set up for Alan Wake II than is presented here, so I was little surprised by how little Alan Wake involvement there really is.

The strongest part of the DLC for me was the first 20-30 minutes or so of it where the more emphasized horror tone of it sticks out. Once you get into the actual meat of what you're doing that sorta dies out, which I guess is kind of a given in a game where you play as a character as strong as Jesse

Incorporation of the light mechanic here was also pretty cool and creative but not much is done with it

This is a game of choice. All outcomes are dealt by your hand. There is no room for error, no mistakes to be made, no extraneous activity set up to prey on your downfall. All that is asked of you is to select a case.

Are you confident in your decisions? Do you trust yourself enough to follow through to the end? How long do you believe you can stay confident in your selection? That is not what matters now. At the moment, you have six cases to eliminate from the pool.

One falls. Another. Then another. Four. Five. Six. Some lucky drops. Some higher than you would have liked. Out of obligation, you are now given the choice to finish the game immediately, taking a definitive offer totaled from your remaining potentialities. Usually no higher than ~70,000 dollars. The choice is yours. Deal, or No Deal?

Well, that's ridiculous. Look at the board! You still have several hundred thousands awaiting you! You would be a fool to accept that puny an amount with such high odds of success! No deal, banker.

Continue forward. Please remove five more cases from the stage. One... two... oh, dear. A major hit to your possible winnings. This will not go over well in your next offer. Nevertheless, all you can do is continue forward. Three, four, five.

The banker has returned with a new offer. You have gained an additional ten, maybe fifteen thousand to your deal. All you have to do is accept. But that is not what you are here for. You are behind the podium because of the big one million that still eludes you. It could be sitting right next to you, for all you know. This is another deal you cannot make.

As the game progresses, you start to feel it. Your confidence is waning. Your options are diminishing, and so, too, are your prizes. Your decisions have led you to exhilarating highs, and heart wrenching lows. You have lost your chance at the fabled one million dollar prize, but that does not mean you are out just yet. You can keep going. $750,000 is still a fair amount. If not that, then 500,000. Do not let this one instance tear you away from victory.

The banker has returned. You have done well, and are rewarded with the promise of a definitive 200,000 dollars, at the least. Deal, or No Deal?

Not good enough.

You have made it this far. You can go higher. There is still that non-zero chance of half a million. Do not accept the deal. Do not settle for mediocrity. Is that how you want to live? To spend your restless nights tossing and turning over what could have been? No deal.

Ahead of you lies four more cases. Choose one.

Your best bet crumbles.

The banker is not pleased.

The deal is dropped, and it is now clear to you that perhaps you should have left when you were given a satisfactory result. But that is not what you are here for.

One more case.

Down goes your saving grace. There is nothing left for you.

The banker has given you one final chance. Will you count your losses, accepting the perfect in-between of your last two cases? Or do you still think you can beat the odds?

At what point would you still consider it worth it? The only thing keeping you going anymore is your ego, which has tumbled time and time again as you decline each and every out. If you leave now, you will not only leave unhappy, but unfulfilled. Despite it all, there is still that looming sense of achievement that comes from taking your shot, and making it out stronger than you could have.

Do not accept the deal.

Your odds are now 50/50. There is no middle ground anymore. There is no settlement to be made. You refused what was given to you, because you held out hope. Hope that got you nowhere. You have one final decision. Will you swap your case for what is left on stage, or will you stay true to your first choice, the case that has stayed by your side since the beginning?

Your confidence is what pulled you through to begin with. You promised to see it through to the end. You will not let anything tell you otherwise. Win or lose, you have always stayed true to yourself. You have what you want. You know what is best for you. With no one to blame but yourself, you have lost everything, but you know there is still more waiting for you.

---

I chose to keep my case. Given the possibility of one hundred dollars or five, I decided not to swap.

I walked out with five dollars. I won five dollars. Nothing brought about this result against my wishes. Everything that happened in this game was under my hand. I have trouble even calling myself a winner, given that there was no opponent to beat, no loser to be seen. I can't blame the game, or another person, or any other outside force. I chose this outcome, and I did everything in my power to keep it that way. Myself. Such is the thrill, and the horrors, of Deal or No Deal.

