Lily's World has great reviews, and it deserves them, but I didn't really love it.

This is one of those lost device/found footage games (like Simulacra) where you find a girl's laptop and try to figure out what happened to her. It deals with important subject matter that the developer personally experienced. Although I cannot relate (and won't say more due to spoilers), I respect the writing and the personal touch to the story.

I thought the puzzles were fair and clever. It gives you hints if you ask for them, but it doesn't hold your hand. You are also given a notepad to write your notes in.
The early 2000's aethetics are fun and nostalgic. Think of the Myspace era. It does come off more like a parody of that time, but it's still fun.

I story didn't really land for me. The subject matter is completely fine, but it lacked the twists and turns I was hoping for. The horror was more subdued then I expected. I really wanted it to ramp on the creepiness towards the end.

The voice acting for Lily was very distracting. I genuinely do not want to come off mean, but I think she was trying to sound younger to match Lily's age, but it sounded like an anime character impression.

Overall, Lily's World is a good game. Some will relate to it more then others. I love these types of games and I hope this niche little subgenre won't die out. I do recommend this game, but only on sale. The developer deserves the support, but if you are broke then maybe wait for the next sale!

What Remains of Edith Finch is walking simulator that follows a woman trying to uncover her strange family history.

I'm always optimistic but somewhat wary when I see that walking simulator tag. Will the story make up the lack of gameplay? In this case, yes. I was captivated the entire time.

The game has you walking through an abandoned family house, finding pieces of your families history and playing out the stories of what happened to them. The stories are sad, charming, surprising, it makes you feel many emotions at once. The voice acting is great and so is the world-building and lore about the Finch's.

Is this mainly just walking? Yes. I only recommend this if you are okay with that. If you are then don't waste any time picking this game up! Go in blind and you'll have a great time.

If you played Jackbox 3 or 6, you've probably heard of Trivia Murder Party.

If not, then Trivia Murder Party is a murder themed multiplayer trivia game. You compete against friends (or strangers in my case) to correctly answer multiple choice questions. The questions are usually related to pop culture or academics.

Every player who answers the trivia question incorrectly, has to compete in a minigame. Think Mario Party, but less movement, since you control everything on your phone. The player(s) who lose the minigame do not lose the entire game, but they turn into ghosts. Ghosts can still play the entire game, but they have a disadvantage at the end.

This repeats until the end. Trivia question is presented. Players who get it wrong compete in minigame. Minigame losers turn into ghosts. Points are distributed throughout. Repeat until there is one alive player left standing.

At the end, all players are racing to a truck. The players with the most points at the front, ghosts are in the back. Everyone has to correctly answer as many trivia questions as necessary to get to the front and hop into the truck. Then a winner is announced.

The game is fun, but it's barebones at the moment. It's in early access and can still use a lot of work. The original is a fan favorite, but it was included in a pack of games. This stands on it's own and cost almost as much. The only real change being that you can play with strangers now.

There are bugs and the servers are very hit or miss. I can't seem to get a match during the day and can only get them during night time. The minigames need a lot more variation. They are repetitive and you will probably see most if not all of them by the second game. The narrator also talks a lot. His lines are repetitive and he explains the rules every single time. He needs a skip button for all players.

Like I said, the game is in early access and has plenty more time to shine. Hopefully it grows more players and more content is added. The game itself is fun. It's the same game as the others but with different games and questions. It concept stands on its own. Now they just have to justify the price tag. I'd wait for sale before purchasing unless you just love Trivia Murder Party, like myself.

Sara is Missing is another found footage/found device horror game. You find the phone of a girl named Sara and the AI on her phone tells you that she is in trouble and needs to be found.

I have a fair share of critisms for this game, but this is a free game. It can be found on itch.io and it does not cost any money. It's also a predecessor of the game Simulacra. It's obviously a little test game before they make the actual game they intended to make.

