FBracht
2016
This is the absolute best work of art I ever experienced. When we encounter a great game, we rush to compare it to the great classics of the medium, like Ocarina of Time, Half-Life, Mario Galaxy, etc. I'm the same, I'm like that. But when I finished The Witness and dove deep into what it was that it was trying to do, I wanted to compare it to bigger things in the art world. I wanted to compare it the Mona Lisa, to the Statue of St. Sebastiano, to the entire Beatles' discography. If there is justice in this world, The Witness will be studied and dissected not only in game design courses, but also in art history courses.
2020
At least during Season 1, this game is not really that great. It feels too loose and random to be great for competitive players, but too structured and directed to be great as a party game. Plus, it has stupid cosmetic microtransactions on top of being a paid game. Still, it has something that keeps me coming back. Maybe it's just the charm.
UPDATE: It was just the charm, and it has since worn off.
UPDATE: It was just the charm, and it has since worn off.
2019
A short list of games that were incredibly successful in certain aspects, but which Outer Wilds makes look almost amateuristic in these same aspects: Super Mario Galaxy, Mass Effect, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Breath of the Wild, Metroid Prime.
I can't tell you exactly why I say this or which aspects I'm talking about -- because this is one of those games in which everything is a spoiler and spoilers are especially bad because the whole point is you learning the stuff by yourself -- but I swear this is not hyperbole. This game is incredible. It will make you look at the world, the universe, and your own life in a different way, at least for a while.
I can't tell you exactly why I say this or which aspects I'm talking about -- because this is one of those games in which everything is a spoiler and spoilers are especially bad because the whole point is you learning the stuff by yourself -- but I swear this is not hyperbole. This game is incredible. It will make you look at the world, the universe, and your own life in a different way, at least for a while.
2007
Mario games are weird and fascinating and incredible for many different reasons, and each one of them is particularly brilliant in one creative field or another. For example: the recent Super Mario Odyssey is a perfect exploration of all the things Mario can be and all the ways he can move. Through this frame of reference, one can say — and in fact, I am saying it — that Super Mario Galaxy is the absolute best Mario game at exploring all the places Mario can navigate.
From short and linear two-dimensional stages to free-flowing flying courses, from chill flat gardens to cylindrical puzzle boxes, from an interconnected semi-realistic architectural space to an ethereal cube with some coins in it, from water that behaves normally from water that just floats in the middle of somewhere, everything is fair game in Super Mario Galaxy. Everything. You want to put lava in direct contact with ice? Sure. You want to invert gravity for absolutely no particular reason in just this specific spot? Just do it.
Mario Galaxy is Nintendo at the absolute top of its level design game. Because not only are these sets and settings inventive, but they all work in favor of bringing about great gameplay. In Mario Odyssey, Nintendo made a ton of great moves for Mario and then made a few stages in which he could do its thing; in Galaxy, Nintendo gave Mario a fairly basic set of moves but made a million of completely different and absolutely incredible spaces in which he could shine.
And, level design being one of my favorite disciplines in game design, of course I'm all over this. It's my favorite Mario ever.
From short and linear two-dimensional stages to free-flowing flying courses, from chill flat gardens to cylindrical puzzle boxes, from an interconnected semi-realistic architectural space to an ethereal cube with some coins in it, from water that behaves normally from water that just floats in the middle of somewhere, everything is fair game in Super Mario Galaxy. Everything. You want to put lava in direct contact with ice? Sure. You want to invert gravity for absolutely no particular reason in just this specific spot? Just do it.
Mario Galaxy is Nintendo at the absolute top of its level design game. Because not only are these sets and settings inventive, but they all work in favor of bringing about great gameplay. In Mario Odyssey, Nintendo made a ton of great moves for Mario and then made a few stages in which he could do its thing; in Galaxy, Nintendo gave Mario a fairly basic set of moves but made a million of completely different and absolutely incredible spaces in which he could shine.
And, level design being one of my favorite disciplines in game design, of course I'm all over this. It's my favorite Mario ever.
2018
What a game! My review (in Portuguese): https://www.fabiobracht.blog/celeste/
2018
For better or worse, this game is the action movie no movie could ever be. Both funny and heartfelt, it's a worthy 2-player successor to the incredible "Bothers: A Tale of Two Sons" (the previous game by the same team). Take your best player 2, reserve an evening (the game takes around 6 hours to complete), and try to empathize as much as possible with your character. You won't regret it.
2007
Other than maybe Smash Ultimate, TF2 is my most played game ever, and I stopped playing it almost 10 years ago. This game was simply incredible at its height. I logged in again last night (in 2020) and I can't say the magic isn't there anymore, its just that it's incredibly diluted.
