I’m not sure where to even start with this one. I try not to throw this term around, but Hollow Knight is a masterpiece and a real triumph of video game design. While this type of game isn’t for everyone, it’s exactly what I’m looking for in a single-player experience. I was never bored in this world, never so hopelessly lost that I was close to giving up, and never too frustrated. There was always that idea of something to go back to, something to try, and while quite difficult at times, it was extremely fair and not punishing for the sake of being punishing. Even during backtracking I was enjoying myself, poking around, pushing what initially looked to be possible. I can’t imagine how difficult it is to design a game that flows this well. Combine that with stunning visuals, a beautiful soundtrack, and great controls, and you can see why so many people love it.

Just give it a go. Get lost in the world, soak up the atmosphere, listen to the comments and thoughts of your fellow creatures, and enjoy one of the best gaming experiences out there.

Cruelty Squad is a very interesting game, one that I thoroughly enjoy but also feel somewhat sour on.

I love the art style, vomit on the screen that somehow ends up being cohesive when you actually play the game. Same thing with the vibes, the bleak and hyper-cynical capitalist hellscape where human life is worth less than the price of the organs. However, the game is very on the nose so it feels less like scathing commentary and more so a parody. The writing is also quite funny and fits with how absurd the game is. The music does suck though, it fits, but it just sounds like ass. The absurdity also extends to controls and game systems as well.

What is the reload button? If you said R then what were you thinking you buffoon, clearly it would be holding right-click and slamming your mouse downward you stupid idiot. R is logically the interact button. L-shift is aim-down-sights, swap weapon is C, and crouch is X. This is the way God intended man to play FPS games. To keep to wackiness going, there is not one, not two, but three different stock markets; one for actual company stocks, and the other two are for speculative biological investments, human organs and fish. I am a big fan of Balls Fish.

Levels are large and filled with multiple routes. You may even notice places that you can’t reach. That’s where bodily enhancements come into play. Ever felt like your appendix is just being a freeloader and not contributing enough, then why not make it a grappling hook. Why stop there, make your back and feet shoot gunk to jump and zoom around the place. Frickin’ absolve yourself in a flesh suit to be more protected but removing more than have of your visibility. The augments are all very thematic and some really shake up how you play the game, like the grappendix. The grappendix is one of the earlier augments that really shake up how you approach missions. You start off peaking around corners to get the jump on enemies, to flinging yourself to your target and finishing levels in less than a minute. There is one caveat though, why is everything so expensive. There is cheapo stuff, but it ranges from boring to making the game nigh unplayable, looking at you nightmare goggles.

If you want to truly experience Cruelty Squad, you have to grind for money. Which I guess fits the capitalist hellscape, but this is a game, and I want to have fun on a game. You don’t get paid relatively much for completing missions, so you’re forced to play the market. Playing the stock market is not something I enjoy doing, I want to be a Cruelty Squad employee not some wannabe stock trader. You can also grind for fish, especially a certain sewer dwelling fish, but again I want to play Cruelty Squad, not be a fisherman. It sucks that you have to go through menial garbage, just to open up the game. Also, the “final” level sucks. The best parts of the final level are the shortcut that skips the godawful block pushing puzzles with Gorbino from megahit Gorbino’s Quest harassing you and the ending. The rest of the level is fine, it’s just that terrible block pushing. Additionally, difficulty selection is overly convoluted, even for this game. If you’re confused how difficulty selection can be convoluted, then pay attention to the screen borders and you’ll figure it out soon enough.

Cruelty Squad is a truly absurd and strange game. I wish is didn’t feel as sour as I do on it, but I walk away from it thinking about how one of a kind and different it is. That alone elevates it to something special, even with my gripes. It is definitely worth experiencing firsthand.

In attempting to make a much more engrossing and complex game, Betrayal At Club Low trades surrealist elements for novel game design.

