First of all: If strategic play and running through fields for times on end is a no-go for you, dont bother playing it even if youre playing via Gamepass.

Hell Let Loose is the more arcadey brother of "Hunt: Showdown" and I mean it in the best way possible. Lots of time will still be spent running around doing pretty much nothing but the amount of action is significantly higher (atleast once you learned how to use garrisons and outposts or get a good officer in your squad). Youll be getting your ass whooped for quite some time before you develop some game sense and Ill strongly recommend getting into the game with a friend (who preferably already knows some stuff so it isnt as painful). Yes it will be a time investment but the atmosphere is enough to keep you playing and once it clicks its one of the most enjoyable shooters out there. Running around a corner and standing face-to-face with a tank is scary. The dopamine rush you feel when artillery shells land right next to you and tear your comrade to shreds is hard to describe. If you have 2 friends to play with try and drive a tank. Might be a bit hard and technical at first but once you popped your first enemy tank youll see the appeal.

The community as a whole is welcoming. Be warned there is the occasional chronically online commander on a power trip unable to take the smallest bit of blame. In those cases youll need to be ready to stand your ground in the voicechat or you might be kicked as most players are trigger happy on the votekick. But thats just a warning and doesnt do the vast majority of players justice. Most are friendly and funny dudes with the occasional roleplayer who adds to the atmosphere.

Even though there are lots of developer studios credited for this game the updates are minimal and content is still rather sparce for a game that came out in 2019. Maps are pretty lackluster and glitchy at times and playing on community servers youll almost exclusively play the boring, similiar looking, french maps. Climbing over objects is still horribly buggy and has caused me to die numerous times now. But the fundamental flaw of this game in my opinion is its progression system. You can unlock different loadouts for your classes and thats it. Those kits are either unlocked very quickly or take too long to actually keep you playing for them as they provide mostly miniscule benefits.

Final verdict: Great game, best with friends, but youll need to put some serious time in or play with someone experienced wholl teach you

Really not as bad as people make it out to be. There is still lots of fun to be had, but man did they gentrify Overwatch. The changes made (5v5, removing a lot of shields and stuns) were mostly necessary but have been implemented in the worst possible way. Over time Blizzard stripped all heroes of their identity through reworks (e.g. Mei) or nerfs (e.g. Roadhog, McCree) to the point they all lack uniqueness. Their understanding of balancing overall is questionable at best as they mostly dish out nerfs but hardly ever buffs. This coupled with trying to remove hard counterpicks really makes me question whether they understand the appeal of their game at all. Monetization is obviously the only reason for this so called sequel and its implementation is bad. Collecting skins was an important part of the gameplay loop and a reason to keep playing and they locked pretty much all of it behind a battlepass. Having to unlock new heroes is arguably a monetization change as well and it negates the little counter picking thats left.

I dont know how they fumbled the bag this badly. Put this game out of his misery already

TLDR: Truly the best bad game ever made. Its free anyways so you might as well try it out

(This will be a very subjective review)
Unironically the best battle royale game I've ever played. As I understand this game started as the annual april fools joke by Landfill (the developers) but blew up so it was kept online for way longer. To make regular updates financially viable the devs tried to essentially relaunch the game as sort of "TABG 2.0" but fumbled the bag so updates slowed down and are now only being worked on in the developers free time. Its horribly buggy and it is a bummer because if you can look beyond the ugly surface youll find a beautiful, fun and whacky game, best enjoyed with friends. Sure sometimes youll have to restart your client 5 times to play a single game and even if it works youll be scratching your head at some minor bugs but thats part of what makes this games charm. Its very rare to find a game that actually understands its own identity and niche but this game fucking nails it. So many goofy little weapons and strategies but also bugs make for a truly memorable experience. Im deducting 1 star from the rating for the boatload of glitches but the gameplay for me is entertaining enough to still give it a 4/5. Yes Im massively coping but I couldnt bring myself to go any lower.

Truly the best bad game ever made

Virginia is visually beautiful and the soundtrack sure is great, but thats really all it is. It is probably the most forgettable gaming experience Ive played so far and shortly after finishing the game I forgot every detail about it (even that I played it in the first place). Its often called a "masterpiece" or similiar in its positive reviews which makes me think I just dont get the game. But, if well-made, walking sims are upon my favourite genre of games so I have no clue who this game is intended for.

