Spiderfair
2023
Absolutely loved the original game as a kid, and I love it even more as an adult.
The game feels the way it felt playing the original for the first time.
Even though I knew what was coming, some stuff still scared me, regeneradors still creeped me the hell out, and I still (yes, still) love Ashley.
There are a few minor gripes.
I hate the knife durability.
I get it, it makes sense for a survival horror, but I just hate that the canon is Leon with his pistol and ol' not-so-reliable knife that breaks constantly.
I found myself barely ever relying on my knife because of this.
I like the balance introduced with this: the bolt thrower, but it can be super annoying when a bolt goes through a fence and is permanently gone, so I just end up sticking to my other weapons.
Parrying is neat, but honestly on keyboard I couldn't find a great button that I liked using, so I ended up using my left-click to parry, which was an issue if I was ever aiming.
I like Ashley, but I was a smidge disappointed that she doesn't call me a pervert for aiming up ladders anymore.
But to counter that, she feels so much more like a human being that I like interacting with.
I love her new interactions with Leon, and I love how helpful she is.
But all these complaints are just really, really minor things that bugged me, this is still one of my favorite games of all time, and I guarantee I'll be playing it at least a dozen more times before RE5 gets remade.
In fact, this is the first time in a very long time that I've beaten a game and immediately started another playthrough.
The game feels the way it felt playing the original for the first time.
Even though I knew what was coming, some stuff still scared me, regeneradors still creeped me the hell out, and I still (yes, still) love Ashley.
There are a few minor gripes.
I hate the knife durability.
I get it, it makes sense for a survival horror, but I just hate that the canon is Leon with his pistol and ol' not-so-reliable knife that breaks constantly.
I found myself barely ever relying on my knife because of this.
I like the balance introduced with this: the bolt thrower, but it can be super annoying when a bolt goes through a fence and is permanently gone, so I just end up sticking to my other weapons.
Parrying is neat, but honestly on keyboard I couldn't find a great button that I liked using, so I ended up using my left-click to parry, which was an issue if I was ever aiming.
I like Ashley, but I was a smidge disappointed that she doesn't call me a pervert for aiming up ladders anymore.
But to counter that, she feels so much more like a human being that I like interacting with.
I love her new interactions with Leon, and I love how helpful she is.
But all these complaints are just really, really minor things that bugged me, this is still one of my favorite games of all time, and I guarantee I'll be playing it at least a dozen more times before RE5 gets remade.
In fact, this is the first time in a very long time that I've beaten a game and immediately started another playthrough.
2022
I made this game, so no rating, that's not fair.
2015
It's free now, which is an easy way to earn brownie points with me.
It can be very laggy at times, and the matchmaking seems hit or miss (sometimes I demolish people, sometimes people drive circle around me).
It feels very fun to control, matches are easy to get hyped over and get pulled into, and unique game modes come out all the time.
Again, it's free, 100% worth your time.
I don't even play it often, but I love having it there for some chill competition (always remembering how to play definitely helps).
It can be very laggy at times, and the matchmaking seems hit or miss (sometimes I demolish people, sometimes people drive circle around me).
It feels very fun to control, matches are easy to get hyped over and get pulled into, and unique game modes come out all the time.
Again, it's free, 100% worth your time.
I don't even play it often, but I love having it there for some chill competition (always remembering how to play definitely helps).
2017
The thing that I hated about fortnite the most was building. Then they gave us an option to not play with building.
4 stars.
I don't play on my own very often, but I love playing with my friends. It's lighthearted and fun, and there's tons of community maps to play silly fan-made games (like survival runs, pokemon, or even just running cars off cliffs).
On top of all this, it's totally free. Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff for sale, but I bought ONE battlepass, got a bunch of currency, and now I can use that currency to buy another battlepass (which I don't do until I know I'll have enough to buy another one afterwards).
Yeah, there's plenty of microtransactions, and IDK how fortnite was in the past, but since I've started playing it, it's easily one of the best at healthily handling microtransactions.
4 stars.
I don't play on my own very often, but I love playing with my friends. It's lighthearted and fun, and there's tons of community maps to play silly fan-made games (like survival runs, pokemon, or even just running cars off cliffs).
On top of all this, it's totally free. Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff for sale, but I bought ONE battlepass, got a bunch of currency, and now I can use that currency to buy another battlepass (which I don't do until I know I'll have enough to buy another one afterwards).
Yeah, there's plenty of microtransactions, and IDK how fortnite was in the past, but since I've started playing it, it's easily one of the best at healthily handling microtransactions.
2020
It's free, it's fun, and like this review, it's simple.
It can be annoying with some cheating and lags and bugs, but again, it's absolutely free. Cosmetics are hard to care about, but once again, free.
If you have a friend to play with, it's an amazing "let's play something stupid we don't care about but get hyped over" kinda game.
