Nirav Gandhi's Reviews
While the cute creatures and whimsical art are enough to make it somewhat enjoyable, Alekon falls short of its direct inspiration Pokemon Snap on every single note.
Gorgeous visuals don't quite make up for innacurate and clunky platforming.
While a little overburdened with systems and a glaring glossing over of the rampant sex trafficking and drug deaths that are a direct result of the real cartels, Cartel Tycoon is a polished management sim with intuitive UI and great visuals. If you want to feel like you're the star of Netflix's Narcos, you've come to the right place.
The hard science aspects of being a marine biologist aren't sexy or fun, but they make for an interesting and completely unique experience.
Blind Drive offers a solid and funny arcade romp that can be played just the same by blind and sighted gamers, but the fun wears off pretty quickly with repetitive gameplay.
The Medium presents intelligent horror and innovative gameplay inspired by Silent Hill, but far overstays its welcome and fails to provide closure. The split screen mechanics work wonders for new kinds of puzzles, but a myriad of technical issues hinder immersion.
Traversing a terrifying, multi-dimensional modern art exhibit for 2 hours can get tedious, but it never stops piquing your curiosity.
Sonic Frontiers is a mess of ideas from other, better games. But when the music swells and Sleeping with Sirens is blasting your eardrums with a guttural scream while you plunge a 300 ft sword into a titan the size of a skyscraper, none of that will matter. The heights of Frontiers are the highest highs Sonic has ever seen, and i had more fun in this mediocre game than i had in all the many, many better games i played this year.
The Quarry manages to, after all these years, harness the things that made Until Dawn a classic and replicate that feeling almost perfectly. Besides a few story hiccups in the last act, these characters and performances are going to keep you and your friends' eyes glued to the screen all night long.
There are strokes of a masterpiece in here, with excellent music, whimsical characters, starkly themed visuals, just enough narrative push, and management tools that allow for the player to really experience their own story. If you don't optimize the fun out of Cult of the Lamb, there's an incredible amount of it to be had.
The original Doki Doki Literature Club is a phenomenal horror title, but loses a lot of the elements that made it so impressive on its translation to consoles.
I loved Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and so I loved my time with Wrath of the Druids. But after a 55 hour base game, a change of pace would have been very welcome.
Pumpkin Jack's delightful NPCs, boss battles, visuals and music outweigh the clunky platforming and uninspired combat. This is the perfect game to ignite your Halloween Spirit.
Twin Mirror's concise narrative and innovative detective gameplay is heartfelt and earnest, though the small-scale, personal story is left open-ended.
Airborne Kingdom is a cozy, comfortable delight that mixes management and exploration flawlessly; the focus is not on keeping your citizens alive while crossing the open world, but keeping them fulfilled and thriving.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla streamlines the best parts of Origins and Odyssey while trimming the fat, though is hampered consistently by bugs and technical problems. Still, it's a journey well worth taking.
AWE builds on the best parts of Control to deliver a gorgeous and terrifying survival horror experience.
Hades perfectly blends high-octane action with roguelike randomization to deliver an exhilirating experience that never lets up.
Neversong pulls inspiration from many great works to create an equally wholesome and terrifying examination of human Guilt.
The Nirvana Initiative improves on its predecessor in every way, bringing in twice as many interesting, layered characters that all get their time in the sun, crazy mysteries with twists i never saw coming, intelligent writing, vastly improved puzzles, impeccable voice acting and the best soundtrack of the year. I am shocked to say this, but I think the package as a whole outdoes Spike Chunsoft’s previous works.