Leonardo Faria's Reviews
The only thing that makes NBA 2K23 better than its predecessor, even if by just a little bit, is the inclusion of the excellent Jordan Challenge mode, a great love letter to the best player of all time. Does that make the game worth your time? Well, if you’re into basketball, you don’t exactly have a choice, but, at the very least, 2K23 isn’t worse than the games that preceded it. Small wins, y’all.
It’s a bit janky and it has some questionable design choices, but Steelrising is yet another pretty good effort from Spiders, solidifying the small French studio as one of the most interesting developers in the industry nowadays. Its absolutely unique premise, mixing the freaking French Revolution with robots and Dark Souls, is the main reason you’ll want to play it. Even though it has some progression and level design issues, as well as a bit of AA jank, it’s still well worth your time.
As a whole, I can’t stress enough how impressed I was with Rollerdrome. Roll7 perfectly picked up two completely different gameplay loops and mixed them together in a cohesive and addictive title with a shockingly intuitive control scheme. It’s fast-paced, it makes you feel cool as hell while playing it, and it’s ridiculously addictive. It’s one of the perfect examples of creativity still looming in today’s seemingly tired and creatively bankrupt industry.
You’re here because you want to witness first-hand the fact that a Behaviour Interactive-endorsed dating simulator where you can date serial killers and monsters actually exists. Thankfully, the novelty aspect isn’t the only appealing factor in this game’s favor. It’s funny, snarky, and really well-written. There’s not a lot else that needs to be said. Hooked on You is exactly what it looks like. One of the weirdest games I’ve played this year, but one I certainly do not regret tackling.
I would have already loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection if it were a mere collection of a handful of TMNT titles from back in the day, with little to no extras. But the addition of online co-op, gameplay modifiers, regional variants, and that adorable Nintendo Power-esque tips guide for each title just elevates this compilation to nonsensical heights. This is Rare Replay levels of good, one of the best retro compilations of the past years.
For its time, Pac-Man World was a revolutionary revival of a long dormant franchise. Nowadays, PAC-MAN WORLD Re-PAC is still a fun platformer, but it does feel a bit by-the-books, especially since we’re aware of the improvements featured in the original game’s sequels.
The remake of Destroy All Humans 2 takes what worked in the previous remake and polishes things up to remove a good chunk, but not all, of the jank that made its predecessor feel a tad bit disappointing at times. It’s still short, and it’s nowhere near as feature-filled as other open world games in the market, but there’s nothing else that looks and feels like this delightfully dumb title out there.
Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? feels like your bog standard Wii shovelware title released fifteen years too late. For as much as I enjoy the fact developers are still making games with local multiplayer shenanigans in mind, there is very little in this title that makes me want to consider it over Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune, or other party games in general.
Saints Row is much better than its terrible reveal trailer made it look like, with some great controls, a ton of side content, a ludicrous character creator, and some truly amazing story missions, but its tone suffers from a proper lack of direction. At times, it resembles the ultra-imbecilic Saints Row we all know and love. Other times, it tries desperately to pander to a dab-appreciating, hashtag-tolerant, Twitter-addicted, Buzzfeed-consuming Gen Z generation that would never consider buying a game in this franchise to begin with. It’s a game that feels like it was written by two completely antagonistic committees. If you can ignore its tonal discrepancies, as well as some glitches, you’ll have a great time with yet another strong outing from Volition.
More than just a reskinned version of a very old Atari game, Yars: Recharged is the culmination of what this particular subseries from Atari was intended to be. It’s not a mere HD version of a classic arcade game with one or two new elements, it fully reinvents the formula of the original with a brand new gameplay loop, all while staying true to its roots. Add in an addictive (and very infuriating, may I add) mission mode, and you get what’s possibly the peak of the Recharged series, and most certainly the best title Atari has released in more than a decade.
Tinykin is the kind of the game that completely changes the image and course of the developers and publishers behind it. I was shocked at how amazing this game was. I just couldn’t stop playing it. The mixture between Pikmin, Toy Story 2 and Super Mario 64 resulted in a stupidly creative indie darling with a ton of charm, great controls, and a fantastic presentation.
Thanks to its slick presentation, which is enhanced by either the Switch’s or your TV’s speakers, Please Touch the Artwork is a really enjoyable audiovisual experience that requires your attention and rewards you for it, unlike your average casual mobile outing. This game is clearly not for everyone, and its pretentious atmosphere will put some players off, but I had a good time with it regardless. Way more than I could have ever imagined.
This is the bad kind of Switch port of a mobile game. This is the kind of game you just ask yourself “why would I want to play this anywhere other than a phone?” It features little to no graphics, sound, or anything else that would require the bare minimum of attention needed to play a mobile game for a couple of minutes at a time. With a portable system with a library as vast as the Nintendo Switch’s, Understand does very little to convince you to give it a shot.
This was my first time playing an actual Azure Striker Gunvolt game, and I have to say: damn, I was missing out on some good stuff. Despite its short length and annoying grind sections, I was impressed with its amazing presentation, slick controls, excellent game feel, and the way the developers balanced out its difficulty by adding rankings at the end of each level, essentially making this game appealing for newcomers and veterans alike.
I liked Frogun. Sure, its nostalgic aesthetic was a cheap shot for someone like me, but the game isn’t without its qualities. This is an adorable platformer that set out to look, feel and play like a classic 3D platformer from the Nintendo 64 era, and it succeeded with honors. I hope the game receives a patch or two to fix some of its janky physics and jumping mechanics, but you can still have a great time with it right now.
I love Two Point Campus. It took everything that worked so well in Two Point Hospital, and elevated it to a whole new level thanks to its creative premise, intuitive controls, and Community-esque feel. Even though it has a few issues here and there, and it’s still best enjoyed on a PC, I have to say I am impressed with how much better this game is in comparison to Two Point Studios’ previous outing.
In most cases, a game being “more of the same”, not being THAT different from its predecessor, would be considered a disappointment. In the case of Moss: Book II, however, being more of what made that 2018 game so special isn’t bad at all, since that title left us wanting more upon beating it. I liked it more than its predecessor not only because of the slightly better design, but also due to the improved controls, courtesy of the Quest’s hardware.
This is easily one of the most pleasant VR surprises of the year. Considering its minuscule price tag, I thought Shock Troops was going to be one of those really short, “one and done” VR experiences that come out every other week on the Quest or PSVR. How wrong I was! Thanks to some pretty solid controls, an excellent premise, and a surprisingly lengthy campaign, this is one of the best VR shooters you can find on the Quest 2 right now.
Krut: The Mythic Wings is not a downright awful game. Out of so many games released in 2022, it’s nowhere near as infuriating as crap like Postal 4 and Destroy All Humans! – Clone Carnage. It has some interesting ideas and I like its premise, but this is a textbook example of a game completely devoid of redeeming factors when it comes to its execution. Average-at-best visuals, a weak framerate, no interesting sound capabilities to speak of, and a really poor combat system all result in a very harmless yet underwhelming experience.
This is the kind of game I wish was more common. I got hooked on Lord Winklebottom Investigates for its utterly nonsensical premise, impressive plot, and barrage of chuckle-worthy jokes and puns, the kind of British humor not often seen in today’s gaming scene. Even though it’s your typical “one and done” kind of adventure game, and its gameplay could have received a handful of improvements, I had a great time with it. I got way more involved in a game featuring a giraffe wearing a god damn monocle than I could have ever imagined.