It can be annoying with some cheating and lags and bugs, but again, it's absolutely free. Cosmetics are hard to care about, but once again, free.
If you have a friend to play with, it's an amazing "let's play something stupid we don't care about but get hyped over" kinda game.
2018
[no spoilers]
I love this game and I'll definitely continue playing it occassionally.
It took me around 30 hours to "beat" the game, but even now there's plenty more for me to do, and plenty that I haven't discovered yet.
Hades has an excellent feeling of progression. The very first run you do feels like a good challenge and plenty fair for a game you're brand new to, and nearly every new run felt like progress, even if I didn't get any further than normal.
I love combining boons with different weapons to see what kind of "build" I can come up with, and very few combinations have ever felt truly bad.
The story is quite nice. I don't think it's anything ground breaking, but it was very far from bad. I loved the personality of all the characters, and I love how connected everyone feels.
I do wish I could have discovered some of the mechanics a bit earlier, as now beating the game kind of feels like I've only halfway beat it, but those things left to discover give me something to work towards when I want a quick, 30 minutes game session with a game I'm already familiar with.
Good game, very worth the price. This is one of very few games that I think has a perfect cost to game ratio (in fact, post mortem I'd easily drop $40 for this game, rather than 25).
I love this game and I'll definitely continue playing it occassionally.
It took me around 30 hours to "beat" the game, but even now there's plenty more for me to do, and plenty that I haven't discovered yet.
Hades has an excellent feeling of progression. The very first run you do feels like a good challenge and plenty fair for a game you're brand new to, and nearly every new run felt like progress, even if I didn't get any further than normal.
I love combining boons with different weapons to see what kind of "build" I can come up with, and very few combinations have ever felt truly bad.
The story is quite nice. I don't think it's anything ground breaking, but it was very far from bad. I loved the personality of all the characters, and I love how connected everyone feels.
I do wish I could have discovered some of the mechanics a bit earlier, as now beating the game kind of feels like I've only halfway beat it, but those things left to discover give me something to work towards when I want a quick, 30 minutes game session with a game I'm already familiar with.
Good game, very worth the price. This is one of very few games that I think has a perfect cost to game ratio (in fact, post mortem I'd easily drop $40 for this game, rather than 25).
2016
[NO SPOILERS YET]
(I don't hate this game, but there's a LOT I don't like about it)
I tried really hard to love this game, but it took a lot of effort to play.
Starting with the positives, this game has a super interesting world and SUPER awesome character relationships. I don't think all the characters are amazing, but even the lackluster ones feel very authentic and interact with the other characters in such a mesmerizing way. I could watch a whole slice of life series of just these characters living together.
I also like how cutscenes will trigger other simultaneous cutscenes! That really makes the world feel alive and not like the other characters are just waiting in the wings.
But as a game, this was SO hard to get through.
I restarted this game multiple times (mostly because I kept switching which console to play it on, but also because I just stopped playing repeatedly).
I hated the combat system. The ATB felt very sluggish and if I gave a character a command during an animation, I could very frequently get bulldozed because I just couldn't get enough turns. I eventually got the hang of it, but I have to use it in a very cheesy way that's definitely not intended.
On top of that, it was very strange that some spells effected only monsters whose levels were divisible by a certain number (Lv 5 Spell works on a Lv 10 blah but not a Lv 11 blah). The guidance is also nearly nonexistent, leading to a lot of being lost in an area because I didn't realize I just had to go left behind what looked like an impassable wall. I know Final Fantasy has a habit of rewarding players who mash X while running into the edges of the screen, but I hate that element of FF games and I'll mention it in every review I leave.
The chances to hit also just feel terribly bad. Maybe the numbers technically are balanced, but Game Feel is mostly about the game feeling balanced, which this game does not.
I hate the thought of spending resources for a low chance (accuracy) for a chance (enemy level must match) for a chance (enemy doesn't negate the damage) for a spell to hit.
[SPOILERS start now]
Narratively, I loved this game. One of my biggest complaints was that there wasn't enough of the narrative I loved. There were so many story beats that I wished the game spent more time on, and I understand the shortness of a lot of the cutscenes being short was probably an issue with the budget and technology of the time, but unfortunately I'm not playing this game when it came out, I'm playing it now.
The best example of this is Alexander vs Bahamut. I knew Alexander existed, but I had no idea what role it played in this game, so I was excited to learn about it and see its source material. But I saw Bahamut get summoned, then Garret and Eiko worked together to awaken Alexander and I went, "oh shit, okay, this is what I've been waiting for! This is where it gets good, right?"
By the time I finished that thought, the awesomeness of Alexander vs Bahamut was done, after 35-40 hours of playing.
I was devastated, but I also thought the game would still be cool from that point on, so I kept pushing.
Unfortunately, the combat and boring/frustrating puzzles just made me dread every play session to the point where I dropped this game.
