game review – Page 3

Quick thoughts on: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: The Order of Giants

17/10/2025 17/10/2025

It’s been almost a year since the release of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. A game that I liked a lot, but also felt like it was a bit too long and too ambitious and in the end didn’t quite scratch the same itch as the classic The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. And as the time went by, I found myself rarely remembering the title, which was a bit sad to realize. Nonetheless, it was and still is a unique game for modern gaming market, so I was still looking forward for its only announced DLC – The Order of Giants. This DLC is finally out and… it’s fine. And also somewhat pointless.

Thoughts on: Gears of War: Reloaded (campaign only)

11/10/2025 11/10/2025

Gears of War was quite an influential and important release. It paved the way for the cover-based shooters (while itself being influenced by Resident Evil 4), continued the popularity of cooperative titles while also fortifying the popularity of Xbox as the main console for multiplayer gaming. It became one of the main reasons for Unreal Engine 3 dominance during its era and turned Epic Games from a cool tech company popular mostly with PC multiplayer people into a household name. And is also a game I never particularly cared about. I played it in 2007 when it got ported to PC and found it to be quite tedious and, quite frankly, hideously ugly. After which I have proceeded to ignore the franchise right up until Gears 5, which I did play and enjoy. But it’s not like I was not curious about the other entries or even revisiting the original eventually, so I’m glad that a much better option now exists with Gears of War: Reloaded. A game that still uses Unreal Engine 3, but runs well on modern hardware and doesn’t look disgustingly greyish brown.

O tempora: Gex Trilogy

04/10/2025 04/10/2025

O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.

My taste in platformers is something some consider unnatural. Despite growing during the era when platforming games of many variations were the dominant genre of games, there were not that many I actually liked. Mario games? Nope. Sonic games? Kinda, but not really my thing. Mega Man? Nah. Classic Castlevania titles? Also no. I admire and respect a lot of entries in those series, but the closer it gets to being just a platformer or action platformer, the less likely I am to enjoy the game, usually. Especially with 2D ones. Exploration focused games, like so called “metroidvanias” I do love. But if it’s just about jumping or jumping and shooting, especially if the game is supposed to be challenging – not for me.

And while there are a lot more 3D platformers that I like, it’s not a gigantic list as well. It lacks Mario, for example. But it does include Gex: Enter the Gecko – a game I have considered to be my favorite 3D platformer for the longest time. So when this game, as part of the “whole” “Trilogy” of Gex games was announced to be re-released, I was super excited. It didn’t need to be a remaster or a remake, just a very good re-release (emulated or not) of the original titles. Gex Trilogy is not quite there, though I’m still happy it exists.

Happy about: Caput Mortum

26/09/2025 26/09/2025

Imagine the look of an early 2000s horror themed FPS mixed with elements of King’s Field and Penumbra, all wrapped in influences of Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, with a pinch of mood of Arx Fatalis and Clive Barker’s Undying. This is a lot of references, but the idea here is that Caput Mortum is a freshly released horror themed action adventure game, but it feels like it could come out back in 2003 and feel right at home there. I mean it in the best sense. And while the game is quite short, it uses its runtime exceptionally well.

Read more“Happy about: Caput Mortum”

Happy about: Herdling

20/09/2025 20/09/2025

With how many times I’ve seen games going for a moody games about a journey that feature no words over the decades, all I want from them is to just know what they want to do and when to stop. Starting from cinematic platformers of the early 90s and evolving through Ico and Journey, we’ve seen this approach taken so many times. All of the games like this are pretty and atmospheric, but they might focus on different aspects and mechanics. In case of Herdling – it’s about herding cute wooly cattle-like creatures on a journey from a city into the mountains and helping them avoid dangers. It lacks traditional puzzles, doesn’t really have a lot of “challenge”, has some optional exploration at times, but is mostly about moving forward. And it knows what it wants to do and when to stop.

Thoughts on: OFF

13/09/2025 13/09/2025

Closer to the end of the 2000s the independent game development scene was starting to bloom. Independent developers have been doing it for a very long time by that point, but the mix of availability of tools and the evolution of the internet changed the game. People didn’t consider the commercial releases for their games yet as often as they do now, so a lot of genuinely impressive, influential and highly praised titles were released completely for free. OFF was one such title – originally released in 2008, completely in French, it was a surreal horror themed RPG made in RPG Maker 2003 with a memorable soundtrack. And a couple years later, with few unofficial fan made English translations, the game started going rounds around the internet and was often a target for then rising popularity of Let’s Play format of recorded game playthroughs on YouTube.

And now in 2025, after years of being talked about and influencing other developers, the game is officially translated into English, ported to Unity and is available as a commercial release. A faithful recreation of the original project with some improvements and some side-steps.

Disapprove: Cronos: The New Dawn

07/09/2025 07/09/2025

Given Bloober Team’s previous track record and initial showings of Cronos: The New Dawn, I was considering ignoring it entirely as it looked extremely mediocre at best. Yet, at release, the game started getting a lot of positive reviews from everywhere. It can’t be that so many people are praising a poor game, right? Wrong, apparently. Cronos turned out to be not just mediocre in ways that I predicted, but it also somehow managed to do poorly things, that Bloober Team usually does really well.

Happy about: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

30/08/2025 30/08/2025

A few years ago Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered had a surprise PC release so I had a chance to finally experience the new superhero open world title – something that I don’t find enjoyable as often as I’d like. But the game, despite having several notable flaws, was really fun and in many ways felt like a new benchmark on how to make an open world title with fun traversal around said world, and how to build the main and side story content in a way that feels well paced and rewarding, while also fitting with the main character so well. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales followed soon after, and while it was still good, it also felt a bit “too much of the same”, without fully fixing the issues of the original. So where does this leave Marvel’s Spider-Man 2? Well, in some ways it is the best game in the series so far. But in some – it loses a bit of the personality that the first two games had.

Thoughts on: God of War Ragnarök

22/08/2025 22/08/2025

Three and a half years ago God of War (originally a PS4 exclusive from 2018) was released on PC and despite its flaws I loved it. It was a significant departure from the original trilogy of games (and the rest of the Greek era of the franchise) with the biggest difference being in how story focused the title became. And how surprisingly well it was all handled. Going from “cool dude stabs gods” to serious drama was handled exceptionally well, all while the combat was “good enough” and exploration of the world and puzzle solving was genuinely exciting. That original game had a sequel tease built into its own epilogue scene, so unsurprisingly said sequel was made – God of War Ragnarök was originally released on PS4 and PS5 in 2022. And last year it was ported to PCs and after postponing the playthrough for a while, I’ve finally decided to play it. And it’s… I guess it’s okay.

Thoughts on: RoboCop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business

15/08/2025 15/08/2025

Several years ago Polish development studio Teyon have shown a lot of promise with Terminator: Resistance. It was a great showcase of using the “middle-budget” kinds of money to create a great experience within a game world built around a movie license and while not without flaws, it (and its later DLCs) was highly enjoyable experience. That was followed up by RoboCop: Rogue City a few years later – a game that played quite differently, yet still fit wonderfully within the established movie world and provided a fun FPS experience where you play as, essentially, a walking tank. This game now has also received an expansion, however this time it was, for whatever reason, released as a standalone game – RoboCop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business. And it’s not a good follow up at all.