2024 Games

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Super Mario World

A super cancer game :sob: I mean, okay it isn't that bad, but...It is quite cruel most of the time. The worst part for me is that you don't save after every completed level, so if you end up dying, you could have to go back several levels and redo things (totally didn't happen to me...) and then end up in some spiral where you get stuck at old levels you already completed!! I do have to say though this is a really cute game and I love the art style, the aesthetic...the sound I mean everything really. Just the actual game design and levels filter me so hard. I'm kind of a noob at these 2D platformers, but I'd like to think I've gathered some gamer skill over the years, I can play hecking Elden Ring, yet this game feels so frustrating, more than anything else I played. I racked up like 200 deaths in my first stream alone!! So yeah, this one is for hardcore platformers only!! ;;

Oh and also, this game is before they really finalized the "yoshi" character so he's dumb and weird in this and runs off platforms and can't even flutter...

Still Wakes the Deep

?

Fatal Frame

Fatal Frame is a game I really want to like, however...It falls a little short. I do think the beginning did a really good job; the atmosphere, audio, and uncertainty if anything was going to attack me really kept me on my toes. I was scared to play, despite being familiar with the survival horror genre already. The ghosts are pretty creepy and there's "jumpscare" moments you could say, but it's more like sudden startles and nothing really scary. However I quickly became frustrated with the camera mechanic. It is pretty hard to actually capture photos of the ghosts (at least in an optimal way, where you keep them in the frame and wait for the yellow circle when they get close), as ghosts can often move suddenly or go invisble. They also do a lot of damage if they manage to hit you, which they can easily do with their large hitboxes. I got the hang of it eventually, but I still faced several encounters that felt unfair with how much RNG can affect things and how wonky the camera is. When you get that frustrated, the game feels more annoying and scary and you get so used to everything that well, yeah it's not really scary anymore. I wasn't feeling scared by the end, but I did still enjoy the ghost house aesthetics. Combat aside, it is a fun game to navigate and has a unique premise with the different nights - effectively resetting the game, but each time you focus on progressing to a different area of the house that was previously locked off. The lore is also quite interesting if you read all of the notes scattered around - talks of old Japanese rituals, piecing together what happened and why this place exists. These tales are pretty captivating but sad as well once they end in tragedy. It makes me wonder if these rituals really did happen in real life. I ended up playing through the rest of the game (around night 2) with a cheat on that prevented me from losing health, so I would fight every ghost as normal, just not be able to die myself. While I do think it is pretty lame to play games like this, as it removes any challenge, I think this game is simply TOO challenging than it deserves to be and feels unfair. It is the only way I could keep going while preserving my sanity, but just keep that in mind if you want to watch my playthrough - I'm not some pro gamer or anything but I'm sure it would have taken me much longer if I played traditionally or I would have just soft locked myself/given up. I'm not exactly proud of it though. Anyways, I did get to the end, and I have to say the ending is a bit disappointing. I don't want to spoil it really but a character makes a pretty dumb decision - I guess the world was saved in the end but *they* really didn't have to do that. It's a little bitter...

Liar's Bar

A fun game to play with friends. The animal characters are cute and have a lot of personality, and while you might call it a "furry game" for this, I don't feel the furry angle is pushed too much. You have pigs and rhinos which aren't traditional furry characters at all, and I think they just used anthro animals just to convey additional personality and give a unique visual style. The actual game has 2 game modes, cards and dice, with two rulesets for each, although it pretty much boils down to "simple ruleset" and "more complex ruleset". The more complex rules are always much more fun and the game feels pretty shallow without them. Even then - I feel the novelty of the game can wear off pretty quickly, when you're playing just these 2 game modes over and over. Cards also takes way too long to get through a game, so I found the dice to be more fun. I would love to see more games added to this and it would really add to the vibe of "going out with friends and playing simple games", if we could swap between a lot of them. The way it is now, it's fun to play for a few rounds but I think friend groups would get bored pretty quickly. There is also no matchmaking, only a lobby system. I think this might kill the game in the long run as gamers these days are used to matchmaking, and it'll make the game harder to play if you don't already have a set group of 4. Joining random lobbies can feel awkward or intimidating, so having the option to be randomly put into games would help those solo players who may just want to play a bit on a given day. Overall this game definitely feels like it's still in some "alpha" state or something, so I would love to see it expanded upon and see more updates but who knows, there's always the risk of the devs abandoning this.

Heretic

So, this is basically a magic Doom game. It runs on the DOOM engine and you can just load it as a WAD. It is a very neat game and the weapons are cool, but some of the map designs are so confusing. It can be hard to find the single piece (usually a key) that you need to progress and I often found myself wandering around for minutes at a time just looking for where to go next; in a nutshell it's not very intuitive at all. The combat itself is fine, but the weapons (at least that I got) were kiiind of weak for the most part? Compared to like Doom super shotgun which can 1-2 hit most enemies...This game also features an inventory system, and tbh I like the simple style of buff pickups where it is activated instantly, it means you can design encounters around them rather than having players hoard these items and thus not being sure what a player will have access to in any encounter, making it harder to hit a sweet spot of balance. I wasn't super impressed but it was nice to have a new little coat of paint to DOOM. I don't think I will play this again - maybe I am just burnt out on boomer shooter's for now? But I'm hoping to find something that would truly impress me and give me a bit more to do than what I have been playing in the genre.

Zoochosis

A pretty fun and engaging little horror game. Apparently this game had a lot of bugs near release, I didn't really feel that too much but some things were quite jank. The basic gameloop of this game is quite fun; it's basically a simulator game where you play as Zookeeper and you get to check up on animals, feeding them, taking their temperature, etc. (Idk why they had to have the poop part tho we didn't need that much realism...) The horror elements come into play when some of the animals get some mutant virus and turn into, well let's just say really mean guys. The game also has a story, and while I think it is a little questionable (NDAs like that wouldn't hold up in court, and how are they getting away with killing so many people, why is this manager guy just so evil, WHY DO THEY HAVE SOME EVIL LOVECRAFTIAN ABOMINATION IN THE ZOO??), it's not really a big deal and it is a little fun that there is a loose story rather than just being thrust into the game and spooky things happen. The game even has multiple endings based on your actions (I didn't even know you could act differently) which is pretty cool and makes the game replayable. You also unlock much more animal enclosures after playing once which I think makes the game more fun to come back to as well - because it is a fun game loop and it's really cute seeing the animals. However I think this game does fall into some "indie modern gaming"...pitfalls? I guess you would call it? The tutorial is pretty handhold-y, but I guess it kind of makes sense as the manager is literally teaching you your job. There are also a lot of obnoxious jumpscares that serve no purpose. You *also* can't die (which removes any sense chance of being scared once you realize this tbh), although the animals in the enclosure can die which proably locks you out of the good ending or something, it can be annoying trying to keep them alive if you're not prepared to get the mutant animal cured as fast as possible. Overall though it's a short experience so very doable to play in one session as well, it doesn't overstay it's welcome. I could see this gameloop being expanded upon, maybe they'll release more updates to this? Who knows! The Halloween decorations that were around when I was playing was a very nice touch!

Unsorted VHS

A pretty neat little horror game. I thought this game was new, but it's actually a couple years old. It's made by the same dev as Buckshot Roulette but it's older I think. In this game you play through little scenarios to find clues to solve the overall story. It's very unique way of storytelling and I did like it! The only thing is it can be easy to get stuck, you just have to keep going back to tapes and looking for details that will lead you to a clue in the next tapes. It is out of order, as the title suggests, so you have to search hard! Without this mechanic though I imagine the game would be finished very quickly and not feel very satisfying. I think this game also did a great job of setting up a spooky and scary atmosphere, even though not much happens (there are a few jumpscares though). I'd say this game loses points because of how short it is, and this also leads to not much of a conclusion. There is story to pick up here and there, but I didn't get what it all meaned in the end - like where the cabins were from, where the 6th cabin led exactly...is it aliens? Why was there that weird sequence with cult stuff? And where did I, the player, get these tapes anyways? Are we playing as someone looking into the past? I think the game tries to commentate on people who "live in the past" too much but I don't think there really is anything too deep to said. Could definitely make a Game Theory episode on this though. (Also, this cost $2, which isn't terrible but for such a short, not replayable game I don't see why it couldn't have been free amfaghagh).