A simply sublime and inventive deck building game with quite a few genre subversions sprinkled throughout. Masterful atmosphere, visuals and mechanically complex while at the same time being very approachable and digestible. Inscryption should be considered a case study of successful game design.

I gotta admit I was slightly disappointed once the game shifted away from Act 1's shenanigans, but the resulting experience more than made up for it in the end. I also love how the creator added in an optional endgame mode with expanded rules, challenges and cards as kinda of a gift for those who really enjoyed the first segment of the game.

Everyone should play through this at least once. And this is coming from someone who usually dislikes card games and is currently tired of roguelites.

Just like Dreamland 2, the first time I fully beat this game was in 2022, directly after Dreamland 2 actually. I first played this years ago when I got an SNES classic, and thought it was cool. But I'll come out and say it, I never really digged the whole multiple bite-sized campaigns in one shtick. I had a greater appreciation for this game, when I played it in 2022, due to some of the series staples it added. But even then, it wasn't one of my favorite Kirby games. How do I feel about the game now though? Basically, the same tbh. Though, when compared to every Kirby game that released prior to this, I'd say it's the clear best.

The biggest improvement, and this would be a Kirby staple once Return to Dreamland released, is the expanded move set. No longer do you only have a single move per copy ability. Now, depending on your directional inputs on the d-pad, you can use several different moves per copy ability. This is a fantastic addition, and probably my favorite aspect about this game, as it makes beating each level more fun. Both of the fire abilities that were in Adventure, are now in one and the one that would turn you into a fireball is your dash attack. Spark, which was a staple in Adventure and Dreamland 2, isn't even in this game and was basically replaced by Plasma (which is all around better because of the electric shield you can get). The copy abilities in general, are really good in this game. You have your series staples like sword, hammer and all that. But then you have new ones like Bomb, Mirror and Yo-Yo which are all really awesome. Compared to prior games, the amount of copy abilities in this game is massive and I think it even rivals some of the modern games. You can also, at anytime, turn whatever copy ability you have into a little NPC helper. This was a fun addition and let's you play the game with two players? I actually never tried it out myself, but I assume you can do that and not have the multiplier be regulated to the minigames.

I am a Dreamland 3 fan, and while I prefer how that game looks visually, Superstar still looks really good for an SNES game. The game is full of that Kirby personality, whether it's with Kirby himself or the enemies he faces. The animations on some of the enemies in this game are just really expressive, and that includes the bosses as well. They're all very charming, especially the computer virus boss, that one is very witty. Some bosses are better than others (I really hate fatty whale) but most of them are pretty fun..especially with the expanded move set.

Now for the meat and potatoes of this game, the game modes. This is the part of the game I'm not much of a fan of. The game consists of 9 modes in all. 4 of them are normal Kirby campaigns, 3 of them are short minigames, 1 is a weird campaign that is more akin to a Metroid game and the last is a boss rush basically. They're all mostly fun in their own right, I just much prefer a more focused, full sized campaign since even with the longer modes here, they just don't stick in my mind as much. I'll delve into each mode though and explain my feelings on every one of them.

Megaton Punch is a short, button timing mini-game where you must see who creates the biggest crack on Popstar. It's very short and humorous to watch, but there's not much to it. Samurai Kirby is basically a remake of the one western minigame from Kirby's Adventure, and it's even more simple to play. You just press the A button faster than your opponent but I swear I just can't do it, even on the easiest difficulty. I always lose to Meta-Knight at the end. It's alright but I prefer Megaton Punch. The last mini-game is Gourmet Race. I won't get into the staple song just yet, but know it's my favorite of the three minigames because of its music and because its fun to race Dedede (and to see his reactions to you winning).

