When I try to think of notable examples of games in the space of co-op mission-based PvE, it's kind of crazy how the only big ones that come to mind are Left4Dead, Deep Rock Galactic, and PAYDAY because (for the most part), these are all really successful and fun when they work. Helldivers 2 most certainly joins the company of these aforementioned titles, and one I can see myself coming back to (friends-willing) over and over.

In the galactic effort to spread democracy for Super Earth, as a Helldiver you pick a planet on the galactic map (currently inhabited by either giant bugs or terminator-style robots) and from there, choose an operation. Depending on your difficulty setting, your operations will consist of varying numbers of missions and objective types. Drop in and run around to launch an ICBM, defend an outpost from a swarm, collect planetary samples, and so on. Depending on the mission type (and how thorough you can afford to be), missions usually range from 12-30 minutes and you are rewarded extra for completing an operation, making it very easy to play for long periods of time as it's just that fun.

After you return from a mission, you can use your hard-earned currencies to unlock new strategems (airstrikes or weapon drops called in by performing a DDR string on the D-Pad), as well as progress in the battle passes and modules to upgrade your ship. There's much to choose from and each player gets 4 strategem slots per mission, so there's plenty of room for synergy and customization.

Overall, it's a pretty good combat loop and the movement and shooting feel very reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid V. If I had something negative to say about it, I would say certain currencies being hard locked to higher difficulties is a bit unfortunate because 1) Communication and Cooperation is absolutely mandatory the higher you go (playing with randoms rules this out), and 2) The difficulty level really starts to feel less about spreading Democracy and more about running for your life from every encounter in the name of efficiency. Getting stomped doesn't feel great, getting stomped after 40 minutes of commitment just sends me into Dota 2 PTSD. While I also don't normally factor this sort of thing into my reviews unless it was a real detriment, but there have been a litany of bugs and glitches hampering the experience since launch, and each patched introduced something new and frustrating. I'm sure this sort of thing will work itself out as the devs chip away at it, but for now simply playing with friends has been a hassle.

Still, if you are looking for a really solid shooter to co-op with, this is definitely a great new offering. There's a ton of unlocks to keep the gameplay loop feel engaging, and if they keep their current cadence up I'm sure there will be lots more crazy new things to try out or shoot at within the next year.

Helldivers 2: The Game is a pretty snappy time. Putting in the Konami Code to perform actions is fun and fresh, dropping down all kinds of ordinance left and right is so satisfying (even if I hate the controls sometimes.) Helldivers 2: The Live Experience is where its really at tho, and boy is it nice to finally see the possibilities of Live Service start to be explored by someone with even a shred of imagination (or dignity)

This could be all of them, you know. All the Live Services could have been doing this instead of shoveling out a series of unrelated themed events like “Oh, time to go to Pirate World! Time to buy the Jolly Roger emote and Captain Blackbeard skin!”. We havent even begun to live, theres still so much unbroken ground to traverse. I dont know if Helldivers 2 can keep it up for very long (Im almost certain they cant) but theyve done the industry a favor.

"Good thing I didn't bet against you!"

There are video games that I consider to be the greatest of all time. Games like Tetris that brilliantly execute a falling puzzle arcade experience simply with 4-block configurations. It is the job of the game designer to craft mechanics and systems as flawlessly as possible, often attempting to evolve upon a formula that came before it.
The standard 52-card deck is no stranger to this; its centuries-old design still being used to this day, with most notably games like Solitaire and Poker, among others. Balatro manages to build upon the latter, in a way that I genuinely was not expecting.

I went into Balatro knowing only what I've heard, not what I've seen. I hear it's like Poker, one of my all-time classics that I'm familiar with, and I'm on board. I hear it's a roguelike and deck-builder, I hesitate because I don't see myself a big fan of those two genres. Now, I can gush all day about the pixel-art/CRT-filtered presentation (as I always do), but that's not even this game's big strength. Games of this type utilizing an RNG system can have a tough time finding difficulty balance for the player, but I think Balatro simply using the standard deck of 52 cards genuinely helps a lot in adapting to the randomness of the boss blinds and shop spawns. You begin with the same cards every time, to which you are then allowed to adjust to your liking, based on the tarots and Joker cards you find in your run, most of which that can either lead to the fired-up chips of a massive win or a simple fumble by a boss blind's "attacks". Finishing your first run will depend on both the RNG and your own strategy of aiming for the Poker hands that will reach you to the blind, and each failure will lead you closer to victory with more cards unlocking as you go.