Paranoia! Parasocial! Paradise!

A very interesting game! This is a short interactive visual novel. You can play it in one sitting, so I would recommend doing so. It tells a tight compact story of a relationship between a streamer and a viewer. As a streamer myself, of course this resonated with me at least a bit. I think this can be a very commentary on "parasocial" relationships, but also romantic relationships in general I guess? Loving someone but, do you really know who we are? The masks we wear to try to please others, being rejected when we show our true selves...I'm sure lots of people can relate to that. I found the game really funny too - it's a ridiculous situation and the cutesy artstyle adds to it. If you're a fan of stuff like Saya no Uta, I think this will be up your alley too. Just go play it, it's free and short!!

DUSK

A very good boomer shooter! Soundtrack was great, the guns were great and very fun to use. Enemies interesting and memorable. A good difficulty curve with being challenging but never feeling like too much, even with huge waves of enemies. There were even some non-traditional objectives like evading a tornado. The aesthetics were quite nice as well and I looved the graphics, great mix of retro style with some modern lighting techniques. My only gripes are that certain levels were quite annoying with hard to use powerups. I also thought the "secrets" were quite lame as it was often just "go to an area here that other players might overlook". There were apparently some secret levels too but I was never able to find them, I do wonder what they were like, but was never able to find them myself. The level designs were pretty good for the most part and I only really got lost a handful of times. Some long levels but never dragged tooo much. Oh, and it has an interesting movement system - you can slide so jumping around the map really fast is doable! Overall it's a must play boomer shooter, but I will deduct points for what I mentioned above - it also simply just didn't catch my interest that hard. I could recognize all the good qualities of it but I guess it just missed a little something that would've made me personally love it and want to return to it again. Games like this are all about the gameplay and presentation, it's not really too deep. The ending was silly and fun but there's no real story here.

Luigi's Mansion

A delightful game from everyone's childhood! I really liked this, it's a very cute and charming game. Nintendo games are always good at giving that certain "vibe", light-hearted but pure fun. This was my first time playing this but I've encountered the game before through videos here and there (and even made a 2D version of it for a school project). I think this game stands out because it's so unique as a "halloween" game. Most "halloween" games would just be cheaply made, gimmick stuff, but this is ACTUALLY very solid and polished and would still be fun outside of halloween. But it's still probably one of the best halloween games. The ghosts are very nicely designed, and there's plenty of them to go around! I love the boos, they are so cute! The Poltergeist mechanic is so fun and unique, it really feels nice to suck things up (especially the ghosts!). It uses this mechanic in clever ways with a lot of the puzzles and boss fights where you have to do unorthodox things (make something in the environment spin, suck up an attack and throw it back). This game is basically a Metroidvania if you think about it - you unlock parts of the mansion as you go, having to backtrack sometimes, you get new powers...there's lots of saves here at least (courtesy of the lovely cute toads that I wanna punch). Most of the rooms have some sort of puzzle to them that you have to solve - I'll admit that some of the puzzles really got me frustrated. I had my fair share of baby rage here...including in the boss fights as well...certain ways that the mechanics of a fight can go feel pretty bs sometimes and hitboxes/randomness can really screw you over! But regardless, eventually everything is pretty "easy" and doable, but not too easy that you feel bored. It's a nice sweet spot of difficulty where the fun is just going around the mansion and finding things. It's a nice length too; it took me 2 streams to beat this. I suppose it could be a little longer but it really didn't need to be, I appreciate games like these not padding things out, and concentrating the fun instead. They've expanded on the Luigi's Mansion concept with a whole series of games now, but it seems like this first one is probably the best still. I think the others are just more of what we had here. ANYWAYS, what are you doing? Go play this game if you haven't because it is really a delight, it's cute, it's easy, it's short, some of the best things I like in games. Loses points cuz of babyrage moments and not being too deep.

Mouthwashing

A very cool game! I enjoyed it a lot. First of all, the game has a very nice style. It's pseudo-retro I guess? But lots of detail still. Some beautiful backgrounds like with the projection screens. A good atmosphere overall, and through the non-linear storytelling, you really get to know the layout of the ship. It's neat spotting the differences in the environment every time and it's a great way to add to the storytelling as well. The non-linear method as well makes the story pretty engaging as we get "edged" on the details only to find them out later, and slowly figure out the context of past events which leads to big brain moments. It's mostly a game about the characters, finding out who they are and seeing their development...Idk if I should follow things but FUCK Jimmy, never be a Jimmy!! He's such a bad person but I guess that makes him a good character, it actually "makes sense" I guess and in the end he does "take responsibility" I suppose. The other characters are quite fun as well (in a seeing what happens to them kind of way). It's a very messed up story and kinda explores that cabin-fever thing like the Shining does. The corporation sucks of course, and shows how little they actually value this crew. They spend years simply transporting mouthwash (hence the name of the game). And apparently this company manifests as spooky horses in the character's minds...in any case, a lot of what happens can be blamed on them - for not paying the crew enough, not respecting them, giving them such limited supplies, a restrictive culture...but that's par for the course for us isn't it. There's some light horror elements in this game but I wouldn't really say it's scary, you can't really die although there are sections that you can "fail" so you'll have to redo them. There's definitely some spooky atmosphere though. While I enjoyed the more "horror" sections of the game, it seems like they didn't really mean anything? They don't connect much to the main story and so just seem like ways to show something cool, do a cool transition, or simply pad out the game time. I was wondering the whole time when it would come back, if there really was some horse demon on the ship. But it really seems like not! Sad...As for the gameplay, it's pretty much a walking, point and click simulator and a light visual novel. It's mostly dialogue, with you walking inbetween points to trigger new dialogue and occasionally picking up items or something. I can't really complain though because it still feels interactive enough and the main point here is the story. You can really see this game as an interactive movie. The length is just right for a movie too, with me finishing it in about 2-3 hours. It's a good stream type of game since you can finish it in one go! Overall, a nice little bite of a good and interesting story that I guarantee you haven't seen before! Very unique.

Quake

Pending

Warhammer: 40k Space Marines 2

I played this in co-op with my vtuber friend Iomi! Overall, I think it was a serviceable game. The gameplay is fun, albeit a little bit slow (in terms of movement) and kind of overly challenging sometimes...The challenge is appreciated but it's challenging in a bit of an annoying way, where there's just too little resources available to you and enemies burst you down super fast if you make one mistake. You could just say, get good and play perfect, but I don't want the pressure of always having to be perfect. I played on the "recommended" difficulty that the game itself says btw, so it's not like I was going into super hard mode. The final boss in particular was annoying, where you do so little damage and he has a million ways of killing you. I did like the variety of weapons that we got access to throughout the game though. Going all melee on the enemies was pretty fun and getting a hang of parrying and executing was satisfying. The visuals are also pretty great; tons of huge scenes of large scale war/attacks and pretty backgrounds, high quality rendered cutscenes...you could just stop for a moment and look around the environments and they'd be pretty fascinating (for the most part). Other than that, nothing really stood out to me about the game. I didn't care for the story, or the lore...it seems like a lot of "bro" stuff to me and like they're lowkey all so cultish?? Nothing cute either all these boys are in bulky armor 100% of the time that make them look like Roblox characters...I appreciate though that this game has a co-op mode and it was much more fun playing the campaign with someone else! The campaign itself is pretty short, so I think it's a pretty easy game to stream in that sense, but you'll get all the nerds coming out...

