Recent reviews by Tibbs

This program is simply mandatory if you make pixel art

Look, I am legally obligated to love any game with a dedicated quack button.

I do wish the game were 30-60 minutes longer. It felt like the pieces of the case were coming together one by one, but then the final deduction of the culprit leaves you on your own. It would have been nice to build it up a little more.

The deduck-tion mechanic is really clever -- it gameifies the process of detective work, but not to the extent of giving you the answers. You still need to scan for clues that aren't directly pointed out by the game.

The art and vibes of this game are immaculate and the voice acting is mostly excellent. Brian David Gilbert, my spirit animal, is a crocodile. What more can I say?

If a sequel to this came out, I would buy it day one.

I bought this game on PS4 shortly after it came out, but it took three years of on-and-off attempts to finally complete it. I came away thinking it was a profoundly mid experience. Out of curiosity, I picked up Ragnarok and liked it even less.

A few months ago, however, I decided to give the older God of War games a try, and, to my shock, God of War III became one of my new favorite games of all time. And so, I decided to give the 2018 game another shot, just to see if there was something I missed.

And yep, I still think it's mid.

I find the combat in this game incredibly tedious. Compared to the older games, Kratos is slower, has less health, and a smaller range. The camera angle means you constantly have to be turning to keep track of enemies. This game doesn't make you feel like an unstoppable god -- you feel like you could die any second and you constantly have to tap-dance around the battlefield. It doesn't help that even low level enemies take more hits to kill than you do. The difficulty curve is completely out of whack, as well. Both times I completed this game, there were a few early encounters where I died 5+ times, but I didn't die once in the second half of the game.

Nearly all of the enemies in the game are boring generic fire or ice creatures. Nearly all the boss fights in this game are some variation of troll or ogre. The few that break the mold don't even come close to most of the boss fights in God of War III in terms of spectacle or gameplay variety.

I hated every time I had to interact with the upgrade system. This game has, bar none, the worst "ludo-narrative dissonance" of any game I've ever played and half of that is due to the shoehorned upgrade system. Noted sourpuss Kratos will apparently stop his epic quest for twenty minutes to do a lackluster puzzle for some nonsensical upgrade material, just so that he, a literal god who has slain thousands, can craft a goofy-looking piece of armor that means he dies in eight hits instead of six. This game exemplifies the quandary of "isn't buying better armor and weapons just making the game easier"? The upgrades that actually make combat more fun are bought using exp or runes you find, not crafting.

A few locations in this game are beautiful, such as Alfheim, but a shockingly large portion of this game takes place in ugly grey caverns or ugly grey forests. The game has a couple moments of spectacle, but they are relatively few and far between. In comparison to God of War III, the downgrade in art direction (not fidelity) is noticeable.

Look, the story in this game is good...for a video game, but comparing it to The Last of Us or any competently written movie is an insult. Kratos himself is by far the best part, and the central relationship between Kratos and Atreus and the central goal of taking his wife's ashes to the highest peak are compelling, but beyond that, the game quickly devolves into a series of "things that happen." Both of the reboot games feature a heavy emphasis on fate and prophecy, which is interesting in theory, but makes the stories of these games feel like a checklist of things the writers want to have happen, rather than characters making decisions and interacting. Things constantly just happen without proper build-up or explanation. One of the most important pieces of storytelling advice that gets passed around is that the events of a story should be connected by "so then" or "but then", rather than "and then." This game's story is almost exclusively constructed of "and thens".

The dialogue is...serviceable. It doesn't help that the facial animation takes a serious leap down whenever characters are supposed to be expressing an emotion beyond stoic resolve. This game has a bad habit of saying too much and not leaving anything to subtext or subtlety, something the sequel would do WAY, WAY worse. I got the story beat the first time -- you don't need to have Atreus expound on it over 20 minutes of repetitive dialogue that doesn't sound like anything a 10-year-old would say.

Also, I'll just say it: I know Brok and Sindri are more compelling in Ragnarok, but they feel annoying and shoehorned into this game. Their cartoon-ish personalities and game-y teleporting completely take me out of the experience.

I want to be clear: I don't completely hate this game. I did slog through it twice. But I can't imagine playing through it again. I understand why people like this game -- there are plenty of good individual elements, but this feels like a game that is profoundly less than the sum of its parts. I think part of what makes me resent this game is that it could have been so much more.