That being said, I don't think this is worth your time. There are little to no puzzles. The game tells you exactly what to do. The mystery is solved almost instantly. The writing is bad. The scares are early 2000s creepypasta type scares. I recognized some old footage from some ancient relics like Marble Hornets.

The ending presents itself as if it has multiple choices and endings. It doesn't. I replayed the entire game four times to see the different endings and make different choices. It all leads to the exact same open ended non conclusion ending. Felt like a huge waste of time.

I doubt many people will find this on there radar, but I'd recommend skipping it and jumping straight to Simulacra if you like these types of games.

My first 10/10 game of the year!

Control Resonant is an action-adventure hack n slash rpg. This is a direct sequel to the game CONTROL. You play as Dylan Faden. Seven years after falling into a coma, he is awakened and realizes that the lockdown has been lifted and Manhatten is being taken over by Hiss.

I've been following Remedy Games since the release of the first Alan Wake game. I haven't loved every single game; but the amount of creativity, originality, charm, and quality writing has always had me hooked. The way all of these games connect and interweve while also being completely accessible to new players has been a fantastic thing to witness since the very beginning.

I do highly recommend playing the first Control game before Resonant. I wasn't a huge fan of CONTROL but it's a good game and worth playing. The games share main characters, side characters, story beats, references, and easter eggs. That being said, it's not absolutely necessary. Dylan's story can easily be gathered by dialogue and tapes.

That being said.. Dylan. Our main progatonist. I was apprehensive when learning that Dylan would be the main character. His character was flat and emotionless in the first game. It was due to the story of course, but it was difficult to see what they were going to do with a blank slate character that we are supposed to suddently care about and play the entire game.

They really nailed it.

Dylan feels human. Relatable. Likable. A guy you'd hang out with. A guy you root for. He has multiple sides to his personality. He doesn't just fit in one box. He doesn't fit any stereotype. Dylan had to work for anyone to care about this story and they really nailed it.

The combat is wonderful. When you start, it feels a little rough. Nothing is unlocked. Nothing is ungraded. The enemies feel like they take way to long to kill and you just woke up from a damn coma. Like any good progression, the more you play the better the combat gets. The variation of choices you get in upgrades, abilities, and weapons is a ton of fun. You can combine so many different moves to just anniliate these enemies. It would be hard to find two players that fight the same. There are also a bunch of accessible options that help with combat. Some can be turned on that lets you instant kill the enemies, others let you adjust things more to your style.

The audio in this game… love it. Sound design can be so underappreciated but man did they nail it. The combat hits hit harder, the action scenes feel more exciting. The background chatter, hiss chanting, atmosphere, everything feels so immersive. I'm normally a PC player, but someone gifted me this game on PS5. When Zoe talks to Dylan, she can be heard on the tv and on the controller speakers. It was makes it sound like she's on the radio with him. It really hit harder on the sinkhole level. I love those little details.

I've only played on Playstation so I haven't tried it on PC (yet). That makes this review less accurate if things are any different on PC. I can't review quality of the game on Steam, but I will say it played well for me. No bugs. No issues. The controls were great on controller. Every power was easy to access, everything was responsive, there was no confusion or wrong button mashing.

Control Resonant is open world. Much more so then the first game. You unlock more of the map and locations when you get certain abilities. The map is much better then the first game, but it can still get a little confusing if you are bad at directions like me. Make sure to use signs around the area to find your way, not just the in game map. Sometimes the objectives can be vague so you have to pay attention. A few of the puzzles also tested my patience. Remedy always seems to frustrate me at least once in their games. I'd personally remove or change a couple puzzles.

My favorite part personally, are the characters. They really shine. I cared about Dylan's story, Zoe's story, Jesse's story, heck even Dr. Darling's story more then I cared about the main story. There are plenty of lore drops and character stories hidden in tapes, pages, objects, and secret areas and missions.

