Category: Reviews of Games

A first-person survival game set on a post-apocalyptic, ecologically ruined Earth. Play solo or with up to 3 friends as you build, upgrade, and fly a high-tech airship. Scavenge resources, craft tools, and face dangers on the surface as you hunt for a cure to save humanity. I broke one of my cardinal rules of videos games and played an Early Access game before it was officially released, so going in I knew that the story was not finished and there’s some significant chunks of the game play that are TBD. With that expectation properly set, I’ll give the highest...

Halo Infinite: Directed by Paul Crocker, Joseph Staten. With Steve Downes, Jen Taylor, Nicolas Roye, Bruce Thomas. When all hope is lost and humanity’s fate hangs in the balance, Master Chief is ready to confront the most ruthless foe he’s ever faced. Released back in 2021 in the tail end of the global pandemic that at current count has killed over 2 million people, I had no idea that loading this game up to try getting through the campaign would bring back some of true horrors of that time: Republicans in power. I originally bought this, (as a steelbook!), but...

Catch hundreds of tinykin and use their unique powers to bring Milo back to his home planet and back to normal size! If you’ve played Pikmin, you’ll know the game loops, but honestly I think Tinykin is the better game in the genre. It has a solid story, a catchy soundtrack, and doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. Buy On Amazon!

Ascend from your shelter. Ruin everything. Escape the wretched island. ⚔️🔨🎣🌱🌵🍰 Explore. Fight. Level up. Survive. Gather. Craft. Harvest. Hunt. Build. Farm. Solve puzzles. Fish. Cook. Live. Enjoy the bittersweet post-apocalypse. I started this thinking I was going to just try it out and see how it looked, but the game loop of breaking stuff to level up to move to a new area to break more stuff to level up more to move to another new area became so addictive that I became obsessed with breaking everything man made in the entire area I was in before moving onto...

Take on the role of Jara Rydek and Carter Diaz, two crew members of the USS Resolute on a diplomatic mission to broker peace between alien factions. While attempting to prevent war, you’ll discover a far greater danger: an eons-old and powerful force that threatens to engulf the galaxy! Set soon after the events of Star Trek: The Next Generation and featuring appearances by Ambassador Spock and Captain William T. Riker (voiced by Jonathan Frakes), Star Trek: Resurgence expands on a story from season one of The Next Generation television series. Your choices will define the outcome of an adventure...

The best-selling, well-reviewed LEGO City Undercover brings humorous, open world LEGO gaming – with newly added two player co-op – to new gen console players for the very first time! Originally released in 2012 as a Wii U exclusive, then released on other services in 2017, I bought it on Steam in 2019 for $3.99, then bought it again for the x-box for $7.99 in 2020. I actually played about an hour of it on PC but found the experience lacking, then played a couple hours of it in 2020 after I bought it using gift cards. I kept going...

Discover the original co-op shooter-looter, crammed with new enhancements! As one of 4 trigger-happy mercenaries with RPG progression, equip bazillions of guns to take on the desert planet Pandora. Originally released in 2009, with four DLC packs released in the following year, I distinctly remember buying and trying to play through the game and letting life get in the way and me purchasing the DLC for $5 each with the assumption that I would eventually get back to the game, but I never did. They released a “Game of the Year” edition that includes all the DLC and some quality...

Remnant II pits survivors of humanity against new deadly creatures and god-like bosses across terrifying worlds. Play solo or co-op with two other friends to explore the depths of the unknown to stop an evil from destroying reality itself. My review of this game is overshadowed by the fact that I did not play the single player version of the game at all, so my opinions are shaded by the fact that I had no clue what was going on for most of the levels, had no motivations for my actions in the game, and was greatly confused by many...

The Crew Video Game – A single-player and cooperative driving game that takes place throughout the United States, developed by Ivory Tower. I saw an announcement a few weeks ago that “The Crew” was immediately being delisted from all digital stores and was scheduled for shutdown on March 31, 2024.  I vaguely recalled owning the game and was able to find a copy of it on my Uplay account, but just recently saw I also had it on my xbox, which would have been a better experience for me, but only just barely.  It’s a great racing game with some...

Partner up with your friend online and test your friendship by solving puzzles together in an abandoned amusement park. Work together to overcome brain-teasing challenges in this standalone We Were Here experience. I was shocked at how much fun I had in this free game. It has the clear indications of being a demo, but the three puzzles we were able to do were fun to do and were a pleasure to figure out. Buy On Amazon!

