This is an A+ puzzle game held back by a C- story.

Viewfinder’s first impression is that of a gorgeous, but unremarkable perspective puzzle game in the same genre as superliminal, manifold garden, antichamber, and arguably the unfinished swan. Two things immediately become clear.

Firstly, the game never stops talking to you. I adore voice-memo walking simulators (you can see my review of Tacoma for evidence), but not only is this game extremely flat and cliché in its dialogue writing, the voice acting performances seem designed to grate players looking for a thoughtful, quieter experience. I can see this game being explicitly designed for with an audience of children/non-gamers in mind — the powerful rewind ability and built-in hint system seem to point to that — which would explain the tone. If it is intentional, I wish that the team had chosen otherwise. Why does this game about a creative team of artists, engineers, scientists, and mathematicians have to be about a building a top secret super weapon to save the earth from climate change? It’s not that you’re not allowed to tell that story in a game, it just feels like this gameplay-focused first person puzzler where the only in-game NPC is a cartoon cat is a top 5 worst places to tell that story.

Second, this game’s puzzles are great. Beyond great, actually; every new chapter introduced clever gimmicks that harmonized with the core mechanics while leaving room for less flashy variations on the core mechanics. I ended up completing the entire game and all optional levels without really intending to. Despite only getting stuck on one level, I left feeling completely satisfied and hugely impressed.

I can’t wait to see what this studio makes next. Whatever it is, I’m just praying that they leave out dialogue.

* New enemies and vehicles that greatly expand the combat sandbox
* Exceptional set pieces (antlion hive, autogun approach, first encounter with the hunters)
* Valve finally made fighting striders tolerable

I get it now

My review may be colored by the fact I finished this game on the Steam Deck in 2024, but WOW, what a mixed experienced. I can understand that was a paradigm shift in 2005, a in a year where the other major releases were GTA: San Andreas and Pokémon Leaf Green, but for me the admittedly neat campaign was muddled by flat characters, mediocre encounter design, and a wickedly underwhelming ending. Dr. Breen’s absentee villainy felt like a huge waste of what could have been an iconic figure, instead being literally relegated to diegetic TV segments where his calming narration can populate the otherwise completely sparse hallways and corridors. If this is your favorite game of all time, don’t let my disappointment sour your admiration.

Just understand that I never want to fight another strider in my fucking life.

As a fighting game dilettante, competitive smash enjoyer, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice superfan, I came into Sifu with a lot of preconceptions about what kind of game I wanted it to be. I was left disappointed with what I found.

First of all, Sifu is a genuinely beautiful love letter to Chinese martial arts cinema. The smart application of film grain and some excellent choices in each level’s color/visual design really help make up for the threadbare story.

My biggest issue is with the combat. There are several core mechanical decisions that I just don’t agree with: parrying strong attacks, regardless of your timing, will always do damage to your posture bar. Strong attacks must be dodged, but dodges don’t inherently lead to an opening, a successful dodge instead recovers posture and builds “focus”, a resource which serves as a super meter. This is a fine, albeit complex, foundation to build a game with (sekiro, for instance, only asked the player to attack, parry, and on some heavily telegraphed attacks, counter or jump), but the game further adds directional dodges and a high/low/mid/overhead system that is VERY under-explained. You can always dash back or to the side to disengage from a strong attack, but doing so usually forfeits your chance to punish with a meaningful combo. It’s almost tragic, this is an absolutely fatal flaw — this game is entirely a long corridor of combat encounters interspersed with boss fights. A solution to all this combat complexity could be to simply get good, and the game provides a fairly competent training mode your house/hub level, but since the whole game is only five levels long and most heavy attacks (these are the glowing strikes that force you to engage with the directional dodge system or dash back defensively) are fast enough to feel practically unreactable, I satisfied myself with just learning the combo counterplay I had to for boss fights, and just eating the overheads dished out by regular goons.
I genuinely really enjoyed all the boss fights (except for the museum boss’s first phase, which heavily incentivized non-interaction), so I’m sure I would have had more fun if I was playing the game correctly!!!

So Sifu didn’t meet my expectations, but I can’t shake the feeling that that’s on me — rather than the game not fulfilling its own vision. But even with my personal biases aside, I, heartbreakingly, can’t recommend this kung fu fantasy.

I experienced Black Mesa as my introduction to the Half Life series, having played Portal 2 on release as a very young kid. I really enjoyed this game! There were certainly some sequences that I thought aged poorly (the instant-death jumping challenges in the explosives depot stood out as a huge headache), but generally, the level design more than made up for it with its memorability. I think my favorite level was the Xen sequence “Interloper”, which if I understand correctly was revised and expanded on for this community remaster. There are some sequences, such as the whole section of alien grunt factory puzzles, that could be cut out, but the first encounters with non-hostile Vortigaunts was my favorite moment in the whole game.
I do wish that the game ran better steam deck, but besides that, no notes.

Funny, this game most strongly reminded me of another visually impressive adventure-puzzle game from 2022, Scorn. Despite the apparent differences in tone and intended audience, the main verbs of play are shared between the two games: go to location, interact with object, appreciate the vibe of the carefully hand-crafted environments. I would be more likely to recommend Stray over its more graphic counterpart though, as Stray’s Assassin's Creed-esque parkour elements are immediately engaging. It is, excuse the cliche, good to be a cat.

I hadn’t played Super Mario 3D world before, and as a fan of the 3DS’ Super Mario Land, I was completely whelmed by the experience on offer there. Four player co-op continues to be the best way to experience Mario’s 2/2.5D offerings, and in that mode this game is exceptional.
Bowser’s fury more than makes up for this — it may be one of Nintendo’s highest-profile experiments ever and with refinement, I could see a similar open world structure flourishing in the next full 3D Mario game.
An overall fantastic package with two sides that complement each other much more than I had anticipated.

Wow, what a disappointment. Last Light improves on Metro 2033’s mechanics in every way — the improved shooting and weapon animations are especially noticeable. Unfortunately, the shifted emphasis to a VERY cliche storyline and impressively one-note characters vaporizes any goodwill earned by the smoother gameplay.

And look, this doesn’t tend to bother me much, but the way this game used women in lingerie as set dressing was egregious. Whenever sex workers are introduced, they feel deeply out of place. It’s like a pole dance strip club scene was added to Tommy’s town in the Last of Us. Like it’s fine if we want to make an eye candy sequence for the boys, but I can’t remember a single woman in this game who keeps her shirt on.

Also moral points are an extremely confusing and arbitrary system. Mid game