The Finals is the most fun that I've had playing a game in a very long time. Fast paced combat that still requires lots of strategy and teamplay is what I feel like I've been missing for years now and the ability to destroy pretty much the whole map feels like a breath of fresh air.
Monetization feels okay-ish with micro transactions only affecting cosmetics. Obviously a free game will have to make a profit some way or another but seeing a Battlepass first thing in the menu is just vomit inducing and dissapointing considering how innovative this game is in most aspects. But then again its a free game so I probably have no right to complain.
One of the most glaring issues I have with the game is that the fast pace of the game is often disrupted by awfully long loading times. Starting the game takes years, joining into games takes awfully long as well since it waits for everyone to connect. Respawning takes 20 seconds, in case of a time wipe up to 40. Spawnpoints seem super random and sometimes youre about 150m away from the objective and the game transforms to a walking simulator for some time. The waiting isnt horrible and changing the delays would obviously need a huge balancing patches, but at the moment it disrupts the flow of a otherwise great combat system.
The other issue I have are gas mines and turrets that I dont feel like work in the game. Especially the gas mines are just placed one time and even if spotted and destroyed they still release a gas cloud with little for you to do about it (again it disrupts the flow of the combat). Sure you can throw a molotov at them but then youll just have a slightly less annoying AoE. Pls devs reduce gas duration

TLDR: Cute game with a lot of charm but after 14h I just dont feel like playing any longer

Starbound is what popped up after I searched for games like Terraria and it is easy to see why: it clearly takes a lot of inspiration from it while also adding its own scifi and space travel twist. Landing on your first planet is fascinating and all the little clues and "dungeons" you can find are fun to explore. Ive spent hours just traversing the underground, mining ores and collecting weapons and upgrade modules from chests. Progression is handled well and feels very natural at first with a few quirks that remain unexplained which youll just need to figure out yourself.
Up until this point I really loved the game and upon first visit of the Ark youll realize how much love and passion has been poured into the game and how much detail went into the visuals looking very charming and cute. But sadly its just downhill after here. The main storyline sounds interesting and has massive potential but its wasted once you figure out its just bland fetch quests. Youll be sent to planet A to scan some random objects, travel to planet B to scan some more random objects, then return to the Ark to complete the quest. And then the cycle starts again with the occasional combat mission inbetween which get stale very quickly as well.
Apart from the story itself exploring other planets, the core mechanic of the game, is simply not fun. All planets look and feel pretty much the same: empty and isolated. Not the exciting kind of feeling isolated in space that games like The Outer Wilds created but the one that makes you dread going to other planets whatsoever. Progression also doesnt feel the same after reaching the Ark. Mining will not be necessary anymore since youll be able to just buy whatever you need by selling some of the spare weapons that you dont have a use for anymore. Upgrades, weapons, armor, food and technology can also be bought very early game and being handed all these items basically for free takes the fun out of the progression and made me loose all interest in playing any further.
I obviously havent spent enough time playing to complete the game and explore every aspect of it but after 14 hours of playtime I just dont feel like playing any more and its telling of the game. Starbound is beautiful game with lots of love poured into it but the linear story is a deal breaker for me.

TLDR:
My honest recommendation would be to pirate this game and, if you actually liked it, buy it afterwards. This game is a diamond in the rough but has some glaring issues (especially the outrageous performance) that the developers refuse to fix. If they try to rip you off by selling you a borderline unfinished game for 50€ its morally okay to rip them off by pirating.

I haven't completed this game and expect it to stay that way. The first 4 hours of gameplay were just okay with most of the time being spent on manoeuvring empty and bland levels and fighting randomly placed enemies with little to no variety. The bosses are great and some of the most fun and challenging Ive fought in quite a while all while staying fair. Fighting them feels especially good since respawns are very fast and allow you to quickly challenge them again without leaving time for the frustration to settle in.
The lore seems extensive and interesting with some weird dialogue from the NPCs but having it shoved down your throat before you even get the chance to adjust to the games mechanics is overwhelming and caused me to loose all interest in it. Sadly the lore is very closely tied to the main game making it harder to just play the game entirely and research the lore later (like you would in Dark Souls).