To its design though, I personally think the only thing a bit lacking with Balatro is the simplicity of its nature. I wasn't going into this expecting some wild meta-narrative like Inscryption or anything, but I do kind of wish there was a bit more here. There are tons of cards to unlock and challenges to check out, but in the end, it's just the single experience with multiple handicaps to try out. Perhaps that adds to its brilliance though; I can easily see a game like this show up in an arcade or even (god forbid) a gambling casino.

Balatro, a modern evolution of Poker, deserves its place among classics like Tetris and Solitaire. It may not be addicting to everybody, especially those unfamiliar with standard Poker hands, but its execution of design absolutely can't be understated.
I write this review, as I've been currently struggling to be hooked by most video games I've played so far this year. (Seriously, check out my Backloggd journal, if you don't believe me.) Clearly, this game did its job for me. I even refused to even look at my playtime clock until I finished my first run, and by that time, I ended up around the 13-hour mark... which is at least twice as long as my experience felt; averaging 26 minutes per day for the single month that I played this. (I only really have time to play these games on my lunch breaks at work, and I felt like I've been playing this for months.)

This is a video game that will, surely, stand the test of time, and it is definitely one that I am willing to buy for all of my devices, just to have it with me whenever and wherever. It's a powerful drug, and in a shocking surprise, I am now the dealer.

Play Balatro.

This game is crack for your "ok lemme try that again" brain. An incredibly hard to describe game, but very easy to understand from its simple tutorial. It's the binding of isaac but you're playing poker and your mom is a joker. It suffers from a lot of the same problems as other deckbuilder roguelikes like the fact that RNG can just screw you with nothing to do against it. Almost every build has a boss that can just completely counter you and end your run if you have no way to circumvent it. However when it does work out, it makes you feel like the smartest person alive. Joker abilities comboing into something greater than the sum of their parts makes it all worth it. That's what I'm here for in a roguelike.

About 20 hours into the game as of writing this review, and I can kinda tell where this one will fall for me in the pantheon of rougelike deckbuilders.

It's great, but the runs can feel WAY to dictated by rng (especially in the early stages of a run) because of the games design around poker mechanics. There are tools in the game to let you stack the odds in your favor, but I have had countless runs so far where I just died in the first few rounds due to bad rng when I didn't even get the chance to access any of those tools.

What elevates this game above others I have disliked for the same reasons is the variety and ease of getting into each run. There are so many different variations of jokers (cards that provide unique abilities), enhancements and powerups that each run can feel unique even when you are playing the same few poker hands. And when you do lose, it's so quick and easy to jump back in. I've found myself in the "just one more run" mindset basically every time I sit down when I have time to spare.

And once you are past the early stages of a run, choices start to matter more and you can mitigate rng with careful planning. Every round comes with a dozen or so different choices, all of which can impact your run in various ways. The strategy is quite deep in these moments, something I love in a deckbuilder.

A benefit to the detective mystery subgenre is that if you have a compelling lead, you can squeeze a great deal of juice from a simple formula, at least as far as entertainment is concerned. While it would be quite hard for me to find novel things to write in reviews had Frog Tec become a long running I am quite glad that Grace Bruxner has the chance to expand on the template that the first entry set before wrapping things up. Frog Tec 2 does add slightly more to keep track of, hence the addition of a journal where you can accurately label everyone, including yourself as suspicious, but the true benefit of the larger scope is the improved sense of place that is provided by Warlock Woods. It's a setting that allows for an exploration of the theme of community, and expanding on the first game’s theme of communication by focusing on how a shy new resident should introduce herself after making a mistake. It remains good-natured lighthearted fun - now if only someone would bring the dastardly Evil Guy to justice!

Hell Divers 2 blew up for reason. The game is action packed, hilarious, immensely fun, 3rd person shooter, PvE, and a game you absolutely owe it to yourself to play with some friends. As someone who finds the shooter genre just very ok I can not recommend this game enough.

It has been since Overwatch (before it sucked) originally came out that me and my friends had a game that we regularly get on every other night and just have a great time together with. For two months me, @Chordata3 and @TSampys25 have regularly got on and just joked, laughed, and had a great time killing robots, bugs, and spreading democracy.

The gameplay loop is great. There are many different missions, across 9 different difficulties, against (at the time of this review) two seperate factions. The first race you are at war with is the alien bug like creatures known as the Termanids. The bugs are aggressive and can overwhelm you with their numbers quickly. The second race is the robot cyborg Automatons. This race while less likely to swarm you and less chaotice are more tactical which makes them in my opinion a scarier threat. With an aresonal of tanks, rocket launchers, grenades, and a whole lot of guns your going to want to seek shelter and be more stealthy in you approach against them. Going from one race to the other almost feels like a separate game. Luckily the game gives you many different weapons you can unlock as some weapons are great against the Termanids but awful against the Automatons and vica versa.

