Gaming Professors

Clanfolk is a charming building strategy game in which you take care of your clan of Scottish highlanders. You must teach them everything from the ground up, look after their health, ensure they have enough food and drink, and, of course, meet other basic needs such as mood, cleanliness, and the need for social interaction. The biggest challenge is the first winter—if you manage to meet their basic needs and don’t make any mistakes, you’ll enter a simple cycle of gathering and collecting resources. It’s a purely peaceful game, with no skirmishes or dangers that would threaten your community. The greatest danger here, then, is meeting basic human needs.

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Hadr is a short art piece—don’t expect a conventional gaming experience. Instead, prepare yourself for an interactive take on a gallery visit, where your thoughts will drift and wander, much like a fluttering piece of fabric. The description on Steam might give you a hint: are real things disappearing, or just memories of them? (Probably only the visual representations of strings of numerical data rendered by a few dozen voxels projected onto your computer screen are disappearing, but shh. Ceci n’est pas une pipe.).

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Star Dynasties is a Dune-inspired space mod for Crusader Kings III. Nothing more, nothing less. I find it lacking the originality this theme could have had. On the other hand, once you understand the system, you’ll find a great turn-based strategy game that you can enjoy to your heart’s content. Unfortunately, it takes a while to get the hang of it, especially if you don’t have a solid grasp of the language. At the very least, you can marvel at how beautiful humanity’s future in space will look.

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Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales is definitely a great port that I would recommend to all fans who love this spider-hero and some serious urban action. However, this great experience is marred by the fact that the game has a very short playtime, at least as far as the main storyline is concerned. If you plan to complete Morales 100%, it will definitely keep you glued to your seat for more than ten hours.

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The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me is an above-average horror game that, despite a few flaws, has a lot to offer. While it isn’t exactly a game-changer, it’s a solid title and a great interactive adventure that will keep you entertained for several hours.

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Life on a virtual farm in Farming Life is pure bliss. A very helpful guide walks you through the entire game, always advising you on what to do so you don’t mess anything up. You’ll build an empire from a small farm, filled with animals, crops, orchards, and tractors. Since it’s a simulator, it’s hard to find fault with the game, but you could say that something is missing. From my perspective, it could use a slightly faster pace and better music; plus, I feel a bit of pressure because the game really tries to make me feel at ease, and then suddenly events take an unexpected turn.

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So, is Mighty Goose worth recommending? For casual gamers who can’t breeze through every Metal Slug game with their eyes closed and a controller in their left foot, definitely yes. They’re in for a good time thanks to the game’s charming humor, adrenaline-fueled action, and few instances of rage quitting during difficult sections. However, seasoned veterans of the genre won’t find the proper challenge or sufficiently polished gameplay here.

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Epic Chef is a great, laid-back, and simple game that you can play with just a pen and paper. It features simple controls, nice visuals, and, of course, plenty of comical extras. The game might benefit from easier ingredient collection and less of a push toward a full-fledged simulation, because I’d much rather have spent the hours I spent searching at the stove. Even so, it’s a pleasant surprise for just a few bucks.

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The pixel-art top-down PvPvE shooter *Hell is Others* draws players in with its intense horror atmosphere and promising playtime set in the relatively small environment of Century City. Adam Smithson’s sole desire to simply survive is pitted against all the absurdity he faces. The combination of building Adam’s apartment and night-time forays for life or death creates a title that appeals to passionate competitive players as well as casual builders, because everyone has a choice: you can either remain a gatherer or become a hunter.

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If you love high-quality narrative RPGs, Disco Elysium is practically a must-have for you. Thanks to its compelling story, richly detailed world, numerous interesting characters, and well-written dialogue, it’s the best thing to come along in this genre in recent years—a fact further enhanced by its polished gameplay mechanics and overall production quality. Only fans of complex combat systems or those who don’t like to read will be disappointed here.