Warhammer: 40k Boltgun

I'm putting this on hold for now. I played it once, and I did enjoy it, but it was also very annoying sometimes. The "slaughter" waves were incredibly hard to survive through and it ended up with EVERY map having one of these sections like twice. Those became more tedious than fun. The gameplay itself though was fun, I liked the gunplay a lot although there wasn't that much variety in guns. I liked that it pretty much told me where to go and that the secrets weren't too hard to find, so at least I didn't have to worry much about that. The visuals were pretty cool too, I liked the colours (everything was oddly colourful) and the style...although it's funny that the game runs on a "retro shader", it's not inherently "retro" or boomer shooter graphics. Which kind of leads to headache-inducing visuals when there's a lot on the screen as everything bleeds together. I also had a big issue with the level design feeling pretty...uninspired I guess, having a lot of repeated sections and such, not too interesting. Anyways, it's a good enough game but I decided to put it on hold to play other boomer shooters in the meantime (it's also kind of a niche game rn and so I'd rather play more well known, polished and improved games than this).

Metal Gear NES

This is the first Metal Gear game! Very old title...80s...I think the oldest that I completed! I played the NES version because I thought it was the "main" one, but turns out the MSX version is the original game, with the NES being a port. There's a lot of discussion online about this, but basically it seems like the NES one is slightly worse and more difficult. Nevertheless, I pushed through and completed it. It wasn't exactly difficult, but I did abuse save states to get through it so I wouldn't have to redo sections so much (especially painful at the beginning). Some of the mechanics, such as going into trucks, aren't very obvious in this game. There's a lot in general that they don't tell you. How your rank works, where to go, what to do in certain places...you have to figure out a lot yourself. Luckily as a streamer I had a lot of help from my chat who was able to guide me through more tough situations. I don't think it's impossible to figure out on your own but would definitely take way longer and is not very intuitive. That's probably the worse part about this game, but otherwise, it was pretty fun actually! The resource allocation is pretty fair so I never felt that was an issue; once you find a room with items you need, you can reload the room to stock up to max. Traversing through the facility was quite fun, figuring my way around and coming back to places later when I got more advanced cards...it was just the most tough at the start with less items and dying to things so fast!! But the game really grew on me once I got some momentum on finding where to go. It's a pretty short game too, so I think it's for streaming! I cleared in 2 streams easily. It honestly had quite a bit of charm to me with the music and visuals too. Only reason this isn't higher because of some jank mechanics, confusing things that you need to do, and some things missing from this that were in the original. The gunplay isn't stellar or anything either, but it was fun enough for me, and really not difficult at all. I don't think any boss really killed me? There's not much extra lore here that you couldn't easily find out, so I don't think it's exactly crucial if you're a MGS fan, but hardcore fans will definitely want to check it out. I look forward to the sequel where the lore can get more fleshed out hopefully!

Castlevania: SOTN

A really fun game! It has a bit of a learning curve, but once I got used to it, it started being really fun to explore the castle, find items and abilities and beat up people! The combat is pretty easy for the most part actually, I like hitting with swords and you're fast enough that you can jump hit, retreat, and repeat. Lots of items to help you defend like shields, potions with resist, subitems, etc...The game felt long, but I think that was more of a skill issue at the beginning, having trouble finding where to go and losing to guys sometimes. The gameplay loop is really satisfying, finding equipment and progressively getting stronger with them (and also being to choose some situational items) as well as items to help you out...I had such a cluttered inventory at the end but that was kind of satisfying lol. I'd say it lasted the perfect amount of time!! I'm a bit upset I didn't get 100%, there were quite a few areas/rooms that seemed tricky to get into...I missed like all the OP items apparently!! But I still had a fun time and the difficulty was good I think. Also, everything else was just amazing!! The graphics, soundtrack, kino cutscenes, the game has such style it is so good!! I love the look of Alucard too, he's a cool ojisan vampire that's also asexual...Idk if I'm being coherent with this review but this was such a fun game, I didn't think I would like Castlevania this much, it's probably because of the RPG style elements that this one has that I like it so much so I don't think the same would apply to something like Metroid...but yeah! It's only not higher bc there are some annoying parts, I didn't like the bonus Richter mode...I don't think it's perfect but quite quite good

Dead Space 2023

It's a good game, but tbh I don't think it will be too memorable for me. The biggest thing that stood out was the seamless integration of the UI; it was all diagetic, a part of the game's world. It takes some getting used to but really makes sense. Otherwise, personally the dark color palette and similar environments everywhere made the experience kind of blend together for me. There were some cool boss fights, but those weren't consistent enough to really feel like an integral part of the game, if that makes sense? It's usually just do some gimmick action and that's how you kill them. Doesn't feel particularly challenging like how a Resident Evil (at least from the earlier games) might feel where. Or maybe I'm wrong there, I don't know if I really make sense, it was just never as tense. Maybe I was on too low of a difficulty but I was on the standard one so...The survival horror aspects were pretty good but I still didn't enjoy it as much as other games I have played...the fact that the ammo drops are random and based on what guns you have in your inventory made it easy to cheese to get only the ammo *I* wanted, instead of being forced to be careful with what weapon I use because I might run out of ammo for it. There's no inventory management either it was never really an issue for me. The horror is there but it was never that scary...I mean you can cue to all the screams I did BUT I felt it was more a case of being startled/jump scared than anything else. The sound design really carries this aspect of the game but I feel I just got more numb to it over time anyways. I enjoy the space setting but I didn't get to learn too much about it (my fault I guess for not paying attention uuu). Sucks that there's no REAL lore or explanation to anything yet just from this game. The villains also felt kind of weak I think...you're just fighting "mindless" weird alien thing at the end of the day. The whole game was just going from objective to objective to take out one weird alien after another, move from one place of the ship to the next but you backtrack a lot and the whole ship ends up feeling same-y to me, it doesn't feel as dynamic or engaging as the locations in other survival horror games, with less memorable objectives and mini-goals. BUT the actual gameplay was still fun I still like shooting and stuff, even if it was kind of hard to navigate sometimes. The game was a LITTLE long for my liking too. Also the characters were kind of ugly but that's basic modern character models at this point. OVERALL pretty okay I feel generous giving it this score okay??

Theme Hospital

A delightful simulation game about running hospitals! Dropped but I got a little far in it, it is simply bc I don't think this is a sustainable game to play over a long period (in a twitch sense) but it was still very fun. I really like these simulation and management games where you get to place things down; it activated my inner architechtural designer as I placed down facilities and decorated the hospitals! It was fun managing the doctors and types of buildings as well. The artstyle is very cute, nostalgic, and pleasing...mix of pixel graphics and early 3d rendering idk how to describe it. I get so absorbed and locked into these games that I found it hard to talk about anything else! Very fun and satisfying game, the difficulty is pretty good, might be too easy actually as I was just clearing all these hospital challenges first try!! It gets more charming too over time as more hospital facilities get unlocked. But, I would say each "game" or challenge runs a little long. I was left a lot of the time just waiting for the game to end because I needed to max out one more meter but I'm gated by time. Anyways, good stuff if you're into retro sim titles!! It has a lot of cute humour too!!

