50 reviews liked by Half
Balatro
2024
This proves that, given the chance, I'd absolutely develop a gambling problem
Balatro
2024
actually dangerous for your productivity, good shit
Balatro
2024
what the hell does balatro mean
Cocoon
2023
My brain hurts. It just cannot fathom how anyone could possibly come up with some of these puzzles. But Cocoon works so well because none of these puzzles trick you, they're all incredibly satisfying to solve, and everything you need is in plain sight. It just needs a bit of grey matter exercising to put 2 and 2 together.
Cocoon is a beautifully crafted video game. Soothing visuals and sounds are the perfect accompaniment to the assortment of puzzles, which gradually increase in scope, scale and difficulty as the roughly 5 or 6 hours it takes to complete the game passes.
I also thought that the puzzles were perfectly pitched in terms of challenge and timescale. Not one seemed to overstay its welcome - there was certainly a few forehead slaps when I worked out a puzzle that stumped me for a while, but that was my brain's fault, not the game's!
I think a sign of a truly great game is when you wake up thinking about it. Or when you think 'just another 30 minutes' late at night, and you stay hooked for a few more hours. Cocoon did both of these to me - it's one of the coolest and inventive games I've played in a while.
Cocoon is a beautifully crafted video game. Soothing visuals and sounds are the perfect accompaniment to the assortment of puzzles, which gradually increase in scope, scale and difficulty as the roughly 5 or 6 hours it takes to complete the game passes.
I also thought that the puzzles were perfectly pitched in terms of challenge and timescale. Not one seemed to overstay its welcome - there was certainly a few forehead slaps when I worked out a puzzle that stumped me for a while, but that was my brain's fault, not the game's!
I think a sign of a truly great game is when you wake up thinking about it. Or when you think 'just another 30 minutes' late at night, and you stay hooked for a few more hours. Cocoon did both of these to me - it's one of the coolest and inventive games I've played in a while.
Catherine
2011
Someone needs to steal the puzzle parts of this game and put it in a game that isn't horrible in its treatment of women and LGBT+ themes
Catherine
2011
This review contains spoilers
"False dichotomy the video game" is how I always refer to this game. The premise of the game's plot is that you play as Vincent, a sheepish coward of a man who is engaged to a woman named Katherine-with-a-K. One night while at the bar you frequent nightly with your friends, you meet a girl named Catherine-with-a-C, and end up cheating on your fiancé with her. This becomes a regular thing, and the central conflict of the game is making binary choices that decide who you'll end up with. The whole game is broken into two distinct sections. While you're awake you are at a bar with your friends, and this is where all of the story bits happen, talking with everyone there. While you're asleep you are trapped in a nightmare realm in which some monster representing Vincent's relationship fear of the night is tormenting him, and he must do a block moving puzzle game to escape death. The two stars I am giving this game are because the puzzle sections are genuinely good, and if that was all this game was I would love it.
Unfortunately, this game has Things It Wants To Say™ and those things are pretty horrible. At the end of each puzzle section you are put into a confession booth and given a series of false dichotomy questions to answer. The one that always stuck out to me was "Does life begin or end after marriage?" To answer this question honestly in either direction is equally cynical, marriage can be a part of life, but it is neither the beginning nor the end of it. During one of the the bar segments I also remember a patron asking a similarly asinine false dichotomy question, "Who do you hate more, men or women?" These are the two examples that stick out most in my memory, but every question the game throws at you is like this.
The reason every choice in the game is framed this way is because the game has an extremely sexist assumption at its core. I suppose if I were to apply a more feminist framework to my dubbing of the game as "false dichotomy the game" I could instead give it the moniker of "virgin-whore dichotomy the game." You see, each of the two options of every question you've been answering falls into one of two categories, "freedom" or "order", and each of these ideas are represented by Catherine and Katherine respectively. There is zero room for grey here, if your answers were too close to a 50/50 split throughout the game, Vincent ends up alone as he can't decide what he wants. If you choose "Order" you end up with Katherine, who the game frames as mature, dull, and controlling, but stable. And if you choose "Freedom" you end up with Catherine, who the game frames as infantile, sexy, and exciting, yet erratic. You cannot be free with Katherine, and you cannot have order with Catherine, according to the game you must choose, virgin or whore. If you think I'm being too harsh, here is the pièce de résistance: in a final twist at the end of the game it is revealed that Catherine is literally a succubus.
And on top of all of this sexist garbage, they also decided to throw in a trans character just to treat her transness as a Cool Bit of Lore™ that you can find out about if you pick up on hints, or get this, if you see them deadname the character in the credits. This is the only Atlus game I've played and apparently queerphobia and transphobia are trends in their games, and it's the one thing that makes me hesitant to get into any of their other works. After all of this, I'm not quite sure how I can end this review with anything other than a resounding "fuuuuuuck this!"
Unfortunately, this game has Things It Wants To Say™ and those things are pretty horrible. At the end of each puzzle section you are put into a confession booth and given a series of false dichotomy questions to answer. The one that always stuck out to me was "Does life begin or end after marriage?" To answer this question honestly in either direction is equally cynical, marriage can be a part of life, but it is neither the beginning nor the end of it. During one of the the bar segments I also remember a patron asking a similarly asinine false dichotomy question, "Who do you hate more, men or women?" These are the two examples that stick out most in my memory, but every question the game throws at you is like this.
