Hellboy meets the wild west!! I really liked the look of this game and the flow of gameplay.

Really cool variety of weapons that I never used and fighting styles. The game would be like "hey you can use this frozen pistol in combination with this neat rifle, or you can use the different kind of pistols while melee range and-" and I would just straight up take 2 shotguns at the same time and continue my run. I would lie if I'd say that I didn't had an absolute blast, the perfect combination of something nostalgic and adrenaline inducing.

But I would also lie if I'd say that the game doesn't have its problems. Sure, it has the anticipated vibe of an indie game from the start but I still have a hate/love relationship with the cover systems - It's frustrating at times. I would've loved to see more attention to this game regarding the voice acting (the Plain walker is the only character that talks) and maybe more lore since it had amazing potential and after finishing it has great chance of being extremely forgettable.

Separated somehow as if from cinematography like "Tree of Life" or Kaufmanc's weird "I'm thinking of ending things" and other of his tiles; Death Stranding is the kind of game that is absolutely beautiful and mesmerizing in its storytelling and world building, carefully crafted to make you tear up in the worst moments. The environments are beautiful and it's the closest an AAA title can get to being poetic I think - from the first hours of the game you already get the feeling that you're not playing just the same game refurbished with some graphical update on top. Though it does get a while to unravel itself, since at its core its a really slow game in terms of pacing, and if you're the impatient gamer type you might spend around 5 hours for the gameplay to really take off and the exposition part to disappear.

The gameplay in Death Standing is simple, you pick up and order, strategize your route on the map and then you... walk, and after a while you walk some more, a song plays while somehow melancholia crawls behind you, and then you walk again. The combat is interesting enough and there's this unique mechanic - spoiler ahead - of people online interacting with your game though the "chryal" network and you can use ladders, roads vehicles from one another. Borrow them and let other players use your stuff though system which you receive likes for the people you've helped. It creates this good sensation of community, the stranded type game as Kojima describes it. You'd expect this kind of gameplay to wear off instantly in 2 hours and belive me I thought the same but it just.. kept going? And I never once felt extremely bored or un-entertained and this is coming from someone that absolutely despises base management games and strategies but in this game playing as Sam and delivering packages just felt cozy. I would play the game for 10 hours continuously one day and refuse to eat because I just needed to take up one more order. Just one more y'know?
And on a personal taste the soundtrack it just felt.. Right. It was epic, especially since I'm a big fan of Low Roar and I listened to 80% of this game's soundtrack before already during my high-school years and coming back and revisiting all these musical pieces hit me the just amount of right with nostalgia. Everytime a song would a song would pop up during the gameplay I'd feel this immense undescribable catharsis and damn you gotta appreciate when art pieces do that to you y'know? On finishing the first big section of the map I remember having this bike racing down the mountain while Asylum for the Feeling played, somehow on the wrong turn I fell too much downwards and the bike exploded. I took all my packages back and I had to take the rest of the path walking, listening to the rest of the song. I don't know why, and I'm still trying to piece up my feelings after playing this game, you know the "conversations we have with a piece of art" after we finish them and I'm still trying to piece together all these feelings. I'm still trying to understand this type of loneliness in Death Stranding that I felt constantly, this utterly new shade of existential nihilism that I adore. The vast unknown somehow.
It's undescribable and I deeply feel that the more I try to put this feeling into a box, into well shaped words the more it loses its meaning. KOJIMA's sense of artistry in this game truly feels unique and the characters design, ideas, and unfamiliarity fed to you constantly through the visual spectacle.

I grew up to adore every character of the main cast - felt like I was experiencing a timeless classic at times, with a beautiful story. I adore the lore and this unique take of weirdness on enemies and gameplay. Screaming at this game for 5 minutes "WHAT?" during a bizzare cutscene just like I did it's the correct way to play Death Stranding. The incorrect way would be expecting a generic third person game, that doesn't challenge your world views. The themes about humanity, nihilism, and environment awareness somehow are the core of Death Stranding's amazing aesthetics. I'm so excited for DS2 though. And until then, just one more order, right?

The documents you find on the different sectors along the way are half grayed out with black boxes instead of words; there's videos to watch on your pause menu explaining the lore of the game and there's also a funny phone which you can talk with the previous director of the Oldest House who is now dead and speaks with you. Control is straight up outlandish; from the start: straight on - and it hooks you up by promising to tell you its secrets.

It's a video-game at heart, but also a movie & book at brain and a daring look into an intertwined story across - as the game often references - the common collective human unconscious. It's serious and at the same time isn't. But it's goddamn weird and the game wears this aura of weirdness through it all: which it tailors itself into cryptic scenes and cool gameplay mechanics. Probably more interesting that it's art direction in Control, it is Remedy's sense of direction into the aesthetics of this world and how poetic all of this experience feels. It just stratched my itch of cryptic stories perfectly and I really admired all the work that went into this.

This was my first of Remedy's games and I can't wait to play the next one which is probably gonna be Alan Wake 1. But.. As you step into the Federal Bureau of Control be ready for the hell of a ride while you get into a thriller-mystery world as the badass Jesse Faden. The place where you mindfully step in is called the Oldest House, a weird name for sure and things get only more fucked up the deeper you step deeper into the Bureau - the more you do it the game reveals itself into a more avant garde/unconventional motion of storytelling. And I love when games like these creative liberties.