Postal 2

So I feel a little weird about this game. I liked it overall more than I thought it was. I think the early days of the week were really fun - just casually strolling through the town and doing the tasks. Most of them did not end up violently (or maybe they did, just didn't feel that way) so it felt like I could kinda choose my approach and not just have to go crazy and kill everyone. I enjoyed this freedom, but I also enjoyed the little structure it had of completing the tasks. I'm going to compare this game to, say, V:TMB (which I also reviewed and played below). Both 3D first person..."exploration sims"? RPGs? I'm not really sure how to categorize but they're pretty similar. However I liked this game a lot more because of the increased direction and more laxness it had. No quests to keep track of, no needing to befriend NPCs, just follow the task list in whatever order you want. It also has shooting, guns, and machete which is an improvement as well. I think this game just really succeeded in creating a chill environment where you WANT to go and explore and see what you can do and check off your list. It's much simpler to just play the game than worry about all my stats or quest progression. However, the game definitely has faults. Certain sections reeaallyy drag. The part where you get kidnapped by the rednecks and have to make it out? It's not too bad, certainly very doable, but overstays its welcome. Other than that, if I consider just the base game, I think for the most part it's pretty well paced and nice length - I like games that aren't too long. I also played the additional weekend section. I thought the first day (saturday) was pretty great and fun for the most part - VERY linear, but I like that kind of style, as you go from one point to the next. However the next day, Sunday, felt pretty bad - EXTREMELY long, lots of backtracking, kind of not too fun to play. It really overstayed its welcome and felt like the devs either got lazy or seriously ran out of budget and just started reusing assets and forcing the player to redo many things. I'm not sure why the start of it also was like some mmo kill quest stuff lol?? Speaking of budget, idk if it was just me but there was no music for these weekend sections, which felt veeery awkward at times. Anyways, I never actually "finished" this, I wanted to, but I ran out of time and was already running pretty late trying to finish this Sunday portion. My game crashed after I rescued the dog Champ, so I decided to just end it there. I don't think I will come back to this as there's probably not much left anyways and I feel I got everything out of this game anyways. It's just a bit unfortunate - not only did it feel like a drag to play Sunday, but it was also quite a bit more difficult with sparse health and ammo pickups (they also take away all your stuff at some point, which just feels cheap and lame), requiring me to reload many times to get through sections as enemies would just instantly hit me while being very tanky themselves and hard to take out. It's just not quite fun to play like that. Oh, but I will say I enjoyed the humour in this game a lot. I need to commend the devs for actually trying to be different, funny, and making jokes/commentary that most people would not touch for fear of being "canceled" or whatever. Not to say that I support overly offensive humour, that stuff can just be dumb as well, but I thought it was pretty tasteful here and wasn't too over the top - just stuff that probably everyone thinks or has thought as some point in their life haha. Light racism you know? haha so epic...Not sure how to really describe it but yeah the jokes are mostly "based" here although sometimes going into gross territory, but not too much thankfully. I think this must have been a great game to explore and really sink your teeth into back in the day as there's really a lot to do including secrets, and the weekend sections offer some serious challenge, and if you don't mind all the reptition I could see this being quite fun.

Penguins!

This is such a charming and cute puzzle game! Controlling all these little penguins and guiding them to get to the end of the levels. All the levels are so unique and cool with their own challenges. It's fun thinking of the solutions and using new tools as you progress through the game. I love the little sounds these guys make, their animations, it is so delightful. Filled me with pure joy to play this game. The puzzles get a little challenging, at some points a bit tooo challenging...or more so confusing with what to do/what the game wanted me to do. I only stopped playing this due to running out of time and steam. I was really into this game, but after playing it for some hours and going through tough levels, I feel like I've had my fill haha. But check out this game anyways! It is very cute and fun, a lot like Lemmings apparently, but cuter

Penguin Land

A neat little puzzle game! You play as a penguin and have to bring an egg to the bottom of a level. You can dig a hole in the ground to drop the egg further, but the egg can't drop too far or it will break. You can also only dig a hold if you have a platform to stand on beside it. You can jump as well and roll the egg around. The main difficulty is finding a path down for the egg while avoiding fall damage, traps, polar bears who will punch and break your egg, etc. It's actually pretty satisfying to solve these puzzles, but that's all there is to the game really, about 30 or so levels of puzzles like this. It is very cute though and has amazing spirtes. Just not something I would want to stick through and play all the levels for.

Penguin Adventure

Despite me dropping this I actually had quite a good time with it. It's a very neat title, especially impressive considering how old it is and how much they had to cram on this tiny game. This is a runner-style game (is that the right terminology?) where you're a penguin trying to go save the penguin princess! You run across various levels that have obstacles, turns, and power ups. It gets quite complex as you have to worry about enemies on the ground, sky, and being able to hit the turns correctly. You can jump as well and when you up the speed, jumping is often the only option you have to clear an obstacle in time. There are "boss fights" here too which are quite clever and fun, having to break the ice below these dragon things by jumping while their attacks hit the ground, eventually causing the dragon to fall down. However it is a brutal game, with no saves or checkpoints, if you lose all your health it's gameover and you start from the beginning, with not many opportunities to increase your health back up. If you have the time, it is a fun and technical game that is very charming. The colours and spritework are gorgerou with an actually really good midi soundtrack. I applaud anyone who can make it through this really, I only stopped for time and repetition's sake as it can be quite frustrating and a chore to make your way back when you keep dying :P

Also apparently Hideo Kojima worked on this so that's pretty cool, I'm sure there's some Metal Gear lore hidden here...

MGS Peace Walker

Sooo this game has been an experience so far...

So I'll start with the story, which is the main interesting part of the Metal Gear Solid series to me so far. I'm not too big of a fan of the comic style cutscenes, but you get used to it and it's not too bad. The story is still pretty interesting and there's some good lore moments, but I find it hard to get too invested since this is an inbetween game - I know what happened before, and I know what happens after, so...it feels like a lot of what happens is just very safe easy stuff I know won't affect anything in the future (cuz I've already seen it) and merely serves to explain some things and maybe fill in plot holes. It's just a bit less interesting. But whatever, at least we still got Snake! So, to the gameplay...for the most part it's pretty fun still. Still some classic stealth gameplay, though a bit...more boring I guess. There's less mechanics in the actual gameplay, such as the food and finding items being a lot less interesting. A lot of the environments you walk around in feel very familiar too, like they were taken and reskinned from MGS3 or something. They end up looking a bit bland and boring to me, though maybe that's just a PSP issue, and I haven't progressed too far in the game. Then there's the boss battles...I feel like overall these are the worst battles in the series I've faced so far. It's all been just VEHICLES...tanks and a helicopter. Remember the memorable bosses and characters from the other games, where every fight had unique mechanics? That's kind of gone here, it's just a shame and disappointing. It is also weirdly difficult. These bosses are sooo tanky, just huge HP sponges, and you're not given nearly enough ammo to kill them. You have to rely on supply drops to constantly send you more ammo to fight them. For a handheld game, it's bizarre how difficult and frustrating these fights are, as I thought they would take into account and most people would play this in their hards, and would therefore make gameplay thateithe suited that or hand some kind of handicap and assist in place to make up for it. In fact I ended up ragequitting on this helicopter boss fight, I was struggling and dying so much! I don't even want to get into the details of that fight, if you know you know...I also didn't really like the "base management" part of this game. I don't really like the idea of having to get items through "grinding" instead of naturally finding them like in other MGS games, ensuring that you always had what you needed. The way this game is designed, perhaps the boss fights are so difficult because they want you to farm for higher level and tier items which are able to deal with them much easily, but I don't really like that approach. I like linear games that bring you from one point and experience to the next, I don't like being forced to do extra things. Although I do think the mission system is pretty okay, it's nice to do things in a bite sized fashion, gives easy points to pick up and stop playing. For now I've put this game on hold because I'm not sure what to do about it...I want to see the lore and cutscenes but the gameplay is too frustrating for me for the most part. I've considered turning on god mode and just breezing through the missions so I can experience them + watch the cutscences, or I could also just watch the cutscenes on Youtube, but honestly I don't think I have the strength to play this game properly :(

Arctic Eggs

I quite enjoyed this game actually!! It's a short one so very easily doable in a single stream. It has a pretty unique game mechanic of the pan frying - it is hard to control at first, but slowly you learn to get better at it and it becomes quite fun and addicting to cook, fry and flip various items - yes ITEMS, not just eggs...This game is very charming, the dialogue of the NPCs is funny (but doesn't go on for too long either), the items they request get weirder and more funny, the loose story is intriguing while not being pushed in your face with so much epic LORE...The art is also pretty nice and almost retro ps1 styled. I also really liked the Arctic atmosphere and environment so I think that was well done too, had pretty comfy vibes :3 Overall very good quality game, but kind of short and doesn't last for too long, but I think it's worth a play!!

Crow Country

Overall a pretty fun game but with some flaws that I'll probably discuss. The main draw for this game to me was that it attempts to be a revival of old school survivor horror. The artstyle is pretty "retro" although kind of weirdly blobby? I wanted to like this game a lot because I love the old survival horror games like RE and SH, and thought it was sad that games like that aren't made anymore - so an indie game trying to bring it back is enticing. However...

