Recent reviews by Nate Wingman

As I get older, gain more responsibilities, and lose more of my brain cells to the impending memory loss from excessive alcohol consumption, it becomes in my best interest to enjoy games that are not thirty-hour, blockbuster spectacles. Most games I start that have long "run-times", my adult-diagnosed ADHD throws a spanner in the works, and I get distracted by the next shiny thing that comes my way.

Thank Goodness You're Here! took me less than three hours to complete, and yet it was worth every bob I spent on the yoke.

The game is a love letter to northern and midlands England, but even if you have little to no connection to the area, you'll still enjoy the quaint romp through Barnsworth. If you're a dumb yank like me, you might miss out on a few bits here and there, but it's otherwise one of the funniest games I've played. The banter between character, along with their voice acting, is top class. Animation is fluid, and disguises it's video game medium fantastically. Each character is unique, memorable, and adds to the lived-in atmosphere of the town. Cut-scenes are slapstick and brilliant.

Gameplay is incredibly simple, and some might call it the game's downside, though I would disagree. If you deconstruct the game at it's most basic elements, it is a "walking simulator" mixed with "light puzzle" themes. Though the city is multi-sectional and is "open-world", the game places plot points and obstacles in your way to lead you on a linear narrative. For some, you could argue that the price-point might be steep if the gameplay is "press X to slap", and it only lasts three hours.

But here's the thing: I don't care. It's absolutely perfect for me. The entire time, I was entertained, howling in laughter, and enjoying my short amount of free time available to me. I was sitting on the couch, with my Steam Deck, sipping a cuppa, taking in the bants and colorful atmosphere. I was locked in. My stupid short-form-video-scroll-induced attention span was taken away to another world, even for just an afternoon. I could have spent that same money for a takeaway, ore even a film at the cinema that would cost more.

And lads, at the end of the day, that's the craic.

I've been playing video games for almost 25 years now. Every once in a while, you get a game that reminds you that you are human. And humans are ostensibly, at the end of the day, animals. And like all animals, we humans have primal urges in order to satiate the basic needs to maintain our survival.

Through these carnal needs comes vices. Sometimes we revert the growth and development from our hippocampus in order to quench the primordial thirst within us. We do things not because we are proud, but because we exist. And through those things, we become alive.

Balatro is a rogue-like, deck-builder that uses the casino card game of five-card draw poker as a basis to it's gameplay core. Because it uses a standard, well-known game to build off of, the barrier for entry is low, but the skill ceiling is high. Even for a smooth-brained marsupial like myself, the dumb country bumpkin in me knows how to play poker.

But Balatro isn't just about poker. It's about the numbers. OH, THE NUMBERS. Watching the numbers, the multipliers, the stackers, the juicers, the hot digits. As you learn to make friends with the jokers, the planets, and the arcanas, they help you on the path to watching the numbers go up. You build joker decks inside your decks, increase your main deck, and then you watch the numbers go up.

The minutes turn into hours working on your antes. You don't skip the antes because you need the interest to buy your planet cards to get the hot stacks. Or to make friends new joker buddies who want to make your life even more miserable.

I wake up, I think of Balatro. I commute into the city, and my brain craves a fresh ante like a college student needing a Zyns. I'm at work, I think of juicy plays to get the numbers higher. I go home, and my Steam Deck starts crying because it knows it's time for numbers. There will be no rest until the mults are high, as will I.

Overall, Balatro is very good and I recommend it.

This original was one of (if not) the best arcade racers of all times. Very few games provide a consistent feeling of easy to learn, hard to master arcade driving. Stunning visuals, gorgeous vistas, a fantastic playlist, and excellent exotic vehicles with their own amazing soundtracks are all here. Your adrenaline glands will need a rest after a few games of multiplayer. Criterion Games of the previous generation was a master of their craft, and they managed to take the themes of the classic games of the late 90s and early 00s, and dialed it in with their own kick.

The remaster version is pretty much the same game, ported to modern consoles, with a livery editor and all the DLC that never came to PC. Even with the hard lock to 60 FPS, this game is still a treat,

I picked this up to play a Co-op game with my friend. The best I can say about Youngblood is that it's visually impressive, and that the weapons feel solid and fun to play with. After that, it's all downhill.

The AI is spotty at best, and the enemies are bigger bullet sponges than any other iteration of the newer Wolfenstein games. The RPG gameplay mechanics do not enhance the experience of the game whatsoever. They hinder your ability drastically from the start, and the pacing of the progression is molasses slow. The point of Wolfenstein is to feel like a badass right from the gate, and this game absolutely fails to do that.

Story is not worth following, and is not engaging in the slightest. The only pull is that your BJ Blazkowicz's daughters, and hey, you might get to save the world, just like your dad almost did. The characters are not interesting or stand out, but you will hear all six lines of dialog from them within the first level. The concept of a 1980s setting is an awesome idea that they should engage in a full size game, but they don't use the setting to it's advantage in this game.

The hub world is an absolute nightmare, I don't know what the hell the developers was thinking. Nothing is placed methodically, and there is no fluidity to the pacing. My only guess as to why the hub zone is an absolute nightmare is because they wanted to pad in extra time into a game that is extremely short. But it's okay that it's short, because you won't finish it anyway.

Conceptually, this would have been an amazing game. The setting is right, the gunplay is already fantastic, and what is more fun than shooting bad dudes with your friends? And yet somehow, Machine Games failed to let this game reach it's full potential. Although it is not a full-priced game, it is still not worth the price that is currently offered as of this review.

