Recent reviews by phin!

A Hat in Time is a great game in a sea of terrible kickstarter games. The fact that this game is a kickstarter game is one of the only things truly weighing it down. I bought this game at launch and will from time to time replay it, and whenever new DLC comes out I will run straight through it. As far as gameplay goes there is a lot going on here, the movement is simple but not to simple where I can't do some cool ♥♥♥♥. The worlds and general theme can come off a bit childish for those who are more into "gritty" games but it is packed with an absurd amount of charm. The game takes a lot from the games that inspired it,Mario Sunshine, and Psychonauts to name a few, but it also adds a lot of its own things. All the hats are used semi-often and you will find yourself heticallly switching from hat to hat to complete platforming challenges. The only issue I really had is there isn't enough of this game. I really really enjoy playing this game, and the DLC was fun too. Yet everytime I complete it I wish there was more. The New DLC (Vanessa's Curse) is a nice step in the right direction as far as supporting community content goes, but the only thing is it is the worst community content pack they could've chose to monetize. Overall the game is a whole bunch of fun, and it well worth the 30 price tag. The game will make you fall in love with it for good reason, but will leave you wanting more, big time.
still ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ buy it though, the game is amazing

Psychonauts 2 is a once-in-a-lifetime game, and I don't mean it's so good that nothing else is going to be made like it. I mean something else. This game is a long-awaited sequel to one of my favorite games of all time, Psychonauts. The thing about most long-awaited sequels is that they have a lot of trouble creating a similar feeling to the original. Take the remake of Battle for Bikini Bottom. That remake had almost 0 heart. This game has so much heart that it hurts. First of all, the game itself has a hit or miss art style, it always has, but this new game looks great. There are very few technical problems besides the not-so-often clip through something. As far as gameplay goes, expect a lot of cutscenes. I love this lore. I could not watch nearly half of the cutscenes because I just wanted to play the game so bad. The good thing is that they are all skippable.The controls are very tight. Almost all of the items and powerup you attain are very fun to use. The only problem I run into is how the button mapping works. You constantly have to assign different powers to different buttons, which can get confusing. The controls that worked best for me were picking one button to be my misc and only switching out that one. Overall the game is not too long, well polished, and left me feeling very satisfied with what I had waited so long for. This game is a win in my book, and if you were to buy this game, I strongly recommend purchasing the first one and playing it before.

When I play other racing games, I never really get that feeling of doing something cool. Going 200 mph in a desktop chair versus a car seat are very different feelings, but, that is the reason a lot of people play racing games. That reason being the pursuit of that feeling. Art of Rally doesn't really care about that feeling, but in that same breath, do a great job of giving you that feeling. If I can pickup a game and be really good at it, it doesn't really make me feel something when I do something good. If i can pickup a game and be completely terrible at it and then I do something cool, that feeling of accomplishment is much much greater. Art of Rally is a pretty hard game first starting out, you cannot just effortlessly glide around corners. I wanted to touge drift initial d every corner, but you will learn very quickly that you can't. This lack of familiarity is a breath of fresh air for the racing genre. If you are good at one racing game, you are good at 95 percent of them. If you are good at 95 percent of racing games, you are not going to be great at this one. Approaching this with a xbox controller, I was barely finishing on the podium in the campaign until half way through. Then, I somehow managed to drift 3 consecutive hairpins and gunned it on the straight, and let me tell you, that feeling was amazing. The sense of accomplishment tied to the feeling of this game is so unique that once you get a taste you will not let go. So whatever you do, don't get frustrated at quit 2 hours in because you are bad at the game. Give it some time, and then, when you hit that crazy drift, you will feel what I'm feeling.
Buy the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game idiot