I'd love to ramble about this game so much more. I just finished 100%ing it and it's everything I wanted. I'd rather stop talking here because it's best to go in as blind as possible. If you like good characters, emotional character relationships, lots of lore, or just a good ol combat heavy hack n slash, I highly recommend this one. And please remember: Do Not Eat the Mold!

This game was so hard to put a review number on. I honestly don't know what I'd give it.

The first Death Stranding became one of my favorite games ever. It does have a very slow start, but then the world-building pulled me in. It had an amazing soundtrack, captivating cutscenes, a crazy and strange story and the gameplay itself was incredibly relaxing. It quickly became a comfort game for me.

I'm going to be incredibly vague when I say, Death Stranding 2 didn't give me any of those feelings. The story took two steps back. Where the first game ended with a feeling of hope, this game feels like it had no reason to be made at all. That's coming from someone who was begging for a sequel.

It's not all bad. Actually most of the game is a large improvement over the original. The gameplay is much better. The controls feel better, it's less frustrating. More balanced. easier movements (that may be a pro or con for some.) There are new additions to the gameplay and items you can use.

The graphics look great. It's a beautiful game. The soundtrack is still good. I much preferred the soundtrack from the first game, but that's just personal preference. You can now play the soundtrack anytime as long as you're in the chiral network. In the first game you were only able to listen at your shelter.

The map is much bigger now, with more shelters to deliver too. There are also mountains you have to traverse. I wasn't a big fan of the mountains, especially the shelters that require that you climb them. Gets tedious. That's one reason I haven't 100% the game. The mountains and other obstacles do incentivize players to map their routes now. Something that wasn't really necessary in the first game, although recommended.

I liked the addition of the disasters (like the quakes, and fires) and the improved day and night cycle.

All the improvements are great, but this really comes down to my personal enjoyment, and I was… disappointed. I didn't like the story. I didn't even like most of the sides stories, apart from a couple secondary character cutscenes. In the first game, I was heavily invested in every character and finding out the backstory of even a random shelter NPC was entertaining. Sam and Lou's story didn't impress me and the rest of the characters conclusions weren't very interesting or enjoyable either. When I play a game, I'm a story first, gameplay second kind of person. For that reason I wouldn't recommend this one nearly as strongly as I'd recommend the first.

I'd love to know how others who played it feel. Especially if you played the first game.

Nostalgia is a tough thing. I remember being absolutely blown away by this game back in the day, with its big, wide and detailed levels, the riddle-based goals that lead you toward the hearts, the overall badass vibe, the combat, and the movement.

Well, 20 or so years later I decided to go back to it, and it wasn't a pleasing experience. Take combat -- it is very simple, you have no defensive options, and limited healing options mostly involving getting life back after defeating enemies (which can be an issue when the health pickup falls out of the map). And it's repetitive, throughout the game it never improves or gets better than the first level, and the game overuses flying enemies which are just annoying.

The movement system is actually pretty good, but not without flaws. The first being depth perception, with many platforming sections requiring precise positioning but being very hard to read. The second is that the same key inputs are used for both long jump and high jump, which makes it less than ideal to switch between the two and makes what could have been a very satisfying system into something clunky.

The levels, in retrospect, are smaller than I remember. I think they are indeed detailed and verticality adds a lot of fun to it, but you navigate them too quickly to modern standards. Most goals are well signaled so you generally have a good idea about where to go and what to do, but every level has a sundial goal that is generally a pain to find, a bigger pain to solve the sundial dimension which tends to be a platforming gauntlet without context. And that brings me to possibly the biggest flaw in the game, the lives system. It adds nothing, just wastes your time.

The game has transformations, but only two and they are sparsely used (each used maybe 2 or 3 times throughout the game). It's a sign it was abandoned before being fully done. There is some lore but it is very skippable and contributes little to nothing to the game in the end.

In summary, this game helps to explain why Acclaim went broke after releasing it. Acclaim was all the rage during my SNES years, it was incredible, but then it clearly became less relevant during the PSX years, and if a game like Vexx was the one supposed to put it back on the map, I understand why it floundered. Vexx was supposed to be a bad boy with attitude, but just wasn't a really good game after all

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The Adventure Pals was a game that I enjoyed and was delighted by …. for the first 8 of the 9 hours it took me to beat it.

