Jaina Hill


36 games reviewed
80.9 average score
82 median score
80.6% of games recommended
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88 / 100 - Rogue Waters
Oct 2, 2024

There are a lot of roguelite games, crossing over with a dozen other genres. Maybe your rogue capacity is filled to the brim and spilling over. That’s kind of what I was thinking when I sat down to play Rogue Waters. But then it has enough originality to be engaging, and it’s made well enough to be fun! This isn’t the holistic pirate game of my imagination, but sometimes you don’t want to play Red Read Redemption, you want to play a fast run of something that holds your attention and hits hard. Rogue Waters will do that for you. And I hope before we get a Rockstar or Naughty Dog pirate magnum opus, we get a hundred more games with cool ideas like Rogue Waters. There’s room in the world of gaming for someone to take a wild shot, and sometimes that shot hits its target.

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80 / 100 - Wild Bastards
Sep 18, 2024

Bright colors and low-impact sound design keep Wild Bastards from ever feeling too chaotic. The action stays legible, without too many particle effects crowding your screen. With management, RPG, and unlocking mechanics, there’s a little something for everyone. Wild Bastards is a good hang. Rather than feeling pulled in every direction, you will feel hyper-focused on the next level. I expect to see imitators trying to pull off the same formula before too long. But the real question is, what does the future look like for the Bastards games? If the future looks like this, I’d feel just fine but Wild Bastards is such a leap forward I would hope to see more bold additions to the formula.

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88 / 100 - Riven
Jun 24, 2024

If I could only pick one puzzle game to bring to a desert island, I probably would not choose Riven. Fortunately, that is not the case. It’s fascinating to see this missing link of game design. It’s nice to dig into some genuinely excellent writing and art. The puzzles are as opaque as they ever were, which is what a lot of people like about them. I think we need more remakes like Riven, that capture as much as they can about how games felt back then. That’s how we move forward, that’s how games get even better.

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88 / 100 - Dread Delusion
May 23, 2024

After a while, I forgot I was sick of pixels. I look at Dread Delusion and I don’t see part of a trend. I see a game that set out to capture a particular tone and succeeded wildly. It’s not that playing Dread Delusion is like going back and playing those old games. Dread Delusion allows us to delude ourselves into remembering those games through magenta colored glasses.

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86 / 100 - The Thaumaturge
Mar 4, 2024

The more time I spend with The Thaumaturge, the more I settle into it. When you spend more time with any game you are bound to notice the edges of things, the literal and figurative invisible walls. But The Thaumaturge was more like a pair of shoes. As I learned the restrictions of what you couldn’t do in the game, it focused me towards things I could do, and they were all awesome. If you have been craving a dark fantasy RPG where you get to play as a John Constantine type, I have good news, The Thaumaturge is it. Anyone looking for their next interesting and original RPG, this is it!

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65 / 100 - War Hospital
Feb 6, 2024

There’s another way to look at War Hospital which is as some sort of RPG/visual novel. I think this change would actually benefit the themes of the story. There are already existing characters in the story. They are where the game comes closest to realizing its vision. The randomly generated patients by comparison, all feel like unimportant NPCs. War Hospital is all about taking on a role, but you express yourself through tactical decisions. If I spent less time choosing the mortal fates of random named guys, maybe I could have spent more time learning to be Major Henry Wells.

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88 / 100 - The Iron Oath
Nov 18, 2023

I plan to spend a lot more time with The Iron Oath. In fact, it gets a rare stamp of honor. Even fantastic games can grow old once you’ve played and reviewed it. With The Iron Oath, there’s still so much more for me to learn and see. In fact, I think it’s going to remain installed on my PC for a long while. I can’t foresee another game coming for the merc management throne for a long time.

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Oct 12, 2023

Having spent many hours on Infinite, I think I’ve seen all I need to see. Expansions and DLC might bring me back, but now we are talking about gating content behind another paywall. That sounds less enticing to me, especially when there is a more interesting mod available for free. Someone patiently waiting for new Star Trek games will definitely have some fun puzzling through Star Trek: Infinite, but I think I am probably going to go back over that New Horizon.

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Oct 10, 2023

Total War games spent so much time trying to do more. There are countless clever strategy games out there, but this series always prided itself on having a massive scale. Pharaoh totally changes that formula as it scales down and rethinks the gameplay flow of the series. Everyone has their favorite Total War game (mine for the record is the original Rome Total War). I’m sure that someone out there will be quite unhappy with some of the Total War changes. But from where I sit as a long-time player, Pharaoh is a total blast, and has me more excited for the future of the series than ever before.

