Zebsdee

A fun, short, visual novel with some very light puzzle elements. It's wonderfully drawn and the humour has translated well across to English as you help a turkey detective locate a kidnapped hamster. The puzzles are in the mode of little jigsaws or the occasional memory game - nothing really intended to trip you up, and help to vary things. Enjoyed it a lot.

I really enjoyed Dread Fields. It's a slow burn into the horror as the unease builds around the routine of tasks on the farm. It gave me almost a Wickerman vibe, if Wickerman were set on a Ukrainian farm. It's low poly count graphics and very simple button press gameplay as it does the PS1 thing, and it does it quite beautifully places too. Big fan of these small, atmospheric games that work within very tight constraints to give a memorable experience.

Playing the sequel put me into the mood to load this up again. The thing which really helps carry this is the music (Guillaume David going ham on an organ) and the styling. It makes a virtue of stripping things back graphically, of not going for a fully voiced game but using a take on Lingua Technis (an in-universe language), and of not being too concerned at the player pushing deep into power fantasy builds to cleanse the tombs of the evil Necrons. It's not a complex turnbased tactical game but the loop is effective and it all comes together very well.

I wish I liked it more but a combination of **** launch day issues and design choices mean I'm very on the fence with this sequel. The launch day issues I'm sure will be patched, I personally didn't have any performance problems but the integration of music (charging again to include the old OST? come on...) and Lingua Technis (half-assed in cut scenes, weirdly doubles and triples the same sound sequences out of it) really killed the vibe which carried the first game for me. Add to that the shift into missions being linear and combat all about a hero unit with little squads of cannon fodder and just not doing it for me. That's not to say I think it's a bad game, just left me thinking it was very mid and there's a lot of good games releasing that I'd be having more fun with.

Going to be on my personal list for Game of the Year. Beautiful art which takes from avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century, superb music, and a really interactive feel to both the world your hero, Felix, traverses and the puzzles. It's handcrafted cardboard models scanned in and digitally animated, a real labour intensive effort for a small team like Amanita Design's who took 10 years to bring this from concept to release, and so it's understandable that it clocks in at around 4 1/2 hours to reach the ending. My only real downside to it is that moving onto another game to play is kind of hard until memories of this one start to fade a bit.

A very solid sequel to Call of the Sea and carries in that narrative puzzle game style. The puzzles vary, the best being a multistage area where the puzzle is essentially an entire chapter of the six. It's very knowing in how it uses the lovecraftian and plays with some tropes and has fun with the genre. Mild criticism from me would be that at times the use of a narrator leads to things being overexplained but it didn't particularly detract from my enjoyment, and at 6 hours to completion it felt like a game which knew what it wanted to do and where it wanted to stop.

Soundtrack, by Guillaume David, is fantastic again and the game looks really pleasant around the station. The narrative is done well and the objectives help pull you through building up the station and managing the multiple resources and production lines needed. Where the game starts to rub a little poorly is the very tiresome micromanagement needed to move things between individual sectors (think mini cities in your spaceship), or to juggle power supplies, or around the system map as ships need to avoid entering 'bad weather' or risk being destroyed. It pulls the whole experience down, sadly, although it's still a decent game in spite of that criticism.

Beautifully atmospheric low poly count indie game from Ukraine. Not quite a walking sim for the couple of hours to play through, there are lots of simple interactions as you fix and tidy up the abandoned homes, but it's a very gentle and slow paced exploration of loss and absence and grief as well as community and resilience.

Hugely enjoyed this indie narrative puzzle game. It's clearly designed to be played in one or two sittings (6 hours to an ending for me) and kept me engaged with the story and figuring out how to link the fragments of books and notes to codes throughout. One of those games where my criticisms are largely that I wanted more in some part or other, eg more detail of the overall setting, even though its obviously working within constraints which would rule them out.

An easy 10. If you can live with the timing for parry and dodge during the opponents' turns then this is one of the most beautiful and masterful Western takes on the JRPG genre. Can't put enough praise on it from the English voice acting, to the art, to the soundtrack, to the story. Huge props to the devs behind it for pulling so many elements together in such an engaging package. Probably my game of the year, absolutely blown away by it.

Enjoyed my 53 hour first playthrough quite a lot. Dialogue driven RPG which is all about the choices/consequences starting from the character build. Satires of three factions are dialled back from the first by letting the setting/environment and your own understanding of what's going on take precedent. Combat was fine, similar to first with more tools. Already planning a second run with a different build to see where that takes my character after playing a fast talking professor this time. No real technical issues, a few small bugs but largely audio/visual in specific places.

