Summer Edition can be found here .
Ratings breakdown
I won't go into detail about the ratings but if you want some more context I go into it in my first review. I'll still include a quick explainer for the ratings here.
- Gameplay
- Feel, control, and fun.
- Narrative
- Story, presentation, and delivery.
- Visuals
- Graphics, direction, style, and visual flair.
- Music
- Music, sound design, and how it meshes with gameplay.
- X-Factor
- Uniqueness, new ideas, or things that set the game apart.
- Overall
- Taking everything into account, not necessarily an average.
Longer nights of gaming
Something about the days getting shorter and colder gives me an urge to hunker down and play video games. Getting comfy and playing games on a CRT is the exact vibe I want when the nights start earlier. Something about that and the cold air gives me a sort of nostalgic feel for video games. Maybe it's because I spent so much time as a kid playing games in the basement.
Pseudoregalia
I played this game purely on the fact that a friend made me aware that it even existed. I had never heard of it before and during my time with talking about the Metroid games I had played during the summer, a friend sent me a link to the Steam store page for this. It seemed cool enough and I was already on a kick with these style of games, so I added it to my wishlist with the intent of one day buying it at a discount. Funnily enough like one or two days later it went on enough a sale that I figured nows as good a time as any.
Pseudoregalia is a 3D action adventure platformer designed and styled to look and feel like something you would have bought for the original Playstation. It has that sort of smooth, blocky, kind of goofy look and feel you would get from a Spyro or Croc game. It also stars a furry (of course) like so many games from that generation. I'm not sure if this is a common sentiment, but It has a sense of almost loneliness those kinds of games make me feel. Other games of this era (not exclusive to the Playstation) also evoke this feeling in me. Glover is the prime example of this for me. I'm not totally certain how to quantify it and it may seem a bit odd to others, but I'm sure some of you will understand what I mean.
The game itself was a good time. The world was fun to explore and was filled with moments of "I think I can get up there", despite clearly not having the correct item allowing me to progress. I occasionally was able to sequence break (presumably) and access areas I shouldn't have been able to. Other times I was just banging my head against a wall to no avail. Games being not super strict on putting safeguards into progression is a rarity nowadays, and I certainly enjoyed having the lax restrictions on it. One aspect of the world that I found a bit lacking was the density of enemies. The enemy variety was pretty low, which I'm ok with, but some areas had little to none. I suspect this was an intentional decision to have sections that focus on platforming elements, but it made some areas feel quite empty.
The combat in the game is pretty meh, but in mimicking the fashion of old 3D platformers this was to be expected. It's almost exclusively mash X to win. The movement, however, is where it's at. The abilities given to you offer a lot of variety in how you can navigate areas. Combining different techniques together give you extra bits of speed and height which were very satisfying to figure out and learn in my play through. Mastering the movement the game offers is not only useful to make shortcuts through the map, but there are also small platforming challenges littered throughout for collectibles. Getting get at moving around makes completing those a whole lot easier.
One thing I find interesting that I learned through a patch note update in the Steam client itself, was that the most recent update to the game introduced a map. Personally I think the game would be significantly less enjoyable without a map, unless maybe you finish it within one or two days. I'm glad I happened to play it after the post release map patch, as I'm fairly certain if I had gotten totally lost without a map, I would stop playing and not pick it back up.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
I was quite excited when this was announced. I'm a big fan of the Zelda franchise and had a great time with the Link's Awakening remake. This being made in that engine with the same art style and being announced in Nintendo fashion of only three months before release, I was genuinely excited.
That being said, I was pretty disappointed with what we got. The whole concept of it being an adventure for Zelda and you get to use magic to summon echoes of objects and enemies is really cool. But I feel there was a lot lacking in not only the implementation but also how well thought out puzzles were. Zelda has the ability to learn how to echo pretty much any object in the game in addition to every non-boss enemy. As you progress through the game she unlocks the power to summon more at a time. Eventually you can summon swathes of things and it's quite fun, kind of like a necromancer in Diablo 2.
The interface for choosing what to summon is awful. You either go into the pause menu and select one from an ordered list (the order being by essentially a collector number), or the quick swap which is a single line. This isn't much of a problem at the start, but since there are so many things you can learn it becomes impossible to find anything from the quick select. I found myself re-using the same few things because I didn't want to deal with the hassle of spending time finding what I would actually want to swap to. They really needed either a wheel or categories to smooth out the quick swap. More slots to summon things rather than only having one would be a greatly appreciated change. The quick swap menu also pauses the game which can make combat feel quite sluggish. Having an option to keep the game moving or even having a different wheel of pre-chosen echoes that are swappable mid-game would make the combat more fluid and dynamic.
