Fun game, one of the best set in the Roman Empire. I'd like if the game taught you better the different moves or combos (example: you can roll/dash an attack if you press X just before it connects), although it's also fun to discover and learn this stuff by your own, but sometimes I did something cool and had no clue how.

The stealth sections are ok, a lil palate cleanser, but they slow the pacing way down. I think these sections exist solely for the purpose of telling the story, which is nothing to write home about. Also, I believe there's too many cutscenes, some where cool tho. I don't know if this would sound odd, but this game really feels like a Capcom game. This is the predecessor of Dead Rising by the way, at least mechanically (the movement, the combat, weapon durabilty system, you heal eating food, text box)

Ultimately a good game, is fun, very brutal and violent which fit the gladiator vibe. I wish existed a game kinda like this, but only centered around the colosseum fights. I'd love that. I don't know if it's an underrated game but at least is a game that deserves to be better known than it is.

*Abandoned because I had to re-do one of the final sections of the game and got lazy, since I already beat this when I was younger and that section felt reaaaally tedious

This is the only survival game (talking about survival games like Don't Starve) that I managed to get into. I suck at this games but the atmosphere in this one is so good and unnerving that I just had to keep going until the end. Also I'm certainly not a fan of horror games, but this was superb, I'm very glad I didn't skipped this one.

The visuals are nice, I really liked the portraits of the characters. Also the sound and ambiance is REALLY well done, at many different points I was totally creeped out and nothing was directly happening on screen. There are no quest markers or stuff like that so if you wanna complete the game and quests you must pay attention, be very patient (also because your character doesn't move very fast) and explore.

The gameplay was fine, it does not have a vast selection of constructions or items you can craft, which is fine by me because I tend to get overwhelmed when there's too much stuff to build and I don't know what option would be the best. The combat was a little bit difficult to me, I didn't enjoy it as much as exploring the world, but on normal difficulty death is almost inconsequential so lucky me.

A very original horror game that gave me a truly unique and harrowing experience, would recommend to any horror fan, regardless of the medium; I personally prefer books over movies or games, but that didn't stop me from enjoying this title. Truly a great game.

Blade of Darkness is a remaster released in 2021 of the original Blade: the Edge of Darkness (or Severance: Blade of Darkness), an action-adventure game from 2001. It's hard for me to sort out my feelings about this game, since it's one of the PC games that I played in my childhood (last time I played it was at least 14 years ago) and I love it, but it is difficult to recommend in 2022, because it just feels old and somewhat dated; furthermore, the remaster does little to update the game: there is now support for 16:9 screens, it is more compatible with modern OS, there are achievements and it has support for joysticks (although it has some problems: there are som combos you can't perform and overall it just felt weird, I generally prefer to play with a controller, but this game was easier with M+K). I didn't see any changes apart from those. I'm glad I can play this game without any headaches on Win10, but I can't help but feel a bit disappointed to find various bugs (I'm 99% sure I experienced some of these in the past) and the same jankiness when I was a kid (if you're very nostalgia driven this could be a plus? idk).

Getting into the gameplay, the main focus of the game is combat. You have to select between 4 characters: the Knight, the Barbarian, the Dwarf and the Amazon; with different stats and more importantly, with different weapons to wield. At this time, one could say that combat is proto souls-like: enemies have (basic) attack patterns and one has to identify them and react accordingly. One mistake and you will be punished for it, possibly in a fatal way. You have to press buttons simultaneously to make combos, akin to Street Fighter if you like, to make more powerful moves and thus eliminate the enemy.
The levels are linear, although they allow a certain degree of exploration, encouraged by the discovery of more powerful weapons. In addition to weapons, there are the typical healing potions which you can grab and save for later. Also, some levels have traps and present some level of variety: There are castles, fortresses, caves, tombs, temples, graveyards, among others. Is not that much, but they're a nice change of scenery. There is not much to say about the music and sound other than is serviceable, although completing it more than once makes it feel repetitive but still I liked it. On the other end of the spectrum, there are sections that don't have music, and I think it would be better if they had some kind of background music or ambiance.