Lots I really loved to it - Bloober Team are doing sound design and atmospheric settings so well. I've just bounced right off how they've designed the combat, really not my thing at all and no desire to see whether it improves further into the game as you accumulate upgrades.

I enjoyed this. The puzzle elements mesh into an overall story very nicely. It's essentially a game of observation and inference, although you can brute force the solutions with enough time too, as you learn the different languages of the inhabitants of a tower. Some little tiny criticisms from me are around things like the camera being a bit slow at times to keep up with your character, and it can make exploration feel a little tedious when that happens. It's also a game where I found myself playing in relatively short bursts because your often circling a particular level to find a missing word which will unlock being able to solve a puzzle or another phrase. Minor griping aside, a really good game from a small indie team.

A rare 10 from me because I loved this game, as Arkane took on an immersive sim and largely landed it. It's intelligently made, allowing for a lot of creativity and finding your own way through a cleverly constructed Talos. Combat is the weakest part of the mix to this but it's still very passable.

A very relaxed take on automating a train network to move things around a procedurally generated island. It's clearly not intending to be an intensive game and keeps things relatively simple around fairly straightforward logic options to automate things. The choice of art style works well here, and I found it a very chilled out game to dip into for the 20 hours I took to complete it while listening to my trains chug away round the tracks (I did not speed up time).

A short platformer which leans towards challenging you to speed run it, but it also has a lot to take in with a fantastic vision of how to use those retro graphics to create a devil's lair to navigate. I've had a great time of it, even if I'll never top a leaderboard, just exploring the carefully prepared environments and listening to its soundtrack. I think it's going to be the top, or close to it, for my choice for 2025's game with outstanding visual style.

Really enjoying this. It is clearly intended to challenge and it's doing that in abundance. It's also a game which is easy on the eye and the ear, it knows what it wants to do and delivers on it. There are a couple of levels, out of 40+, which left me a little cold but even then that's more personal preference to being chased, I think. Otherwise very much a game to check out if you like platformers which ask you to put together a perfect level to get through..

I've been enjoying Cyber Knights through early access and now into its 1.0 release. If you need reference points, think indie cyberpunk action point X-Com crossed with Invisible Inc. while leaning more into the narrative side of things than either so not anonymous recruits but ones with backstories which can effect what they can and cannot do. Lot of systems working away both within the heist-styled missions and the base where you interact with the wider world. Missions support going quiet or going loud (or a bit of both) although experience and equipment will help wanting to focus on a particular way to play In short, an excellent game from a small indie developer and one which will continue to eat into my time to play games.

Excellent indie mystery/detective game . You're a prosecutor in post-WW2 West Germany who has to investigate and prosecute crimes committed during the **** era. You do this by collecting evidence from paperwork and interviewing witnesses, with their recollections being done in 3d to explore - similarish to Obra Dinn in some ways, and then constructing theories about what happened. Ultimately you then present the case in court where your theories need evidence if the prosecution is to be successful. The art style and music combine for almost a noir feel to the game, which worked really well for me. The harder investigation mode does very little handholding, and the writers give you plenty of room to either spot a hint or to miss it, and the story mode brings out how strong the game's narrative side alone is. Really impressive game all round by Paintbucket.

Wish I loved this far more than I do. The writing is very good. The stories I have pieced together have been engaging. Some of the characters are fun, and there's a humour to it all I can appreciate. It just gets far too bogged down in busywork and grind , and without the same sense of atmosphere which let Sunless Seas carry it off.

I think you come to this game for the story telling within a very peculiar universe. It delivers on that. Personally, have had a long term love/hate relationship with the game where I will play for periods digging through those fragments of lore and hunting down stories. And then periods of swearing off ever touching it again because it really does not do QoL features like a proper journal unless you've been taken your own notes. That kind of game where the highs and lows are wrapped up together.

Much better experience with the day 1 patch than many of the critics had with pre-release builds. That said, still issues there which are going to need patching from minor jank like some textures flickering through to the occasional CTD and some systems, like spawning NPCs being too close, not quite working as they could/. So I've dinged a point for those over my 15 hours so far. Against all that, I'm absolutely loving this game. The atmosphere created, the tension of exploration, is incredible. It's a good looking game as it catches the rusty, rundown feel of the Zone as nature merges with the concrete and rusting metal. It has the potential to be a truly memorable game as it pushes against some of the trends in open world gaming in pursuit of how it feels immersion should be.

Rare perfect score from me. Very old school in both its presentation and its expectations on you as a player of survival horror games. A slow build into cosmic horror which is worth not spoiling yourself on, and a story which is happy to ask questions and let you try to provide the answers from the fragments you uncover. Couldn't love it more. A fantastic pixel art experience.