The name of house at least in my opinion implies a Lovecraftian connotation - fitting for the world of control in which the Hiss tries to corrupt this house to its foundations, which gives the perfect about of balance in crazy video-game cliche premises and poetic storytelling along the way. There's no time to rush through this game since most stuff you find needs to be read/watched to make a bigger sense of the story - the characters fit world perfectly, especially the ones who probably have seen so much peculiar stuff that they become recluses and often soft dormant madmen. I am not a fan of "RPG dialogue" in third person shooters or games since I feel that breaks the immersion too much and the illusion of the story too much and it felt at least for me that those moments become too theatrical, but that's just personal taste I guess.
There's a lot to discover and get used to while playing the game especially with the UI/UX at it took me a little learning curve to get used to this change and the map design ( which I actually really admired - the maze has become one of my favorite levels in gaming) especially with these are integrated withing the story/universe of the game as a plot device. I got to really love the little 4th wall breaks along the way but more than that Jesse's telekinesis powers which made great combo with the Pierce mode service gun, which was my favorite mode from the ones I've tried. I ended up upgrading telekinesis the most cause it just felt right to throw big things around killing enemies, especially doing that in a somewhat governmental agency. The gameplay loop just "clicks" in Control: is fun enough to be challenging as well as rewarding and my type of fast paced, mindless killing and I have quite missed this kind of gameplay loop. Though that isn't always the cause since different types of enemies require different approach and game styles and I often took my liberties to try different combos on enemies and this sense of wander took a little time to wear off. (I still despise the fat hiss guy though) Though the reverse of this medal is that the gameplay lacks innovation and upgrading your skills don't create more interesting enemies mechanics in return and they seem to be on "the same continuous level"
Though I always felt like something was missing. I had this feeling in GOW Ragnarock too in some moments towards the end and I think for Control's case I just expected some more grand impact served by the story, which at least for me didn't quite did it the same way other games did. And it is something the expansions DLCs resolve but not so much at the same time? And also the huge loading screens - since I heard a lot of people complaining about that. Other than that I hope we'll get to see Control 2 one day since, again, it truly feels like something special - the perfect amount of cliche 3rd person shooter in combination with unique aesthetics.

Proteus is the kind of game you play only once the same way and then never again, in the sense that is personal: a short, simple experience to stimulate the memories in a form of interactive deep meditation. It is leaving me with "The giving tree" vibes, the kind of simple stories which reflects more of you by consuming the piece of art and relating it to your own experiences and understandings of reality, rather that feeling the impact straight on during the said consumption.

My favorite "scene" during the gameplay is waiting for nightfall after my first day cycle there and coming up the small hill - above the clouds where all those statues are standing in an ominous circle. On top of that hill I could see the sun behind me and moon rising head on; which is funny because again Proteus is the kind of "unique" sandbox, in which every person's experience utterly intimate - for a moment I was transported back in my childhood in my days of playing minecraft and hearing the lonely music in the vast digital world. And I felt a kid again and I teared up while waiting for the night to come. It felt artistic, in a way most games aren't. And I find it ironic that i got so emotional on some random music/sounds and some pixels but that's it - the human mind can be an indescribable madness and sometimes we just connect with random moments of peace that bring us home again.

I feel like I played Signalis before, even though I didn't, it's just all the nostalgia hitting up on me, crawling like a force thoughtout my memories : recalling all this game as something I've seen before. But it's not. Signalis is a great game - and it doesn't shy away from being perceived as strange or obscure and I personally think that's the beauty of this game.
The whole familiarity of the Ps1 aesthetic, the minimislit design and "vibe" of games from the 90's and early 2000 are present in this one but they slowly wash away after the early hours as you enter the strange world and obscure story that this game is trying to present.

I've played about an hour or so of it until I realized that I was going though one of those unique game finds that happen very rarely - and it's very interesting that it's a little unconventional and.... daring- it has influences of horror or puzzle genres present in the gameplay of it and slightly anime tones throughout the whole horror aesthetic and it's really nice experience : the survival elements of the genre with great thought provoking puzzles and a story that sticks with you until the end of times. Again, the beauty of this game is that is weird... it seems to go easily towards a more avant-garde direction and I love that; it seems to be a little poetic, that kind of game that "you have to take it in" and let it consume you. And I recommend it if you want something different someday, it has put me through the pencil and paper technique of solving puzzles, it has made me shout " Wait what??!" at a black screen, it made me curious about the game and about my own reality. A good game, and one that takes advantage of gameplay as a means of storytelling.

Bloodroots feels like playing thorugh one of those children illustrated books you had when you were little, the artstyle is nostalgic and the story is quite simple and "folklore like" enough to remind me of that innocence. Though this innocence slowly faded away as you enter a 'Hotline Miami' perspective about unavoidable killing that just feeds your desire for murder in levels with good replayability, amazing weapons and diversity with ups and downs for each to which on top lies your imagination on how fast and perfect you're gonna finish the levels.
I gotta say I'm a fan of the gaming mechanics as a storytelling in this game and I loved how the game pushes you straight into the level as you open the game again, I thought its a nice catch. Though, I'm a little disappointed on how this game felt at times, often a chore than a good challage and it seems like it's hit or miss oftentimes with some of the bugs happening; the story and characters are good, but nothing too amazing since I managed to get the plot twist 2 hours into the game, though they fit the gameplay and I gotta say that I adored the Bonus bonus bonus bonus level.

Stray is the kind of game that mimics the memories of games I played throughout my childhood. The game is simple, atmospheric and colorful and it's a great balance between themes such as existential isolation and a fun and exciting gameplay that keeps on giving.

The world is rich, vast and at the same time alive and lonely. Exploring the landscapes and stories is always mesmerizing and connecting with the characters and the environment of this game through the eyes and the perspective of a cat is really fun and chill, the artistry of this game is on point - - the environemts feel huge, nature is taking over parts of buildings, and the contrast of simple yet existential questions that the games indirectly makes you ask yourself is a good way for replayability!