Hitler’s hordes are back for more in this spine-chilling shooter from the makers of Sniper Elite 4! Abominable occult enemies, epic weapons and a harrowing new campaign for 1-4 players await in 1940s Europe, as you fight to save humankind from undead Armageddon! A barely there story wrapped around a barely there shooting game with uneven game mechanics and wave after wave of singular enemies do not make for a game that I enjoyed. I found nearly the entire game to be unsatisfying for many reasons, but the one that I’m going to pick on in this review is the...

Two Engines. One Champion. No Limits. Also knows as just “Star Wars: Racer” this was a game from my childhood that I believe I owned on a fancy pants CD-ROM and I don’t think I finished it at the time, but having just played through it completely I’m not sure I’m remembering that correctly. It’s a long enough game, but I was able to knock it out in just a few nights of playing on my xbox. It’s still a competent racer game, one of the best from it’s time period. The graphics are dated, but the track mechanics and...

A fiercely formidable sci-fi survival game, set on a hostile alien world that wants you dead! Alone, or with a crew, do you have what it takes to survive? I actually finished this with a buddy over a month ago, I enjoyed my time with this game, but it lacks a sense of polish that could have made it something I would recommend. The mapping system is somewhat confusing, and the POV / camera angle is maddening, but the story is serviceable and the gameplay loop was enjoyable enough that I made it all the way to the end. That...

Marvel Snap: Directed by Danny Koo, Christine Thompson, Eric Monacelli, Tim Tsang. With Rex Anderson, Weston Heflin, Samuel L. Jackson, Dylan Jones. A card video game based on Marvel Comics. I played this from release until a couple months ago when I just forgot to do the dailies, then never got back to it and was only reminded about the game when I was looking to clear up some space on my phone. The CCG aspect of the game is top notch, the animations each card gets are novel and I’m sure we’ll see more games with the parallax views...

Become a Ghost, fighting against a rogue spec ops faction called the Wolves, in the latest Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon®! I’m not done with this game, not by far, but it’s a solid enough experience that I’m going to be playing for the next few months off and on that I figured at about 20 hours in, I had a solid enough opinion about it that I could get the review done. Originally released back in 2019, they just had a sale for the omega premium pro ultra platinum edition which comes with most of the DLC, so I grabbed...

Zaccaria Pinball brings you over 100 tables, including over 40 pinball tables officially licensed from Zaccaria. Zaccaria was founded by three brothers (Marino, Franco, & Natale) and was the 3rd largest manufacturer of pinball machines in the world (behind Bally & Williams). Played this on my xbox and I fear that I’m not in the target demographic for this type of video game at all. I find no joy in playing a vertical game on a horizontal screen, and pinball is downright boring to me. However, if you’re into pinball, this is a gorgeous game with what I hear is...

The Cycle: Frontier is a free-to-play PvPvE Extraction Shooter driven by suspense and danger. Prospect for resources and other riches on an abandoned alien world ravaged by a deadly storm, inhabited by monsters and other ambitious Prospectors. A fantastic shooter with an appealing world, some really great game loops, all completely ruined by the fact that high level griefers routinely hang out in the noobie zone to snip them from across the board with one shot. I’m never going to stand a chance in a game where a level 80 epic geared enemy can see 20x the distance that I...

God of War: Directed by David Jaffe, Greg Tiernan. With Linda Hunt, Terrence ‘T.C.’ Carson, Carole Ruggier, Steve Blum. After 10 years of endless nightmares and servitude to the gods of Olympus, Kratos is assigned with a final task, to kill Ares, the God of War. Part of the “God of Wars Saga” HD rerelease of the game, this is a fun jaunt into a quasi Greek mythology that closely aligns with what was actually in the stories, but deviates enough that I it warrants explaining that this isn’t exactly what was in those great stories. It’s good all on...

LEGO Builder’s Journey: A free-form geometric puzzle game set in the world of LEGO. This is hands down one of the worst LEGO games i’ve ever tried to play. Nothing makes sense on it from the controls to what they’re even trying to make you do, it’s a complete mess of nothingness that doesn’t make any sense at all. Didi I not understand something about the game? Who knows?! There’s no tutorial, no intro, and nothing that makes me think this game is anything more than a shameless cash grab. skip if you can resist, give up after about an...