There's just a few too many little things not quite right for me to go higher. A good 8 out of 10 though for me. It's been a lot of fun, some really nicely done moments, and characters who developed as I got to know them better. It's another note to those who came to the Dragon Age series and saw how it reached out and told stories about people from marginalised or oppressed backgrounds. Plus ça change. No technical issues for me. Has run really well with a 3080ti@1440p.

Thoroughly loved what Bloober Team have done with this classic. The audio in particular, including the reworking of the original's score, nailed that unsettling atmosphere as James Sunderland explores. The use of light and darkness was striking. The combat felt solid in a way which never let me forget that the protagonist is just an ordinary man. And the stories told were as disturbing as they were first time round. As I personally did not have any technical issues worth speaking of, a tiny amount of traversal stutter on occasion when moving around the outside map (no visible loading screens in this game), I'm left looking for things to nitpick at. Slightly mispaced in the final sections? That kind of thing.

I've dinged it a point because performance is very poor. It seems to be very CPU intensive and 6 core CPUs like mine get to the point where it's a real drag to play even on minimum settings, audio issues as well as freezes. There is a beta patch available for the Steam version so there is some hope of that being sorted. As for the game itself, it's fine but I'm not playing the game of the stellar reviews I've seen. Definitely not a bad game, just a game I'm glad I could play through in a couple of days on GamePass and then uninstall. It's a decent light resource management and city builder game with a political sim bolted on. It's gorgeous to look at, the artists involved have nailed the post-apocalyptic steampunk vibe carried over from the first game. The main gripe I have with Frostpunk 2 is that the game asks you to take the role of someone who can watch hundreds die as a small pop-up but at the same time wants you to care enough about the society for minor decisions about who can sell booze to feel meaningful. The little vignettes of citizens suffering/benefiting from the consequences just get lost against the spreadsheet and I ended up making decisions, like marching thousands to certain death from cold and toxic gas, just to get to the end of the story faster. There is an open ended mode to play as well but I'd had my fill after 15 or so hours with this one.

Clearly a game which is going to divide opinion. I absolutely loved it. Hellblade 2 hones in further on ideas in the original, pursuing the goal to try and have the player perceive the world as the main character does. It does that. The story telling is very nuanced and anyone who has experience severe mental illness will recognise some of the truths being gently explored about 'recovery' and adapting. Everything in the game goes towards that goal of asking the player to empathise and understand how Senua sees the world around her so may be worth weighing criticisms against that rather than expectations of the last big AAA open world game etc etc. It's a game which is not compromising on its intent for a mass market beyond making the puzzle solving a little easier. Would argue there's a lot of value in having games which do that, both indie and under major publishers.

Niche genre but best game ever made about assessing an insurance claim. It's a little bit clunky in places yet transcends all its self-imposed limitations to be a wonderful example of piecing together clues and inferences, with the help of some guesswork. The only sadness is in realising you can only complete it for the first time once.

It's fine in itself, some performance issues on PC right now aside. It feels like a game playing it very safe though - bland and a bit boring to be honest even accepting a Saturday morning cartoon premise and allowing for inevitable repetition in gameplay. The stealth foreplay before combat in particular is not bringing me any great joy - it feels rough although not helped at all by being real time and is where I encountered most performance issues. The turn based combat is serviceable though with some nice skills to use and synergies to pick up on. Just not quite all coming together to make for an entirely compelling game.

Wonderfully constructed RPGish puzzle game, using cards to represent activities, with incredible writing and a background lore building on the ideas found in Weather Factory's last game Cultist Simulator. You're a librarian restoring a ruined manor house turned library, and prison. The catch? The books are about divergent histories and strange occult powers. It's not going to be for all tastes as it's really about learning and experimentation and figuring things out for yourself. Pure catnip for those who are willing to take the occasional note and piece the puzzles together. I love it.

A very below average co-op lootershooter which has some technical issues at launch (although I think I had a better time of it than some). If I'd paid money for this then I'd be wanting it back, as it is Gamepass made it just a waste of my time to try. The main issues for me were that for a lootershooter the loot available quickly loses any incentive and the shooting is never exciting. The gameplay loop got stale very, very quickly. Poor combat, poor AI, no real sense of exploration, a **** feeling that the open world has gone from trying to create jump scares into just sterile emptiness, weird design decisions on multiplayer (only host progresses, really? It's 2023), and then layer on animation glitches and other engine streaming hiccups and occasional stuttering... My goodwill evaporated rather quickly. Strengths are the little story telling moments within the world, but these are so smothered by having to design around a co-op looter shooter, and that there are moments of fun to be found with a friend in combining skills traversing and clearing areas. It's not a lot to hold up even a dozen or so hours of play. Not the worst game I've ever played but not one I'll be returning to at any point either.

