Reviews
Reviews of the games I play, aiming to quickly encapsulate the game’s essence and quirks. Most games have an audience; my goal is for the review to make it clear to you whether you are part of a game’s audience (whether or not I am).
A first-person puzzle game in which you manipulate designated cubes in the environment to create platforms, barriers, springboards, and more in order to solve a series of puzzle rooms in a stark, sterile, and modular-looking environment. More mechanics are introduced over time and the puzzles become more complex and allow for new applications.
A sequel to Balloon Fight that takes the “Balloon Trip” concept and expands it into a full platformer. Play as Alice, a girl who can fly just like a Balloon Fighter with her two balloons. Taking damage will pop first one balloon, leaving you with less lift, and then the second, leaving you unable to fly - but you can still run and jump and if you land on solid ground you can inflate new balloons.
An action game similar enough to Joust that today it would be called a clone, though there are some changes to the formula and everything is wrapped in a more kid-friendly and arguably more-readable aesthetic. Gameplay still consists of flying fighters in a single-screen arena who battle by bumping into each other with the higher-altitude combatant being the victor, but this time instead of bird-mounted knights the characters are humans held aloft by balloons.
An action game in which bird-mounted knights fly around and battle in a single-screen arena. Controls are simple - the only buttons are left, right, and flap - though the physics take some getting used to. Fighting is accomplished just by colliding with another knight, with the victor being the one who’s higher up.
Two short (about 20 minutes each) goofy FMV choose-your-own-adventure games where you must help Awkward Steve navigate mildly-difficult social situations.
In the first game, A STRANGER COMES CALLING, the doorbell rings while Steve isn’t expecting any visitors. Your goal is to reduce Steve’s anxiety to the point where he is willing to answer the door.
An online first-person shooter with heavy RPG elements set in a space opera universe. Level up by shooting enemies and completing quests, collect loot and ammo drops, and raise your reputation with various factions to buy unique and powerful items. There are three character classes to choose from and each has their own skill tree that allows for a certain amount of role specialization, but every class is viable for solo play as well.
A gorgeous 2D-platformer with Metroidvania and bullet hell elements. While many powers you gain over the course of the game are related to combat or traversal, you also get the ability to switch between blue and red. The environment has platforms, hazards, and enemies of both colors. You have to be the right color to ride a platform, avoid damage from a hazard, or deal damage to an enemy - which can mean rapid Ikaruga-like switching as the bullet hell ramps up.
A fairly simple first-person grid-based dungeon-crawler. You always have one of three partner characters with you, each with different strengths for the game’s active but streamlined combat. Press one button to do a single-target attack (which the archer excels at), press another button to attack all enemies (which the whipper excels at), and another button to block enemy attacks - do it with perfect timing and execute the QTE that follows to unleash a super attack (which the spellcaster excels at).
A rhythm game tribute to the long-running Final Fantasy series. There are songs and characters from essentially every game in the franchise (and some from other Square Enix titles through DLC). Songs are grouped into a few different kinds of levels depending on the nature of the music - battle music has you fighting a series of monsters, event music plays over cutscenes, and field music has you journeying through the game world.
A spiritual successor to Fahrenheit that carries forward its strengths and fixes most of its flaws. You play as a handful of characters investigating a serial abductor and killer of children with time running out for the latest victim. As before, controls are nontraditional and designed to immerse the player in the game’s world and the characters' emotions, and the player’s actions result in bends and branches in the game’s story.