2018
Starting my account off with a virtue signal rating just to make sure people know I'm on the level here. This game is a perfect platformer - except for a couple of the tougher tricks not being tutorialized very well. Bonus points for being an indie pixel platformer that actually gets pixel graphics right.
The core appeal of this game, for me, was the discovery, which makes it un-replayable until I inevitably suffer dementia.
But man, was that first playthrough magical.
But man, was that first playthrough magical.
The last third of this game drags so hard - and the normal difficulty was uncomfortably easy - but for the first forty hours or so, I was really invested in my students, which is a great feeling.
2020
Secretly the most interesting game of 2020 that nobody played. Makes some incredible strides in VR level design and storytelling that - if you're not willing to play along - chafe against the edges of the technology, but that undersells how truly wild it is to play this game as a fan of the series. The only thing Boneworks has over this game is the physics interactions, but if that's all you're in VR for, I think you're really missing the point.
2001
Half of the best FPS singleplayer campaign of the generation, copy-pasted to get the thing out the door.
1998
The more I think about this game, the higher I think of it.
Wish they'd stuck with this battle system in the sequels, I enjoy the bullet-hell action gameplay combined with ATB strategy. Got some of that delicious eerie PS1 atmosphere and a killer soundtrack, to boot.
The mitochondria premise is almost too goofy these days. Maybe it was more compelling before we'd finished sequencing the genome. Idk.
Wish they'd stuck with this battle system in the sequels, I enjoy the bullet-hell action gameplay combined with ATB strategy. Got some of that delicious eerie PS1 atmosphere and a killer soundtrack, to boot.
The mitochondria premise is almost too goofy these days. Maybe it was more compelling before we'd finished sequencing the genome. Idk.
2018
Didn't get this one. Decent enough time with friends, but procedurally generated everything and clunky movement isn't my idea of a good time. Would rather just play Left 4 Dead workshop maps or something.
2002
Personal GOAT. Gotta replay this someday soon. Atmosphere for weeks, genuine mystery - and the Z-targeting system that turns the FPS combat into something closer to a character action game.
No other game has this strong a concentration of lived-in-ness - these towns feel alive in a way that compels me to do the impossible - actually slow-walk through environments of my own accord. All the flaws in the combat system feel obvious enough to assume they'll be polished out in future iterations.
I'm in the wait-and-see camp about the ending. A definitive shark-jump, but an impressively lofty one that has raised many, many questions most fans think they have the answers to - but probably don't.
I'm in the wait-and-see camp about the ending. A definitive shark-jump, but an impressively lofty one that has raised many, many questions most fans think they have the answers to - but probably don't.
2016
Not worth going back to unless you really, really want to shoot zombies.
2013
I cannot take anyone who sincerely enjoys this game beyond the first hour or two seriously.
2019
A masterclass in adventure and the wonder of discovery. The antidote to AAA open world malaise.
Easier to recommend in retrospect with a price drop. A surreal VR adventure game that does a little bit too much puzzle-explaining, and ends sooner than I'd hoped. Those telekinesis powers are pretty good, though.
2019
Really sweet game that's absolutely worth the hour and a half of your time it gently encourages you to spend in its intricately crafted maze-mountain-island.
2018
Too easy to make comparisons to David Lynch shorts. What's more interesting is how the game plays with movie-like cuts during gameplay, which does some interesting things to player psychology.