A mysterious pathogen is wreaking havoc on planet LV-895. Join your fellow marines in an all-new campaign that takes you into the heart of the Pathogen hive. Armed with new weapons and perks, it’s up to you to stop the Pathogen from taking over. I paid the full $15 for this expansion and while I think I’d suggest waiting until it’s under $10, this isn’t a bad set of new levels. In fact, these three new levels for $15 are among the best made for the game, with plenty of trees an well done battle arenas that I don’t feel...

IMDb is the world’s most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. Find ratings and reviews for the newest movie and TV shows. Get personalized recommendations, and learn where to watch across hundreds of streaming providers. I think I bought this just to say that I own it, because the reviews were terrible, the game had been delisted from Steam, and it was still cheap as hell to find a code for it to add it to my account. Turns out it’s a terrible game with nothing to do with Trek other than the name, even basic...

Killzone: With Kal Weber, Taylor Lawrence, Tom Clarke Hill, Sean Pertwee. The Helghans have rebuilt their planet after the first Helghan War and have attacked the ISA on the colony planet Vekta, who are heavily outnumbered. Captain Jan Templar and his squad are sent to find the ISA operative. I have extremely vague memories of playing this game back when I owned a PS2 20 years ago, but I know that I never finished it, because that entire stack of games was stolen during a house party when I was in college, along with Time Splitters and Aqua Aqua. I...

Command and customize your own capital ships. Take down opponents in thundering, team-based combat. Dreadnought is a free-to-play shooter that puts you at the center of spaceship battles on a colossal scale. As a multiplayer only game, I got to this way too late. Add to that, my normal gaming group was open to trying it out, but weren’t exactly enthused about it, but we only got about a dozen matches in before they lost interest and I was unable to play much more of it. I, for one, definitely enjoyed the time I was able to spend with the...

Awaken as a vampire. Hunt for blood in nearby settlements to regain your strength and evade the scorching sun to survive. Raise your castle and thrive in an ever-changing open world full of mystery. Gain allies online and conquer the land of the living. There’s a good game here, but it’s buried under a few things that I didn’t really enjoy and that ‘good game’ isn’t a type of game that I normally go out of my way to play. The base building is fun, the combat is ok, but the keyboard commands are difficult to get a handle on...

In Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Ratchet and Clank once again team up for an all-new adventure that combines diverse gameplay with elements of action, exploration, adventure, puzzle-solving, strategy, and role-playing into one experience. Together with the Q-Force, Ratchet and Clank set off to uncover the schemes of the sinister Dr. Nefarious and keep the galaxy safe for organic life. As one of three characters, you can now wield new weapons and gadgets, gain access to an array of vehicles, and master all-new abilities. The game also features both single-player and multiplayer (offline and online) gameplay. This is the...

Dal R’El and Gwyndala race against time to save their friends, their ship, new alien species and an entire planetary system before a supernova destroys them all, while battling a deadly new enemy that will stop at nothing to destroy the Protostar and change the very course of history!  I’m well aware of the stigma that movie tie in video games have but I was honestly hoping for more from this game than what I ultimately found, which was a game with a threadbare plot, bugs all over the place, and some hard crashes that really frustrated me at times....

SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS is a breathtaking journey through ancient lands to seek out gigantic beasts. Armed with only a sword and a bow, explore the spacious lands and unearth each Colossus, presenting a unique challenge to test your wits, determination, and skill. The second half of the Ico & Shadow collection, this was the stronger game right up until the final colossus, which was so out of step with the rest of the game that I nearly gave up on it. Shadow was released a full four years after ICO, but if you told me they were released in...

Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando: With James Arnold Taylor, David Kaye, Jim Ward, Rodger Bumpass. After saving the galaxy two years ago, Ratchet and Clank are recruited by the director of antother great enterprise, called Megacorp, in order to recuperate a robbed experiment in a far away galaxy. Made for the ps2, remastered for the ps3, then played about 10 years after I bought it, this sequel is much better in every way than the first game. Ratchet isn’t mean to his sidekick, the new weapons are fun, and the plot is still dumb but acceptable. My one complaint is...

I had really hoped for more from this game, and while it has a really nice wrapper on it, it’s essentially the same exact game as “Star Trek: Fleet Command” in which you are incessantly checking on timers that are counting down at a set rate to unlock credits to unlock a longer lasting timer, which in turn unlocks an even longer timer.  The game play mechanic is tired and absolutely unsuccessful at capturing my attention, so this one’s gone into the trash bin.

