Ironclad Tactics: It’s an interesting design, a mix of tactical combat and deckbuilding that isn’t like a lot of games on the market, but you can only release some cards by playing with friends and there’s no central server so I have to schedule games with my existing Steam friends, most of whom don’t own the game. This is the sort of game where a public lobby is basically necessary and there is not that thing. Maybe they will add one because it is still in development? I hope? Because that would make it a lot better.
Jamestown: I love shmups but I am terrible at shmups. Like, back when I was twelve we had a sit-down arcade cabinet version of 1943 in the coffee shop near school and I played that thing to death and I never stopped sucking at it. Twenty-five years later, absolutely nothing has changed. Jamestown is gorgeous and clearly very detailed in its gameplay, so far as I can tell from watching other people get much further in it on Youtube than I will ever get because I keep blowing up.
Alan Wake: hey look it’s a shitty story AND a shitty game, that’s an innovative twist
Guacamelee!: The visual design of the game is fun. The fighting is fun. The endless jumping puzzles are challenging and much less fun than the fighting, and there are a lot more jumping puzzles than there is fighting, which: I get that it is a platformer, but it is a platformer about a luchador fighting the King of the Dead, and the crucial “fight/jump” balance is off in the wrong direction entirely.
Deadlight: “What if the original 2D Prince of Persia was a zombie game?” “Then it would be okay.”
Spelunky HD: This is interesting in contrast to Jamestown and Guacamelee in that I traditionally excel at platformers but I am awful at Spelunky. Granted, it’s a combination platformer/roguelike, but I like roguelikes too and… man, I suck at this game so hard. It’s kind of embarrassing. Every time I die it’s from the stupidest goddamn thing. “Oh, you didn’t see the arrow shooter trap? Dead.” “Oh, yeah, spider death. Probably shoulda jumped on that all Mario style, but you screwed it up.” I glanced at the Spelunky wiki at one point to see what some item did and was shocked to see how deep the game goes and how far I was from playing it even half-competently.
King of Fighters XIII: I will not drop $80 on a USB arcade stick. I will not drop $80 on a USB arcade stick. I will not drop $80 on a USB arcade stick.
McPixel: The joy of games like Wario Ware is that usually you can intuitively figure out what you’re supposed to do in the brief time frame allotted to you. McPixel decides to instead make your objective deliberately obtuse. I am not sure why they did this exactly. Maybe they don’t want people to have fun playing their game? That would be bold level design, I suppose.
Sepulchre: The developer and author explain that they wanted to make a “true” horror game because all those other horror games rely on shock and that’s not real horror, real horror is the sense of creeping dread, like in this game where the shocking twist is like the least shocking twist ever when it comes to horror fiction and also the voice acting is kinda bad and, let’s be honest, “creeping dread” and “bad pixel art” do not exactly go hand in hand. On the other hand, it is free, so you get what you pay for almost.
Gunpoint: I got to the point where you pick your ending and I stopped because I can’t make up my mind. Other than that this is a great little game with lots of neat mechanics, good writing and decent retro graphics that are simple without being all HEY LOOK WE DID BLOCKY PIXELS because god, I am sick to death of pixel games being pixel games for the sake of being pixel games.
Ducktales Remastered: Loses a bit in the modern translation (the story cutscenes are just kind of annoying) and to be honest, there are plenty of platformers out there that learned all of Ducktales‘ tricks and improved upon them, which is to be expected from a game from the late 80s, isn’t it? I mean, yeah it’s great that this bit of gaming history got remade and all, but it’s like everybody acting excited that Nintendo remade an old Zelda game in HD: I am not sure why I am supposed to care that much.
Babel Rising: hee hee squish all the peoples squish them and zap them hee hee hee this is all I have ever wanted from a god game ever