2016
Imagine a cake. The batter and filling are... ok. They are serviceable. But the frosting is incredible. Not only it looks amazing, but it's also tasty as hell. This is the Titanfall 2 campaign: polished to the max, but without substance.
The action is fine, the shooting is shooty enough, and it certainly feels empowering to climb inside a huge robot that's not only a killing machine full of super powers, but is also your friend. Plus, all the wall-running and wall-jumping makes for some pretty entertaining platforming sections. But in the end, it's just an FPS. It doesn't really bring anything super new to the table, nor does it reinvent any wheels in any interesting way.
When the credits started rolling, everyone in the cast appeared, the character models along with their Titan robots and the name of the voice actors. And all I could think was: who are these people? I played through the whole thing and it was just like... OK, I recognize some of these names, but I couldn't describe anyting about the majority of them, or what their motivations were. Plus, the story couldn't get me to care about any of the literally world-shattering threats. It was just a collection of stages for me to shoot and run through. The biggest story beat happened in a long-ass audio log that I had to sit through, not playing the game.
It's not a bad game (again, the frosting is unbelievable). It's just not really a good one either. Maybe spend 8 hours with a different game?
The action is fine, the shooting is shooty enough, and it certainly feels empowering to climb inside a huge robot that's not only a killing machine full of super powers, but is also your friend. Plus, all the wall-running and wall-jumping makes for some pretty entertaining platforming sections. But in the end, it's just an FPS. It doesn't really bring anything super new to the table, nor does it reinvent any wheels in any interesting way.
When the credits started rolling, everyone in the cast appeared, the character models along with their Titan robots and the name of the voice actors. And all I could think was: who are these people? I played through the whole thing and it was just like... OK, I recognize some of these names, but I couldn't describe anyting about the majority of them, or what their motivations were. Plus, the story couldn't get me to care about any of the literally world-shattering threats. It was just a collection of stages for me to shoot and run through. The biggest story beat happened in a long-ass audio log that I had to sit through, not playing the game.
It's not a bad game (again, the frosting is unbelievable). It's just not really a good one either. Maybe spend 8 hours with a different game?
2014
Simply as a game, the moment to moment matches are one of the best strategic experiences I ever had in gaming.
You have your deck and your own gameplan, and you're agains someone else with their deck and their gameplan. Who can execute better? Who can make the correct plays? Knowing both your gameplan and your opponent's, and making correct plays based on that knowledge, feels amazing.
The tactile nature of the cards and their spawned minions on the board is a testament to the absurd level of polish that Blizzard can put into a game. This is a freaking card game, and even its sounds design is top-class.
People complain about the dreaded RNG, but the randomness in this game is 100% fun. It's not fun when you lose because of it, but then again nothing that makes you lose is fun. So people who complain about RNG, in my book, are just sore losers. Because at the end of the day, the randomness that's possible to be implemented in this game due to its digital nature is the life and soul of what makes Hearthstone special. It creates moments during matches that no physical card game could ever dream of creating.
If this was the end of my review, it would be a 5-star one and I'd end by saying Hearthstone is almost nothing short of a masterpiece.
But.
It's free-to-play.
Free-to-play games, by their own design, carry inescapable bullshit with them. And Hearthstone is no different. Card packs are nothing but gacha bullshit; grinding for gold if you don't want to spend real money turns a beautiful game into a tiresome second job; trying to keep current with powerful deck strategies at every expansion gets incredibly expensive really fast (I know I've cumulatively spend way more than $60 in this game, and I spend a couple of years completely away from it); and in time you are burdened with the weight of the sunken cost of all the time and/or money you're invested in the game becoming obsolete with new expansions.
In short: Hearthstone is an absolutely incredible strategy card game if and only if you are ok with thinking about it as a subscription game that costs an average of [price of average expansion divided by 3]/month. In this case, you will have fun and the game will be highly enjoyable... until you stop paying.
You have your deck and your own gameplan, and you're agains someone else with their deck and their gameplan. Who can execute better? Who can make the correct plays? Knowing both your gameplan and your opponent's, and making correct plays based on that knowledge, feels amazing.
The tactile nature of the cards and their spawned minions on the board is a testament to the absurd level of polish that Blizzard can put into a game. This is a freaking card game, and even its sounds design is top-class.
People complain about the dreaded RNG, but the randomness in this game is 100% fun. It's not fun when you lose because of it, but then again nothing that makes you lose is fun. So people who complain about RNG, in my book, are just sore losers. Because at the end of the day, the randomness that's possible to be implemented in this game due to its digital nature is the life and soul of what makes Hearthstone special. It creates moments during matches that no physical card game could ever dream of creating.
If this was the end of my review, it would be a 5-star one and I'd end by saying Hearthstone is almost nothing short of a masterpiece.
