A great love letter to Wipeout. In fact it's so similar to Wipeout I'm almost baffled Sony hasn't taken legal action but I guess they'd have to care about wipeout to do that. Great sense of speed and aesthetics, a decent amount of tracks substantially boosted by the steam workshop which has plenty of high quality modded tracks, and some fun challenges make it a great time. I also liked how simple it was to play my own custom music in the game and it ran really well too. My only real issue with the game is the difficulty spike in the time trial challenges which felt absurd compared to the other challenges. While I was still cruising through the races and zone challenges with a nice difficulty curve, the time trials quickly required everything I had just to barely get bronze after the first two or so. Also a minor complaint but having to move to the back button to get out of every menu instead of just being able to click B was annoying.

Due to using this game as a substitute for hanging out on those weird limbo nights where you're desperate to go out with people but you can't I ended up drawing out playing this for so long that I went from having basically no experience of streamers the first time I met the streamer character to being a vtuber dipshit by the last time

There is a lot you can complain about in this and like, yeah, I get it but my specific relationship to it made it a really perfect experience for me despite all that

I found the protagonist honestly really touching and as much as you could say that mixing the drinks is really just an elaborate way of pressing next on the textbox I found it to be a pretty endearing ritual that did just enough to feel like I'm interacting and actually being at my job

Not perfect but so enjoyable for me anyway that I can't say I didn't love dropping back in every time and that I don't kind of miss having it around

A kinda-sorta roguelike ish game about the indescribable horrors of startup culture. You're an unpaid marketing intern who is instead made to delve into the dungeons created by other startups that have been dissolved by the Amazon/Google parody corp and fight with whatever crap you can find lying around. Lots of weapon durability mechanics and so on if you don't like that kind of thing.

The play is fine but nothing I found particularly engaging. Enemies are just a bit beefier than I'd like and there's a lot of clutter that makes avoiding damage very difficult. The writing and aesthetic sense is what shines here, and if you are also bitter about capitalism then you will perhaps also enjoy it! The flavor text for avacado toast, a healing item, is "the delicious alternative to home ownership." The company boss calls everyone rockstars constantly.

The dungeons are really well realized and distinct down to even having a whole cryptocurrency-themed startup where you manage it as an additional currency alongside real money. There aren't very many of them, though, and you will have to repeat each numerous times to complete little missions etc for upgrades. I got bored before I was done and turned on assist mode to just get the end of the story.

Speaking of which, it does end up oddly focused on algorithms as the ultimate evil and is somehow less harsh on Amazon than you'd expect because of this. That said, the game is just like the devs screaming at you to unionize so I'm being very unfair with that complaint.

My favorite character is the software engineer who hates computers because that's me. I'm also that.

Hades meets The Office.
A satirical roguelike dungeon crawler about startups, corporations and capitalism as a whole. The satire is pretty good and permeates through all the game, from character dialogs to dungeon themes like the cryptocurrency or dating app startup dungeon.

The dungeons while simple and short (20-30 minutes average) are really fun and cozy, and have that little crazy that we like in roguelikes, almost anything you find can be weaponiced (that means using a lot of office supplies as weapons) and breaks down after a while, which makes you improvise picking up whatever you find.
As the dungeons are not too long, the character dialogs and quests are enough to keep it fresh so the runs never get repetitive.

Another thing to remark is that from the start you can experience most of the content, meaning you won't miss out much even if you don't complete the game. The dialogs are unlocked from the beginning, and after the first dungeon it lets you choose among three different ones.

I think what makes it good is that it doesn't pretend to be anything more than it is, embracing its simplicity and using it as a strong point. For me it felt like a way better experience than longer more fleshed out roguelikes.

What have we done wrong as a community to always expect a reward for everything we do? 



Listen, I've read lots of people complaining about how pointless this game is and how it doesn't really do anything for you to keep playing. You plant seeds in order to grow Pikmin, then feed them. Those Pikmin will leave a trail of flowers behind you when you go for a walk. That's it.



But Pikmin Bloom is not a game about taking advantage of pikmins or about making your walks more exciting. Pikmin Bloom's sole purpose is to fill the world with flowers. Together, as a community. Whether you want to participate or not is up to you. If that's not one of the most beautiful things to ever happen in videogame history then I don't know what is.