How the ladies see me now that I have finally beaten Disco Elysium after 2 years: (imagine me doing The Expression)

What a blast, with a soundtrack that I’ve been listening to for days while commuting. What’s to say about DE, which has not been chewed through enough? I’ve shelved it multiple times before–for no particular reason, really, as life just got in the way. Each time I have started the game anew in hopes I would get to know its world a little better, understand Revachol’s history and make sense of its citizen’s political stances inside my cranium. It’s a bit of a slow pacer and I highly recommend you to enjoy it like that. Boot it up, spend half an hour talking to one or maybe two inhabitants and then, if you find yourself skipping dialogue, put it down for the day. It’s a much more riveting experience to break the game up like that instead of rushing through it.

Honestly, I’m glad that it took me a while to fully play it to the end. The past 2 years also turned me into a full on Marxist-studying communist, and with the thought in mind that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles, makes immersing inside this cleverly built world so so so much easier. The game is unabashedly sensitive and hopeful, each character and side-mission interwoven with the overarching plot in ways you wouldn’t expect. It’s aware of its contradictions and ideologies which sprung out of Martinaise’s history of war, oppression and exploitation and puts them to the test through each individual you meet, their philosophies and place in the world coherent. I still find the idea of navigating as a DIY drunkard cop, who is allowed to be unhinged and weird and nosey and a freak because of his position as a cop, completely ingenious.

Disco Elysium is funny, depressing, heart wrenching, nail biting, stress inducing, beautiful, well-crafted, thoughtful and all the other adjectives you can think of. I’m in the middle of my second playthrough now as a libertarian doom cop who’s plagued by visions of his ex-wife, and can’t wait to see what the game has to offer once I try a sorry cop who refuses to look at the corpse.

Sweeeet, they made a fishing mini game full game.

A beautiful world, stylistic impressive both in 3D and 2D, but the general gameplay loop made it hard to come back to. As someone who gets easily caught up in repetitive grinding to get the best equipment as soon as possible, I wished some of the gear would be locked behind story progression or serve as collectible. On top of that slog, I found the dialog navigation a tad slow; a kingdom for a skip button.

Not sure if taking risks is rewarded, or if I'm just doing it wrong, but exploring at night or going far out of the coastal areas felt like a frustrating ordeal to me. Definitely some kind of skill issue on my side, and it's not a bad game, but I don't see myself returning to this. I did enjoy the more obscene fish designs.

My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.

Had high hopes for this one, but Decarnation turned out to be a lengthy, preachy and uninspired drag. After a promising first act, the rest of the game leaves a lot to be desired. You would think–now limited to one room–the game would dial up its artistic merit, but other than a statue that spins 360° nothing will ever match the detailed and visceral body horror you have witnessed hours ago. The introduced dream world is barren; made out of ruins, broken statues, tentacles (?) and people with towels wrapped around their heads, it’s a pathetic attempt to visualise her deteriorating mental state. The set pieces as well as the ‘other selves’ she meets through this journey are nothing but flat, superficial caricatures of the themes the game is trying to dig in.

Minigames continue to be simple and mundane, but do not add to the monotony of her daily life or drive the point home that she was kidnapped and is being caged like an animal. It feels like the developers felt forced to include them for the sake of it being a game – the same can be said about the bare bones puzzles littered here and there, which once again carry only surface-level meaning to them, if even that. The little scene of her dancing until her face falls off in act 1 is truly carrying all the weight of what Decarnation wants to be.

Confused and anticlimactic, the game ends with a Dreamworks dance party that throws any serious messaging of Gloria’s harrowing experience into the mud. I was happy to uninstall this one.

This is my Ocarina of Time, my Fallout 3 or Pokemon Gold or Skyrim or whatever. Certainly falls into some sort of comfort media category for me, thus my opinion cannot be trusted, and here I say Zanzarah still holds up. It's way shorter than I remembered, the fighting can be a bit one-note, but I can't help but adore the quite ugly fairy designs and creatures populating the world. It's got the character and world building; there's something about wandering far into an empty forest or vast swamp with no music but the sound of your foot steps that adds to the experience.

Big shout out to the very short intro - more games where they just throw you into action and the protagonist goes 'just like in my dreams cool'.

Easily one of the most gripping titles I've played this year.