Perfectly adequate game but I'm struggling to see where the glowing reviews are coming from. Graphically, it's not great to look at and the distinctive Arkane style rubs uncomfortably against the 60s vibe where it had a charm in dingy Dunwall and art deco styled Talos. Colt is the best thing about the game. His voice actor is brilliant and gives the lines a lot of feeling. Otherwise, it's an fps centred game with a couple of marmite gimmicks which will make people confront whether they love the reality of PVP within a single player game as much as they love the idea of PVP within a single player game. And without the PVP element this is a very, very short game for the AAA price tag, even for all the repeat visits to the four areas you can explore in game. It's a solid 6 or 7 out of 10 game, assuming you're not suffering any of the technical issues possible on PC, but I've reinstalled Prey Mooncrash already

To summarise, it's a series of minigames tied together with unit management and a strategic map to move around. Playing it I wondered what a sub sim would feel like if the conclusion of every hunt was a 2d 80s style arcade shooter. Flashbacks to the old Elite in having to dock manually each and every time, although at least in that game you could eventually purchase some automation and fast forward the dull routine. The game is made difficult by its single save only system, with obscure systems and some clunky controls presenting the only other real barriers. What Highfleet has in spades is atmosphere and a really well done dieselpunk aesthetic. Sadly, that just isn't enough to keep me playing. Does make me wonder whether Xenon 2 with a strategic layer could be something we'll see at some point.

Really enjoyable turn based WH40k up to company sized battle simulator with a narrative tying together 20 battles in the SP mode. Catches the flavour of the TT and the mood of the setting. Big achievement for a small developer. Hopefully a lot more to come from them as they take this base and expand upon it.

If you're after a roguelite then treat yourself to this. It's a real pleasure to play, even in failure. It feels fresh all the way through and the developers, and the voice cast, deserve the plaudits they've received for this. A genuine must play from 2020.

On PC, it's a solid 5/10 action adventure game with RPG elements. A combination of bugs on release, obvious short cuts to push it out this side of 2021 and being clearly tailored to specific new GPU technologies pull it down from the 7 it'll no doubt end up being in its GOTY release. It has its moments of genuine excellence in the odd side quest but feels curiously like an amalgam of elements of various games hammered together not always successfully or coherently. I get the impression that the game was meant to be a visual feast to cover over a whole host of things which just aren't quite 'right' but that feast is currently gated behind a fantasy PC build for most gamers, and even the next step down limited by supply of the GPUs with the needed features. Personally, I was hoping for a game which would take on the cyberpunk genre with thought but this is really more in tune with Altered Carbon than Bladerunner 2049. You're left wondering whether subjects and issues are thrown in just for the **** rather than from any desire to engage seriously with them at any level beyond the most superficial. In the end, I've found it to be a cluster of cliches bathed in ray traced lighting. As vapid and insubstantial as the clouds of smoke filling each room and corridor.

Necromunda frustrates me. There are glimpses there of what might have been, what perhaps could be, with the style of the 40k universe done well and the core combat mechanics being very serviceable as well as instantly recognisable to those who played this developer's' Mordheim. Yet it's not that tense game about firefights and knife fights in the underhive of Necromunda. Instead it bleeds out any affection you first feel with some poor design decisions and way too many bugs to be acceptable for release. The standout poor design decision was to go with a system where the player could quite possibly be watching the AI play the game for 75% of any particular mission. With the best will in the world, then insisting the player watch the AI play the game through a fixed third person camera which glitches may not have been a good idea either. Especially with an AI as likely to find a wall to walk into as it is to perform exceptionally well in navigating the terrain. It becomes a draining experience where you build resentment at having your time wasted to watch the AI play itself. As of now, this is hard to recommend. Post-release patching may go a long way to lifting this game up to the heights of mediocrity for single players. Multiplayer has been having technical issues every time I've tried it so I can't comment on whether the experience is any better watching 3 strangers rather than the AI.

Clever, reflective, and beautiful turn based game which rewards thoughtful play and learning from mistakes. XCom gets mentioned a lot but I see more of Mechanicus and Transistor in this in how it plays and the way the story, music, art, and gameplay come together. Few **** and bugs on release and with first post-release patch. The reaction of the indie devs to more feedback has been positive and proactive so far so hopefully those bits of polish and user friendliness can be added. If you're intrigued by the idea of a dark, and somtimes unforgiving, nightmarish take on turn based squad games then this nails its landing.