As an actual Zelda adventure game it fairs pretty mediocrely. The dungeons didn't feel remarkable and many of the puzzles could be solved by summoning some beds and bridging a gap. I may be being a bit unfair toward the dungeons, but I never felt engaged with them. Not to mention that there is so much baby dialogue and interrupting from your companion that spells everything out for you, rather than just letting you explore and have your brain do work. Collectables are also fairly unremarkable. There are a handful of collectibles outside the classic heart pieces, but there wasn't anything I found myself actively searching for. The heart pieces themselves were also often just kinda sitting there for the taking. They would be placed on a ledge that feels like they're taunting you because you don't have the item to get it yet, but you can just fortnite your way up to them.
Overall I was quite underwhelmed by the game and only ended up actually getting maybe 80-85% of the way through it. I didn't want to label this as a dishonourable mention since I did end up putting quite a fair bit of time into it and feel that I can fairly pass judgement on it. I would be lying if I said I didn't have fun with it either. There are redeeming qualities and enjoyable bits, but the bad outshines the good.
Alan Wake 2: Night Springs & The Lake House
Including DLC as a standalone entry amongst these game reviews feels a bit odd, but it would be a shame to not include them. If you have read my other entries into this game roundup series you will know how big of a fan I am of not only the Alan Wake series, but Control as well. Doing what they did for Control by tying the other series games into itself and simultaneously teasing the next game for the other series is so sick. If you haven't played the games it may sound like it could be a way to force advertising, but with how interconnected the games are it works very well for them.
I don't feel as if I need to write too much about the two DLC packs since I've already written so much about Alan Wake 2 itself. The first of the two DLC packs is Night Springs, a standalone set of three episodic stories that shine a light on different characters from the main game. They are presented as actual episodes of the within universe TV show (Night Springs) and are introduced by Mr. Warlin Door. Something I really enjoyed is that while they may be standalone adventures, they fill in vague details for characters and the main plot.
The gameplay for Night Springs is a sort of souped up version of the base game, with each episode leaning more heavily into different aspects of gameplay. The first is a power fantasy for the combat. All the weapons have huge magazine sizes; you reload faster; you shoot faster; you're given an endless supply of bullets. It's quite fun since it's so drastically different from the gunplay of the main game. The second puts you in one of the creepier locations from the base game and leans more heavily into the survival horror aspect. Resources are more limited and monsters generally feel more threatening, all the while you need to solve the usual sort of place a jewel into the statue type of puzzles. The final episode goes all in on story and is made to keep you on your toes as to what will happen next. I greatly enjoyed each one for what they were, but as I went from one to the other I felt more and more excited compared to the last.
The Lake House was the bigger of the two DLC packs and directly relates to events in the base game. Oh man, this expansion was so good. You are trapped in the Lake House, an altered world event (AWE) research facility that is currently going through an AWE itself. There were lots of moments that had me grinning from ear to ear and the writing is as strong as ever. The difficulty is also most definitely ramped up and had some sections that were genuinely difficult to fight through. I really felt the survival part of the survival horror genre. They introduce a handful of new weapons and enemies which do an excellent job at keeping the game feeling fresh and exciting. Parts of the facility are also some of the coolest in the whole game.
While I greatly enjoyed both of what each DLC pack had to offer, The Lake House really got me excited for the future of the Alan Wake and Control series. Having it be its own self contained story that gives greater context certain characters and what is happening in the world around them is just so cool. Remedy and Sam Lake have a complete lock on artistic direction and narrative. I have total faith that whatever they're planning on doing will be fantastic.
Rivals of Aether 2
Another maybe off-beat inclusion as this is an almost exclusively multiplayer game, but one I want to talk about. I was a huge Rivals of Aether fan and absolutely loved the game. Wrastor spoke to me in a way no other character has. I exclusively played him and to this day he is my all time favourite multiplayer PvP character to play. When Rivals of Aether 2 was announced and we were shown the transition from the current static 2D fighter to a dynamic 2.5D fighter, I was actually very apprehensive. The game was set up to be more inline mechanic wise with what someone may expect from a platform fighter. Or, in layman's terms, just be Smash Bros..