On the narrative and theme, it is a fantasy game (low fantasy), resulting from mixing Conan the Barbarian and Lord of the Rings (not my quote but very spot on imo). There are orc enemies, knights, trolls, minotaurs, demons, among other monsters. The mission is to find a holy magic sword to definitively defeat the Evil. Simple. The story is definitely not the focus here, I don't think it's even necessary to enjoy the game, but it seemed like a good addition that gives flavor to the game; in the introductory cinematics and at the end of the levels it is implied that there is a world much bigger than the one the player sees, naming characters and places that I had next to no idea what they were, but it was cool. I like that they spent some thought in worldbuildind, trying to make it believable, despite not being the focus, and in my opinion, not even a necessity.

Now, why did I have a hard time reviewing this game? In short, because this is bumpy, rough and janky to play. At least by the standards that, in one way or another, we have acquired over the years. The game, when it works, is fun. I'd be lying if I said it isn't: after all, I completed it with all 4 characters and, for the most part, I had fun (not so much with the dwarf tho, fuck the dwarf). The problem is that there are many times that the game does not cooperate: Faulty hitboxes, attacks that visually clearly connected but didn't deal any damage, faulty jumps that more often than not make you fall to your death, instances where you'd get stuck either inside an enemy (be careful of skeletons), inside a wall or inside a hole, moments when the volume suddenly rises for a couple of seconds and nearly kills you with a heart attack, janky lock-on system and maybe a gamecrash or two. I had just one, when I was trying to get the no saves achievement and was 60% through the game. Pain.
They're probably more bugs, but these were the major and annoying ones. Also, if I'm talking negatives, it's impossible not to mention the "final" boss. I truly believe is one of the worst bosses I've ever fought in a videogame (beware, rant ahead), because it is not very well designed. This motherfucker teleports when he's in your weapon reach, and, if you manage to hit him, you can only hit him once before he tp's because he has some kind of magical shield or barrier that provokes your weapon to bounce (as if you were hitting a real, physical shield). This is because this dude (that only appears on this level and I'm not sure if its even mentioned earlier in the story) is supposed to be beaten with the sacred sword I mentioned at the start. But, and big but, you need the fully powered sword. To unleash the full powers of the sword you have to collect 6 runes, which are hidden in different levels and are deemed as OPTIONAL; and is the only way to consistently hit his barrier because the upgraded sword has ranged attacks. So, if you are clueless, or want to beat the game quickly (both cases are me. Also if you collect all runes, then you have to beat one extra level, with the true Mr. Evil, which is a very linear level, kinda long, and very boring imo) and didn't get all runes, you are pretty much fucked (I realized all of this playing with the Dwarf, which has a laughable reach. Paaaaain.), unless you are the Amazon and maybe the Barbarian, which have combos with long reach, and maybe they can hit him, I really don't know. Luckily, when you destroy his barrier, you can hit the guy normally and stops teleporting whenever he has the chance. I'm sorry for this very long rant and going a bit off rails, but I really HATED this boss. Fuck you Dal-Gurak.

Finally, for the visuals I have nothing to say. I mean, it's a game from 2001, you can't say it looks good compared to what we have now, but I don't think it looks awful and I liked the style and setting the devs were going for, although I think there are like 3 or 4 levels that don't mesh very well with the rest of the game. I read that this was one of the first games with real-time shadows, so round of applause. Seriously, very cool.

I can't say in good faith that it's a good game and that you should play it, nor do I think it's a bad game. It is simply a game that, currently, is somewhat mediocre. I found there is some mods for both the new and old version but I didn't dive much into that. Might be some pretty cool stuff there.
I’d recommend Blade of Darkness to someone who likes “old” PC games, specially action/adventures ones and/or to someone with high tolerance to bugs and jankiness that could make you load or restart your game. Despite this lukewarm review, I still love it very much. Do yourself in favor tho, and if you play pick the Amazon or the Barbarian.

