The Jimquisition
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A lot of flash and some substance, it’s a very fun game in a package that doesn’t live up to its massive potential, much less the massive price tag it’s introduced to mainstream gaming.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is the epitome of an instant classic. Its premise alone had something special to it, but no elevator pitch could have prepared me for how the thing blossoms and blossoms and blossoms. Exciting battles and beautiful writing unfold in a world that looks and sounds sublime, all of it pulled off with unbelievable style. I’m in genuine awe of the accomplishment.
Centum is a gripping point-and-click trip, drawing players in with disturbing imagery and a disquieting atmosphere before laying on a terrific critique of generative AI - as well as the kind of people who want to exploit it. Striking a nice balance between enigma and clarity, it presents a world you can’t fully trust contrasted against sincere messaging.
It’s a delightful adventure, dripping in imagination. It’s a saturated mess, prone to tedium. It has a knack for redefining itself in truly engrossing ways. It has a mean spirit that facilitates truly vulgar environmental design. Its world is breathtaking and vast. Its world is hateful and myopic. It sounds incredible. It sounds unbearable. It’s intensely absorbing. It’s offputtingly self-indulgent.
Transformers: Galactic Trials is overpriced and full of nothing. The gimmick of switching between vehicular racing and robotic shooting might have worked if both halves weren’t so thoughtlessly welded together like a shoddy cut-and-shut car. Then again, its meager content and technical sloppiness suggests it never had a chance.
While it likely won’t be remembered to the same degree as “bigger” Zelda installments, it’ll absolutely go down as a classic to me. Echoes of Wisdom is brilliant in its creativity and versatility, one of the best in the series as far as I’m concerned.
Halls of Torment is more than simply Vampire Survivors wearing Diablo’s clothes. It’s a clever and engrossing Survive ‘em Up that uses RPG trappings to add a ton of versatility and rewarding complexity to what would still be a fun game without it. There’s a pile of quirky character classes and a massive number of ways to build them during each run, just a big pile of content and not a shred of it feels like padding.
A jubilant little adventure that dedicates itself fully to making an audience happy
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II can provide hours of fun with three distinct ways of playing it. World War Z with Tyranids is a hell of a pitch, and it’s been realized successfully, albeit with a number of unsuccessful elements holding it back. Puzzling design decisions litter the entire experience, and at times I was left wondering what the hell Saber Interactive was thinking. Yet... I'm really quite into it.
Thank Goodness You're Here! rolls around in its Britishness to an almost obscene degree, but more than that it is simply… stupid. Majestically, gloriously stupid. It’s a wildly entertaining little adventure that revels in its own ludicrous indulgences. It delightedly broadcasts a sense of humor that some may find puerile and unappealing while others will find it puerile and very appealing.
Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn isn’t a particularly necessary addition to the Soulslike genre. It doesn’t stand out in any major way, and it’s certainly rough. It is nonetheless amusing in its own scrappy way, the many tools at the player’s disposal are well presented, and after a touchy start it develops into a decent bit of fun.
Clickolding is quiet and calm in spite of its unsettling undercurrent. Through straightforward interactions and a lot of clicking, a tone and subject is strongly established. I found it affecting enough to power through moments of monotony that my ADHD really didn’t care for, and I won’t forget that weirdo mask in a while at the very least.
It’ll probably be dead within a year like so many of its sordid ilk. That would be a genuinely good thing for the industry and for the players it’s trying to scam. I hope it dies on its toxic vine.
Still Wakes the Deep is an impeccable horror production, a gorgeously sickening nightmare in a rarely used setting propelled by stellar acting and sublimely nasty body horror. It’s more than just “The Thing on an oil rig,” though it makes good on that elevator pitch too. It’s going to remain with me for a long time. A true genre classic.
Killer Klowns from Outer Space is just another intellectually lazy application of a horror movie license. Well done game, you made murderous space clowns boring… that’s one hell of an achievement.
How fucking dare Star Wars: Hunters? I really hope it becomes yet another “service” game that’s been shut down in less than a year. It deserves to be burned to nothing.
Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 can be a mentally taxing experience by design, especially if one already has their own litany of mental health struggles. It is a necessary part of a game that explores its themes touchingly and tastefully, a beautiful and astoundingly stylish production. Like its predecessor, the presentation outstrips the gameplay, which suffers from repetition and a lack of escalation or variety. It’s a damn fine thing in totality though, one well worth digging into.
Indika is a treasure of a game, an adventure that truly defies expectations. Constantly surprising and laudably bold in its subject matter, this story of a questioning nun and the devil in her head is among the best things I’ve ever played. A little dash of jank does nothing to take away what this game is - a landmark of strange and fascinating storytelling.
If you’ve been frustrated by the state of some retro horrors, or even if you haven’t, this is a fine addition to the genre that deserves to be ranked highly among the modern examples. Aside from those bastard traps, it’s a damn good bit of body horror.
It’s the kind of nonsense I’m just incredibly happy to see exist in the world, and the possibilities it offers for potential future games set in this universe has me on the hook.