I need to start off by saying I really enjoy playing the game, and when it's fun it is very fun. BUT, I prefer the uniqueness and identity of the first game. Removing some of the fundamental platform fighter mechanics in the ledge, shields, and grabs and replacing them with mechanics exclusive to Rivals made the flow of game so unique. That aside, the game is very fun but can also be the most frustrating experience ever. Being on the offence is awesome, because you can mash whatever the hell buttons you want since nearly every move is fast, safe, and big. Projectiles are absolute nonsense and have no right being as good as they are right now. Orcane can set up a wall of basically Falco lasers if he wants. When someone plays like this, and it isn't limited to just one of the characters, the game becomes so absurdly un-fun it is maddening. The balance is totally wack right now.
While the target audience may feel UI and UX of menus is inconsequential, right now they feel incomplete, like it's an early access game. It's actually quite disappointing. They had almost 10 years of iteration on Rivals 1 and had some great features that I feel are essential to the game. For example, in Rivals 1 had the ability to do an in menu button check while selecting a character. This is gone in Rivals 2. Tutorials are gone, there's no way to see what leveling up unlocks, you can't equip cosmetics outside of a match for some reason??? This is just a shortlist and I have had quite a few others complaints. Of course all of these things can be fixed in the future (they have said they're bringing back tutorials), but the initial release hype and new players have already tried the game and the first impression has been made. I'm no expert but I suspect it is much harder to size up your player base after release.
Despite what I would consider a lack of completeness, this is the worst state the game will be in and I'm confident it will only get better. From how much and how many people are playing compared to the first game, Rivals 2 has a bright future. I do think they may have missed out on some initial new platform fighter player retention launching in it's beta-like state, but so far it's already doing a lot better. I'm a big fan of Mr. Dan Furnace and truly hope this game gets bigger.
The Quarry
This game fucking rules. In my younger days I admittedly was a hater of Until Dawn and the idea of a game essentially being a movie with quick time events. As time has passed on I slowly flipped on my opinion and have greatly enjoyed participating in past entries of Supermassive's library. There is so fun to be had with a story you get to influence, even if the gameplay is extremely basic.
My friends and I started the game on Halloween as a big group activity. It has a built in multiplayer mode where it assigns players different characters at random and prompts you to pass off the controller when the character being played changes (which is a genius idea). While this is not something that only I per se played, I wanted to add it to this list since it is something I have now experienced in what I would consider optimal conditions.
I can't speak for the game as a solo endeavour, but as a group, this game is so much fun. There is no gameplay beyond walking, picking one of two options, and needing to push a button during quick time events. This extreme simplicity does not detract from the experience but I feel actually enhances it. Being able to pay attention to your friends while in the driver's seat talk and make jokes and actively participate with them while also being able to play the actual game is quite the balance to achieve. When decisions pop up and everyone starts yelling at you to pick a specific option but you have to final decision makes for great entertainment. The game knows what it is and isn't trying to be anything more than being an interactive B movie (with an A list cast).
The cast for The Quarry is unbelievable. I don't understand how Supermassive has the budget for all of these actors. Regardless, I'm here for it. All the classic personalities are there to make for a great horror movie and the acting behind them is super well done. Having the characters all be recognizable famous people is extremely funny. They morph from being Kaitlyn into being Brenda Song. Imagining it is actually Brenda Song and Detective Pikachu guy in these scenarios makes them 1000% funnier and more enjoyable.
The actual story itself is also actually pretty good. There is some suspension of disbelief you need to exercise as the premise of werewolves running a camp is kind of insane, but overall it is pretty interesting. The character dynamics and interpersonal relationships are really good and well varied. The dynamic nature of the story changing based on decisions you make also makes for an unpredictable story. Trying to influence the story in a specific way only to have someone else make a dumb decision and fall in a bear trap doesn't get old.
I would totally recommend any group of friends to try The Quarry. Even watching a play through from your favourite streamer or youtuber would be quite fun. My ratings for the game are specifically through the lens of playing it as a group with friends. They definitely would be different had I played it on my own.
Bleak Sword DX
This was a find from the Steam store homepage recommendations. I have to say, those have been working on me a lot lately. I guess Steam just knows me so well. And while I may be a sucker for getting sucked in by them so often, it's worth it. This game is cool as hell.
It is a fairly simple action game. You have a sword swing, dodge roll, and a parry. There is some extra depth offered by combining these options, but you have all the available maneuvers from the get go. Levels are isolated to a single point of view cube and the goal is to fight off waves of enemies. Experience is awarded after each level which leads to stat increases, and occasionally you find either a consumable or equipable item. There is a punisher mechanic that upon death, you drop all items and lose whatever experience you had for the current level. However, you get a second chance. Beating the level you died in one try after death lets you reclaim your lost goods. The game gets pretty tough near the end and I found myself fairly often not being able to retrieve what I had lost.