At first I thought the new desktop thing was kind of lame, however I realized it's there because consoles. I do think that if this version is your first time experiencing the game, the desktop sort of minimizes the shock, surprise or whatever. I just don't like it that much.

That being said, I really like when games incorporate concept art, sketches and that kind of stuff as rewards for completionists, so I was very pleased to find that in this game. The best part of the Plus! side of things are definitely the side stories. They were cute and truly heartwarming.

An upgraded version that doesn't necessarily is the best, but surely a superior version if you played the original (or if you know the twists and what you have to do, which isn't unlikely given the popularity that it had when it came out) and liked it.

Cool atmosphere, the Divide really feels like and ancient, destroyed world, but that's where the positives end. This DLC was just a linear, long quest, and unfortunately I don't get the praise or interest in Ulysses character. I think his motivations are too edgy. I kinda liked the meta-commentary about following markers without thinking in the consequences (at least that's what I understood) but Elijah on Dead Money already did that so I don't know.

In few words, this was a boring DLC, glad it only took me about 3 hours to do everything, and I'm sorry, but this is the worst DLC, at least to me. Not bad, just dull.

I played this like 5 years ago and decided to revisit it after stumbling upon a video which featured this janky ass game and I realized that I didn't unlock the fun stuff. So, I played through the campaign 3 times in 3 days in roughly 35 hours, got the "true" ending, reflected for 1 hour about what the fuck I just played, and then decided to write this because is 5 AM and can't sleep.

When people talk about how fun is this game, they always forget all the grinding you have to pass through to get the fun OP weapons/psi-cyber-powers. Nonetheless, the gunplay in general is fun, OP weapons or not. I tried every weapon and most of them feel distinct and fun to use, largely thanks to their sound. I love the gun sound in this game. If you are patient you can become incredibly overpowered, like jump 15 floors and run at 300 km/h overpowered. Sadly, this is semi-hidden behind so much grinding (or you can be like me and download cm_farm_alpha23) and very obtuse and janky systems (like the research stuff).

The mood of this game is defined by its narrative, and, oh boy, the devs were at least on ketamine when writing the story. It's very inaccesible. The backstory is presented in walls of text in the main hub, the dialogues are not well translated and are kinda broken and, if you really wanna follow the story and discover the "true" ending (you have to get all the "other endings" first), you also have to be on a ketamine trip. The NPCs that somewhat hint what is going on are hidden inside the levels, and the levels are very, very big and confusing. In fact, I invested early on heavily on my cyberlegs, and I suggest you do too, because navigating through these levels without anything boosting your speed is tortuous, to say the least. You can complete the campaign without undestanding jackshit what happened, and that's fine, and expected I think. E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy is a experience, in the same way a fever dream is also a experience.

Despite all its clunkiness, its jank and its inaccessibility, is a fun and certainly unique game. Recommended to try if you like niche games, the Source engine, hard drugs, brouzouf, shooting at things, W40K and above all, have the patience and tolerance to unlock the cool stuff. I heard the game is much more fun if you complete it with friends on coop (which game isn't?), but for better or for worse, I got through all of this alone.
The quintessential schizo game. Maybe.

I got this game from a friend a year ago, no more expectations than "is a really well made indie game" and it didn't disappoint. At all. After playing on and off for about one year I'm finally done and it has become one of the greatest games I've played in recent times.

Hades is a roguelite set in the greek mythological Underworld. The work the devs did to adapt so many of this myths into the game is truly exquisite. It's exceptional on all other fronts too, polished in every aspect: art direction, dialogues, narrative and story, music, gameplay, etc. Clearly, the universal praise this game has received is not for naught.

Compared to similar games, Hades doesn't have so many items and sinergies, at least in numbers, but it's still very entertaining, I feel that almost any combination of weapon and items is viable. Despite the not so diverse item pool, the responsiveness and tightness of the combat are their main hooks. I had great fun mashing the same buttons time and time again lol.

