Recommended – Page 2

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.

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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.

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.

Happy about: World of Goo 2

19/06/2025 19/06/2025

Many many years ago there was a cool website called Experimental Gameplay Project, that, as I didn’t even realize at the time, was full of university projects (specifically of students from Carnegie Mellon University). There were lots of short but very memorable and fun little projects, some of which were just silly fun like Attack of the Killer Swarm, On a Rainy Day, Gravity Head, Tower of Goo or Super Tummy Bubble! (which is basically Suika Game decades before the actual “Watermelon game”) and some were more mysterious and strange like The Crowd. The team behind this project would later form Tomorrow Corporation, but even prior to it, they’ve collaborated on other projects. One of which was done by a mostly two-man team at 2D Boy. The game was a fully realized idea previously shown in Tower of Goo – World of Goo, which was released in 2008 to huge critical success and become one of the earliest biggest examples of independent developer success stories (at least from the critical reception perspective).

Yet, despite the success, following that game up with a direct sequel would’ve been strange. It felt like a more or less well developed idea and its “story” was quite simple. So it made sense that Tomorrow Corporation worked on different puzzle titles that continued some of the themes and ideas, but played very differently. However in 2024 World of Goo 2 was released on several platforms (but with odd exclusivity deals on PC). With the latter being finally over, I was able to complete it and while I have enjoyed it quite a lot, I have to say its existence still feels strange.

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O tempora: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City – The Definitive Edition

18/05/2025 18/05/2025

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

While Grand Theft Auto has existed since 1997 and a lot of its basic structure and ideas remained the same to this day, Vice City was an important milestone in its development. Still full of crazy arcade-style elements, this was the first game to try focusing on a story, interesting characters and gameplay that was “grounded enough”. The second game of the “3D era”, a considerably smaller in scope follow up to GTAIII, it used to be my favorite entry in the series. And while revisiting it with the updated and extremely flawed Definitive Edition, I was glad that it didn’t age that poorly.

O tempora: Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered

11/05/2025 11/05/2025

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

Almost precisely a year ago, I’ve experienced Tomb Raider I-III Remastered collection and my thoughts on it were conflicted. One one hand, it was the best way to experience three classic titles in the influential franchise. On another – all games apart from the original weren’t that good and collection itself had some questionable choices made. As a result, I was quite curious about what Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered could be, given that I already considered The Last Revelation the best classic TR title and liked most of Chronicles. These were the games I’ve played a lot and the games that, in my opinion, aged a lot better. The collection includes The Angel of Darkness as well, of course, that I did not expect much from this re-release, given how dreadful my first and only experience with the game was over 20 years ago. So, how did it go this time? In some ways worse with the collection itself raising a lot more questions.

Happy about: The Beekeeper’s Picnic – A Sherlockian Adventure

05/05/2025 05/05/2025

Over the years there have been plenty of Sherlock Holmes media, some of which attempted to be closer to the original works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and some tried to reinterpret the famous character. Having been a fan of the books since my childhood and lucky enough to have worked on two games based on the character as an adult, The Beekeeper’s Picnic – A Sherlockian Adventure caught my attention as a seemingly “wholesome” approach to the character, set during his retirement days. And now having played it – it really is very nice.

O tempora: Sonic Origins Plus

24/04/2025 24/04/2025

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

I watched my friends play Sonic games a lot, I played Sonic games a fair bit, the style, the soundtracks, the Knuckles himself… So many memories about these games that… I don’t love that much, if I’m honest. I’m not much into platforming games in general, unless they focus on exploration and/or puzzle solving, so despite the era of games I grew up with having so many great (and not great) examples of the genre, I didn’t play a lot of them much or at all. But after replaying Sonic Generations for the Sonic X Shadow Generations release that I really liked, I was in the mood for more Sonic. So after giving Frontiers a try and getting frustrated with it after a few hours (even though it has so many things done so well), I’ve decided to finally play Sonic Origins with the Plus expansion. And this return to the classics was somewhat predictable, but still necessary for me.

Happy about: Ninja Gaiden 2 Black

18/04/2025 18/04/2025

This has been the first Ninja Gaiden game I have completed. Sure, I have played the classic NES titles, but I was never a fan of action platformers, so I saw more of those games more than played them myself. And of course I have heard a lot about the reboot of on the original Xbox, later re-released as Ninja Gaiden Black. But didn’t own the consoles you could play it, or its sequels on. I did plan to grab the Master Collection when it was announced, but was dissuaded by the negative reviews on the PC port quality. It was as if playing Ninja Gaiden is just not going to happen, until earlier this year an upcoming sequel to the rebooted series was announced. And, even more surprising, the announcement was accompanied by the same day release of Ninja Gaiden 2 Black – a remake of a remake of the second game, but now running on Unreal Engine 5. I had to finally play this game, and I am extremely glad I did.