I absolutely love the visual design of this game. The simple style and low fidelity really highlight the arena style combat. It feels like a papercraft diorama of a video game that you would see at a convention. It suits the game super well. The sound effects are also incredible. They sound like someone making noises from their mouth trying to mimic what a sword or yeti would sound like. There is a lot of variety to the different levels environment's and many include obstacles that you need to stay weary of while fighting. The enemy variety and combat patterns also have a lot of variety and never got stale.
I was really taken off guard by how much I enjoyed Bleak Sword and would highly recommend anyone looking for a lower stakes action game to give it a try. Levels being very isolated allows you to keep play sessions pretty short. I did find myself fairly often saying "one more level" and would end up playing for longer than I intended after booting it up.
Alan Wake's American Nightmare
After finding a link to a blog referenced by some correspondence found on Dr. Marmont's desk in The Lake House, I tried going to the blog and unsurprisingly to me, was a real blog. I read through the posts and being confused about the dates of them being so far in the past delved deeper into what the blog was. I found that it was written and released by Remedy alongside the release of American Nightmare. Reading through the blog entries and knowing that story elements in Control and Alan Wake 2 were ideas conceptualized from this blog is one of the coolest things to me. Having such a strong foundation of ideas so far in advance of the release of those games is truly a mark of a great artist in my eyes. If you're familiar with the story of Control and Alan Wake, I would recommend checking out the blog .
All that being said, I almost wish I hadn't played this game. If you have read my previous entries in this game review series you know by now that I have been absolutely nerding out over Control and the Alan Wake series. It would make sense to want to finish up the games I haven't played within the extended universe. And while I'm happy I have more context into the story and characters, particularly in regards to Mr. Scratch 
, it is so poorly written and so surface level that it doesn't feel like a Remedy game at all.
The manuscript pages feel out of place here. In the other Alan Wake games they often are used as breadcrumbs to show you a path of things that have yet to come. In American Nightmare a good chunk of them are exposition explaining to you what has happened in the 2 years that have elapsed between now and the first game. The pages are also randomly strewn throughout the "open world" for you to find rather than along the generally linear path of the other games. It changes them from feeling that of a page specifically placed for your character to find to that of a book happened to explode 300 feet above the area you're in.
The writing also felt quite weak. Now, it is not totally fair to be comparing the writing in this game to the writing in Alan Wake 2 so I'll hold my tongue on that. But in comparison to Alan Wake 1? While sometimes a bit corny, it had a very strong story, well written characters with good motivations and dialogue, and a strong sense of self. This one feels like a total precursor to it on the quality front, especially the character dialogue. I really don't want to bash on it that much as I truly am a fan of Sam Lake. He is an excellent writer and is genuinely a role model for me creatively. It just feels like the contents of this game could've been an email.
Ok, enough about the not game part of the game. The gameplay itself is mediocre at best. They pivoted to a more arcade action style of game compared to Alan Wake's survival action-esque gameplay. They really aren't that far apart in how they play, but as opposed to the need to consistently find resources to combat the enemies in the first game American Nightmare just pours them all ove you. You have access to health and ammo pretty much at all times whenever you want as caches that totally replenish your resources are everywhere. There are a fair number of enemies so I get the sense that they want you to feel very strong killing off a ton of guys, but on the standard difficulty they are so unbelievably easy to deal with that a horde of them never really felt like a big deal. The arcade shooter combat was also exasperated by the fact that some of the guns you unlocked were heavy weaponry that felt like they belonged in a modern Call of Duty game. I won't say I didn't have fun with some of the weapons unlocked later in the game, but it just wasn't what I expected or wanted.
It may sound like I hate this game, but I don't. I'm just disappointed in it. Again, it is very unfair to expect the quality of games that came years after it. I'm glad I didn't play this immediately after the first game because it definitely would've put me off wanting to continue with the series for a bit. While the story as a whole may have been mediocre, the foundation of ideas in it are pretty good. Learning about Mr. Scratch and all his machinations was fun enough. His performance and his video segments were solid as usual. The concept of the dark place being a loop is introduced in this game which honestly I'm glad I didn't know before going into Alan Wake 2. I feel parts of that game would have less impact having known that.
Well, that was a bit long winded. I knew going in that it would be weaker than other entries in the series, but having totally bought into the universe I thought I would still look onto the game with starry-eyed wonderment. I was wrong. This game sucks. There definitely are bits of good in it and I will say I'm glad having beaten it (thankfully it's fairly short). I likely will foray into the realm of Quantum Break at some point in the future. I'm not 100% certain how connected if at all it is to Remedy's extended universe, but at this point I'm sure there will be something there.
