checkmarkchevron-down linuxmacwindows ribbon-lvl-1 ribbon-lvl-1 ribbon-lvl-2 ribbon-lvl-2 ribbon-lvl-3 ribbon-lvl-3 sliders users-plus
Send a message
Invite to friendsFriend invite pending...
This user has reviewed 45 games. Awesome! You can edit your reviews directly on game pages.
Rusty Lake Hotel

An ok little point and click puzzle game

For the $1 I paid for this, I would say I'm happy with that. I'd rate this more at 2.5 stars, but it's a neat little game, short and over before it overstays its welcome (perhaps a metaphor for the guests?). The puzzles are quite easy, but never too straightforward. The charm in the game lies in its art-style and bizzare (surrealist?) dark humour. The story never really comes together, but that was never really the point, perhaps I'll see where the sequels take it since I got the trilogy altogether. All in all, I'm interested in playing the next ones, but don't think this is a title I'd see myself replaying in the future.

6 gamers found this review helpful
Iconoclasts

It's... just OK. Lot of good ideas tho

I was really looking forward to this one. The game looked like it was promising to deliver a classic GBA side-scroller. Sadly, I have to say I'm disappointed. The pixel graphics are crisp, and the environments are gorgeous. Character animations are great. But you can see the visuals for yourself. The sound effects are crisp and satisfying, but the music is generic and forgettable. What about gameplay? While the controls are tight with few awkward mechanics (usually around the wrench), it is pretty hit or miss. Enemies are varied, and require different strategies to kill which is nice. Traversing environments offers many "mini-puzzles" that require you to use your skillset to get by -- this is good. Large variety of bosses, which are all very different -- this is good too. So what about it was a miss? Maybe it was the back-tracking? I just didn't "feel" like I was having fun as the game continued -- maybe that's just me. One big negative for me was the story... I can tell the dev put a lot into it, but it needed someone else to review it before. The story feels like a big hodge-podge of ideas and when you get to the end, you realize that more than ever... there is no satisfying payoff. And I have to say, all of the dialogue was extremely frustrating. It was mostly tedious to read, and really bogged the pacing of the game down. There are better ways to tell a story, both interactively, and with better edited text. Imagine playing Super Metroid, and every new zone, there will be some sort of long drawn out conversation. The dialogue also feels like a text conversation between your mom, where characters will sometimes ramble and meander... like stfu and give me control back of the character. There are times while I was playing that I was thinking, "this is pretty good (4/5)", and other times I was just wishing for it to end (2/5). Overall, the game is ok, maybe you'll appreciate it more, and may find some of my criticisms invalid. This game just wasn't for me.

9 gamers found this review helpful
Owlboy

Sadly, NOT recommended, I wish I could

(Owned on Steam) I was really looking forward to this game... a beautiful looking platformer. While the game is beautiful, and sounds great, it falls flat in the gameplay. While the controls are good, the maps are ultimately boring, the story is very hit or miss. This is a game that had great aspirations, but either didn't have enough time for the devs to follow through, or maybe there were just too few people working on it. A lot of the game felt very tedious, and you never want this feeling in a game. If you're really intrigued, I'd say get it on sale, but lower your expectations significantly. This game falls in the middle of the pack of platformers... it will not be memorable like any of the classics, and it is nowhere near some of the modern greats (Hollow Knight, Shovel Knight). Why'd I rate 2 stars? It's certainly not a 1 star game, like I said, you can just look at it and see how much was done well. But it's not a 3 star game either -- I distinctly remember being frustrated while playing it because of awkward decisions. Ultimately, it boils down to "would I recommend it to my past self" and the answer is no. If I could explain it, I would say "imagine starting a Zelda game, going through the full intro, setting up some massive world, setting up some massive quest vs a big bad guy, and then the game is just a linear corridor to 3-4 dungeons, then the game ends -- like I said, I wish they had more time/people to work on it, since I can tell that there was a lot more they wanted to do with this. 2D platformers are what I grew up with, and what are still some of my favourite games. A lot of other people seem to rate it very highly, so perhaps you will like it.

6 gamers found this review helpful
Hollow Knight

You won't get more value for price

Amazing title, highly recommended. Implicit storytelling, beautiful graphics, tight gameplay, great music (mostly atmospheric), varied enemies, varied environments. A genuinely good explorer game that offers rewarding challenge. Please do get this if you haven't already played it.

