This is a cozy game, actually. It's not as horny as the EGM features would have you believe - it's actually a pretty fun vacation simulator with some casino games, some volleyball, and some light dating-sim elements. I truly believe that the structure of this game could be expanded upon to be something great, and maybe the sequels get there! Everything is pretty shallow though, and the only real "goal" besides chilling out is collecting a bunch of trinkets in the game. Still, it was a fun couple hours to spend on a virtual tropical island and have some light fun.

Quake 2's base mechanics served as a scaffolding for this - a set of fun, smart, modern levels with themes, escalating tension, incredible level design, and great environment art. Something of this scope can only be achieved in the modern era by looking backwards to what made games like Half-Life 2 and the modern Dooms great. The only thing holding it back is Quake 2's gunplay and spongy enemies, but Call of the Machine easily earns a place at the top of the great modern boomer shooter campaigns. Easy to recommend over the base Quake 2 campaign.

A really great experiment on something I've wondered about for a long time - can you squeeze a JRPG experience into just a couple of hours? Felvidek offers incredible art, music, and atmosphere on top of answering that question with an emphatic "yes". The medieval historical setting, humor, and weirdness blend to create a really special game that straddles the line between formulaic and experimental. Only the trappings of its engine truly hold it back, but if RPG Maker is the canvas the creators chose, I have nothing but respect for the awesome work that they made with it.

An extremely crunchy tactics game that doesn't quite stick the landing. The game has all of the gorgeous art and character design you would expect from a Vanillaware project, and the 2D animation and style is incredible. The tactics remain fun for most of the game's runtime, but where the game falls flat is with the story. Despite some decent character writing, the story feels like it was written for about a 5th-grade reading level, which makes this game shrink in comparison to other tactics titles like Tactics Ogre. No character has any conviction that is stronger than losing a fight, and the fact that you can recruit everyone means that there's essentially no reason to ever not spare a vanquished enemy. I started skipping some cutscenes towards the end of the game, and I feel incredibly confident in that decision. Despire the story being a dull mess, programming your units and getting an overpowered party is pretty fun, although the battles become extremely rote in the last quarter of the game. I am glad I played and finished it, but I'm a little disappointed that the game didn't turn out to be quite the banger I thought it would shape up to be.

Bannerlord is ever so slightly more than the sum of its parts - clunky inventory management, Chivalry-adjacent combat, and a dynamic open map combine to make something pretty special. I can't overlook the shortcomings in each element of the whole game, but the potential for emergent storytelling seems there. Almost 40 hrs in and I haven't even completed a campaign, I feel like the core loop of the game wears a little thin after this long. Still, I had fun with the time I spent with it, but I am not sure I want to keep scraping to find more to love.