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Surreality is a hard thing to nail down I think. So much of it revolves around subverting and defying expectations, dancing in the sort of liminal space of your subconscious (you might even call it… subliminal….). Its no wonder however, that gameplay systems present some obstacles in performing notions of the surreal, because gameplay systems require some definition - players need to understand what theyre doing, especially as systems become more complex.

And Cosmo D takes a stab at mixing 2 of some of the most complex genres I could think of in terms of what I might call “mechanical intuitiveness”: Tabletop Role-Playing, and Immersive Sims.

In truth, this pairing is actually quite genius, because both genres revolve around “mechanical interplay”, what some people refer to in shorthand as “sandbox design” (tho thats often a vague term that could apply to many aspects). Another way to say this would be that both genres focus less on predefined situations and encounters and instead try to let things play out procedurally according to a collection of rules and parameters. In an Immersive Sim, structures are given many varied entrances and patrolling enemies are given complex behavior-based AI to sort of create a “sandbox” of possibilities that come together in a (hopefully) exciting and dynamic experience.

(Also I have to say, I fucking hate the term “Immersive Sim”. “Immersion” is a quality almost every genre could have, and “Sim” is maybe sort of accurate but not exactly how that word is typically used in video games genre I digress I digress UGH)

What results is like the ultimate realization of a spy on a mission: a game where you have to break into a facility and react on your feet when luck doesnt break your way. Games that use dice rolls to determine the success of an action arent new but I dont think Ive ever seen a dice rolling system like this. Instead of just upgrading a skill, you upgrade the dice values, roll bonus dice you can customize, and even have to contend with conditional dice you gain as penalties or as rewards from some of the interactions you can have at Club Low. Its incredibly engaging and turns luck into a pseudo-strategic affair.

But this is also a very dense set of mechanics to contend with and this expanded, elaborated complexity in the game design means theres less space for the uncanny and dreamlike experience Cosmo D’s previous work usually involves. With many more things to do and alot more things to understand, theres alot less “vibing” to do. Alot less soaking it in.

But!

I dont think this means the game has less personality. The situations are still patently absurd, its just a matter of the effort shifting into other sectors. Failing dice rolls is its own form of comedy and there is a much greater abundance of writing to read and enjoy and engage with. Its now less a thing you merely witness and much more a thing you participate in. That does feel different of course, but not “worse”. The challenge for Cosmo D might be figuring out how to do both at the same time - but alot of Off-Peaks surreal qualities were often also just creative storytelling concessions in games where you could only really walk around and look at things.

Theres room to innovate here and find ways to bring back the stronger atmosphere but it might be worth keeping in mind that vibing is sort of all you could do in the previous games.

I honestly don't know where to start. This game is incredible. Never have I played a game that focused so much on the story and didn't fail to deliver. It's a heavy political game but is by no means woke because they portray all political sides in a respected manner. The combat can feel a bit dated but it's not something that matters since it's not what you're gonna remember this game for. The world looks interesting even with vanilla graphics and it's made so incredibly well like there's always something to explore. The only problems I have with this game is that the achievements are not working properly and it crashes frequently. But if you save frequently it's not gonna be an issue and you can use mods for the achievements.

- Ave true to Caesar

I’ve tried writing this over and over, and I keep failing to express how much I enjoy Kentucky Route Zero.

It’s a surreal, edge-of-consciousness ghost story about dying rural towns. Places tucked away, at the end of lonely roads, almost completely forgotten except by their dwindling inhabitants.

It’s a deeply personal, realist character study of working-class America, with dialogue that’s not only astoundingly well-written, but nuanced, and often endearing, despite its weighty themes.

It’s a travel story, where the final destination is shrouded in mystery and can only be accessed from a secret, reality-bending highway, buried deep beneath the caves of Kentucky. Hidden in plain sight.

It’s highly experimental. It’s not afraid to radically change graphic styles, gameplay mechanics, and control schemes. The soundtrack ranges from ethereal instrumental bluegrass, to buzzy drone ambient, to shoegaze, to synthpop, to anything and everything in between.