It is a game that hits on that saturday morning cartoon nostalgia. The artstyle, graphics, animation, effects, humor, sounds, everything is crafted towards a very specific vision, and damn, it pays off. It's a great game to look at, and it's one of these games I know will never look dated, because it's a timeless art direction. It's more like Adventure Time than some Adventure Time games hahahaha

The gameplay is also nice, with some caveats. It's mostly an action platformer, with many segments of jumping and dodging intespersed with combat segments. The combat is … bad. It's just too messy and hectic, and the screen frequently is too cluttered to allow for satisfying encounters. It reminded me a lot of Guacamelee, which in my book is not a compliment. Each biome has five levels, each level has five stages, and each stage has a hidden collectible that is generally easy and fun to hunt for. You have consumables that can change the tide of a battle and a score based on how fast and thorough you were during your exploration, and many other hidden collectables through the world and the side quests and the arenas.

And if that was the whole game, I would say it's a charming game that starts strong and loses momentum until it's finally over with a little steam left. But ….

Now, after reading all of that you might be wondering -- geez, how do you justify a thumbs down? Well, two factors were decisive. The first was a softlocking game bug I encountered in the fourth world, Crablantis. I beat the first level, and then another level unlocked. Unbeknownst to me, that was the third level, and once I beat it, the game was softlocked since I hadn't beaten the second level (it was never enabled) and could not proceed further. This game was released near a decade ago and I'm not the only person that experienced the bug, so the fact it wasn't fixed yet indicates to me it will never be fixed. And that's a shame, because that softlock prevented not only progress, but also achieving a side-quest that I fought for (the Crystal Skull near Stoney Head).

The second was compounded by the first. If everything has been fine in terms of softlocking bugs, I probably wouldn't have complained about the pace dying near the end of the game. But when I finally got softlocked I realized how repetitive the game had become. And while the gameplay loop is fine at first, I realized it hadn't improved much for the previous 10 hours, and I suddenly lost all the urge to beat it.

And that's such a shame, because it's not everyday you find these sweet works of passion. But at the same time, our time and money is limited, and the small things that are bothersome in this game are bothersome enough to prevent a recommendation.

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What a wild ride. I've been hearing about this game for a while, but just managed to get my hands on it a week ago, and damn son, the hype was real.

DOOM 2016 plays like FPS games haven't played in a while, and I say that as the biggest form of praise that I can give. It's all thrills no fills. You boot the game, 1 minute later you're opening a demon's jaws open with your bare hands and the pace never drops. Level after level, you're constantly getting new guns and gun mods, new runes and new suit upgrades, to the point you eventually become an unstoppable force of nature.

Level design is literally perfect, with an incredible mix of cramped and open arenas with a diverse range of monsters set for you to obliterate. The levels look good, play good and sound good. The difficulty ramps up but you never feel you're lacking the tools to best any encounter. It's a freaking crescendo of gore and skill that is always accompanied by heavy metal riffs that amp up the action to 11.

No time and nowhere to hide. No regenerating health. No cover shooting. It's you, them, and your full arsenal until your ammo depletes, you chainsaw demons in the face, and the whole valsa repeats. No ammo? Get out of jail free card with the BFG.

If you care about secrets, it's always good to take a deep breath and calm down between fights, but if you don't care about them, the game lets you RIP AND TEAR non-stop for almost freaking 12 hours. Movement is a treat, your jumps are heavy, your ledge grabs are hefty and the Glory Kills are juicy.

Too bad it took me 10 years to play it, but I'm glad it didn't take me an extra second. If you have the chance to play it and haven't done so yet, stop everything else you're doing and go play this NOW.

I'm not stuck here with you. YOU are stuck here with ME! RIP AND TEAR SONNY JIM