The reason every choice in the game is framed this way is because the game has an extremely sexist assumption at its core. I suppose if I were to apply a more feminist framework to my dubbing of the game as "false dichotomy the game" I could instead give it the moniker of "virgin-whore dichotomy the game." You see, each of the two options of every question you've been answering falls into one of two categories, "freedom" or "order", and each of these ideas are represented by Catherine and Katherine respectively. There is zero room for grey here, if your answers were too close to a 50/50 split throughout the game, Vincent ends up alone as he can't decide what he wants. If you choose "Order" you end up with Katherine, who the game frames as mature, dull, and controlling, but stable. And if you choose "Freedom" you end up with Catherine, who the game frames as infantile, sexy, and exciting, yet erratic. You cannot be free with Katherine, and you cannot have order with Catherine, according to the game you must choose, virgin or whore. If you think I'm being too harsh, here is the pièce de résistance: in a final twist at the end of the game it is revealed that Catherine is literally a succubus.
And on top of all of this sexist garbage, they also decided to throw in a trans character just to treat her transness as a Cool Bit of Lore™ that you can find out about if you pick up on hints, or get this, if you see them deadname the character in the credits. This is the only Atlus game I've played and apparently queerphobia and transphobia are trends in their games, and it's the one thing that makes me hesitant to get into any of their other works. After all of this, I'm not quite sure how I can end this review with anything other than a resounding "fuuuuuuck this!"
Catherine
2011
absolutely hates women and denies them any personhood at all but simultaneously tries to be a critique of impotent men who hate women and deny them their personhood
IT FAILS REAL BAD!!!
A real shame because some of the satoshi kon-esque psychological imagery can be fun and the puzzle gamplay is devious and interesting.
The transphobic stuff is just repulsive and sad. The fact that this game was branded as some dark and cerebral adult drama that analyzes relationship dynamics is a pathetic joke. There's less nuance here than a Two and a Half Men episode.
IT FAILS REAL BAD!!!
A real shame because some of the satoshi kon-esque psychological imagery can be fun and the puzzle gamplay is devious and interesting.
The transphobic stuff is just repulsive and sad. The fact that this game was branded as some dark and cerebral adult drama that analyzes relationship dynamics is a pathetic joke. There's less nuance here than a Two and a Half Men episode.
Catherine
2011
i wanted more puzzles and both of these c/katherines suck doodoo
Solar Ash
2021
I'm pretty sure that if you took this game and cut out all the dialogue, npcs, exposition, collectibles, enemies, boss fights, and the ability for you to even take damage, and just had Solar Ash be this ambient vibes-focused exploration game, with stunning art direction helping form these mysterious alien worlds that you can just glide through near-effortlessly, it would honestly just completely own.
Baldur's Gate 3
2020
I am kind of a hater. My bitter soul shivers with icy excitement at the opportunity to nitpick that which is well-loved. BG3 offers a lot of nits to pick, especially if you are a story-motivated player. The overall story is, imo, surprisingly not good for a game that has received so much praise in that department. The strain of trying to weave together so many plot threads really shows. There are a lot of names thrown around that are probably supposed to be important, and goofy fantasy words that are probably supposed to mean something, and like twelve magical MacGuffins, and it all feels a bit like an AI was fed a long list of D&D tropes and tasked with fitting them in the same game. Also, whenever the story flirts with horror, it feels a bit like a bad FromSoft pastiche?
That said, there are quite a few scenes and character bits that work well in isolation. What probably happened is the developers were afraid of the game feeling too meandering and directionless, so they tried to superimpose a structure onto all these scattered backstory and sidequest ideas they had. Although I understand the impulse, the main plot is easily the dumbest and most boring part of the game, unfortunately. I think I would have preferred if the party was only traveling together because they all wanted to go to Baldur’s Gate for personal reasons–no big looming threat necessary.
Nevertheless, even my miserable shriveled little heart was warmed one or two paltry degrees by my time (roughly ten bazillion hours) with Baldur’s Gate 3. At the end of the day, it’s D&D in video game form with lots of fun and hot party members who want to bone you. It’s kind of a hard formula to mess up? Which is silly to say considering it’s also a very hard formula to, like, do, at all, given the bonkers amount of content, so I applaud them for trying. But what I mean is that the game is solid enough that bad writing is not a deal-breaker, and the moments when the writing does work are kind of nice little treats–a bit like eating Lucky Charms with not enough marshmallow pieces in it. Yes, of course, it would be nice if there were more marshmallows, but you’re still going to eat too many bowls like a big dork because hell yes the vampire twink is dtfff
That said, there are quite a few scenes and character bits that work well in isolation. What probably happened is the developers were afraid of the game feeling too meandering and directionless, so they tried to superimpose a structure onto all these scattered backstory and sidequest ideas they had. Although I understand the impulse, the main plot is easily the dumbest and most boring part of the game, unfortunately. I think I would have preferred if the party was only traveling together because they all wanted to go to Baldur’s Gate for personal reasons–no big looming threat necessary.
Nevertheless, even my miserable shriveled little heart was warmed one or two paltry degrees by my time (roughly ten bazillion hours) with Baldur’s Gate 3. At the end of the day, it’s D&D in video game form with lots of fun and hot party members who want to bone you. It’s kind of a hard formula to mess up? Which is silly to say considering it’s also a very hard formula to, like, do, at all, given the bonkers amount of content, so I applaud them for trying. But what I mean is that the game is solid enough that bad writing is not a deal-breaker, and the moments when the writing does work are kind of nice little treats–a bit like eating Lucky Charms with not enough marshmallow pieces in it. Yes, of course, it would be nice if there were more marshmallows, but you’re still going to eat too many bowls like a big dork because hell yes the vampire twink is dtfff