It took seven years to complete.

I want to keep writing about KRZ, but I also don’t, because it really should be experienced by you.

I have an admission: all of the other games I played this year are escapes. They’re enjoyable, and they’re fun to play, but when I turn them off, they disappear and I don’t think about them too much afterwards.

Kentucky Route Zero is different.

That’s not to say that it’s not enjoyable, or I had a bad time playing it. But I can see it pushing the entire medium of video games forward in a way most other games can’t even conceive of doing, let alone pull off successfully.

Do yourself a favor: after you finish reading this, go and pick it up. It's liquor for the soul and a dream that I wish I could never wake up from.

Dave the Diver: Cute, colorful and charming, but Dave sure knows how to overstay his welcome. Variety becomes “too much of a good thing”, and eventually you're bogged down in so much managerial work that Dave the Diver can feel like a series of chores that will, interestingly enough, have you opt out of the diving portion most often.

If you know this game, you know you dive for fish by day and manage a sushi restaurant by night. “Cool,” you're thinking, “I loved Moonlighter!” Well, Dave is comically ambitious, as he chooses to moonlight as many different things: waiter, bartender, busboy, and photographer; he'll farm eggs, vegetables, fish, and underwater crops; occasionally hunt terrorists and ancient leviathans. Really, Dave does it all while managing to hang onto his curvaceous figure much like Hurley from “Lost”.

So there's lots going on, but that's good, right? You just gotta trust me: this game goes on far too long and is crammed with too much stuff. Dave the Diver is very good until it isn't, probably around the one third or halfway mark is where there's too much you "have" to do.
The diving part of Dave the Diver becomes almost an afterthought; you'll be overflowing with fish from your farms at a certain point so that when you do finally dive, it's to grab something specific that of course you'll then have trouble finding. You just saw a cookiecutter shark last time, where are the bastards, now?!

Despite looking like a game that your grandma might play, Dave the Diver is surprisingly cruel to you, too. When you die diving, you can only bring back one thing and the rest is wasted time. This is far too brutal, when your weight is high enough you may have dozens of things you were hoping to bring back (this is of course before your farms are self-sustaining).
The decision to tie your health to your oxygen was probably a poor one, as you may look over at your O2 and say “90? Plenty of time!” but then a narwhal only has to bump into you for an instant death, losing all the rare minerals you'd just grabbed that run. Bringing back a single item is almost worse than nothing at all as you're forced to go through your entire inventory and see exactly what you won't be bringing back home.

Dave is far too sluggish in the water for this lousy combat system. He can barely dodge (if you even equip the right necklace, that is) and his aiming is terrible, he can't aim up or down. Are his weapons good? Well, you'd be a fool to bring anything other than the dart gun or net launcher, as those get you the three star fish with the added chance of eggs for your farms. So even though there are sniper rifles and grenade launchers, you'll very likely not even upgrade them, cause why bother? Maybe you'll bring a rifle if you know you're headed for a boss fight, but that's about it.

My favorite part of this game was the sushi restaurant managing. I liked enhancing my food options before choosing the menu then kicking things off, watching my freshly-upgraded staff help me sling expensive dishes and clean up messes to make room for the next sucker I could rip off. It's good, but it's only a fraction of the game. Everything becomes a small fraction and you can't really skip much of anything if you want to make money and get Bancho his five star ratings each night. You can let your Tamagotchi die, but you won't miss out on vegetables and fish, those are big bucks.
I had a good deal of fun with the restaurant, but the other main reason for giving it the high(er) rating despite not loving too much of the game is the incredible pixel art. The cutscenes are phenomenal and even the “simple” pixelated models of characters look great against their 3D backdrops. The sounds are lacking, especially compared to the visuals; I don't think a single musical track is worth listening to and none of the sound effects are particularly good. The journalist's “voice”, god, was that painful to hear over and over.