This game can be played alone but I highly recommend playing with friends. Once you get to a high enough level to unlock all the weapons playing on the highest difficulty with some buddies is one of the most fun and rewarding times you can have playing video games.

I will always be thankful @TSampys25 on a whim asked if me and @chordata3 wanted to buy and play Hell Divers 2 together. We had no idea what it even was at the time and its been some of my favorite gaming memories I have with them now.

Now back to spreading liberty, freedom, and democracy.

I just finished Another Crab's Treasure with all achievements with about 21 hours of playtime. One of things I really love about this game is that is comes off as a vibrant, silly, innocent kids game but in reality it's just like every other souls games, it's difficult, it has a dark story, hard bosses, swamps, and... vibrators? but I love every bit of it. There was a few moments in this game where I was soft locked or a bug occurred which was kind of annoying, luckily nothing really ruined my run and the devs are patching the bugs super fast. Other than that, this game is an amazing souls experience and I highly recommend it if you love the soulslike genre.

Narratively simple and mechanically even simpler, there isn't much for Frog Detective (or Frog Tec if you're a Batman fan) to justify it’s forty five minute length beyond its charm. Fortunately, its charm is irresistible; it's lounge jazz soundtrack, clever camera work, and cleanly minimalist 3D art style all supporting the beating heart of Frog Tec, its gently awkward humor. Characters descend into lengthy detours over semantics, bring up their special interests unprompted, and blurt our their insecurities, and it's all presented with sharp wit to make it hilarious.

The gameplay consists entirely of talking to a character and fulfilling their needs or wants, usually by talking to another character or picking up an object lying around not far from them, to solve a mystery that could have been solved if any other character has bothered to do so. As such, Frog Tec conceptualizes detective work as communication, and the interesting thing about that is that our titular Detective isn't that great at communicating either! It's his willingness to push through the awkwardness that distinguishes him, and brings a purpose to the hijinks, as enjoyable as they are on their sake.

They sure did make one of these!

Filled with mixed feelings across the board. The narrative is, broadly speaking, really enjoyable. It's endearing to encounter these characters again in such a new format. Cloud is perfectly communicated as a tryhard, Barrett is a fanatic with the glasses on and a soulful man with the glasses off, Tifa and Aerith are cute. All the key dynamics are beautiful and they feel right. The things that exist in the original game are broadly done right.

Mechanically, it's sort of… muddled. I was surprised to find I actually really enjoyed the action rpg format. I’m a KH nerd, I’m still a sucker. But KH has the advantage of multiple worlds and environments to explore. There’s opportunities to engage with the mechanics and the enemies at your own leisure. By comparison, FF7R is… very linear. Your opportunities to level up or engage with its combat without main-line progression is limited to specific locations, all out of the way of each other. Shinra combat simulators, Collesseums, small enemy zones just outside of limited sidequest chapters. And the sidequest chapters often fall into things I thought we all know got tedious in these kinds of rpgs, chasing down rats and so on. I understand and even sympathize with needing to add time to the clock, to make the purchase worth it, but... man. I just want more character beats. On the other hand, your reward for finishing quests being more character moments is really charming as well. I guess my main issue is that I find exploring Midgar as the city so interesting and fulfilling, while the emptier monster sections feel so constrained and repetitive. Hated Train Graveyard, hated the freeways. I guess it really comes down to the map design. There's so many sections where I just end up staring at the minimap rather than actually looking at the game around me. When the level design is singing, I am in love with the combat and I'm thrilled in each enemy encounter. When the level design is failing, I was constantly begging for the chapter to end.

And then you get to the (I assume well known at this point) rebuild-esque shenanigans, where complicated characters kind of just start repeating the same sort of "I defy my fate" or "the future can be bright" voice lines that just bum me out in a way. While the weird dynamic of the anti-retcon ghosts helping or hindering the party initially makes some interesting narrative complications, the ultimate result is a narrative that just kind of loses my interest compared to the normal intimacy found in the original FF7.

Approaching FF7 decades after the original was a genuinely beautiful experience. I was consistently excited to talk about it, I was never bored or annoyed, all the overhype and preexisting fandom expectations melted away into experiencing Just One Of The Greatest Games Of All Time. FF7Remake looks gorgeous, feels great, and offers so many interesting character moments and divergences. But its broader narrative of trying to reconcile with that overwhelming fan response? Just ultimately kind of goes nowhere for me.

See you in three years when Rebirth gets on PC.