The combat is a bit janky. I found myself struggling to aim properly. Although, it doesn't matter too much, because the game is pretty easy. There are loads of items everywhere to the point where I often wasn't allowed to carry anymore (which seems like a strange bandaid fix to make sure players aren't too strong by simply limiting how much they can carry, in Silent Hill this wasn't necessary at all), and even if you run low on items, the game will just give you what you need if you go to a vending machine or garbage bin. It kind of lowers the stakes of the game and while I still enjoy collecting items, it feels less well earned. One gripe I kind of had with the game as well was with the puzzles. They felt sometimes too out there, sometimes too easy...I enjoyed it still but got a bit eye roley sometimes. Alright now I want to talk about the enemies. I didn't enjoy them...I don't find them memorable at all really? Compare it to SH for example which has very memorable and iconic enemies. Maybe it's because this game is just new and not really part of some franchise so I'm just being biased about it, but asides from just that, the enemies were quite easy to fight too. Never really too threatening, with kind of dumb AI that moves towards you slowly. But I think the most annoying thing I found about this game was the artificial difficulty increases - it tries to I guess replicate SH and RE where enemies would come back in places you've been, but those would be precisely triggered by some in game event and would only show up once again. The way it works in this game for example would be, I go in Room A --> don't solve the puzzle and decide to come back later to try --> come back later after solving other stuff --> suddenly Room A is filled with a bunch of enemies. This kind of decision just makes me feel punished for not solving the puzzle in Room A immediately, which I think discourages exploration and experimentation. It was really annoying seeing enemies suddenly spawn in places they weren't there before. I understand there's perhaps some "lore" reasons which explain this but...I don't think it's worth it. Now about the LORE...this seems to fall into a common indie game trap of trying to be very deep and having too much lore. There are TONS of notes scattered around describing things happening in the world - I stopped reading them at some point because it became clear that these weren't clues to puzzles for the most part, just lore dumps. I think it is a bit boring to consume lore in this way and probably most people won't bother reading them. However, when I completed the game and saw the ending dialogues/cutscenes, it actually wasn't bad. It was kind of cool seeing how it all came together and how everything relates, seeing where the enemies come from, etc. So I do think overall the story was actually pretty okay. I didn't care for the characters though. Overall, most of the positive points of this game come from the atmosphere. It is pretty cozy and comfortable, and I love the survival horror game loop. The art is nice there were some neat moments so, yeah!!

Blood

So kinda funny story behind this one...I started it playing on the 2nd highest base difficulty...I got tricked by chat!! This game is actually pretty "difficult", in the sense that you get hit with a looot of damage. There are hitscan enemies which will instantly hit you the moment you're seen, which feels really bullshit to play. I think the higher difficulties have lower health drops too so it felt like I was constantly on low HP, having to savescum and load/reload for every enemy encounter because I could not afford to take annyy damage. I solved this in part 2 where I switched to a different port which allowed me to turn off the hitscan, and I also swapped to a lower difficulty, and it was a much more enjoyable experience. Like Doom, you run around shooting guys and it is just fun to pick up all the different guns and solve puzzles and kill guys!! I had a few complaints though. Some "puzzles" had solutions or answers that weren't very easy to see so I ended up getting lost and stuck a lot. Some levels would also drag on for quite long it felt? I ended up dropping this game for now because I was feeling annoyed with it, it ended up getting a bit repetitive and frustrating, especially because I knew how long this game was and I was kind of just dreading having to go through so many more levels. But I want to come back to it actually, I found it so charming to play. The main character is funny and cool with nice voicelines, and all the art direction is pretty great! So yeah, when I get bored of Doom again, I'll come back and actually beat this haha.

UPDATE: Finally beat Blood!! Really nice experience. I love these boomer shooters no matter what I think just cuz of how fun it is to shoot in them and explore maps. The spritework is really well done here, good music and voice lines too. Just a real treat to play. It gets genuinely more difficult over time but in a natural way with adding more enemies and such. There is some initial frustrating difficulty because of the enemy hitscan, if you play on a high difficulty it actually does make it much more harder!! So I'd recommend playing at most mid level for the first time. My only complaint is that sometimes the level design was quite poor. I think it was episode 3 or 2 in particular where the maps felt like such a drag. Lots of backtracking and confusing puzzles. But it did get better. The other thing is that it kind of drags on? I think it took me 20+hrs total to beat this. It has 5 episodes which is quite a lot. I wish it could have maybe been a bit condensed, taking out ep 2 or 3 entirely or just optimizing the maps and taking out some bad ones. Anyways, I liked this, but probably not enough to go out of my way to search for mods of it or something. I still think Doom is better...This one is more STYLISH though I'll give it that!! Very cool weapons too

Elden Ring

da elden bing!! becoming the elden lord!!

I really like this game, especially in comparison to Dark Souls. It feels much more smooth and fluid, with beautiful visuals. You don't turn into a stinky guy after dying a few times too. I really enjoy finding bosses and killing them!! It's very satisfying to dodge their attacks and then hit them slowly until they die!! Although, I have found a lot of fights to be quite easy tbh. There's a lot of ways to "cheese" these games and it kind of feels less satisfying when they go down too quickly...maybe I should tone down the summon usage or something haha. Oh, and I'm going with a full sword build so far! Curved Greatswords with big bleed damage baby!! :D The weapons in thsi game seem so coool and the magic is so pretty I kind of want to dip into it even if it makes things too easy...However, I am also quite intimidated by the sheer size of this game. There's a lot of ways to go, and it can be overwhelming having to deal with all these "decisions" (not to mention the decisions of what to level, items to use, etc etc...). I tried to consult a map with boss markers so I could make my way to the bosses more easily but even that was hard to follow sometimes, figuring out exactly how to get somewhere and pinpointing it to my map. The open world aspect here reminded me a lot of Xenoblade Chronicles which I enjoyed and felt nostalgict to me but it is also soooo huge...I'm not sure when or if I'll ever get to finish this haha. But, so far I'm having a lot of fun and I plan to keep playing! This might be the longest game I'll have running on my channel (other than Doom ig?)...Alssooo man I feel really bad when I die without being able to retrieve my runes and then all those runes I gathered are just wasted :(

Resident Evil 1

I really liked this one, as with all the other Resident Evils I played. It is really charming, but also fun! The pacing is great, with purposeful rooms and easy to navigate locations. The puzzles aren't too difficult and it flows pretty well when you have to go from one place to another, it all makes sense. I love the graphics, everything looks great and has aged well, even the janky character models look very charming. The survival horror elements are great as always, I think this game helped pioneer that genre. Although some item box placements (or lack thereof) felt a bit cruel - there were some places I really wish they put an item box alongside an exisitng typewriter, as it forced me to backtrack much more just so I could manage my inventory. Oh, I played as Chris btw which meant only 6 slots!! It wasn't too hard managing though. Enemies were fair and for the most part pretty easy - I think I got plenty of ammo so despite being conservative and trying to run from some enemies, you can absolutely plow them down. The cutscenes are pretty good and cheesy, though I wish they had subtitles so I could understand them easier. The filmed video cutscenes are always funny to watch. I tried to get the best ending in this game but unfortunately, at some point you can get softlocked from getting the items you need to achieve that, so I wasn't able to. Compared to the remake version of this game, I think I actually like the original better. It is less confusing (as the remake added a bunch of new rooms and additional puzzles), and there are no crimson heads which just make dealing with the zombies sooo annoying. Anyways good game yeah I liked it!!

Life line

The only thing this game has going for it is the funny gimmick of voice activation (which gets old pretty fast) and some nice classic PS2 graphics. The gameplay itself was "fine" but if you take away the voice activation I think it'd be a lot less engaging. The voie activation itself was super frustrating and you start to feel like you're going crazy saying the same words over and over. Some words it will recognize right away while others it will not understand at all. It is simply very monotonous to not be able to control the character at all, like every other video game, and instead you're just yelling commands. I think it kind of goes against what video games are supposed to be and takes away so much agency, freedom, and it just does not feel good! It's like they thought, hey what if we made a game and then took away what makes all games fun! I felt my voice giving out as I tried to control this game while streaming at the same time. This game is only relevant purely for the meme status but it is a clear sanity drain to actually play. For my sake and the viewers sake I thought it best if I don't come back to this...