The part that drags this game from a 4 to a 3 at best is the lack of respect for the customer, something that is not exclusive to this game but is bugging the gaming industry for years now.
The lack of optimization is insulting. My rig exceeds the the recommended specifications listed on the Steam site and still struggles to maintain 60fps on LOW settings at 1080p. Locking the game to 60 fps to atleast maintain consistency was also not an option because they messed up the framecaps only allowing me to choose between 32 or 72 frames per second with no inbetween (I dont even know how you fuck that up). Instead of taking a month or two to optimize the game to even run somewhat properly the developers skipped that step and proclaimed how the game was made with upscaling in mind. Obviously just a lazy excuse to push the game out early but in my case flatout wrong since disabling it made my framerate better.
This lack of polish is noticeable in the rest of the game as well. My dog bugged out when using an elevator, slithering across the floor or just running through walls. Interacting with NPCs or other elements requires what feels like pixel perfect positioning to find the spot that actually allows you to talk to them. This is either just a bad design decision or a way to again cut corners and not create turnaround animations for the player and other characters.
I encountered all those issues just within my first 4 hours of playing and don't think it would magically be fixed after another 4 so I have to shelve this game for now even if I love the game at its core. Selling this game for a whopping 50€ at this state feels feels like a scam and just another slap in the face of gamers by a company that knows it can pull shit like that and still release a game to overwhelmingly positive reviews.

As already stated in my TLDR, dont buy this Remnant II right now. Pirate it, play through it and if you still feel like they deserve the money please go ahead and buy it. Good studios deserve every bit of money they make, but you finally need to learn to vote with your wallets.

TLDR: Just go ahead and try it out with a friend. Its short but its also free so nothing to loose really

We Were Here is a short but very fun experience with a friend with hardly anything to critique about it. The main gimmick of the game is that you and your friend take on different roles, one being the librarian and looking up clues to the puzzles and the other player acting on the proposed solutions. It's a very special "puzzle" game because it isn't really one to begin with. As others have already pointed out, the riddles themselves are fairly easy once youve got a hang of it. The difficulty does not come from the puzzles being hard but to quickly and effectively communicate whats going on and not to overstep the timer during the process. The other major point of criticism comes from the fact that its rather short which I agree with but don't think is a fair point here. The game is free so its not like youre loosing money just because its short. To me it rather feels like a purposeful design decision to not make the game feel like its dragging on. What is valid criticism though is that the sound design is just lackluster. Its not that bad but it would have gone a long way to just add some more sounds here and there. We also encountered a few bugs here and there, even one that kept us from continuing though we put in the correct solution.

TLDR: If youre a new player or have briefly played before, go ahead and try it out youll probably like it. If youre a veteran whos looking to get back into CS with the release of CS2 dont even bother rn (as of 9.10.2023)

