Cameron Kunzelman


60 games reviewed
74.9 average score
78 median score
50.0% of games recommended
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8 / 10.0 - Headlander
Jul 29, 2016

Headlander is a little action, a little puzzle, and a great time overall. At around 10 hours or so, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, and I think it’s perfectly balanced as a game to pick up for an hour of gradual progress after work or school a couple hours a day. It’s well-designed and has a clear purpose in mind.

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Ultimately, these first couple episodes show a promising beginning, and I’m excited to check out the rest of the season when it appears.

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8 / 10.0 - Rain World
Mar 31, 2017

Despite how much I enjoy that kind of experience on a conceptual level, it definitely isn't my favorite kind of game to play, and I generally felt like I was solving puzzles with half of the pieces. Rain World is a beautiful, forward-thinking game that points to a form of game design that I want to see more of. I just wish it made itself a little more accessible.

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8 / 10.0 - Destiny 2
Sep 11, 2017

While new content will drip in over the next couple years, right now you really have to take seriously that Destiny 2 is like a microwave: you know exactly what it does, and it does it well, but you can't expect it to do more than that. It's very hard for me to look at the past five or six years of console and PC games, and then the things that are announced for the next six months, and think that I want to fully integrate Destiny 2 into my life as my primary entertainment appliance. It would be so easy to do so, but the cost of committing to this thing over any other thing seems so high.

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8 / 10.0 - Strafe
May 12, 2017

As I shoot robot enemies and monsters who want to slice me up, I am delighted. The screen goes red every time. I hit the restart button with a smile on my face.

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Jul 2, 2015

Arkham Knight translates a very particular kind of Batman into a very particular kind of game, and when the developers are short-circuiting your play experience to tell a good story, there are some unthinkably good moments. When they are going through the motions of combat and high-concept comic bookery, there are some unbelievably terrible and laughable moments. Despite wading through the latter, my memories of the former are grand enough that I think they're worth getting to.

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7.5 / 10.0 - Forza Horizon 4
Oct 18, 2018

And I guess, for some people, that might be the carrot that keeps them moving on. But when I reached that point in Horizon 4 after a couple dozen hours, I didn't have the drive to keep going and pursuing new paths. If you do, it is probably a game that will get its hooks in you like Need For Speed Underground 2 did me all those years ago.

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7.5 / 10.0 - Kingsway
Aug 16, 2017

Borrowing from roguelikes, your character has one life, and the game is mostly about preserving yourself and leveling efficiently so that you can defeat the appropriate bosses so that you can win the game. This was not something that I found particularly interesting in itself, but I tend to not be super excited about games that are fundamentally concerned about making numbers go up. Lots of people are, and if you're one of them, you should try out Kingsway immediately.

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7.5 / 10.0 - Battlefield V
Nov 20, 2018

It's a structure, like a gym or a concert, and we have our role to play in it. It is good for what it is, but it isn't more than that. This is a first-person shooter on a large scale, and if you've played one before and you're itching for the most-recent and best-looking Battlefield, then you've found it. Anything more or less than that and you're better off getting last year's model. It's probably gotten all the kinks worked out, at least.

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7.5 / 10.0 - Metro Exodus
Feb 19, 2019

It is a great game that had to smear itself in a layer of whatever-nothing to convince you that it belonged in a certain genre. But like the octopus pretending to be a rock, Metro Exodus is a brilliant creature in the guise of a worse one. With some time, energy, and emotional investment it springs to life.

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Jan 2, 2015

Elegy For A Dead World is a great provocation with some wonderful ideas behind it, but I'm not sure where the draw is after the first fifteen minutes. It is a game that could be wonderful with the inclusion of local or networked multiplayer (co-writing about these worlds would be magical) or a little more direction from the designers. That said, as it stands it is merely a set of good-to-great ideas that cohere in a form that failed to capture my imagination.

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Jul 16, 2015

There's a solution [to my issues with the game], I guess. It would be to recruit my team of five and play with people I know. It would be to vet the world and close myself off from the weird chance of playing with randos. Lots of people have no choice but to do this for various reasons. I understand that's a solution, but it isn't a road I want to go down. I want to be open to the clever teammate. I want to be open to the all-star player who happens to queue alone. I want to be open to wonder.

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Apr 28, 2017

For all of these reasons, I can't say that I think Shiness is a bad game. It's just a game that has leaned into its genre so hard that its spine is cracking. If you're the kind of person who wants to micromanage numbers within the framework of a traditional JRPG story in a fantastical world of animal-people and human-people, then this might be the game for you. If a single part of that sentence made you have a second thought, then it probably isn't.

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7 / 10.0 - Watch Dogs 2
Nov 14, 2016

I think that Watch Dogs 2 wants to say a whole lot about the contemporary world, but it never moves away from generic statements like “information good” and “military-industrial complex bad” to say anything specific. In fact, it has some profound convictions about not saying much at all. The positions it lays out remind me of competitive debate: forcefully presented but never all that convincing.

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7 / 10.0 - Windjammers
Sep 1, 2017

"Easy to learn, hard to master" is the worst cliché possible, but Windjammers really evokes that feeling for me. I feel very comfortable handing the controller to anyone with a passing interest in games, or no interest at all, and knowing that they will figure out how frisbee tennis works. They'll also have a good time.

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7 / 10.0 - InnerSpace
Jan 23, 2018

Innerspace has all of the things I like in a game. It has an evocative plot, some well-executed flying and diving mechanics, and some tricky puzzles that genuinely require paying attention to the game world around you. All of this is, sadly, perched on top of a visual mode that made the game literally unplayable for me. A glorious few hours was all I could manage, but maybe you have the fortitude of eye and body to make it through the entire experience. I wish that I could.

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Feb 20, 2018

Dynasty Warriors 9 exists at the nexus of a lot of different desires on the player community side and the development side. I just want to wander around inside a big space and win epic battles in long-ago China while coveting the throne. That's what I'm in it for, and that's what it delivers. If you're in it for that, you might like it too.

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7 / 10.0 - Surviving Mars
Mar 26, 2018

I'm in a weird place because I know that Surviving Mars is probably excellent for someone who is not me. If you enjoy Paradox games like Crusader Kings II but not city builders, then this is probably a great bridge for you to relax and play. If you like managing numbers, resources, and people, then this is the game for you. What I wanted was a more freeform experience that allowed me to design and fiddle with Martian landscapes to my heart's content, and this is not the game for that.

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Jan 7, 2015

You can destroy your smile again with the game modes of old in a new graphical package. If you're looking for the next big, huge, mind-blowing iteration that jumps us forward fifty years in shape-on-shape violence, then it isn't here. I don't need to navigate a three dimensional pomegranate with my mine-laying drone in order to enjoy myself. In fact, it takes away from that enjoyment. You might feel differently.

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6.3 / 10.0 - State of Decay 2
Jun 29, 2018

Overall, I have some mixed feelings about State of Decay 2. It is a game that feels less focused than its predecessor despite making strong moves to deepen the experience in every realm. Focusing in on the details somehow made the game lose something; the steps the game took forward cost something fundamental and core to the experience.

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