I liked this a lot. In the survivors genre, it can’t live up to the king, even though it predates it by a few months. I love the character design and aesthetic overall, but I wish there was more to its look. The white bullets drowning things out make it a bit difficult to perceive what’s going on sometimes, making stray bullets easier to land. I do like that in some spots it has more depth given that you have to aim and fire(though auto-aim bridges that). But its upgrades are fairly limited and its progression is a bit less rewarding.

Moment to moment it’s just as rewarding as VS, however. But given its combos and the way its synergies manifest, it’s a little harder to feel where the gap is between your choices and the offerings presented.

I love the reindeer transformation character, and the twirling Tazlike(who I finally was able to beat the three levels with).
One thing VS doesn’t do despite its sensory overload is cause a Tetris effect in me and this has.
Great game!

13 years ago, Alan Wake became my favourite game of all time. Something about this game resonated with little 13 year old Jake, and much like my crush on Ramona Flowers, it's nice to know this adoration has survived through my teens and well into my adulthood.
Back then, I couldn't properly explain why I loved this game so much, and honestly I'm not even sure I can now. The closing sentence has stuck with me for half my life at this point, and my dumbass still doesn't even fully comprehend what it means 😌

Replaying this for the first time in over a decade and using the very same collectible guide as I did back on my Xbox 360 was such a great nostalgia trip, I didn't mind the jank and rust that was still ever-present from the original release.
The last time I went for a 100% run was at my old bff's house, where I played through the entire game in one long, uninterrupted sitting. A playthrough that I'm certain was my 2nd that weekend alone, I was obsessed.

This isn't much of a review I realise but my appreciation of this game is on a deeper level than it's surface. The combat may be simple and sorta clunky but I've always really liked the unique approach of using light to basically break shields. The characters are great, a lot of them are a little one-note or weird but considering the consistent Twin Peaks vibe the game gives off, everything feels much more deliberately uncanny than lazy or amateurly written. I am of course speaking with all the bias on earth, but it's my review init 😌
The core premise with the writer and the manuscript pages you find and how everything ties together is really cool too I think. I just think it's neat :)

Hoping and praying that Alan Wake II lives up to the first, I remember liking the AWE DLC for Control so I'm confident that whatever my boy Sam has cooking will be worth the time. Maybe my review of that game will actually be a review, who knows :p

Wow, so uh. What a Rollercoaster.

I love scorn unabashedly. Every inch of this game has thought and feeling poured into it, and it genuinely challenged audiences.

So as soon as things that could hurt me appeared, i hit a terrible wall. Still unaware of how healing is refilled and barely understanding that i had health to begin with.

Then it gives you a gun that is the most dogshit weapon in a game period. Because this is a puzzle game, you don't have a real gun. And because the world of scorn is filled with a morose cruelty. I see why and love how this bit of meta worked with the game. Scorn is scorned by a ton of people who were intrigued because it's not Doom. You're a miserable little husk man who is in Hell and it's time to deal with that, trudging through confusing hallways with elaborate and usually coherently built puzzles. But you see this amazing hellish landscape and a vague gunlike thing and get disappointed when you get this exploration of a unique aesthetic.

Violence and visciousness aren't a threat or a joy, theyre just the texture of the game. You have to torture creatures similar to, lesser than and much greater than yourself to proceed, and that's all there is to do in the horrid Giger world: proceed.

It does circle around to some necessary battles, but for the most part you can(read: must) avoid the enemies of the game. This is an essential element that flipped me from agreeing with the poor reception by some and nearly ragequitting. I was using my two gamer brain cells instead of the whole, and it unlocked my higher mind when i discovered that the enemies just leave after a time, and this is what the dev intended.

When you arrive to functional weapons, the fights aren't amazing or anything but they still largely serve as puzzles, and they're still not bad if you only take on the essential fights. And the weapons are truly a sight, i love the design for them. And well, everything, from the spinal foreskin bridges to the pregnancy deus, the splitting of oneself into two and holding one's own corpse while slicing into it viscerally. If youre into body horror, this game has such sights to show you.

Half life alyx only lets you squoosh a big bug to turn into health. This lets you squish a big ugly purple baby thing(in a Frankensteinian fleshy mech suit) to make into a pregnancy key juice. This was an example of something i loved thematically. These gross babies are just acting in self defense as you painfully harvest them to just fill up your weird soul clones. Though you're mainly kinda doing it to activate the lift.

It engages my brain and activates my neurons so well, including with what it's trying to say. I think this is the kinda thing that's best left to personal interpretation, but the objective themes shown in the visuals is exactly what i want from a game and is the best format to convey these sorts of ideas.

Scorn is my favorite art game currently.