Recent reviews by Mxblah9990

A 2-3 hour long fever dream of colossal architecture and pure aesthetics. If you're into that sort of thing, I recommend it, despite its sometimes-frustrating gameplay. If you aren't, the "game" part of this game is lacking enough to not recommend even for the price of $free - it's a walking simulator broken up by occasional mediocre puzzles and somewhat janky platforming. The aesthetics have to carry the whole experience, and they absolutely do IF you love the feeling of being lost in a gargantuan machine not meant for you and wandering around to find the way onward.

Also, there's a point near the end of the game that has heavy strobing - I'm not epileptic and it was painful even to me. Be careful if you experience seizures of any sort.

Adequate gameplay and a sometimes-clunky UI wrapped in a very well-told story. Sometimes characters can seem a little too understanding/cheerful or a little too willing to let a random kid walk into their house to watch them fix a pipe, but on the whole the cast works. A few moments in the latter third of the game really got to me. Worth your time.

The gameplay / puzzles are... fine; not too difficult and I didn't have to look up a walkthrough or skip any (though it's nice to have that option). They get kinda samey near the end, but they're broken up by story segments and the game is short enough that they don't overstay their welcome. The art is pretty; no complaints here. The story keeps you guessing right up until the big twist is revealed, at which point you will either find it very fun (like I did) or hate it. I think it's an interesting plot, and one we don't see enough of in games.

A perfectly adequate game, though definitely not all that complex. Also, the post-credit scene makes absolutely no sense and I have to assume it's just mentioning backers. Would be nice to signpost that a little more clearly; I was hoping for one more bit of clarification about our protagonist. Oh well.

I liked it more than I thought I would. I had initially expected a low-effort Hollow Knight clone, and while it definitely belongs in the same genre, it has some key differences in traversal, healing, weaponry, and such.

That's not to say it's as good or as long as Hollow Knight - definitely not. But I enjoyed the combat, bosses, and general atmosphere enough to play all the way through and even beat a few optional bosses. I doubt I'll be going back for 100% completion after seeing the credits roll, but I had fun with the game.

Worth $20? Maybe not, especially if you're like me and don't go for 100% completion. On sale or through Humble Bundle (where I got it)? Sure, why not!

(Edit because I always forget one thing after reviewing: I do wish the protagonist, Arum, showed any kind of emotion or had any facial expression beyond "mildly angry" outside of cutscenes. I think that would have made her feel like less of a cardboard cutout.)

A competent enough point-and-click game with a reasonably engaging story. I had a walkthrough open for my whole playthrough, but that's kind of the default for this sort of game and I was able to solve probably *most* of the puzzles without needing to look it up. That's the positive stuff.

The big, glaring issue I have with Deponia is that I played through the entire game searching for any character, at all, who has a normal, healthy, positive relationship with any woman whatsoever. Not one single character could be found who met that criteria. Whether they're controlling, dismissing, lewd, or severely sexist, the entire game has a frankly not okay attitude towards anyone female. Even the developer commentary (enabled by default) comments on this in a few places, so the studio must have noticed the issue and decided that it was okay somehow. I'm not really sure how they came to that conclusion, since no one gets their comeuppance for their behavior. No one changes their view, no one improves or develops a healthy relationship; it's not even a plot point. It's just a feature of the setting that women seem to be second-class citizens and everyone's just on board with that.

The game itself is basically fine if you're into this sort of point-and-click puzzle-y thing, but I just can't recommend it based on its treatment of female characters of all kinds. If you do end up playing it, keep an eye on the relationships involving women and see if *you* can find any that are healthy.

Lives up to and improves on the original; a worthy sequel in all regards. You'll probably want to play/replay the first one before this game, as the story is pretty connected.

Valve has done it again. They did it with Half Life 1 and Half Life 2 as what pretentious people might call "the defining games of their generation." Well, here's Half Life Alyx showing everyone how to develop a well-crafted, fun, immersive, scary, and all around excellent single-player VR game. If you own a VR headset, Alyx is probably a must-play. It's just good.