CS:GO was one of the most fun games to play with friends and even with all of its flaws it was great to play casually or competetively and easy to come back to after not playing for a while. Simply put it was one of my favourite games of all-times. So when CS2 was first annouced it looked like a fantastic update or rather full sequel to a game I loved so dearly and played for about a thousand hours. The changes looked innovative and seemed to shake up the meta while at core still remaining the game that people played since 2012. But the Counter-Strike community is stubborn and is known to hate change and it showed when the beta rolled out and people were complaining. Since then I've always defended the game for trying something new. Players were expecting to instantly have the best possible product and complained about every single bug when it was deliberatly shipped as a beta. Valve was working on the game and it became better and better.
Then I got my hands on beta access called some friends and played a few rounds. It lacked content and the performance wasn't that great but it was fine. It felt different almost a bit off but I blamed it on me being to used to CS:GO while this game clearly changed some parts of the gameplay. But since my friends disliked CS2 quite a bit we went back to exclusively playing GO and from then on I was back to being a mere observer again waiting for patches that hopefully made my friends more content with the game since solo-queueing Counter-Strike is notoriously bad.
Instead we got a full release a few weeks later which replaced CS:GO completely. And it has to be one of the most disappointing beta-to-full-releases in gaming history. They added jack shit to the game instead fixing a few very minor bugs, tweaking some animations and reenabling some gamemodes they took out some weeks prior. No new operation, no new maps, no major bugs fixed, no NEW gamemodes added. It felt like a dumbed down version of CS:GO with a new skin. But even this was fine to me at the moment since I hadn't played enough CS2 to notice the very gleeming issues this game had and still has to this day. The more I played the game the more issues popped up, starting with some nitpicks about the options not working correctly or some few graphical issues it quickly showed this beta turned full-release has some big cracks in it. Shots that clearly hit on my screen went god knows where and others which werent somehow ended up being headshots sometimes even killing people who already ran behind cover. Animations still were fucked and resulted in the head of players running full speed when jumping being a full metre apart from their feet so the player model almost looked diagonal. Spraying felt off, bhopping hardly worked, the voice chat being super delayed and the crazy peakers advantage and added running accuracy. Wingman, which was one of my most played gamemodes, is pretty much unenjoyable now since the only included maps are smaller version of Nuke, Vertigo, Overpass and Inferno and absolutely dont work for a 2v2 format as it just comes down to all maps being heavily CT-sided with little to no space for innovative strategies or gameplay. Getting ass blasted for 7 rounds in a row isn't fun, even if youre the one blasting ass when the teams switch. But my biggest issue at the moment is all the changes Valve made for no particular reason. Refunding weapons and the loadout system is cool but why take the buy wheel and switch it out for a generic copy of Valorants? Follow recoil for crosshairs is nice for beginners but why change the spray patters we had for years? Why add more intricate walking and jumping animations when the previous ones were fine and only add visual clutter? Turning every jumping throw to a perfect jump-throw is completely fine and probably even a good change but how was removing double-binds necessery? Why go through the hassle of adding the subtick system when it brings no noticeable benefits and then fucking it up anyways to tie animations to a tickrate, making it guess work why you did or didn't to something in game? Why take away achievements? Don't fix anything that wasn't broken to begin with.
Im absolutely not saying CS2 is bad in every aspect, I still believe it would be a near perfect game if all the things I critiqued were adressed. The new smokes are awesome and work really work (even if I enjoyed oneway smokes), the maps look fantastic and feel fantastic and thanks to the new sound system, even sound amazing. Pinpointing someones location through a smoke just by sound alone is incredible and probably my favourite change overall. Follow recoil, the radar showing sound radius and the jump-throw change make it much more accessible and It makes me happy to see the influx of so many new players. The artstyle of the game changed, yes, but not for the worse its just different.
What I've said doesn't come from a point of pure hate but rather passion for the CS:GO and malcontent with the current state of the game. Im tired of waiting for new patches to finally have fun playing again and I'm tired of inhaling dangerous amounts of copium telling myself that the game will be good at some point. Thank you for changing the index finger position so the finger doesnt look as long but how about fixing the fundamentals first? As a beta this would be great but you cant call this a full release without expecting backlash.

Man I just really miss CS:GO at the moment.

TLDR: Super stylish, well designed game with only a few downsides and a questionable price tag. If you're looking for a fresh experience this is the game for you.

I'll preface this review by saying that I haven't played the original Jet Set Radio games so the nostalgia other people are experiencing while playing this doesn't apply to me so. If you haven't played the spiritual predecessor this review might be for you.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is an artful blast and the most stylish, oldschool-cool game I have ever played and probably ever will play. Every part of the assets are gorgeous looking and fit super well into the overall aesthetic of the game. It radiates understanding of its identity and players expectations which is very rare nowadays and makes BRC a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stagnant gaming industry. But the best part for me is the music. From the moment the first song played I was hooked. It introduced me to a whole new genre of music that I wasn't yet aware of and effortlessly weaved it into the game. I say with confidence that BRC has the best OST from all the games I've played so far. I've you're not planning to play the game atleast give the soundtrack a chance.