Bunny Garden

It's a good game for what it is, I can see why it got popular. I think it's good if visual novels/dating sims are taking this approach where things seem much more interactive. Giving the girls drinks and gifts felt really different from other games I've played. There were also "game" segments and even ASMR which I haven't seen before. If you're into dating sims this one is probably pretty good. My only gripe is there is only 3 girls, and they all have the same body type. The game seems a bit lazy in this sense, as if the models were copy pasted, and the environments are pretty simple too. I dropped this game simply because I think it'd be too boring to continue on stream as some kind of long term series...personally I wouldn't want to stream a full playthrough of a visual novel, but it was a fun game to check out! The girls are pretty good...well not THAT good...

Little Witch Nobeta

This was my first "souls-like" game that I completed! Although maybe it is kind of cheating to call it soulslike, since it is so "easy". I still struggled on a lot of bosses though. It felt like a good amount of challenge to me, but I did defeat some bosses pretty quickly. The Thunder spell is really powerful and once I learned how to utilize and abuse it, fights became much easier - although it seems like there are many ways to "cheese" things anyways, perhaps this is part of the game design to begin with. It was possible to do a lot of farming for souls to raise your stats in this, but it seemed mostly unnecessary (although very appreciated still) - but tbh I don't like these systems too much. It feels like I "have" to farm if you have these systems in place with huge caps for the level ups, and it would probably be quite difficult if you didn't level up at all. My biggest gripe with the game is how unpolished it comes off in some parts. Imo, the textures and level geometry are very basic and generic. Sometimes there is weird texture clipping on the ground. It comes off as obvious free Unity assets just placed around in a haphazard way trying to make a level. They also use stock sound effects. Some of the enemies look quite lazily made too. I understand this is actually an indie game but I'll still critique it normally. The levels just seemed like they could use a lot of improvements. I also had no idea what was going on in the story and it seemed pretty weak tbh. BUT, the game's strongest point was pretty good; cute girls! Nobeta is very cute and fun to play as, and there are even many outfits you can obtain while playing to change things up and make her cuter. Some of the bosses are pretty cute girls too! So its pretty based for that

Princess Maker 3

This game is pretty fun; it's about raising a daughter to (hopefully) become a princess. There are a lot of initial choices that affect your daughter; youur job, birthdays, blood type...So each run should be pretty unique. One run of this game seems to take about 3 hours. Basically, you have all these stats (such as elegance, stamina, intellect, etc) and you want to raise these stats as high as you can. You mostly do this by attending classes. But, these classes take money, so you also need to balance this with working a job to earn money. But also, your daughter will get stressed and tired so you need to give her days off to relax once in a while. Basically, this whole game is about balancing numbers to reach the highest gains you can. It gets quite difficult as money as really tight. Personally I did 2 runs and was only able to get mediocre endings. Besides this stat building gameplay, the visuals of the game are really cute with some retro anime styled character art and pixel sprites. The music is alright but not too memorable. It's surprisingly fun just planning stuff out for your daughter, this game has very similar energy to the Civ "just one more turn" kind of thing. I don't think I will play this game again but I could see myself in the past chasing after all the endings I could and looking up guides to min-max this as much as possible. It's a good game if you have numbers autism basically.

Rental

I didn't like this game too much tbh. I really liked the visuals, aesthetics, music even, basically the presentation is good. But the gameplay is very lacking. There is so semblance of challenge (and considering this is trying to be like silent hill, is kind of strange). Like I thought at one point you're being chased by this guy, but no, no matter how long u stay still for they don't actually move towards you and will simply just stand there 5 feet apart. It is also very short - now I know this is a free demo game, but, it still ends quite unceremoniously and is pretty unsatisfying. Personally I was hoping for a lot more and I kind of don't like the trend of indie games releasing as these unfinished demos and promising more but you never really get more. All style and no substance as they say, where the gameplay feels undercooked. At least back in the day games had to actually be a complete product before they came out! Guh

Shinkansen 0

Another Chillas Art slop game, but this one had a good premise in that it at least had fun gameplay. I enjoy the "spot the difference" type of games popularized by The Exit 8. Spotting the anomalies is fun and it's never really that scary, but can be fun to get a few screams out of you still. This game had two sections of this, and then a final part. The story makes sense and at least they don't have to spell it out for you but it's still a little lame. I liked it overall though, I think it's a good game to stream though it is short so you need to have other things prepared as well. I also found it interesting how this guy is apparently selling content in his game (ie, you can advertise whatever you want for some fee). It seems like kind of a smart way to make more money and of course streamers will eat it up and these are basically streamer bait games and people want to see themselves in them. Oh but PLEASE optimize your games more with this added income Mr Chilla. I can't stand how shitty it runs, I have to run it on lowest settings and close a bunch of programs just for it to run on my stream.

Doronko Wanko

This was a cute game I guess but very shallow. The paint spraying mechanic became a bit old imo and it didn't really flow too well? The loop of getting wet --> spraying the paint --> rolling in it again felt kind of awkward to actually execute? It was cute playing as the dog but the house itself felt kind of boring, but it was at least designed in a purposeful way. It made sense the paths that you were meant to progress in. This was another free demo type of game, I'm not sure if they're going to expand on it or not, but if they do there should be some serious mechanics refining. It got boring to me pretty quickly. Still though it is charming at least. It is quite short and quick to get through so keep that in mind; it's a hard game to stream because of that imo.

Resident Evil: Code Veronica X

I loooved this game so much. It is more of the classic RE gameplay that I love but I was actually invested in the story this time. The characters are absolute cringe kino. Their performances are so funny and iconic and I can't help but love the cheesiness of it. The characters are great and they really make this game memorable. The locations too were pretty interesting and going to them multiple times and seeing the sublte differences as you switch between Claire and Chris was fun! This is known to apparently be one of the hardest REs, and I definitely felt that a bit. Boss fights are a bit harder and resources feel scarce, but not too much so. There is a point where you can get softlocked apparently due to lack of ammo or health items so be careful and make sure you have enough for everyone. The inventory was a bit annoying in the fact that items Claire possessed, Chris couldn't access, and vice versa. For example, Claire had items I really wanted Chris to use but I just couldn't because I wanted Claire to have it in those moments, and I didn't have a chance to put those items back for him. Overall though a really fun and good entry in the series, will probably stand as one of my favourites and it was very fun to get through!

DOOM 64

Doom 64 is kind of different from Doom so I thought maybe it deserved its own entry? First of all I really love the textures in this game. I mean,the look in general. It looks sooo good, ages so well. I love this kind of pixel-like graphics! The color palettes for each level are very on point as they say. The guns feel veeerry nice in this one! Maybe even better than Doom 1/2? They look cooler and feel more satisfying to use with their effects. One thing to note is the soundtrack; it is QUITE different from the other games, which had banger bopping songs in every level. Instead this game is mostly ambient and subtle noises. It is quite a different vibe and feel. The enemies are pretty much the same in this game, and there are less of them than Doom 2 due to size restrictions. They look a little different but definitely recognizeable. Some however are more dangerous, like those flaming skull guys that deal damage when they explode here. Level design wise, I found this game very much relies on backtracking. You will activate a switch somewhere that will do something in an area you've already been in. This is in stark difference to the other games where you pretty much progressed from one area to the next in kinda large levels. The levels here are smaller (I think) but you will be going over them multiple times. I found myself stuck and spending a lot of time in these levels as a result, which resulted in my playtime for this game being much longer than the others actually. This game also has 3 secret levels which you need to find, and introduce the Unmaker, one of the strongest weapons in the series (it seems)...finding the upgrades for it are fun but time consuming! I've also noticed this game is quite MEAN sometimes, filled with traps and spaces where you don't have much room to breathe at all. Anyways, while at the time of writing I'm not quite done with the game, I think I can say that this is a good entry to the series and you should definitely play it, but it is different.

UPDATE: Yeah my thoughts are the same pretty much. I found this game pretty mean at times though...and the secret levels are TOUGH...but I appreciate the gimmicks they do as well. Like it is very doable and interesting level deisgn. That final secret level tho? Map 32? Yeah screeww thaaat sobs...the only thing I didn't complete...