I will absolutely be watching a let's play of it though for the story! I want more of that!
(I don't hate this game, but there's a LOT I don't like about it)
I tried really hard to love this game, but it took a lot of effort to play.
Starting with the positives, this game has a super interesting world and SUPER awesome character relationships. I don't think all the characters are amazing, but even the lackluster ones feel very authentic and interact with the other characters in such a mesmerizing way. I could watch a whole slice of life series of just these characters living together.
I also like how cutscenes will trigger other simultaneous cutscenes! That really makes the world feel alive and not like the other characters are just waiting in the wings.
But as a game, this was SO hard to get through.
I restarted this game multiple times (mostly because I kept switching which console to play it on, but also because I just stopped playing repeatedly).
I hated the combat system. The ATB felt very sluggish and if I gave a character a command during an animation, I could very frequently get bulldozed because I just couldn't get enough turns. I eventually got the hang of it, but I have to use it in a very cheesy way that's definitely not intended.
On top of that, it was very strange that some spells effected only monsters whose levels were divisible by a certain number (Lv 5 Spell works on a Lv 10 blah but not a Lv 11 blah). The guidance is also nearly nonexistent, leading to a lot of being lost in an area because I didn't realize I just had to go left behind what looked like an impassable wall. I know Final Fantasy has a habit of rewarding players who mash X while running into the edges of the screen, but I hate that element of FF games and I'll mention it in every review I leave.
The chances to hit also just feel terribly bad. Maybe the numbers technically are balanced, but Game Feel is mostly about the game feeling balanced, which this game does not.
I hate the thought of spending resources for a low chance (accuracy) for a chance (enemy level must match) for a chance (enemy doesn't negate the damage) for a spell to hit.
[SPOILERS start now]
Narratively, I loved this game. One of my biggest complaints was that there wasn't enough of the narrative I loved. There were so many story beats that I wished the game spent more time on, and I understand the shortness of a lot of the cutscenes being short was probably an issue with the budget and technology of the time, but unfortunately I'm not playing this game when it came out, I'm playing it now.
The best example of this is Alexander vs Bahamut. I knew Alexander existed, but I had no idea what role it played in this game, so I was excited to learn about it and see its source material. But I saw Bahamut get summoned, then Garret and Eiko worked together to awaken Alexander and I went, "oh shit, okay, this is what I've been waiting for! This is where it gets good, right?"
By the time I finished that thought, the awesomeness of Alexander vs Bahamut was done, after 35-40 hours of playing.
I was devastated, but I also thought the game would still be cool from that point on, so I kept pushing.
Unfortunately, the combat and boring/frustrating puzzles just made me dread every play session to the point where I dropped this game.
I will absolutely be watching a let's play of it though for the story! I want more of that!
2013
[This game is being played and logged from the perspective of a Narrative Designer for the course DES-230 at DigiPen Institute of Technology.
Logs will reflect my play experience through the lens of a designer, rather than casual play, so I will not be giving a rating.]
Logs will reflect my play experience through the lens of a designer, rather than casual play, so I will not be giving a rating.]
2021
[This game is being played and logged from the perspective of a Narrative Designer for the course DES-230 at DigiPen Institute of Technology.
Logs will reflect my play experience through the lens of a designer, rather than casual play, so I will not be giving a rating.]
Logs will reflect my play experience through the lens of a designer, rather than casual play, so I will not be giving a rating.]
[This game is being played and logged from the perspective of a Narrative Designer for the course DES-230 at DigiPen Institute of Technology.
Logs will reflect my play experience through the lens of a designer, rather than casual play, so I will not be giving a rating.]
Logs will reflect my play experience through the lens of a designer, rather than casual play, so I will not be giving a rating.]
2021
[This game is being played and logged from the perspective of a Narrative Designer for the course DES-230 at DigiPen Institute of Technology.
Logs will reflect my play experience through the lens of a designer, rather than casual play, so I will not be giving a rating.]
Logs will reflect my play experience through the lens of a designer, rather than casual play, so I will not be giving a rating.]
2016
I really had fun with this game, but it could super repetitive super quickly when playing alone.
However, as a party game it's incredible.
However long it takes for one person to get bored/physically exhausted is the time it takes for another to get interested and want to give it a go.
It's always fun watching people play VR, especially those that don't play often, and this game could have them infinitely dodging bullets down into the ground (I know that's what happened to me).
However, as a party game it's incredible.
However long it takes for one person to get bored/physically exhausted is the time it takes for another to get interested and want to give it a go.
It's always fun watching people play VR, especially those that don't play often, and this game could have them infinitely dodging bullets down into the ground (I know that's what happened to me).
I don't remember much about the game because it's been years since I played, but I played co-op with a good friend and all I remember is laughing and having one the best times ever with this game.
If you have a friend you like to game with, this is a 100% recommend.
