Queso_Gatame
2022
The core combat gameplay is okay and Bayo herself is charming. Everything else kinda sucks.
2022
It's really quite impressive that such a simple game held my attention for as long as it did. It's my favorite mobile game since the Pokemon Go craze of 2016.
2021
I liked it better than Mario Odyssey. The platforming gameplay is solid if a bit rough in places. But the narrative and art direction are among the best of 2021.
Extremely well executed open-world game that takes the best elements of the genre and fuses them with Zelda flavors/mechanics without falling into the Ubisoft checklist trap.
2021
You know the deal. EA's yearly phoned-in Madden game.
I'm actually glad I played it, though, because it's now my benchmark for a perfectly mediocre game. It basically does everything it sets out to do, but in the most uninspired way possible with almost no real creativity or innovation and with nothing standing out as particularly well done.
I'm actually glad I played it, though, because it's now my benchmark for a perfectly mediocre game. It basically does everything it sets out to do, but in the most uninspired way possible with almost no real creativity or innovation and with nothing standing out as particularly well done.
2021
This review contains spoilers
A wonderfully designed stealth action game that offers an ingenious solution to one of the genre's main design problems.
Most games like this give you a bunch of combat tools but try to discourage you from using them. Dishonored, for example, gives you narrative reasons not to kill people: doing so makes the game's world observably worse. The problem is that it's very easy to abuse quicksave and quickload to get through levels without killing anyone, rendering the combat mechanics mostly useless and ultimately deflating the game's sense of stakes.
Deathloop goes in almost the opposite direction. It takes away quicksave, so you're forced to deal with the consequences of breaking stealth. You also have to kill the game's main antagonists. And because everyone in the game is living in a time loop, there's no real reason to feel bad about killing anyone -- the NPCs themselves barely seem to care about you killing them.
Now these choices could easily have rendered the stealth mechanics obsolete, by Arkane has done an excellent job of balancing out the difficulty level and the costs of dying such that it makes sense to get by unseen when you can. While player skill and the right loadout often do make it possible to brute-force situations -- especially after you've been through the loop enough times to acquire the right equipment -- charging into combat recklessly is still generally a bad idea. This adds an additional interesting decision-point for the player: you have to decide whether it's a good idea to initiate combat based on your loadout, the environment, the number of enemies around, etc.
All in all a beautifully executed game. I think the story is a bit lacking, though. The setting, characters, and overall tone and aesthetic are all pretty charming. But I would have liked to see the two main characters develop some more, and there are some questions that the game leaves frustratingly unanswered.
Most games like this give you a bunch of combat tools but try to discourage you from using them. Dishonored, for example, gives you narrative reasons not to kill people: doing so makes the game's world observably worse. The problem is that it's very easy to abuse quicksave and quickload to get through levels without killing anyone, rendering the combat mechanics mostly useless and ultimately deflating the game's sense of stakes.
Deathloop goes in almost the opposite direction. It takes away quicksave, so you're forced to deal with the consequences of breaking stealth. You also have to kill the game's main antagonists. And because everyone in the game is living in a time loop, there's no real reason to feel bad about killing anyone -- the NPCs themselves barely seem to care about you killing them.
Now these choices could easily have rendered the stealth mechanics obsolete, by Arkane has done an excellent job of balancing out the difficulty level and the costs of dying such that it makes sense to get by unseen when you can. While player skill and the right loadout often do make it possible to brute-force situations -- especially after you've been through the loop enough times to acquire the right equipment -- charging into combat recklessly is still generally a bad idea. This adds an additional interesting decision-point for the player: you have to decide whether it's a good idea to initiate combat based on your loadout, the environment, the number of enemies around, etc.
All in all a beautifully executed game. I think the story is a bit lacking, though. The setting, characters, and overall tone and aesthetic are all pretty charming. But I would have liked to see the two main characters develop some more, and there are some questions that the game leaves frustratingly unanswered.
2013
A short, but very rewarding, meditation on video games and the relationship between developers and players.
2012
A really fun blend of life/relationship simulator with dungeon-crawling JRPG. My main problem is that the dungeons themselves are really bland.
2017
I honestly don't get the hype. The game is certainly well-crafted and a lot of fun to play. But there's nothing revolutionary about it, and if anything the hat-throwing gimmick is less interesting than those found in other 3D Mario games like Sunshine.
2007
I've logged more hours in this game than in any other. It's easy to get into, but has a high skill ceiling and endless charm.
The most lavishly detailed open world I've experienced. It has excellent characters and, while the main story of the game is poorly paced, there are some really exceptional beats and vignettes. Suffers somewhat from the fact that the wide range of tasks it wants you to perform during missions aren't well handled by the old GTA-style mechanics/control scheme.
2021
Classic Metroid is back and about as good as it's ever been. I only have two real complaints:
First, the scale and production value feel a bit lacking for a $60 game. But that's more of a problem with Nintendo than with the game itself.
Second, the game didn't give me the same sense of isolation or (drum roll) dread that some other entries in the series have. Dread's invincible EMMI robots aren't as menacing as Fusion's SA-X, and the environments lack Prime's feeling of lonely expanse.
First, the scale and production value feel a bit lacking for a $60 game. But that's more of a problem with Nintendo than with the game itself.
Second, the game didn't give me the same sense of isolation or (drum roll) dread that some other entries in the series have. Dread's invincible EMMI robots aren't as menacing as Fusion's SA-X, and the environments lack Prime's feeling of lonely expanse.
2017
The setting and characters are charming, and the story is certainly worth telling. Unfortunately, the interactive elements of the game are so sparse, boring, and disconnected from the (very good!) story elements that I actually think this would have been better as a movie or comic book.
2017
Old-school side-scrolling shooter with a unique aesthetic and an emphasis on boss battles rather than full levels. Highly recommend.
2015
This review contains spoilers
I wish more open world games would follow Yakuza in giving the player a smaller, more densely packed world to explore. Fighting mechanics are fun but become very repetitive. The story, while mostly compelling, is probably more convoluted than it needs to be and suffers a bit from soap-opera "no one's ever really dead" syndrome.