There is some minor but fundamental flaws to the game that keep this very good game from being perfect. As of writing this review I haven't finished the game and I honestly dont think I ever will. That's due to the gameplay not feeling too deep and often repetitive. Skateboard tricks are cool and all but they don't go deeper than pressing any of the 3 buttons at the roughly right time. There is no incentive to mix up your inputs and that makes the gameplay feel repetetive. Another issue I have with the game is that the areas you're exploring are good looking but feel mostly empty. A little more decoration here and there would have gone a long way since the artstyle lays a beautiful foundation. The combat system also feels shallow and unneccesary and doesn't really fit in with the floaty movement in my opinion. Lastly I dont see this game being worth the 40€ the developers ask for. It's a short super enjoyable experience and offers very little replayability. If you're planning on playing this game wait for it to go on sale.

Enjoyable experience if you like anime or if Dark Souls is too frustrating to you and you can tolerate the anime part.
I watch anime occasionally but wouldn't say I like the genre overall so from the start I was aware that I was not the target audience and you should be as well when reading my review.

TLDR:
+ More player friendly than Dark Souls (no more boss runbacks)
+ Switching builds on the fly is nice and well thought out
+ Good sounddesign

- Some of the worst level design I've ever seen
- Way too easy to me (even though this hugely varies between players. I've seen Dark Souls veteran ragequit this game)
- Limited character creator
- Painfully bad voice acting
- Shallow character designs and forgetable story

I simplifies or even removes a lot of Dark Souls most annoying and frustrating mechanics. Boss runs are gone or heavily reduced (thank god) and when you level up your character you don't level specific skills but everything at once which allows you to play a wider variety of builds in one playtrough. Different builds is where I feel like the game shines the brighest since you can switch them on the fly and try a completly different strategy if a boss is whooping your ass. But sadly the whole ass whooping part is missing from Code Vein. Enemies between bosses are a joke and the bosses were mostly a joke too. The Invading Executioner took me 15 tries but apart from that most bosses were pretty shallow and easily doable on first or second try. This is mostly the fault of the companion system and the Zweihänder, one of the absolute best weapons of the game, being available in the first hour or two of playing.

The music and sounddesign in the game is mostly very good. Sometimes there is audio clipping and in some sections of the map the game doesn't know which music to play and awkwardly fades between both but that's a very niche issue that really hardly impacts the games feel. The soundtrack is very good even though it can often feel repetitive.

Contrary to most peoples opinion I didn't like the character creator. Im usually not big on character creators but Code Vein had the first anime-esque one which piqued my interest. Hair, eye or tattoo customization is nice but lacked a lot of different important things. It completely lacks customization of facial features which limits what you can do with it a lot.
Also: We get to choose a voice for our character during the customization which gave me hope that our character would be completely voiced, but no. The only times this is used is in 3 sentences of a cutscene and when your character gets hit he goes "What the!!!" from time to time and thats it. When it comes to actual conversations your character just stays quiet even if asked a question. Voiced dialog is not necessary in this game and would even be surprising considering there are multiple different voices you can choose but then write the dialog in a way which conversations aren't that weird awkward-silence-like mess.

The english voiceacting is very corny and cringey and sounds like those TikTokers anime impressions. The story, which is probably the games biggest appeal apart from the artstyle is alright. It's nothing special just a very ordinary anime story about friendship and the underdogs winning with a vampire twist to it. I enjoyed it nevertheless but I'll probably forget about it in about a week. Im also not a big fan of the way the story is told. There is a shitload of cutscenes, sometimes even cutscenes followed by a loading screen and another cutscene. The other way the game drives the narrative forwards is with (who guessed it) half-walkable-cutscenes which start out interesting enough but quickly feel like nothing more than a task. They're also mostly made up of reused terrain and some renders accompanied by voicelines. It gets apparent that the developers just didn't feel like creating that many fully rendered cutscenes so they defaulted to that.

The worst thing about the game is the level design though. Areas are visually appealing at the first glance and that's it. They are mostly built around 1 or 2 gimmicks which are then heavily overused and get boring real quick. Some levels are outright reused (Cathedral of Sacred Blood and Crypt Spire) and have nothing to offer exept the same loot all the time. They often feel like mazes for all of the wrong reasons. Also the invasion mechanic feels very uninspired especially compared to the Dark Souls games and only drive up the difficulty of the game artificially.