I just wanted to post a review to remind everyone that Square-Enix dropped IO Interactive and the Hitman franchise so that they could make The Quiet Man.

Boy, did they screw up.

I’ve never been much of a competitive person. I don’t stomp around the living room like Godzilla when my college football team is winning, and I don’t get stressed or angry when I’m watching a television show or playing a video game. Rocket League changed me. The barrier for entry is amazingly low, but the skill ceiling reaches Low Earth Orbit. Outsiders just see it simply as “R/C Car Soccer,” but the experience overwhelms you with adrenaline and dopamine. Every time you make an amazing score, you feel like a professional. Every time your team wins, you want to go give the closest person nearby a bear hug.

I will not falter when I say Rocket League is the best multiplayer game this generation.

When I first heard about VA-11 Hall-A, I had backed this game on Itch.io back in 2014 so I could gain access to the soundtrack. The art looked great, the trailer music was excellent, and the premise felt intriguing. I didn't hear anything and it completely fell off my radar up until until two years later, I got a notification from Itch.io that the game I had backed was released. I installed it, thought I was going to play for less than half an hour, and then uninstall.

I was completely surprised. What was supposed to be a short outing in a small indie game turned into an addicting, "page-turning", and comfy adventure. You don't make dialog choices like a traditional visual novel. Instead you bartend and make drinks from a recipe system (that you eventually begin memorizing), you pay your electricity bill and rent, and you drink with your boss. Many people have compared the gameplay to Papers, Please with the day-by-day, mundane working while you complete the narrative. In some aspects, this is very true, but if anything this is a compliment to how well the game executes in gameplay.

The art and music in this game is incredible. Barring a few examples, Western-style anime is usually done amateurly and in poor taste. However with a combination of SUKEBAN's excellent talent, along with the choice of using the PC-98-eqsue theme, the game's pixel art is almost professionally done and imitates it's Japanese counterpart excellently. The opening shot of the protagonist, Jill, looking out onto the city bayfront with the intro music is very (for a lack of a better term) nostalgic and sets the tone immediately. Besides the few tracks that play during key story moments, most of the music is found in the bar's jukebox, and lets the player experiment with the 70+ tracks. The majority of tracks fit the soft, gentle, lounge mood of the bar, but you have access to many tracks that are upbeat and bit more rigid. But every track does an excellent job of tying into the art and help create an exquisite atmosphere.

As far as story and characters go, this is the bread and butter of VA-11 Hall-A. The side characters have excellent chemistry with each other, including but not limited to heavy-weight champ and mystery lady, Boss, the Christmas-cake hacker extraordinare, Alma, and the crazy unorthodox more-than-friendly couple of Betty and Deal. However, the protagonist, Jill, was by far my favorite character. While you don't necessarily play as her, you more or less follow her around and help her bartend. Her cynical, immature, yet caring nature kept her very relatable for me and kept me curious about her life, and was the main motivation for me to move the story forward.

The few downsides I have found with this game was that towards the end, the game tries to wrap itself up a little too fast. Just as soon as you are on the crescendo of the climax, you are taken to the credits screen. If it was only just 30 minutes longer, it would have been perfect. Another thing that might deter people are how meme-heavy some portions of this game are. There is a clone of certain anonymous message board in game on your cellphone, as well as one of the characters literally being George Costanza from Seinfeld as a detective. This didn't ruin my experience, but is something to note. This game, while set fifty years from now, is a parody of current internet and news culture.

Overall, VA-11 Hall-A was an excellent surprise, and a great addition to the already excellent gaming year (yet, ultimately garbage overall) of 2016. Even if you are not a big fan of visual novels or are unfamiliar with the genre, I would at least give it a shot and dip your toes into this gorgeous pool of chiptune lounge music and fun banter for all. The game clocked me in a 10 hours, and for the current price is very worth it. I would go into it blind without any guides until you decide to play New Game+. I plan on picking this game up again on Vita when it releases on that platform, as this game would probably benefit from having touchscreen, portable version as well.

100% Orange Juice is the apex of virtual board games. It is the most exhilarating, adrenaline-flowing, heart-pounding, rage-inducing and rewarding thing to come from the country of Japan since the kotatsu. If you don't like anime, don't let the artstyle pull you away from making the best purchase of your video gaming career.

While the singleplayer gives some interesting scenarios, the meat of this game is multiplayer over VoIP. Listening to adult men get frustrated and laugh like drug addicts, while watching small girls bouncing around on a disco board to happy-go-lucky music, is an amazing sight to behold for the low price of $3. Friendships are at the stake, and it's your job to be the cute chibi girl to burn it all down to the ground.

This is exclusive proof that video games are dead.

This is the recommendation to the video game called The Stanley Parable. In this recommendation, I am going to tell you why you should consider purchasing The Stanley Parable on Steam. Steam is a multi-operating system-capable gaming and entertainment nexus where users and socialize with each other, purchase video games for themselves and each other, and allow them to play them as well. A personal computer is a device that uses silicon circuitry that uses algorithims to understand a person's inputs. A human is a mammalian animal species with an advanced capability to communicate. Communication is a way for multiple things to interact with each other. Things are anything that has matter, mass, and takes up space. Space is everything. Everything is nothing. Nothing. NOTHING. NOTHING. EVERYTHING.