Pacific Drive

So I do think this is a good game! I can see why people like it! It is quite chill in a way. And it is fun to drive around, it has nice driving mechanics. I'm almost just annoyed at all the anomolies and entities you find on the road lol like cmon just let me drive...I like how this game has a few "difficulty" options (while still not having an actual difficulty selection, it's more like accessibility options making you not mald when you fail a run). The looting aspect is also cool and reminds me of lethal company (except you have a lot more inventory space!). I only don't like how..."difficult" it can be I guess, maybe I am just bad at driving, but having to drive through some fcked up things and then all my stuff gets damaged kinda suuucks, buuut at least you can repair right away with what's in your trunk storage. I also don't like the whole thing at the end where you're running for your life towards the yellow light, I find it very anxiety and panic enducing and you just lose all your progress if you accidentally get off the right path a little bit...But again maybe I'm just bad at driving and navigating lol. I'm only dropping this as a stream game because I cannot see how far I would go with this as a stream game...like how long it is as a game. It seems I've seen and experienced pretty much the basic gameplay loop and personally I feel it'd be a bit boring? It is kind of overall quite simple gameplay and I'm not sure how much stream appeal it has beyond a one-off checking it out kinda thing. It's interestung that this is categorized as a survival game, I guess it is car survival, you find and craft things for your car...I am curious how much you can deck out and upgrade your car but seems like it takes a long time guh!!

Portal 2

A pretty fun co-op game! I will just talk about that because I haven't played the main campaign. It is a good length and can be beaten in one session (albeit a pretty long session at that, I think ideally you'd split it into two). The puzzles are quite fun to solve! Really wracks your brain with all these different physics concepts. Combining all the knowledge at the end is pretty cool. I was only hoping for something "bigger" at the end to feel like a proper ending, like a boss fight or something. Because otherwise this game was pretty much a series of puzzles that get gradually more complex (or just, different, with different mechanics). I played this with Iomi, it was pretty fun! My first collab with her and one of my first in general. I think we got into it pretty well and she was a great science partner! Anyways, I think it is still super cool - the world of Portal, and the Portal guns themselves are so COOL and FUN and it's amazing the mechanics they thought of, I think this'll be a timeless game, it all works so well.

Halo

Playing this with Para. So far it's been a pretty fun time buuut very simplistic combat?

UPDATE: Personally I find the game itself pretty lame. It was very repetitive (with literal copy paste level design and going through the same levels multiple times - this wouldn't be an issue if they were fun/enjoyable levels to begin with but it felt very basic to me)...Not a lot of depth to it either. It was just shooting enemies and picking up the same crappy guns pretty much. Playing with a friend makes it 100% more fun and bearable, I can't imagine playing it alone I would probably drop it tbh. I like these kind of games but when your environment and story bore me and I can't even use the fun guns most of the time it just feels like zzz what's the point.

Voices of the Void

I actually reaaally liked this game. I just don't think I will stream it again, as I am busy with other things and will likely just continue it on my own if ever. To gather my thoughts...first of all, I think it has pretty bad tutorialization. I understand it is still in like, alpha stage of development or something, but I'm pretty sure a lot of people would just drop this game because they don't understand how it works and the tutorial that is provided is way too wordy. It doesn't show the player how they should actually engage with these systems. It is a barrier of entry if players need external help to really understand things. But, once I understood the mechanics, I enjoyed it a lot. It is quite satisfying in a math-y, autistic way. But, I was expecting more horror from this. There is an "omega warning" when you start the game listing all these triggers, and I don't think I got any of them in my 4+ hours of playing, which is a bit disappointing. I feel there is definitely potential for it to be scary but it stays pretty long in the same mundane environment and things you encounter. It is possible that I missed some of this stuff due to not looking at the right things or not really going out at night, but, those are things you don't have to do at all anyways. I do wonder why the game has a 7 day limit, and what happens when you reach that. I didn't get that far but, I will probably play off stream to see. Bugs wise, there weren't many bugs but just oddities in how the game functioned in my opinion. For example, needing to tear off the report page and place it on top of the sending box (and ONLY that working), when this isn't told, or how grabbing objects is physics based so you need to actually hold the drives up if you want to insert them in the slots for example. Anyways, I think this game has great potential but definitely needs some polish. It could be tighter, it could have more to do/see, and it could have a much more improved tutorial. But I'm excited to see where this goes and hopefully it ends up on Steam in a pretty good place. There's a lot of these indie horror titles on itch that end up moving to Steam but they seem a bit disappointing in the end imo. I'm not sure how big this game is aiming to get but yeah.

UPDATE: After playing this game for more, I can say that yeah I like it. It's very comforting in a way, it has a nice gameplay loop that is simple but fun and appeals to number wired brains like myself. The only thing is the "scary" stuff seems...really subtle? I still haven't encountered too much. I'm not sure how much I like that tbh. I'd like to at least know if/when something scary is going to happen or if it's just gonna keep being peaceful. Puts me on edge - but maybe that is the point? But then it feels like getting cucked because nothing scary will happen anyways, it's like a 1% chance or something, so you just feel dumb for being scared at all.

Super Seducer 2

Silly goofy shitpost game. Some parts were fun, some were quite boring.

Silent Hill 3

Really like this so far. Same as the other classic Silent Hills I've played. But, at least so far the story is pretty weak. I mean I don't really know anything that is going on, it kinda throws you right into things and we're not given so much as a backstory.

UPDATE: Finished the game! I probably liked this the least of all the Silent Hills I played tbh. Not that I hated it or anything, it was still really fun and what I expected from the series. Just didn't quite captivate me like the others did? The story is a lot less interesting imo. And the characters are a bit less, idk, funny? Not as memorable probably. And the story here is very focused on the cult stuff which I just don't really care about. Like, it was interesting going around Silent Hill 2, thinking that this stuff is just in my mind. It makes it a bit scarier in a way? Rather than like oh we literally are just wandering into hell...Not that I've found the story to be a huge important part in these games but it is the whole backdrop of everything. Gameplay wise, I think the monster designs here were a lot scarier/gross than the other games...which is a good thing I guess! But they are also more annoying to fight I think. I also found that this game gives a lot less resources than the others...I had to rely more on meleeing and on the final boss I actually wondered if I was screwed (having run out of healing items and ammo). It's not that I couldn't find items either, as my ending screen told me that I indeed found all the items in the game. There were just lots of points where I was running around looking for stuff and the game just gave me nothing. There are also less guns in this one, you pretty much only have the handgun and shotgun. You get an SMG but there's only one ammo pack you ever find I think? However, this feeling of helplessness perhaps adds to the scariness of this game, although since I totally never get scared, it's just annoying too. The combat itself is more clunky than the others and it can be hard to actually hit things. I remember collecting a bunch of jerky and not using it at all, it didn't seem to work well. When I think back, this game felt longer too, as we went through a lot of areas...but this just makes the lack of items stand out more. Personally I remember just really enjoying SH2 where there were items anywhere I went to explore and I could shoot things to my hearts content hehe...Puzzle wise, I think the puzzles in this game were good actually, I was able to solve them all pretty quickly, not really getting stuck. I think things were pretty well designed in this sense. HOWEVER, one notable aspect of the design on this game is it is a lot meaner - many trap rooms or rooms with just nothing in them. In the previous games, I feel like I remember every room you go to being purposeful. If I explored everywhere in SH2, I would be reward with items. That's not the case in this game. When I compare this game to Silent Hill 1 as well...I think that game did a better job of being atmospheric and mysterious. Maybe that's just inevitable considering this is a sequel game and people know what to expect at this point. Overall though, I did still like it. It is the expected Silent Hill experience, just a little worse than the previous games (in my opinion, I know a lot of people love this game actually). I WILL say I think it's cool how this game directly ties to the others, revisiting old locations and old characters being mentioned. Really ties things together and makes the 1st game make a lot more sense!