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78 / 100 - Dune: Spice Wars
Sep 28, 2023

I cannot lie, the world of Dune is one of my favorites, and any chance to visit Arrakis is a welcome one. Despite a its significance to gaming as a whole, there aren’t a lot of Dune games out there. Spice Wars is the kind of power struggle fantasy game that we’ve been seeing for decades, but its a winning formula. Sure Spice Wars might mostly be porting over a lot of the mechanics from Northgard and dressing them up with a new coat of paint, but it’s an incredible court of paint. If you were distraught to learn that the second Dune movie will be pushed back into next year, Spice Wars will probably hold you over until the big day for the big worms.

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Aug 14, 2023

I am reminded of Sid Meier’s often repeated quote: “games are a series of interesting decisions.” I never really felt that my decisions were all that interesting in Astronaut: The Best. Either the course of action is fairly obvious, or it’s totally opaque. Click a button, find out what happens next. But then I keep looking at images from the game, which reminds me how consistent the whole experience is. I appreciate the wild swing, but ultimately, I don’t think Astronaut: The Best, is (the best.)

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86 / 100 - Viewfinder
Jul 27, 2023

I did however have the best time solving its puzzles, which I’d hate to spoil here. But man, when you turn a photo upside-down and then stuff falls out of it? That moment got me to gasp. And the gravity physics were fun enough to have me playing with them until I made myself a little seasick. Viewfinder doesn’t have the tonal mastery of an exploration game like Myst, but it’s puzzles are second to none in the genre. You should definitely challenge yourself with Viewfinder, the most beguiling puzzle game of the year.

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Jul 25, 2023

After beating the story in Jagged Alliance 3, I still really wanted to play more. I want to try out every merc on the roster, and learn how to use each of their unique abilities. There are fights that I want to play again, this time with a new approach. Fans of turned based action will find Jagged Alliance 3 to be a genre-best game. But I’m probably going to play those gunfights with the volume turned way down. After all, I’m not in Grand Chien for the atmosphere and the company. I just want to find new ways to blow stuff up.

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80 / 100 - Xenonauts 2
Jul 11, 2023

Even coming short of perfection, you nerds are going to love Xenonauts 2. It lacks the bombast and superpowers of reboot-era XCOM, but it more than compensates with logistical complexity. It may not be sexy, but Xenonauts 2 is a well-designed strategy game, thoughtfully made by a team who knows the genre. And if you are a youngster who missed the 90s? Here’s an approachable piece of video game history given form. Figuring out how to run an old DOS game is a headache. Xenonauts 2 in out and ready for your orders commander.

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Jun 5, 2023

Of all the possible stories to tell in the wide universe of Star Trek, Resurgence picks a good one. It takes place in the “present” of the story, and while it has some fun with cameos, it doesn’t overdo them. It presents a galaxy in a time of uneasy peace, and a diverse Federation crew. I would certainly recommend Resurgence to anyone who loves Star Trek. If you’re a curious non-Trekkie well, how much can you tolerate quick time events? Because by the ancients there are a lot of them. But this reviewer didn’t mind one bit.

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80 / 100 - Unheard
May 12, 2023

There are elements of Unheard that still befuddle me. Why did there have to be a framing narrative around testing a sci-fi sound machine? Why couldn’t this just be a series of devious chapters, full of double identities and swapped masterpieces? Ultimately, I don’t think some of the eccentric flourishes hurt the game. Unheard – Voices of Crime focuses on doing a few things well. The game rises to that very specific set of standards.

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May 11, 2023

I don’t know how I feel overall about the release schedule and pricing of Paradox expansion packs. Maybe it’s a lot, or maybe it’s a fair price. What I do know is that these big expansions look to change the feel of the game in significant ways. Measured against that standard, Tours and Tournaments is another huge step forward for Crusader Kings, the best emergent narrative RPG/strategy game around!

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78 / 100 - Barotrauma
Mar 26, 2023

I probably admire Barotrauma more than I enjoyed it. I like the setting. The gameplay is very clever, even if it isn’t always exciting. I didn’t get a chance to get deep into co-op, but I can’t wait to try. It’s crazy to me that cooperative spaceship games aren’t an entire genre now, with dozens of indie games to compare. At the moment, Barotrauma may be one of the best trailblazers, giving inspirations for the developers of the future.

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90 / 100 - The Last Spell
Mar 16, 2023

The Last Spell made me realize that a siege is the perfect video game scenario. It allows you to focus on a single area, and gives the player a chance to customize their base. It also lends itself to a small group of heroes standing bravely against a horde of faceless enemies. Combine that with other popular features such as roguelike development, and you have a pretty fun game. But spend some time with The Last Spell, and you will see how differently it plays.

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85 / 100 - The Pale Beyond
Mar 7, 2023

If you’re a frostbite-loving freak like me, The Pale Beyond is the game for you. It makes me optimistic about the future of this niche genre. The amount of research and care is apparent as you play. The opaque gameplay systems draw you into the narrative, but leave you in suspense. If you’ve made it this far in the review, I have to assume one of those things is appealing to you. Play The Pale Beyond; it might just be the best novel you read this year.

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