10 gamers found this review helpful
Spacechem

Expert level puzzle game

This game goes beyond a regular puzzle game -- it's not for everyone. I don't say that to sound elitist, but as a fair warning. This game isn't your professor layton, or using physics engine, or push this button to open that door type of puzzle game. This is a game of building engines -- a proper engineering design game. Essentially, you're building a circuit where all you can do is set up commands on a 2d space, and have your objects get pulled along on your automated design. If anything collides, or isn't built correctly, the machine stops. It sounds easy, but you'll quickly see just how clever you'll need to be. Linear thinking only gets you so far, and many puzzles will start to require parallel thought where certain nodes will be required for multiple uses. I love puzzles, and always have as a kid... in most games with puzzles, I'd solve through them in minutes. There are puzzles here that took me days to complete, and required significant planning. Many hours tweaking things, and many, many crushing last second failures. Some of these puzzles feel almost like something that you'd work on in a full time job, but have weeks to complete. So just know what you're getting into. While incredibly frustrating at times, it's also incredibly rewarding when you finally get it. There's also a system that compares your solutions with other players' (number of nodes used, and time required for engine to finish) -- but I stopped caring about that when the puzzles themselves bordered on the insane.

18 gamers found this review helpful
Warcraft I & II Bundle
This game is no longer available in our store
Warcraft I & II Bundle

Warcraft 2 still as charming as ever

I'm sad that after Frozen Throne (I consider WC3 Blizzard's last, and perhaps greatest masterpiece) that they ruined the potential for the Warcraft universe by going with WoW. While I'm sure it was lucrative for them, we'll never get a PROPER continuation... at least not a one in the forseeable future. WC1 is dated, and has always been a bit dated, even when WC2 came out, but WC2 is still the simple and fun game that it always was. It's really amazing how for such a simple idea that the overall game ends up being so much more than the sum of its parts. Bnet edition comes with the base game and Beyond the Dark Portal (which ups the challenge enough). No idea why Blizzard isn't selling these over their own launcher, perhaps they need to make room for more Activision garbage.

312 gamers found this review helpful
Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight

A Good (but not Great) game

A nice little title with a decent difficulty curve. While it doesn't join the ranks of the best of the genre (see Hollow Knight), it is certainly worth your time if you love Castlevania types (SotN). Combat is good. It's a little clunky, but not badly enough that you'll be frustrated at it. Dodging/rolling is skillfully is required to defeat the bosses, and knowing when to attack, and when to retreat. Attacking roots you for a moment (which feels outdated), and some bosses can be cheesed using ranged spam. The upgrade system (passive charms and active items) could have been more interesting, but function well enough. Level design is mostly good. Nice platforming, interesting enemy placement. Decent secret exploration. The devs did a good job including world building (NPCs you can talk to, and interesting environments which tell the story). Artistically the game excels. It goes for an anime-ish art direction (Sailor Moon), and pulls it off well. I thought the game would be more fan-servicey (main character with short skirt and high red stockings, and the witch of decay with you attacking her boobs more or less), but it really doesn't devolve into tastelessness (I do like some fan service in my games, just not when it's totally shameless. This game definitely could have even used more, but it's fine the way it is). Music is ultimately forgettable. When there is some sort of melody, it's not good. When it's going for atmosphere, it really does well (heavy bass, sense of dread type stuff). Overall, this game is worth your time if you are a fan of this type of game. I enjoyed it and 100%'d the map -- definitely don't regret playing it. However, it falls in the middle of the pack, so if you're on a budget, look at some of the other ones first -- but do eventually come back to this one.