The conversation around Fear & Hunger being 'hard' isn't one I'm particularly invested in - I don't think it's the point of the game to finish it nor is it any more rewarding than dying miserably in these dungeons. You failing to save Le'garde is just as much of an experience as slaying the Yellow King. It doesn't matter if you reach Ma'habre or The Gauntlet or if you decide to flee or die to a mob of dogs before you even enter the dungeons; each attempt offers a whole different story for your chosen character and provides a gruesome epic that leaves you craving for more, push harder, see what else it got in store for you. After 30 hours (if not more) of playing this game I still find events I had not seen before, new nooks and crannies that are entirely unexplored, enemies, items, etc. that completely transform the way I'm playing and navigate this place. I cannot for the life of me grasp how Miro did that in RPG Maker.

This game is nothing short of phenomenal to me. It's drenched in sheer hopeless which can be felt in every corner, every piece of design. Its usage of body horror, gore and sexual violence is brutal enough to make me squirm yet its implementation and delivery is not putting me off entirely from playing. It's hard to put it into words, but there's more to it than pure shock value as it plays with our primal fears. There's purpose behind it - that purpose being horror - that amplifies the narrative and world building while keeping the actual unjustifiable acts captured in simplified, stylised graphics to endure. The game's concept and its realisation is nothing but perfect to me. I don't think that just anyone could create such an immersive and creatively polished adventure. The music, the character dynamics, the Gods and cults and cruelty; this game will stick in your brain like nothing else.

I still haven't developed the same kind of fascination for Termina as I have with this title; to me, Termina doesn't scratch that itch. While the world is larger, the cast more numerous and for some deeper, the sense of exploration and surprise is not there for me yet - perhaps because that game officially only has two splitting endgame paths. I'll let it cook for a few more years just like this title has. I hope it can throw me into the same world of misery as this game has.

Consider your Larrys found.

Short and sweet point-and-click game that can be finished under 30 minutes. As a fan of germfood's rancid art direction I'm always happy to see more of their stuff in action - just look at that sweet box art.

The gameplay loop consists of (you guessed it) finding not-Waldo in a crowd of hundreds of people. Trees and houses and other folk are going to obstruct your view, so you are given the option to spin the 3D environment by 90°, though I'd argue this feature has not been optimised to its full potential as I barely had to use it.

The actual finding portion of the game is not all that hard, but I do appreciate germfood's fun use of gameplay mechanics woven into the narrative, already seen in Night of the Consumers. The unconventional and at times gross aesthetics mixed with a comically absurd overarching plot, gives a unique and entertaining experience. It's a nice change of pace, and the reason why I still love playing small indie games.

For what it is (considering the price as well) it's def worth to check out. I'll find him again.

First remaster? Amazingly put together. This one? I would love to give this 5 stars, but the buffer screens stutter hard in the switch version, which I do not remember being the case in the original. It really is a small thing, but I miss shooting these letters out of the king's mouth, which is impossible to enjoy now as it cuts away too fast after it struggles to put him on the screen in the first place. It's one thing out of many that added to this game's magnificent charm.

Anyway, everything's bigger, better, funner, more challenging, more colorful now. I can roll a sumo wrestler around town to devour it whole so he can eat a smaller sumo wrestler later on. Of course they both will be burnt to a crisp in order to grace the universe with another beautiful star. My dad tells me I'm quite alright. I love love love this game.

Game of all time for 22 years which makes me question if I’m able to engage in any criticism of it at all without having to say ‘yeah but’. Coming back after a decade of not actually playing it but delving into thinkpieces and technical quips and atmosphere and what have you, I’m still surprised how immersed I ended up being. I’ve always hated the assumption that James’ suffering boils down to him just being a horny dude, and I’m happy to see the game agrees with me. Silent Hill 2 presents its traumatised cast with such maturity, respect and empathy which you hardly see in contemporary gaming. It chooses a perfect ground between visceral exploitation horror versus vagueness – painting the worst possible nightmare these characters must have endured inside your head and proving your assumptions correct through blood and guts, the endless dark abyss and Baconesque's monster design. It saddens me that I have experienced this game for the first time when I was quite young; characters like Angela hit so much harder the older I get.

Game’s great and to this date still a visual delight when it comes to facial expressions and the cinematic, almost playful use of camera during gameplay as well as within cutscenes. There’s still so many things I still haven’t discovered on my own like the UFO or Dog ending. Maybe it’s time for that now.

on the hunt for one, just one good digimon game and this is not it. this game is slooooooow. slow when it comes to story progression, slow when it comes to battling. hell even trying to change locations will add hours to your run time since loading another 2D screen with cardboard cutouts in front of it is apparently too much to ask for.

giving a point for the acclaimed 'dark twists' in the narrative because when shit goes down it doesnt shy away from going through with it, but by all means it is not worth the damage you inflict on your thumb by skipping forward.