Category Games
Don't Starve Together
Don’t Starve Together is Terraria’s cousin, and while it might be a game you can pick up and play for a few hours and then resume next week. Those who’ve played it know, it pulls you right in and KEEPS you there, as long as you get over the initial hurdle of learning what you’re even supposed to do, and not dying to darkness. The complexity there is to this game is unlike any other I’ve played so far, and this seems to be Klei’s thing: seemingly simple games with so much complexity you could spend tends of thousands of hours in them and still not be aware of everything. This game isn’t a survival game like Minecraft, you’re fully incentivized to seek out all the difficult content the game has to offer or else you’ll be bored out of your mind simply just surviving and basing. The main progression loop of this game is nowadays heavily focused on bossing WHILE surviving. It’s not about the combat it’s about surviving and prepping for the bosses, learning their unique mechanics and patterns and cheese. The combat in this game is very barebones, but somehow incredibly challenging AND satisfying as all heck. Kiting, as it’s called, involves moving your hurtbox, your character outside of the attack range of the enemy. It’s very simple but has a lot of hidden complexity, on top of the fact that—not every enemy or boss is kite-able. The new bosses and stuff especially have very interesting counter play compared to the old RoG giants and seasonal bosses.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
I’ve finally finished this trilogy. I’ve never been fond of super heroes but, Spider-Man has grown on me. He’s the most tolerable one for me, that’s for sure. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, is without a doubt the best game in the trilogy. Though it lacks in certain areas in which the others did well, it holds the best set of features from both of the previous games and builds on top of them in an interesting way.
Exit 8
This is a fun little game. The game tasks you with reaching exit 8. You walk through a looping tunnel that, sometimes changes and you have to spot those changes or “anomalies.” If you notice a difference you turn around—if you don’t—then you continue straight.
It’s very short, it took me only an hour to complete it and honestly my main gripe with the game is that it kinda gave me a tiny headache. There’s some settings to turn off the head bobbing and motion blur but the same-y white hallway is really not pleasant on the eyes after a while. I think this is by design though as it makes it a lot harder to spot the anomalies.
Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition
An old game that, while very barely—still holds on to this day! There’s a lot of insanely cool things this game did for its time, the looting system is especially something that was super revolutionary in a game like this.
I first got the game 4 years ago, but I had gotten a bunch of other games along with it on sale so I didn’t get to play it much, even more so as I’d gotten stuck in the early game at the time. So I ended up putting the game off for a long time, and finally got back to it when I got my PS5. For the longest time I thought, maybe looter shooters just aren’t for me, maybe they aren’t but Borderlands should’ve been a game I loved. I’m a sucker for RPGs and numbers games in general so there must’ve been something I was doing wrong, right?
Untitled Goose Game
Untitled Goose Game might be honking perfect! It’s a short game where you play as a Goose and it came out quite a while ago now—and has won multiple awards, for good reason. At first when I saw the game I thought it was cool but overtime I had sort of grown to dislike it, thinking I likely wouldn’t play it. However, having played it now, I can say that it definitely lives up to the hype and the love this game has received is most deserved.
Yakuza 7 Gaiden
A great game that builds upon an already great story, from a different character’s perspective. Yakuza 7 Gaiden’s story is, absolutely banging, as Yakuza stories are—the emotional hits in this one though are strong as Kiryu (Joryu) is in this game. The story is a retelling (kinda) of the Yakuza 7 story, from the perspective of Joryu, AKA Kiryu. It really is great to see the story from this perspective, and it adds a lot that otherwise we just didn’t get to see in Ichiban’s side of the story. The game also does away with the turn based combat of Yakuza 7 and goes back to the action beat-em-up style that we’ve come to love from the Yakuza games, and with a new brand fighting style as well. The agent style allows Joryu to use a bunch of different gadgets that, once upgraded become super overpowered. This game makes you so overpowered that, the secret boss you unlock after completing the coliseum and 4 kings storyline… is kind of a pushover if you know what you’re doing. I killed him only using like 4 heat actions which is just absolutely insane.
My thoughts on achievement hunting
Achievement hunting is one of those peculiar hobbies that I think people don’t quite get. And I completely understand why, at a certain point it does become somewhat of a “completing a checklist” type of thing. But that’s the whole point.
What’s the point of achievements then?
I think achievements in games serve two different purposes. One is to be a little reward for the player and give them that very teeny tiny bit of dopamine that we all crave. Achievements like these, in general are my favorite types of achievements because they not only serve the casual enjoyer of the game—but are a blast as an achievement hunter. I would consider completely unmissable achievements (such as story achievements) to be in this category, along with silly achievements like—Stray’s Boom Chat Kalaka achievement which has you “dunk” a basketball in one of its levels.
Dishonored: Death of the Outsider
Out of all the Dishonored games, I liked this one the most. I think it’s the best one, despite being a short spinoff game. It’s a sequel to Dishonored 2, where you play as Meghan Foster, AKA Billie Lurk. I think this game was made to cap off the Dishonored series so it’s no doubt that this is the last game in the series. I think the endings, both good and bad complete the story of the series in a satisfying way.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
This game is a peculiar one. I had a lot of fun with it. There’s a lot to this game even though the amount of playtime you get out of it is uh… not that much. I platinumed the game in about ~14 hours and I did mostly take my time playing through the game at a considerably slow pace. You could clock in about 20 hours max but the price makes it absolutely not worth buying. $70 dollars for a game such as this is just too much! The game itself is awesome and a lot of fun but the price is not at all justified. It’s worth like, 30-40 dollars at best. I got the game for “free” with PS Plus Extra, but if it weren’t for that I wouldn’t have played it. The game does seem to go on sale often but just strictly judging it off of base price, I wouldn’t buy it.
Stray
Stray is THE game with the absolute best atmosphere I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing in a game. It’s what made me fall in love with the game instantly from the moment I entered into the slums in chapter 4 to the moment I reached the end in the control room of chapter 12. The game’s atmosphere and level design, coupled with the beautiful art style and sound design, all of these together form an amazing experience and work to pull you right in and keep you right there, immersed in the world of Stray.