I can't recommend it as a solo experience because I haven't tried it as a solo experience, but I imagine it would still be a very fun game, just probably not as hilarious as bouncing on top of your friend's head.
The art is beautiful and the music slaps.
I don't always like retro style games because they often lack modern quality of life things and I can find the style hard to see (I lose my character on the screen all the time), but I don't have either of these issues with Shovel Knight.
The company is also an amazing company that seems to truly care about not only this game but also game development in general.
If you have a friend you like to game with, this is a 100% recommend.
I can't recommend it as a solo experience because I haven't tried it as a solo experience, but I imagine it would still be a very fun game, just probably not as hilarious as bouncing on top of your friend's head.
The art is beautiful and the music slaps.
I don't always like retro style games because they often lack modern quality of life things and I can find the style hard to see (I lose my character on the screen all the time), but I don't have either of these issues with Shovel Knight.
The company is also an amazing company that seems to truly care about not only this game but also game development in general.
2018
This is easily the best Spider-Man game I've ever played.
And as a guy who owns a Spider-Man car, I think this opinion is pretty valid.
The developers for this game obviously love Spider-Man and have very obviously done their research into the existing Spider-Man games and what did and didn't work with them.
It mostly feels like Spider-Man 2 (on the Gamecube/PS2 era I believe), but that's far from a bad thing.
The story was amazing, but there's not much about it that makes me want to revisit it.
Honestly, I don't feel the need to replay the game, though I do start it up and just swing around and I can kill hours just doing that, which I think says a lot.
And as a guy who owns a Spider-Man car, I think this opinion is pretty valid.
The developers for this game obviously love Spider-Man and have very obviously done their research into the existing Spider-Man games and what did and didn't work with them.
It mostly feels like Spider-Man 2 (on the Gamecube/PS2 era I believe), but that's far from a bad thing.
The story was amazing, but there's not much about it that makes me want to revisit it.
Honestly, I don't feel the need to replay the game, though I do start it up and just swing around and I can kill hours just doing that, which I think says a lot.
Rose-colored glasses (nostalgia bias warning)
This was my first PC game ever, and I LOVED it.
I know I put the nostalgia warning, but honestly I've replayed this game a ton and I still love it to this day.
This is another game I have to stop myself from replaying so that I can actually work through my backlog.
It's got an alignment system that's pretty easy to manipulate once you understand it, but as a kid it was so awesome seeing myself appear lighter and brighter as I did my good deeds. (Spoiler: if you get so benevolent, you even get a beam of light that shines down on you, which I adored).
I've still never done an evil playthrough because being mean to fictional characters makes me sad, but I hear the evil side of things is just as cool and fun.
If you're looking for a classic, tropey RPG experience, this is where you can find it.
And just a reminder that following tropes isn't a bad thing; instead, this game takes inspiration from RPG tropes and perfects them.
The plot is straight forward and easy to follow without being boring, the twists make sense but can be hard to guess without actively trying to, the abilities give you such a broad range of choices that you can do combat nearly however you want, AND you can kick chickens!
You can get married, buy houses, trade goods with wandering traders, act like a bandit, be a feared source of benevolence.
I know there's quite a few options that provide this kind of gameplay that may seem a bit cleaner than this game, but this was one of the originals and the love from the developers truly shows and shines.
My biggest complaint with the game is that as you level up abilities, you get older which, while an interesting and cool detail, means you can never be a mid-20s badass; you'll always get old before you get awesome.
This was my first PC game ever, and I LOVED it.
I know I put the nostalgia warning, but honestly I've replayed this game a ton and I still love it to this day.
This is another game I have to stop myself from replaying so that I can actually work through my backlog.
It's got an alignment system that's pretty easy to manipulate once you understand it, but as a kid it was so awesome seeing myself appear lighter and brighter as I did my good deeds. (Spoiler: if you get so benevolent, you even get a beam of light that shines down on you, which I adored).
I've still never done an evil playthrough because being mean to fictional characters makes me sad, but I hear the evil side of things is just as cool and fun.
If you're looking for a classic, tropey RPG experience, this is where you can find it.
And just a reminder that following tropes isn't a bad thing; instead, this game takes inspiration from RPG tropes and perfects them.
The plot is straight forward and easy to follow without being boring, the twists make sense but can be hard to guess without actively trying to, the abilities give you such a broad range of choices that you can do combat nearly however you want, AND you can kick chickens!
You can get married, buy houses, trade goods with wandering traders, act like a bandit, be a feared source of benevolence.
I know there's quite a few options that provide this kind of gameplay that may seem a bit cleaner than this game, but this was one of the originals and the love from the developers truly shows and shines.
My biggest complaint with the game is that as you level up abilities, you get older which, while an interesting and cool detail, means you can never be a mid-20s badass; you'll always get old before you get awesome.