Ico: Directed by Fumito Ueda. With Kazuhiro Shindou, Rieko Takahashi, Misa Watanabe. On a distant island, there is a legend that anyone born with horns will bring about calamity. When such a boy is locked away in a fortress, he must work together with a girl named Yorda to flee before they can be claimed by the spirits. Played on the PS3 as part of the “The ICO and Shadow of the Colossus Collection”, I bought this back in September 2015, it sat on multiple shelves for about 7 years, never being opened or even paid much attention to, which...

Ratchet & Clank: Directed by Perelandra Beedles. With Mikey Kelley, David Kaye, Jim Ward, Kevin Michael Richardson. When an evil chairman’s moneymaking scheme puts the entire galaxy at stake, the only ones who can stop him are the unlikely duo of a lone mechanic and a defect war machine but can the galaxy really be saved when the duo can’t get along? I should point out that I played the remastered version on the PS3, which is slightly better than the PS2 version from my understanding. I purchased a whole collection of Ratchet games back in 2016 for a total...

Fat Princess is a multiplayer game for up to 32 players, with the basic goal of rescuing the Princess and bringing her back to the team’s base, a twist on capture the flag. Capture the flag, but with problematic themes!  It’s a well enough PS3 game, the second of which that I played on Monday during my twitch stream, but at the very end of the stream Sir Mixalot’s “I Like Big Butts” came on and I’m pretty sure that i’ll get a DMCA strike against my account if I like to that, and would you believe that in 2022...

Journey: Directed by Jenova Chen. A robed figure in a desolate world undertakes a journey towards a distant, glowing mountain. The second game of my PS3 backlog mission, this one I got for free back in April of 2020, though it was originally published in 2012, if you can believe that. I had set aside about 4 hours for the game on Monday, but turns out that I didn’t need the full allotment, ‘finished’ it in about 2 hours. Don’t believe me? Here’s the stream: www.twitch.tv/videos/1510316328 I have the word in quotes because this isn’t necessarily a game that gets...

Resistance 2: Directed by Brian Hastings. With Troy Baker, David Boat, Emerson Brooks, Dan Brown. The Chimera have launched a full scale invasion on both the east and west coasts of the United States. Hale joins a special task force group put together by the SRPA, who are also resistant to the Chimera virus. Due to a fun quirk of how my day job is letting us work, I now have Mondays off, and I’ve decided that Mondays are going to be days that i work on my video game backlog, starting with the consoles that I’ve owned for years...

Satisfactory is a first-person open-world factory building game with a dash of exploration and combat. Play alone or with friends, explore an alien planet, create multi-story factories, and enter conveyor belt heaven! I’ve played about 15 hours of this world building game and while I’m no where near done with it, I have enough of a feel for the game to give it a strong recommendation with some very slight caveats. I got the game as a part of the Humble Bundle for Ukraine, which was only $40 for a large list of games, including Back4Blood, so the price was...

In Kingdom Two Crowns, players must work in the brand-new solo or co-op campaign mode to build their kingdom and secure it from the threat of the Greed. Experience new technology, units, enemies, mounts, and secrets in the next evolution of the award-winning micro strategy franchise! A game without a User Interface, but fantastic concepts and soundtrack. It’s way too short though, but well worth your time if you’re into chill games that you can just vibe to. Buy On Amazon!

Enter an apocalyptic fantasy world where humanity is on the brink of extinction, iron is valued above gold and trust is hard earned. This ARPG features complex character development, hundreds of unique items, crafting and quests with choice & consequence. I first started playing this about 3 years ago, finished the first level then promptly forgot that I was playing it. Luckily, I got back on the Grim Dawn horse and continued it as a result of needing a co-op game to play with a buddy on my Twitch stream, to much success. At first glance you’d be forgiven to...

Back 4 Blood is a thrilling cooperative first-person shooter from the creators of the critically acclaimed Left 4 Dead franchise. Experience the intense 4 player co-op narrative campaign, competitive multiplayer as human or Ridden, and frenetic gameplay that keeps you in the action. did you ever play Left 4 Dead? Did you enjoy it? If you did, then buddy have I got good news for you! Back 4 Blood is a spiritual successor to the L4D franchise, which has sadly been left for dead by it’s publisher and dev teams. Lucky for us though, Back 4 Blood is a worthy...