You definitely get a lot of bang for your buck with Dave the Diver, but I doubt many people will enjoy new minigame after new minigame. If you were hoping to just dive and serve food, you might hate how convoluted this game becomes. I just got sick of it eventually.

I wouldn't really recommend the game.

Holy shit, what an incredible experience. With just the right level of gameplay to compliment the writing, the only things I can think to compare this to are other dialogue-heavy adventure games like Night in the Woods or Oxenfree, but this is entirely different beast.

On the level of writing, subtext and dialogue this was made explicitly for me to love it, with a perfect mix of surface narrative and visceral metaphorical surrealism. It's a story of delivering antiques, but also of loss, working class struggle, modern pastoral industrialisation fears and how the world late stage capitalism creates forgets and leaves behind the people who build it, amongst so many other things.

On the front of art and music this game blows you away, gameplay perfectly joins with stunning visuals that perfectly mix with music into this fantastic stew of a game that's everything I love in film and literature, with a pure, concerntrated southern gothic aesthetic over so many visual styles and locations.
However, I do say 'film and literature' because normally I do ask for a little more game from a game, but that's likely just my being spoiled by my love for fast, deep action games, and anything more than what it's doing simply would not work here.

The story of Conway especially really drives home the commentary on corporate debt in the lower classes, losing his very body in surprisingly literal ways, and being so downtrodden he does nothing about it, it's subtly pulled off but still has the emotional impact you'd want.
Shannon's story displays how the harmful effects of this awful cycle can go down through generations, affecting them forever.

The end of the game shows us this rotten society, destroyed by forces beyond it's control, and something new, 5 Dogwood Drive, that just maybe we can make something better from. The Zero itself is a loop, metaphorically representing the awful cycle of capitalist and corporate greed, and the only way out is by literally escaping. Conway represents this old world perfectly, and the scene in the factory was gut-wrenching, what should be a personal hell for a recovering alcoholic who hates his delivery job (delivering whiskey) but he is numb to it, and he is swept up and lost. The rest of our characters, young and willing to find the new; especially Ezra, who also represents a connection with this strange new world and all of it's... strangeness, are the only ones who can forge a new way.

This game has the same subtextual depth I'm always looking for in literature and film, but it's so rare to see this level and this well executed a version of that in a video game, and I'm so glad we're moving into a world where that is becoming the norm. This was an astounding experience and one of the finest video games I've ever played, once again part of me wishes there was more game, but I can't dock points for my childish need to have action action action jump hit boom.

Upfront: I didn't really like this game. But, I'm still recommending it cuz it's a unique experience and really cheap (especially on a sale). If the premise and screenshots seem like it'll be up your alley for an hour and half, get it. If you want creepy underwater horror, play Soma instead.

But, overall, I found it kind of... pointless? Unsatisfying. I didn't read much into the game (again, it was so cheap I just threw it in the cart) so I thought, "Hey, an underwater submarine game sounds like a nightmare, let's try it out!" It started off promising with a unique sci-fi concept and, once you find a way to interact with the computer, some really interesting history and lore that makes you wish you were doing something else within the game.

The gameplay is DREADFULLY boring. I would have rather it been a walking simulator at this point. The scares were VERY few and far between, especially at the end when [REDACTED]. I think I saw one creepy fish face near one of the sites that went away, but it looked like those normal creepy fish that live at the bottom of our ocean--you know the ones, the large teeth and dead eyes and bioluminescent bulb.

I think the potential was there: I loved the concept, I'm usually a fan of PSX graphics, and creepy underwater photos are fun. But the payoff was poor and all the "scares" were audio only with--again--no pay off.

Maybe this game would've benefited from NOT using the trendy PSX graphics. Maybe something ultra realistic with the Unreal engine would've sold the coffin submarine vibe more. I dunno, but what I do know is I walked away disappointed, ESPECIALLY after getting the last photograph for the hidden achievement. I can't believe that was it.