I got this RoR for free on Steam if I recall well and that was a well spent investment ;-) . Sure, the game is repetitive but the gameplay loop is OK, and once in, I wanted to see the end. Actually, I played less than 4 months ago but I don't recall much of the game, except it was about dwarfs. I should review games quicker after I play them (҂◡_◡).

A FMV game where you have to play through the entire game (1h30 or 2h) if you want to try distinct arcs and get the different endings. It's almost all you need to know. It's basically a "you are the hero" movie and call it a video game : it's not bad but watching a movie and choosing an output every other 5 to 10 minutes is not really my idea of a fun game (or even just a game).

I don't like P&C, I realized I don't like escape room game either and I certainly didn't like the mobile-friendly interface, so I can safely say I didn't like RLR. So dropped it after 2 hours.

There's not much to say here neither. It's a mahjong game (not "real mahjong" Yakuza style, just the solitaire puzzle type) with big-chested anime girls in the background. Nothing special, no twist. Completed in 4 hours.

This is an underestimated gem. If you like pinball and metroidvania, YIE is the perfect mix for you, but even if only one side of the mix appeals to you (I myself am not a pinball aficionado), the game's pretty fun. And memorable : I'm sure everybody who played it perfectly remembers this unpromising hybrid of genres.
And yet, in addition to this hazardous classification, who would have bet a penny on a game starring a dung beetle ? Yes, that's a bug that feed on feces.
Like usually in metroidvania, the game imposes you a lot of backtracking, and sometimes it's really puzzling to guess where you can go or what you just unlocked, but that's the only reproach I can make. Otherwise, the realization is always perfect, with a colored and shiny atmosphere of tropical island.
YIE was the first project of the Swedish team Villa Gorilla and still the only one. I hope they will release other games as good as this one.

This game looked old AF and like dating back to Windows 95, whereas it was released in 2010. It's a puzzle game hard to describe : you've got blocks with arrows and must make chains of them. The campaign mode is well done since it slowly introduces new mechanics but after a total play of 3 hours, I was bored and called it quit.

The second free game of this recap is a 3D platformer developed by students from Quebec in 2020. It's a tribute to video game history : each of the 4 levels makes a nod to a decade of video games. One level definitely reminded me the days of PS1 for instance. It's also a collect-a-thon packed with references and a bit of trivia. Even though 3D, the handling is tip-top. The synthwave music perfectly fits the game. I completed it in around 4 hours.

I like to alternate AAA games with indies and short games. HZD is the biggest game of the period I managed to complete. I spent 43 hours on it so it wasn't bad but with a few fixes, it could have been so much better.

It has 3 strong points :

• the combat gameplay is decent, at least against robots, with their weak points or weaknesses against some elements. Even at the end with all perks and experience, I felt frail against some metal behemoths and it's always a better tactic to stay at a distance and stealthy rather than rush in.
• beautiful art : varied environments (mountains, deserts, cities, jungles), an endearing heroin (called Aloy) and above all a flabbergasting robot bestiary.
• a better story than 90% of your usual AAA games. The tutorial and the first encounters with all kinds of robots made me want to know how we got there, what triggered the changes, etc and this thirst of knowledge drove me all the game long.

On the other hand, the game has many little flaws that curved my enthusiasm, so much that I had to force myself in the last couple hours (and lowered the difficulty, but that's because like always, I hated the final boss fight).
The worst is the dull staging (or lack of) : all dialogs are shown from a boring standstill point of view behind Aloy's right shoulder. It's a pity because the animations and the chara-design are gorgeous. Even the cutscenes are floppy (fortunately, the music remedy a little this and overall underlines well the alternation of calm and tense moments). I heard it's because of time pressure that the studio was rushed by Sony to release the game earlier than needed, and that they set things right in the DLC (but I didn't check coz' didn't want to do it).
Even with a captivating story, the way it's unraveled through holograms ans with bits of lore hidden in books or stuff, it's a bit artificial, just like Jedi Fallen Order felt. Too bad some themes such as identity (self within a group), man-machine relationship, religion, are just skimmed because they looked promising. Sometimes the story feels lazy and sounds like a Miss world contestant speech (War is bad, y' know). In a way, that leaves things to say for HZ next episode(s). Finally, I regretted Aloy is too often a caricature of rebel teenager, in opposition with everything and everyone : she can or must save the world but remains only motivated by her personal quest.
If fighting robots is fun, fighting humans is shitty : to kill them, you need either an arrow to the head (or two for badass coz' it's well known one isn't enough to kill a man) or 14 arrows to the body or some kind of grenade. I read the advice to avoid them as much as possible and I followed it, blaming the times when the main quest compelled me to confront them. A lot of collectibles can be avoided to since you can buy all the most powerful weapons (mainly bows) since the very beginning with a bit of grind for the money.
Inventory and menus are thought for consoles and irritating on PC. The skill tree can be totally unlocked with time and therefore doesn't need you to make any choice. No real choice either in the story or the quests, even though some dialogs try to make you believe so. The parkour is quite rigid and nothing special.
Near the end, I was bored : a lot of quests and secondary characters are disposable (and already forgotten) and I got tired of always the same fights in different sceneries, so I used more and more fast travel, which broke even more my immersion. BTM, except those "pre-spawn" moments, the game is completely free of loading times and I bloody loved it.