My favorite thing about this game is the way it intertwines narrative and the core of the gameplay seamlessl, delivering a really fluid and enjoyable experience. Hades justifies all their mechanics through the narrative, even the most basic ones that defines what genre is this game. I love when games are this coherent with themselves, it really showcases how cool games can be as a medium and how they can provide fun, distinct and great experiences.

It's true that this game can get repetitive very quickly, everyone has different tolerence to different kinds of grinding, but beyond that I don't think that I have negative things to say. I didn't experience any bugs, game looks good, dialogue was interesting and amusing, gameplay was straightforward and fun, the music is sick, I don't know what else to write, if anyone read this and hasn't played Hades, you should try it. It truly deserves all the praise it has received. To me, this is kinda like a "perfect game", if such a thing exists.

I finally played Bioshock, after so many years hearing friends and people on the internet talking about it, that it is one of the best games of the 00s, that the story is great, the setting this, the characters that, etc. I hadn't played it before because it didn't appeal to me, it just didn't look special at all or that interesting, at least not as much as people made it look. But, less than a day has passed since the credits rolled and I can only wonder: why didn't I play it earlier?

There isn't much to say about this game at this point, everyone has already said everything there is to say about this game. Bioshock is a single-player FPS with failry simple and standard mechanics, but it doesn't get boring thanks to the different weapons and plasmids. Also the game is not long by any means. What makes Bioshock stand out from its peers in the genre is its compelling story and great atmosphere, which make it instantly recognizable and unique. In addition, it has good dialogue, characters, good level design, at least in my opinion (I never felt that the level was very long or very short, and except for certain moments in Arcadia, I also never felt lost or confused). I liked the sound design too, although the directional sound should have been polished a lot more, it was tough to pinpoint the location of an enemy by sound. The only bad thing I have to say is that with the remaster they could have made some small QoL improvements, like being able to zoom the map with the mousewheel, some audio fixes (vanilla audio is very compressed imo), stuff like that. Maybe this game could have a little more enemy variety, but it doesn't really bother me.

Bioshock has all the elements (and more) to be considered one of the best of its kind, and the passage of time has proved this true, nowadays is considered a classic, and with good reason. If by any chance you are reading this in the year of our Lord 2021 and you have not played it (like I did 3 days ago), play it now, before you end up thinking why didn't I play it earlier?

I wanted to like this game, actually for the first 10 chapters or so it was fine, but then I forced myself to finish it because I already was halfway through. It's not that the first half of the game was better, is just that by the later levels I was fed up.

There's nothing exceptional about this game, boring enemies, repetitive bosses, level design ranging from okay to awful. There's a couple of weapons and skills to choose so that was a little nice, but halfway through the game you have almost all the good stuff. The part when you're slashing, shooting and dismembering demons is very fun, but the encounters soon get repetitive, and the parts when you're not hacking 'n' slashing are so boring, and it some levels it can get very confusing going to where you're supposed to go. Also, I experienced so many little bugs in all the levels that were annoying, ranging from little shakiness of the camera on certain surfaces, dashing downstairs to meet my insta-death, getting lifted by some attacks to then fall to my death to enemies spawning out of bounds and forcing me to restart.

I don't know if this game is simply dated, I'm too nitpicky, unlucky or whatever, but I just fucking hated and I'm glad it's over. I just feel they didn't played it after finishing it, but I highly doubt that's the case.

Crypt of the Necrodancer is a very original roguelike/lite that adds elements of a rhythm game, accompanied by music that SLAPS, creating a very unique game.
Sadly I played it, and it's good, but it didn't get me hooked, unlike similar games Binding of Isaac or Hades, for example. The game has a decent variety of items, characters and enemies, but the runs, at least the ones I experienced, never felt very different one from another. Also, I may be very bad at it, but for me this game is hard, which may have diminished a little bit my will to keep trying.
Despite my lukewarm experience, I think it's a good game, it has charming pixel graphics and visual design, amazing soundtrack and a very cool and creative core concept that you must have to give it a try.