Metal Gear Solid 4

This is supposedly the "movie" game with a lot of cutscenes. I don't think I have gotten to that point yet as I have experienced quite a bit of gameplay, which has been quite fun. It feels really great being in the Metal Gear universe and seeing all these characters I know (and learning new ones!). This game is pretty long I think so it'll take a while for my full review to get up here. ALSO, being a PS3 exclusive suuucks and it's been a bit difficult for me to run this game but so far it's okay!!

UPDATE: This game was very good!! I enjoyed it a lot. The story hit harder than I thought it would. It's like everything came together in this game. My experience is probably quite different to others since I played it on my "PS3" and had to sit through long loading times and jank graphics rendering, but I'd say it was worth it. I was told that this game was 90% cutscenes, just full of cutscenes all the time, but tbh I didn't feel that. Maybe I just got through the gameplay sections slower than most, but it felt like a good mix to me. There definitely was a lot more to do in the beginning of the game though. I quite enjoyed the gameplay for the most part, both stealth wise and combat wise, just solid. However some of the boss fights just felt ridiculous and frustrating (particularly the flying one). But nothing too bad. The last fights were sooo cool and especially the final boss had a lot of cool callbacks. This whole game felt very nice as an enjoyer of the previous games, seeing everything pay off and be referenced. I think it had a really good conclusion too, wrapping up all the characters stories. I felt a bit sad though, because I wanted to see more! I wanted to see exactly how everything ended for these guys, but I guess that's maybe asking too much. They have their own lives to live....heh...

Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines

I think a vampire roleplaying game seems really cool. And this game seems well done with a lot of choices and ways to "immerse" yourself in the world. It's just not really for me? I don't think these Western style RPGs are really for me. It's a lot of dialogue to get through, a lot of just standing around and talking, and nothing is too engaging outside of this stuff (ie combat etc) to really make up for it and keep me engaged. The endless going back and forth quests kiiindd of suuuck...There aren't really like quest markers or anything to track much progress either, so it's easy to feel lost. Personally I like more linear style games with clear objectives and such. I could see people who are really into roleplay and tabletop games and such liking this and wanting to live out their fantasies but personally I'd rather take out the boring day to day talk in my fantasy okay...I LOVE the vampires tho...I WISH I COULDA BEEN A HOTTER VAMPIRE AND ALSO HAD MY BLOOD SUCKED BY SOMEONE REEEE...

Silent Hill 2

Quite a banger so far. I really like this one. Totally not scary...I am addicted...

UPDATE: I love this game actually...Such a fun experience. It was never frustrating, just always fun. I love running around, I love finding items, I love the creepyness (despite nothing really scary actually happening), I love the silly dialogue and cutscenes, I love the characters and the symbolism it's so DEEP guys!! But really, whenever I played this game I found myself just thinking about it more and wanting to get back to playing it. BANGER game!! The sound design deserves a shoutout too because it is absolutely amazing. I learned also that apparently they recorded like 100+ footstep variations so that the walking/running would always feel right. Super cool! While the story is a bit iffy and I don't think it quiiite delivered on my expectations, it still was very fitting and I liked it. And looking at things in retrospect, so much stuff makes more sense and you can really feel how much the developers cared with all the small details here and there. I only wish that it was longer tbh. I feel like I will be searching for games that feel like this for quite a while...

Home Safety Hotline

Short little indie horror game. I enjoyed the analog horror aspect but it felt a bit, idk, dry? Or shallow? Like just very basic analog horror stuff. The entires were cool but nothing was really scary or anything. There wasn't really chances to *be* scared because of the nature of the game, you have as much time as you want to look through the entires and pick. Maybe it would be more fun of a game if you had limited time? I mean, it's not like callers will indefinitely stay on the line right. It would also be cool if you got to experience what happens to the customers in some way, especially when you mess up and something goes wrong to them. It is one thing to just hear their reactions and screaming or whatever (which is easy to feel detached from) but I think there is more potential there. The ending part was fun actually, identifying the entities without having access to the "dictionnary". The ending was a bit strange though and weirdly wholesome? Anyways, while I enjoyed the game I wish it was more because it is a very cool concept and I felt disappointed especially with the lack of horror and the passive style of gameplay. The presentation is great in this game though. You also need to think quite a bit for the choices of entities so it is not too easy (but on the flip side, spending a long time thinking about it could be quite boring).

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

So far really enjoying this one so far. Nemesis isn't so bad to deal with but he's definitely spooked me a lot with his prescence, and it's definitely an interesting experience having to always worry when he's going to show up next, it keeps you on your toes (although I mostly just forgot about him anyways). will write more later

Really fun! Had some cool small changes, but it was overall again what I would expect from Resident Evil after playing the 1st and 2nd games. Nemesis was really interesting to play around, unfortunately I sucked so I didn't fight him much and just ran haha. But it's neat that there is that option! You're rewarded for achieving mastery over the game and beating Nemesis with new guns that probably make the game quite fun. Overall I wish the game was longer because it was so fun! The story was fine as well actually, almost more sensical than the past games I played haha, just straight forward (but with how simple it is, you could also wonder, what was the point really? hmmm).

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Feels quite different from the previous entries, but still familiar enough. I don't like the camera and I don't like the removal of the map/radar. But the story is pretty interesting and funny :) Boss fights are fun so far too. more later.

UPDATE: Yeah I really like this. I do think it is probably the best MGS game that I've played so far. I think the story is much more grounded and engaging than the previous entries, like it's some good shit. The twists at the end really hit hard. And gameplay wise, it IS pretty fun and I do appreciate it. The gunplay feels pretty wack to me, but maybe that's just my own bias. I personally just found it hard to shoot sometimes. Having to switch to first person mode so often takes some getting used to and doesn't feel very nice. But I do like how many mechanics are in this game and it does actually feel pretty "immersive"? It's cool collecting the camos and changing what you wear depending on the environment...and finding food throughout the world. The option to kill bosses with stamina or damage is neat too and would lead to some varied playthroughs. I also like how all the boss battles feel so different. It's really different experiences and feels like Kojima was really experimenting here with what a "boss battle" can be. I can see myself wanting to play this game just to try out different playstyles and to optimize my playing, as well as to experience the story again and put everything completely together. There's some big symbolism in this game especially in regards to the game's title...and I like how it is pretty standalone as a prequel, it was fun noticing things from the previous games I played and seeing how they will change.

Outer Wilds

Honestly, I didn't like this game too much. Though I did really want to like it. It seems like a cool concept right? You're in space exploring around! But it wasn't really what I thought it'd be. The flying, while fun, isn't super in depth or complex or anything. There's no upgrades available. No combat. Not really NPCs to talk to. There's less planets to explore than I expected. It's really more of a mystery game, putting together these clues you find. What I dislike about this game is that 1) exploring actually kind of sucks - you can spend a lot of time trying to go somewhere and find nothing. You can explore and find things and then there's not really anything there, and then you die because of the limited time you have, which goes into 2) the limited time, which makes it feel like you have to rush, can't take your time...it's just added pressure. Maybe I'm not big brain enough for this, apparently you can clear the game super fast if you know what you're doing. I feel it might be a fun game to return to after some time, once in a while, and putting things together, but as a streaming game where you have to play a lot of at once, it can be quite frustrating and you can get stuck going nowhere. People are also SO sensitive about spoilers for this game lol (honestly I barely understood what I found anyways it's pretty abstract, maybe that's a me issue again tho. It seems like you really need to get into the lore for this game too).

Doom

Really enjoy this. Super fun gameplay, amazing visuals and sound. I love how these pixel games look. The guns are great, it's fun exploring around and looking for secrets. Although, some maps and secrets feel downright cruel and evil sob. will wrote more when i finish.

I beat DOOM 1, it was really fun. Very cool. What can I say really? Great combination of everything. Not much of a story I guess but I don't mind that. The secrets can be hard to find sometimes, the maps are confusing sometimes, but it is still fine. I'm not sure what to label this as, since I'm continuing with Doom 2 and I plan to continue after that with more installments, and making seperate entries for each game feels silly when they are so short to begin with. So, I'll just be rating every DOOM game I play here. But I might have trouble saying anything about it cuz...it's just Doom y'know?