I hate to criticize a game that feels so different and tries so many interesting things, but this really fell flat for me.

I won't spoil anything specific, but the hook of the game is that, depending on your choices, the tone of the game and characterization of the princess change drastically. In theory this is interesting, but in practice, it means you never get to know the characters or setting in a meaningful way. It doesn't feel like you're learning about a consistent place or person, but just getting short glimpses into wildly different versions. Those are often quite interesting glimpses, but the overall experience feels disjointed.

However, the accompanying art and atmosphere along the way are absolutely phenomenal -- I would say the game is almost worth playing just for the audiovisual experience. I've never seen a game that looks like this. The voice acting is also generally excellent.

As the game goes on, again I won't spoil anything, but it chooses to double down on convoluted philosophical musings, and also undercuts itself by being just a bit too meta for its own good. On one hand, I found myself impressed with the experimental aspects of the game, but on the other hand, I couldn't help but think that the game could have been something more by trying to be less -- by actually allowing itself to focus on the things that make stories timeless and compelling. I sometimes feel like storytelling-focused gamedevs are too clever for their own good, so determined to create gaming's version of "Jeanne Dielman" or "2001: A Space Odyssey," while gaming arguably has yet to produce its own "Casablanca", a film that wasn't made with any high-minded goals but became a classic by nailing all the storytelling fundamentals.

That said, I much prefer something like over most AAA game stories, which fall somewhere around the quality of a mid-range Netflix show.

Overall, there is a lot I liked about this game. I definitely find it encouraging that something like this could gain so much attention, especially because I'm a big advocate for the possibilities of visual novels as an art form. I'm being critical as a counterbalance to the overwhelmingly positive reception. If this game were less lauded, I would probably give it a tentative "recommend". Feel free to disregard me if this looks interesting to you.

One of the best games ever made

Truly a classic ahead of its time. Move over, Vampire Survivors.

Knights of the Old Republic changed my life. There isn't any other way to say it.

This was more or less the first video game I ever played -- and by "played", I mean I watched while my dad played. He worked long hours at the office and I was starting school, so it took us almost a year to reach the end credits, finding time here and there to fight a few enemies or finish a conversation or two until someone else wanted the TV. My dad printed out one of those giant GamesFAQ walkthroughs in its entirety on hundreds of pages of printer paper. While he manned the controller, I would flip through the walkthrough to offer my advice. My dad was not a "gamer" in any sense, so he died a lot, but we didn't care. Towards the end of the game, I actually took the controller a few times, and I died a lot too. We would quote HK-47 and shout "For the order!" like Juhani around the house as an inside joke. When we reached that big reveal, we were both floored.

I can trace my life in a direct line back to those days. If I hadn't played this game, I probably wouldn't have developed my love for video games. I probably wouldn't have majored in Computer Science. I probably wouldn't work on gamedev in my free time. I've replayed other games from my youth and found they don't hold up, but this one I replay every few years without fail. It really doesn't get better than this.

Thank you, Knights of the Old Republic.

Still the best racing game ever made. It's frustrating that we may never see another racing game with Burnout Paradise's glorious crash physics -- just because real-world car companies hate to see their cars squished into metal pancakes at 200mph.

Yes, the gameplay is a little repetitive. Yes, those ax-throwing enemies are the worst. Yes, the game is a bit too long. Yes, the voice-acting is hilariously bad. But there is no other game like Alan Wake.

The atmosphere drips off the screen, perfectly calibrated to be scary but not terrifying, campy but not silly, dark but not pitch-black.

The combat isn't quite perfect, but it's damn satisfying and the foundation is there -- a foundation that its forgotten sequel Alan Wake: American Nightmare would perfect, in my opinion. Whereas most shooters are about reflexes, Alan Wake is about positioning and keeping cool under pressure. You're constantly trying to keep track of where enemies are around you, moving around to maintain distance as you slowly whittle down and pick off each enemy one by one. I personally find it very engaging.

Look, I hate games that require fast reflexes. I'm a story and atmosphere type of gamer. Every time I attempt to play an NES game or a Souls-like, I end up dying 40 times and turning it off.

Super Hexagon is my one exception.

This game is a borderline therapeutic experience. The visuals, music, and gameplay loop are transcendent. Even after a decade, the muscle memory for each of this game's small handful of levels is still burned into my mind.