As for the normal campaigns, the first one is Spring Breeze. Not much to say here, it's the shortest of the four and is basically just a remake of Dreamland 1. It's actually even shorter than that game since it lacks the reused portions of levels before Dedede. Dedede is also super easy in this version compared to Dreamland 1. Dynablade is a little longer than Spring Breeze, but not by much. Also don't really have much to say here either, it's a pretty uneventful set of Kirby levels. Revenge of the Meta Knight is a lot longer than the previous two campaigns, or at least it felt like it was. It has Kirby trying to stop Meta Knight and his crew. The level takes place, mostly, in his ship as you destroy it. It also has the most dialogue in the game, because of his crew members, and it's very charming because of them. This felt like the most unique of the normal campaigns and it was definitely my favorite next to the final one. The final one, Milky Way Wishes, has Kirby trying to stop the sun and moon from fighting, which Kirby must make a wish using Nova (this cat face clock thing) because this fella Marx told him to. In the end of the adventure though, Marx dupes you and takes the wish for himself and you have to fight him. This one probably has the most stakes out of any campaign and Marx has a really cool design. I also really liked the space theme and I really really liked the copy ability mechanic. Basically, you can only get copy abilities from these pedestals hidden throughout the world, but once you do you keep the ability forever and can freely switch between any you've gathered at anytime. Thinking about it then, this is probably my favorite mode in the game..it would've been really cool to see this one fleshed out even more though since it still isn't very long.

As for the other two modes, The Great Cave Offensive is different from the other modes. It acts as sort of a metroidvania, where the goal is to explore each section of the game for treasure. You can backtrack freely which is unusual for a Kirby game and is why this one feels different from the other 4 campaigns. It's fun but getting every treasure can be a pain, and pretty much all of the bosses (which you would first see here) get reused in the later campaigns. The last mode, which you unlock from beating every other one, is the arena. This is the boss rush I mentioned earlier, and it's a staple in like all of the modern Kirby mainline games. I actually didn't beat it this time, I gave it like 10 go's, but I did beat it back in 2022. The copy ability you want to use is definitely hammer as it does the most damage. The arena is usually the hardest part of the modern Kirby games and that's no different here, as you have to defeat every boss in the game with only 5 Maxim tomatoes for all of them. It's not totally my thing but it's a decent inclusion nonetheless.

The OST is good, as most Kirby games are, and the standout of course is Gourmet Race. It's one of the most well known Kirby songs for a reason (besides becoming big because of Smash) and yeah it's pretty awesome. The rest of the OST is good too, but this was my favorite new song, as this game continues the trend of remixing a lot of older Kirby songs.

I'm not crazy about this game like some other Kirby fans are, due to the multiple campaigns, but I can't deny it added some great series staples like the expanded move sets and the arena. While not in my personal top 5, at this point in the series this is definitely the best Kirby game thus far. Fun time overall!

A pretty solid doom game, I had only played a few levels on pc when I was in high school but never got to finish the entire game but I'm so glad I did it now after being able to play the other games in the series and being able to compare it. I thought the map design was strong, a little too industrial environmentally, I really prefer hell settings as opposed to city settings (just a personal preference) and I just felt like there wasn't a ton of that in here. There were a lot of "What the hell do I do?" moments in the first game and I felt like the linear design of this game really helped with that, environmentally hinting at the next steps instead of a 'figure it out' mentality. This game really loved to flock with enemies, especially map "Tricks and Traps" (Map 8) was one of the standout moments of this game, utterly terrifying and making me sweat bullets. One of the maps that I wasn't a fan of was Map 24, nothing combat-wise, just environmentally very frustrating, walking along teeny-tiny walls, trying not to fall into poison pits when you cant even look down to see where you are, I just got super annoyed after awhile and it was one of the maps I had to replay a few times because if you fall there is absolutely no way to get out in certain areas BUT this gave added quick saving (which I didn't notice until embarrassingly late) which helped a whole lot. Overall I think Doom 64 is stronger than this one but I had a great time playing it.

I'm sure I'm hurting a few people's hearts when I say this is my first experience with a Sonic game. I had fun overall (This game is hard to play when high, JS). I played the entire thing co-op with my boyfriend and I felt like it's just a game genre that doesnt work well with co-op, due to camera restrictions. While a fun idea in theory, I just don't think it worked well for this style of game. MOST of the level designs/environments were fun but none of the bosses stood out to me and were more annoying than anything. The final boss fight was horrendous during the first phase, doable on the second phase but not fun. While I did have fun in the moment playing it, the overall experience felt mediocre.