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Resident Evil Re:Verse is a disappointment that might one day be saved by the addition of many more characters, monsters, locations, or players. However, given its price and the expectations it raises, the game unfortunately offers nothing we haven’t seen before or encountered elsewhere. It’s also not free, which, given its quality, is literally money down the drain. It will entertain you for one afternoon at most—and only if you have someone to play with. The only positive is that, aside from the graphics, it will please die-hard fans of the series, who will be able to play as their favorite characters thanks to the game.

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Evil West is a well-crafted action-adventure game with a brisk pace, a linear storyline, and plenty of action that you’ll really enjoy. The combat system will win you over after a while, and you’ll find yourself looking forward to more and more action. An interesting mix of enemies, which you can take down with your arsenal and a wide range of special abilities, guarantees that you won’t get bored with the game. While the story does become predictable after a while, combined with the gameplay, setting, atmosphere, and action, this is a well-made title that will definitely keep you entertained. This isn’t Cookie Clicker—this is action!

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Gungrave G.O.R.E. is a title that won’t please die-hard fans of the series and won’t appeal to newcomers either. Visually and musically, the game is flawless, but it’s ruined by its extreme repetitiveness and lack of a story. Unfortunately, even the bosses themselves aren’t exciting enough to save Gungrave. As for the unbelievable price of €49.99, I find it terribly overpriced.

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Bayonetta 3 is a truly fantastic sequel that delivers everything fans love about the series. If you enjoy sexy action heroines in tight-fitting outfits who use their feminine wiles to fight and taunt their enemies, this is the game for you. The story is accompanied by a great soundtrack that blends jazz and funk.

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God of War: Ragnarok is an excellent sequel that starts off at a slower pace, but the second half of the game is pure action-packed fun, complemented by an emotional portrayal of both main characters. There are plenty of side activities that will keep you glued to your seat for hours. The icing on the cake is the graphics and the soundtrack.

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New Tales from the Borderlands is a bit difficult to evaluate, because in a way, it has the potential to become a fully-fledged part of the established Borderlands universe. Unfortunately, for some unknown reason, the developers failed to capitalize on that potential, and instead of a great game, we got something I might call a test of fans’ patience. I really hope that, just like with the Postal series, this installment will be forgotten and we’ll pretend it never existed.

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Resident Evil Village: Gold Edition is a high-quality game, though its appeal is somewhat diminished by minor technical glitches in cutscenes, terribly tedious loops, and an imbalance between different sections of gameplay. However, the expansion has greatly enhanced the main campaign by adding a third-person perspective, which I view positively despite its minor flaws. Shadow of Rose, on the other hand, is a real treat that complements the story of Resident Evil Village and at least somewhat appeases the frustrated die-hard fans of the entire series. While the retreat of survival horror elements is still noticeable, it is nonetheless a horror game adorned with incredibly high-quality graphics and a fantastic soundtrack. Personally, I would have appreciated more screen time for the villains, but that’s something that can be forgiven, just as the fact that if the game were named differently, it wouldn’t make a difference at all.

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Pilgrims will delight players of all ages with its charming simplicity, which belies a well-crafted story with a moral and several possible outcomes. This very short—perhaps even too short—adventure game will test your quick thinking and have you paying off your debts to all the gamblers before you can set off on your next adventure.

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Operation Warcade is a simple yet fundamentally very entertaining game that, compared to its direct competitors in the virtual reality gaming space, stays more true to the historical roots of the rail shooter genre. It comes highly recommended for VR headset owners who enjoy arcade games and can overlook the somewhat rough edges in the controls and graphics.

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The Walking Dead: Michonne is a complete waste of the potential of an entire installment in Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead series. Not only are there plenty of characters who just get on your nerves, but Michonne—who has what it takes to be the main driving force of the entire installment—ends up wearing you down rather than making you enjoy fighting alongside her. If the game had no action at all, it would truly be a flop. Not to mention that it’s also the weakest installment in the entire Undead World game series.

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