I will say that the game is significantly more fun if you have the full roomscale experience. I wouldn't recommend it if all you have for VR is a broom closet. Much better if you can move around while playing.

(Valve, please make Half Life 3. The ending here sets it up so perfectly.)

It's unavoidable to compare BZ to the first Subnautica. It definitely fixed a lot of bugs and improved resource collection; I never fell through the floor of my seatruck or got stuck in the prawn suit like in the first game. It's a lot easier and less grindy to find resources, though the mineral detector has a *uselessly* short range. There are more sections where you want to / need to be out of your seatruck, which can add to the experience. Oxygen plants and cave systems are cool; the seaglide's map is actually functional now. You still need mods to remove annoyances (hotbar expansion, map, and easycrafting were my go-tos) but overall the game is more polished than Subnautica 1.

*Unfortunately,* it lost some things too. For starters, the game isn't scary. None of the leviathans are, and the normal critters are just annoying. Subnautica 1 was terrifying; BZ just... isn't. The game world feels smaller and shallower; there's so much less *depth* to explore besides occasional caves that take the place of the objectively-cooler Lost River. The story focus means it's more handhold-y and "go here, do this" than free-exploring. The above ground sections just aren't very fun, and the snowfox is just bad. Too slow, controls terribly, way too fragile, and you fall off every time a worm shows up. Use the prawn instead.

BZ is... fine. There are good moments in the underwater sections and I got over 20 hours of play out of a game I got for $20. That's fair, honestly. But it's just not as good, or as large, as the first one. Take the polish and some of the new basebuilding stuff from BZ and combine it with Subnautica 1's better world and creatures, and you'd have an excellent game. As is, it's just okay.

While Little Nightmares II is still a good game, and one I recommend (especially to fans of the first), I will say I do like the first one better. Here's why:

The second improves upon the first in a few ways; the environments are even better, Six can be pretty helpful in showing you were to go or what to do if you aren't sure, and the "co-op" puzzles are interesting.

However, there are a few problems. Combat is kinda clunky and I could not get the hang of it (especially with keyboard controls, aiming is very hard. Aiming the flashlight is even worse). Some chase sequences are annoyingly inconsistent, where I'd enter the same sequence of inputs and get crushed one time and get away the next. And a fair few sections lost their scariness because I kept getting killed. Restarting over and over *very* quickly wears out the horror and replaces it with frustration. Humorously, I got caught by the thin man once not because he outran me, but because I ran into a wall due to the aforementioned keyboard controls.

The game is at its best when you aren't in combat, and when you aren't running through an irritatingly inconsistent chase sequence, dying and restarting often enough to lose the scare. The puzzles are interesting, the atmosphere is still excellent, and I will say the hospital chapter definitely got me, probably more than anything in the first game. The other chapters less so.

In summary, it's still good, and it's still worthwhile (especially for the atmosphere), but clunky combat and awkward controls in some cases led to losing some of the horror that the first game had down.

Let's be clear here. I recommend Subnautica, but I will admit I bounced off it the first *three times* I played it. It took my fourth playthrough to actually get into it and finish the story properly, and that's concerning. For me, it needed some mods to become properly playable.

I added: more inventory space, more hotbar space, autosorting storage, autocrafting, and pulled up the wiki so I could see what biomes certain blueprints were found in. Some might consider this cheating, but I don't care. Subnautica does very little to help you find some very vital components, blueprints, and intel. Some players might find this a good opportunity to explore and find things on their own, but I found it incredibly frustrating when it's so easy to miss critical stuff. Additionally, the storage and crafting systems are tedious at best if you don't have way too much storage and automatic crafting.

BUT, if you fix all that (through mods, it is *very* easy to do so), Subnautica is a very solid atmospheric survival/exploration/horror (sorta) game. Diving to deeper biomes and evading more dangerous fauna to get more exotic blueprints and materials is the primary loop, and a surprisingly deep (haha) story is hiding behind it all. It's a lot of fun once the quality of life stuff I mentioned above is fixed, but the bugs and little annoyances will keep mounting without it.

So: Yes, I recommend Subnautica, but for your sake, please play it modded.