But.
It's free-to-play.
Free-to-play games, by their own design, carry inescapable bullshit with them. And Hearthstone is no different. Card packs are nothing but gacha bullshit; grinding for gold if you don't want to spend real money turns a beautiful game into a tiresome second job; trying to keep current with powerful deck strategies at every expansion gets incredibly expensive really fast (I know I've cumulatively spend way more than $60 in this game, and I spend a couple of years completely away from it); and in time you are burdened with the weight of the sunken cost of all the time and/or money you're invested in the game becoming obsolete with new expansions.
In short: Hearthstone is an absolutely incredible strategy card game if and only if you are ok with thinking about it as a subscription game that costs an average of [price of average expansion divided by 3]/month. In this case, you will have fun and the game will be highly enjoyable... until you stop paying.
2015
Impossibly high skill ceiling, delivered on an impossibly slick package with incredibly smooth gameplay. Like a real sport, it makes you incredibly mad with your shortcomings and losses but ecstatic with happiness at each and every win, big or small. Love it or hate it (most likely both), but you won't be able to play this straight-faced.
It just remains to be see whether the move to free-to-play will ruin the game in any way.
It just remains to be see whether the move to free-to-play will ruin the game in any way.
2016
In a perfect world, this game would have exploded in a similar way to Fall Guys. A much better (and much more fun) multiplayer party game that's also competitive and approachable. It's confusing at first, but this is part of the fun. Once you get the hang of the fast-paced minigames (and stop forgetting that you'll literally die just for standing still), it's a joy! Too bad the online matchmaking fails more often than succeeds.
Good game, quality game, it just didn't kept me excited for long enough to finish it.
2020
Cool concept, flawed execution. It starts up really strong, introduces a few mechanics, but as you get yourself involved with the game you start to notice some annoyances.
(For example: if you reach secret areas in the game, you find collectible hats. I hated the hat I found, but there was no way to remove it. I even contacted the devs on Steam and they confirmed it wasn't possible to remove the hat. This is just one silly example.)
Abandoned it when it failed to introduce a new mechanic (the yellow liquid) in a thoroughly clear way. Solving increasingly difficult puzzles with a mechanic the game didn't take proper care of explaining to a satisfactory level isn't my idea of fun. The game was tight up until that point, and I wish it had maintained my interest.
But take my opinion with a grain of salt. My relationship with puzzle games is I often find them super interesting conceptually, but I tend to abandon them fairly easily. If you have a higher tolerance for opaque puzzle games, you may very well enjoy this a whole lot.
(For example: if you reach secret areas in the game, you find collectible hats. I hated the hat I found, but there was no way to remove it. I even contacted the devs on Steam and they confirmed it wasn't possible to remove the hat. This is just one silly example.)
Abandoned it when it failed to introduce a new mechanic (the yellow liquid) in a thoroughly clear way. Solving increasingly difficult puzzles with a mechanic the game didn't take proper care of explaining to a satisfactory level isn't my idea of fun. The game was tight up until that point, and I wish it had maintained my interest.
But take my opinion with a grain of salt. My relationship with puzzle games is I often find them super interesting conceptually, but I tend to abandon them fairly easily. If you have a higher tolerance for opaque puzzle games, you may very well enjoy this a whole lot.
2012
I didn't play this game in 2012, and in 2020 it definitely feels like a 2012 game.
It was certainly an interesting experience and it does make serious efforts in conveying its themes using gameplay and art — with mixed to positive results. I'm just not sure the experience this game brings isn't superceded by newer and more well-realized games, even ones such as Giant Sparrow's own "What Remains of Edith Finch".
It's a curio from a different indie era. As such, it might be fascinating and enchanting to some, while just smelling of dust and mold to others.
It was certainly an interesting experience and it does make serious efforts in conveying its themes using gameplay and art — with mixed to positive results. I'm just not sure the experience this game brings isn't superceded by newer and more well-realized games, even ones such as Giant Sparrow's own "What Remains of Edith Finch".
It's a curio from a different indie era. As such, it might be fascinating and enchanting to some, while just smelling of dust and mold to others.
2017
Play this immediately if:
1. You enjoyed games like Firewatch, Gone Home, or The Return of Obra Dinn.
2. You have any interest in sci-fi stories that deal with relevant themes about where we're headed in relation to privacy, AI development ethics, and the precarization of human labor due to the increasing automation of many kinds of jobs that is already taking place in 2021.
1. You enjoyed games like Firewatch, Gone Home, or The Return of Obra Dinn.
2. You have any interest in sci-fi stories that deal with relevant themes about where we're headed in relation to privacy, AI development ethics, and the precarization of human labor due to the increasing automation of many kinds of jobs that is already taking place in 2021.