Path of Exile 2
Many moons ago, Path of Exile was the only video game I would even think about. I played so much of it and absolutely loved it. It was one of the defining pillars of my college life. In recent years I haven't even kept up with what was going on with it, but a huge part of why I stopped was that I disliked the direction the game had started to go. It had become so much faster and harder to understand what the fuck was going on. There were so many league mechanics that had made their way into the main game that had just kept compounding on one another until it was impossible to know what you actually had to do to for different kinds of loot. Although I know it's become and remained extremely popular, so my opinion must be in the minority. Nevertheless, Path of Exile 2 seemed to promise to be the game speed and complexity reset that my friends and I had been waiting for.
Let me start of by saying, never ever listen to anyone on the internet ever. After I got to about mid act 3 of constant playing, I went to reddit to see if people were posting about sweet builds or items they had found. Obviously this was a mistake and it was nothing but absolute bitching and moaning about the game. Complaints which I pretty much disagree with (except one which we'll discuss later). I miss the good old days of when something I liked was very niche and forums were basically only filled with people who enjoyed the thing and wanted to actively participate with others who enjoy it.
Internet hate goblins aside, the game is very good. It is in early access so things can and will change a lot, but so far the direction they're going in is great. It has a lot of the charm that Path of Exile did when it first came out in early access. While Grinding Gear Games intends to have 6 full acts on launch, it currently only has 3 complete ones. You need to replay through the 3 acts again in "cruel" difficulty. I'm actually a fan of this since it's a pretty ARPG thing to do, so I have enjoyed the time redoing all the acts.
What I'm not enjoying about the acts right now is how brutally long they can be. Act 1 feels great, not too long and the zones are reasonably sized. It feels inline with OG Path of Exile. Act 2 is a decent bit longer, but has a non-linearity portion of it which was a nice change of pace. The zones start to get bigger as you progress and the last few zones feel pretty huge. Act 3 literally feels like it never ends. Many of the zones are massive mazes which can make going the wrong direction feel miserable. The game even baits you into thinking the act is about to finish by the last visible zone on the map ending up revealing an entire second portion of the map. It genuinely feels like it isn't going to end.
This is the one point from the internet goblin army of complainers that I actually wholly agree with on. The campaign doesn't feel as snappy as it should, especially in a game that is about building and experimenting with a lot of different characters and items. As of now I don't feel particularly strongly on wanting to level up a new character since chunks of the game are such a slog to get through. GGG did boast about how long the actual campaign was in the lead up to launch, so we do know this is by design. Unfortunately, what they may have seen as content to play through actually just ended up feeling like stretching what they had.
Most other differences between 1 and 2 are generally a net positive in my eyes. The game is quite different from the first and itemization, passive tree, and gem selection feel fairly well made. Gone are the days where you plan your passive tree around traveling between life nodes. This makes clusters of notable nodes feel more impactful while leveling. I would say the passive tree still needs some tuning to make traveling around it feel less like you're wasting nodes on simple connectors, but again this can and will change given GGG's track record. I'm a fan of most of the changes to the currency so far. Having crafting currency be generally more available while leveling makes upgrading gear before endgame funner. I haven't made it to the endgame yet so I can't comment on that yet, but any avid Path of Exile fan knows that's where the real meat of the game.
I've greatly enjoyed my time with the game so far and have dumped a lot of time into it so far. I think about items to get and where to go in my skill tree next a decent bit which is a good sign. The game is definitely tickling my brain in the right way. There are a ton of skills, classes, acts, and probably reworks that are coming to the game before and on full release. I think it has a bright future and I'm looking forward to it.
The Game of the Third Award™
The nominees are:
Alan Wake 2: DLC
The Quarry
Path of Exile 2
And the winner is...
My winner for the Game of the Third Award™ is Alan Wake 2: Night Springs & The Lake House. It feels like a bit of a cop out not only choosing DLC expansions as my Game of the Third Award™ winner, but also another Remedy game. But what can I say, The Lake House was a fantastic expansion and the set of games this time around weren't particularly strong.
Conclusion
I played more games than I expected to for this third. Generally the majority of my winter game playing would be closer to the holidays when going out to socialize happens less often and I have multiple days off work. Although, this was definitely the weakest set of games by far. Even though I poorly rated several games, I do think there was a lot to discuss and found them interesting to write about. Not every game can be a home run slam dunk.
I will be releasing a Game of the Three Thirds Award™ edition soon, so stay tuned for that.