Every Game I played enough of this year to feel like reviewing, ranked
Showing 1-10 of 49 items
Truly captures the moment we live in better than any other game I've played. The world's ending, we can't stop it, let's dance in the streets and yell at cops while we still can. Incredible music & vibes, genuinely made me interested in photography for the first time.
I think this is the only RTS I've ever played enough to have an opinion on. Was really surprised by how layered all the mechanics are and the way the day loop rewards you for methodical play and exploration. Also very cute aesthetically. Looking forward to checking out 2 some day.
This one's really hard to review because it's had such a huge impact & has a very hyperbolic fanbase but I think it actually stuck the landing despite that. When I started playing & found the aesthetic to be less interesting than SH1 (it did eventually grow on me, but I think between 1 & 2 we crossed a fidelity threshold where I like the look of the game better with the resolution cranked up and all the noise & fog enabled than trying to play at native res) I was putting this at a 3, by the time I got to the last few areas & saw the conclusion to the story it went up to a 4, and now as I'm writing this after sitting with it for a day, it's firmly a 5/5. A big factor is that I just genuinely enjoyed playing this as a survival horror game. The ammo & health is extremely generous, like the first game, but the act of exploring each location felt really good, I simply love to methodically fill in a map. It's nice that the exploration didn't feel as predictable as 1's 'go to location > nightmare version > leave' structure in favor of a more straightforward, story focused progression. & the ease of killing everything you see in this game without worrying about strategically deploying resources makes for a good loop where most locations involve some tense combat followed by slightly less tense but never quite relaxed exploration. I got the leave ending & I was surprised how well it actually landed the personal drama - especially for the time, it's much more mature, conceptually, than big budget game stories aim to be. It's a bit strange to reflect on the story in general, but everything that's happening only comes into focus right at the end, so the majority of it is spent in confusion, & you have to reconcile how you feel about it retroactively. Ppl throw around the phrase "only possible in video games" a lot and I mostly think it's unearned or refers to gimmicks or quirks of the medium in a very literal sense, like branching paths or dialogue choice, and not actual story telling concepts but I think it might actually fit here. The way this game conveys James' interiority through the mundane repetitive actions and structures of video games is really interesting, lacing enemy and world and level design traits into the abstract narrative here is really cool. Obviously a lot of games push their theme through the environment and character design (the same way movies can thru set design) but it feels more intentional here. It gets to really linger in the melancholy tone since it's tied to 1 character for a whole game length, rather than say jumping into other people's brains in Psychonauts. It also feels like the designers planned out that this is what the game should be about, and the game calls attention to it by just having the weird stuff present all the time, with some of it being obvious to the characters' backstory so you can start thinking about what the less obvious stuff could be about. I appreciate that it's not overly literal with the metaphors, there's varying degrees of abstraction and lore behind the images but its rarely "x actually means y" the way a lot of stories that play at symbolism fall into (if you want to talk about something just talk about it. Obscuring the true subject doesn't make your thoughts on it more interesting or deep).
It's fucking Geometry Wars, dude
In a year with nier & returnal both heavily using the bullet hell aesthetic, boomerang x ends up feeling like the best 3d translation of that genre. The only game that gives you the same fluidity of movement and freedom to explore in truly 3d worlds as something like geometry wars does in 2d Excellent little 2-3 hr experience. Constantly adds new layers to the core mechanic & new enemy types that feel genuinely different and really change how you need to approach them, & doesn't last long enough for anything to get stale or the minor annoyances to add up.
The mad lads actually did it. They really made a new metroid and just stuck to all the things that made the old games good while adding a lot of new movement and combat layers that all actually work. What a good ass video game. I was real doubtful the first few hours cuz fighting mobs was more involved than in the other games & I don't love the Emmi encounters, especially early on, but by the time I got the tri-beam & morph ball the game really opened up and the pacing of the exploration & boss fights was immaculate from then on. Especially love how the main flow of the game always felt intuitive and even though there's a lot to explore and the map is like 6 different regions, it was generally pretty clear where I needed to go next and I organically moved through the story without needing to look up a guide (which is extremely rare for me in this genre). Boss fights were really fun & active, felt like classic NES/SNES pattern recognition & execution challenges. I didn't think they were *that* hard, but the amount of time I've spent playing anime fighters probably helped with feeling out the flow of combat & keeping up with all the different movement options. Also love that there's just some wild evil villain plot stuff dropped right at the end, it feels so much like old NES castlevania games, the same level of goofiness but paired with a much higher budget. Metroid: Dread is just pure, concentrated Video Games injected into my veins and I loved it.
Just nails the joy of moving up & down a ramp. Been my go to "I need to chill out for 10 minutes" game all year
very satisfying to put things places. the small story being told is nice, not given a ton of focus but there's a few strong moments conveyed through the game design. I was concerned it would be too twee or saccharine, but it's pretty hands off and works all the way through.
Bought a 6-fret guitar & played it in Clone Hero, since the actual game is unplayable now. The 6 fret style making you actually think about finger placement combined with a throwback to GH 1-3's high score focus works really well, it's just a shame that, like, everything else about this game is the way it is.
Simplifies the joy of offroad racing to a top down, less technical view that still captures the weird zen of sending it up a mountain pass & hoping you don't die.