In conclusion, the story made me want to believe such an unbelievable universe but unfortunately, many little clashing elements and blunders slowly broke my suspension of incredulity.

I finished this one in around 5 hours but I left it playing in the background for at least 2 hours so it's a really short game, not with a deep gameplay. In order to develop games, you hire a couple people, install their desks in an office, you tune a few cursors (choosing game genre, graphics or story investment, marketing budget, etc), are given a grade and some money, your company grows bigger and voilà, you repeat this until the final achievement.

The "Terraria in space" pitch wasn't a lie, and yet, although unavoidable, this comparison is a bit reductive because the 2 games feel different to me. I loved both of them but they don't shine in the same departments.
Terraria gave me a greater feeling of progression, the story is longer (and have a lot more enemies and bosses), there are more weapons types and more versatility ; last but not least, Terraria moves are way smoothier than Starbound's.
Starbound deals better with the exploration feeling for me : while Terraria only has one (big) playground, SB gives you plenty of (small) planets to explore, full of different sceneries, enemies and chests to loot. With a shorter main quest, SB is also easier to beat even if you can also assign yourself your own objectives and for example genocide planets, endlessly collect bounty rewards or terraform your home. The game is especially good in this department, with many many decoration tools and sets of furniture, it's really a game within the game to build some sort of castle (or moon base or cyberpunk slums) and furnish all of your NPC's rooms. SB's ambiance is also extraordinary and the music counts a lot into that statement : the best moments I had in the games were spent calmly harvesting food in my garden and then cooking dishes, while the rain was falling and a melancholic non-diegetic piano song was playing. I spent so much time playing like this, unlocking all the cooking recipes, that I could call the game Starbound Valley (｡◕‿◕｡).
I know a lot of people recommend to finish first a complete vanilla session before venturing into the widely acclaimed and huge mod Frackin' Universe. Now that I beat the vanilla game, maybe some day, if I feel nostalgic to SB, I'll give this mod and others a try.

I haven't ventured a lot into adult games territory. If I exclude a couple Sakura games I just tried for a few minutes, I think the only one I seriously played was HuniePop.
But after reading a BLAEO review by Sharky, I felt like trying CK. And I can't agree more to his statement "I clicked for the girls but actually stayed for the story". I was pleasantly surprised to find the trolley dilemma or feminist speeches in the game, and it symbolizes how some characters are unexpectedly not so shallow. I don't think I'll buy the next acts (to beckon you, this first one is free) but once in a while, it's good to change your gaming habits and try new things.

The match-3 works very well and blending it in a cooking universe is a very good idea. The game introduces perfectly the novelties : it felt always refreshing and never boring to start a new challenge with new rules or twists. The hunting wasn't so attractive to me but it's a nice puzzle to wonder what you have to hunt in order to reap the needed ingredients. What bothered me most was the parts between the match-3…
The rhythm of the game is weird : first, those short-but-countless loading times (where you see the map with an arrow showing where the story takes place) were pretty annoying and useless in my view. Secondly, I don't think the VN and match-3 parts blend well together nor are they well balanced : a lot of dialogs are uninteresting, and the story overall is a bit too childish. It's a pity because the dubbing is good but I ended fast-reading the text and skipping the audio just to reach the match-3 mini-games. Finally, I don't get why they introduced Thrash arc only for a single chapter and near the end of the story : I mean, it's a good idea but why so late and why didn't they introduce other characters with different play-styles to vary the gameplay ?