9 gamers found this review helpful
Yooka-Laylee

Flawed but worthy N64-ish collectathon

Firstly, ignore the extremely negative reviews. This game is all around fine. While it is certainly rough in many areas, the overall product holds up, and is enjoyable. Especially recommended to those who loved the collectathons of the N64 era. I rated this 4 stars, but realistically this is more of a 3.5 ... a bit better than average, and I had fun; I'll likely replay the game some time in the future. This is no Mario Galaxy, but it is still worth your time, I ended up 100%ing it. Beautiful graphics/art, excellent music changing dynamically with the location, many things to do to collect the "stars" (pagies) that vary between each of the 5 worlds. Boss fights are hit and miss, but each is varied and feels unique, so I appreciate that effort. The controls/mechanics are also hit and miss, where most things feel fine, but sometimes sluggish controls hurt the experience (especially felt in some of the minigames). I appreciate that the game didn't go fully easy mode, like many newer titles can be. The difficulty is about just right (a 3-4, where 10 is dark souls deprived) I appreciate a lot of what the devs tried, and you can tell this game had a lot of love put into it, but it still needed more time/revision: more polish, some revisions, and this could have been perfect. While I was originally put off by some of the politics/drama in development, and then by the many overly-harsh reviews, I'm glad I finally gave this a chance, and I think you should too. The game most importantly is fun, despite being marred by some flaws throughout. I'd be on board for a Yooka Laylee 2... they have a lot of great ideas and a lot of things that can be improved, but overall this first game makes a good impression.

3 gamers found this review helpful
STAR WARS™ - The Force Unleashed™ Ultimate Sith Edition

Sub-par action game, just play JO2 or JA

Summary: For a game that came 7 years AFTER Jedi Outcast 2, it's a far worse game in almost every category. Be careful of the glowing positive reviews, as they may be clouded by nostalgic goggles. After glowing reviews I gave this game a a chance: Visuals + Music: What you'd expect from 2009. A bit messy looking at times. Music was great using some of the classics from the series, and the newly composed stuff fit in well. Voice acting: ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE. Vader was great. But the new emperor's voice was something between hilarious and cringey. Even the protagonist was hit and VERY miss. It's like one of the devs thought he did a great emperor impression and put himself in completely unaware of how bad he was. Story: Great idea, but not implemented the greatest. It felt rushed at times. New characters, new environments not seen before were positives. This should have been done as one of the prequels. Gameplay: This is most important, and I have to say, the gameplay is borderline bad. Enemies stunlocking you then just murdering you. Awkward saber combat (although flashy, it just feels limp. Saber does not kill in one swipe). QTE littered throughout. Boss battles, although they could have been awesome (showdowns in interesting locations), ended up being extremely aggravating, forcing you into specific actions, or the boss would just block everything and then murder you. The StarDestroyer takedown was tedious. In general the force which could have been great, feels a bit awkward. Controlling where you throw things doesn't work well. While I appreciate the sandboxy type environments which allow you to kill enemies in fun ways, you largely end up repeating the same thing to get through it. Sorry for the rant, but I'm just throwing out my feelings after beating the game. If I hadn't played Kyle Katarn's adventures, this could have been passable, but Outcast 2 and Academy are vastly superior. Pick this up on sale if you love Star Wars. It's worth a try nonetheless.

11 gamers found this review helpful
Firewatch

Unexpected, and not in a good way

I love indy titles, so I was on board when I heard of this game: slow burn, mystery, great atmosphere... Sure, I'll give it a shot. While the imagery is stunning, the game's story was clearly too ambitious... It's as if the dev came up with a bunch of great ideas, but then didn't know how to properly execute them. The game has a bunch of excellent story threads, but they're never properly explored, and worst of all, are tied up in the blandest and worst way possible. Character choices are ultimately irrelevant, character arcs are also unsatisfyingly tied up... It's just so ... disappointing. The game had some excellent potential, but either writer wasn't talented enough to properly explore the ideas, or the dev couldn't implement them all properly, so you're left with a very "meh" experience. Sadly, the large open landscape is misleading, because you'll quickly realize just how linear this game is. And given that it is ultimately a walking simulator (very little "puzzle solving"), that could have been acceptable if the story delivered. Perhaps your dialogue choices could have meant something, perhaps they could have explored any of the crazy story threads. But there were no real twists, no satisfying conclusions... just anti-climax after anti-climax, and then the game ends. I'm not saying I wanted something sci-fi or super-natural, but there were other things as well that could have been done, that weren't. And since I don't want to spoil the game for those who want to try it for themselves, I'll leave it at that. Don't get me wrong, the game certainly has some introspective moments, and again, beautiful visuals, but in the end you'll be left feeling unsatisfied. I finished this game on steam, and finished it under the time required to get a refund... but I didn't. This game wasn't awful, and at least the dev tried to make this title, because it could have been amazing.

5 gamers found this review helpful