Recent reviews by Chabs

I genuinely enjoyed Entropy: Zero 2. It's a net improvement on the original, with much more substance in terms of gameplay and especially story.

The highlight for me was the dialogues with Wilson, who, if you've read any reviews, is obviously a fan favorite.
It's both funny and endearing. You might think a perpetually emo guy paired with a quirky candid robot would get old fast, but there's really none of that awkward cringeness that some mods and games can have. Really, the writing and voice acting here are top-notch!

As for the gameplay, this is a source mod, so you probably know how limited and dated it is at this point. It's still decent, with more things to shoot with vs the original. But in 2024, it's a little jarring.

Still, Entropy: Zero 2 is a very enjoyable experience. It's free, it's quality. No notes really.

Think of Warpips as one of those old flash games from Miniclip and such sites: Very straightforward, shallow and repetitive, but an entertaining short experience regardless.
It's essentially a sort of tug-of-war, which as I'm typing this is exactly how the game describes itself.

Well worth it at a discount.

Borderlands 3 is a good game, but a bad Borderlands.

The gameplay is crisp and represents a clear improvement on Borderlands 2. Firearms are very pleasant to use, aesthetically pleasing and even more varied. Character movement is much more responsive and precise, as you can now climb over ledges and obstacles. Graphics are a net improvement, although I miss the goofy fluids and fabrics physics. All in all, the core gameplay elements are rock-solid.

What's more disappointing, and clearly worse, is everything that made Borderlands 2 so special: its humor, story and writing...
Borderlands 3 is what you get if you ask a bunch of suits to try and copy what made 2 so funny, and push that a little further. Problem is, they don't understand what made it funny.
It's not well-paced and tries way too hard, too often. The only up-side is that player characters are given more lines, making them feel more involved.
And the number one villains? Cringe does not even begin to describe them. They'll never make a better villain than Handsome Jack it seems.

If you look past that, Borderlands 3 is still an enjoyable game.

Tiny Glade is such peak chill gaming, it's like this thing was designed in a lab.
From the soundscape to the textures and color palet, the cuteness is at its peak.

There are no strict goals, expectations or deadlines to meet. You can simply create your house, castle, village or town as you see fit, using a set of building blocks, other objects and tools. Although these blocks are limited in number, they can be reshaped, resized and combined to create unique structures.

While there is a very slight learning curve in terms of how to use and combine these tools, the game lends itself perfectly to trial and error.

In a world where Blood and Wine, Phantom Liberty, Shivering Isle or even any Fallout New Vegas expansion exist, 30$ for Shattered Space should be considered criminal. Had the base game not been a massive letdown, I'd call this DLC one too.

Essentially, it's a major faction mission. It functions more or less in the same way: you got your major questline that branches into other quests, culminating in some sort of a lackluster finale. And in true Starfield fashion, the writing is super risk-averse, shallow and un-moving. It's all binary "black and white" choice, insipid and almost devoid of any politics. It's like a kids game, and even then it feels like its being condescending towards kids.

Besides the storyline, the new environment, a handful of new side-quests and a couple of new guns and gear (no really, there's like 2-3 new weapons), it's the same Starfield-esque slop.

A big pass.

It's all in the title: Satisfying Factory building, the game.

Satisfactory's one of those 10/10 games. Great execution, and great performance throughout. Very little to complain about if you like the style.
If you're easily entertained by resource-gathering, base-building, logistics-organising, exploring, and seeing the fruits of your labor grow more and more and more, then Satisfactory's going to be your poison for the foreseeable future.

I got this back when it was in early-access, and it has consistently been a solid game. With 1.0 out, you can be certain you're getting a complete and polished game.

A game as beautiful as it is captivating.

You've probably heard or read somewhere that it's hard to talk about Outer Wilds without spoiling it. And that's largely true.
I've deliberately avoided any information about the game, and fortunately for me, most of those who've played it have taken great care to keep it a mystery. I'll do the same.

But unlike some who talk about this game as if it were the Second Coming of Christ, I'm not going to overdo it. That's not to say I was disappointed, far from it. But don't get hyped, and keep your expectations at a normal level. Your experience will be all the better for it, trust me.

If you like exploration, unravelling a good mystery piece by piece, then you'll love Outer Wilds.
Have you played The Forgotten City? You'll love Outer Wilds. Played Subnautica? Think less, go for it. Tunic? Stop thinking!
These games are very different from each other, but they share characteristics that have made up some of my most memorable gaming memories, as Outer Wilds has.

Been ages since GTA V released, and re-released, and re-re-released... etc etc.

The critique remains salient: Awesome single-player game, amazing writing as per usual, great art direction overall making you feel immersed in the game's universe. SO much so that real-life decided to copy it. And the multiplayer was truly groundbreaking, for better and worse.

The game's sales continuously breaking records probably rests exclusively on its multiplayer mode.
It's somewhat of a blast, to this day. But as time passes, its shortcomings become more and more glaring. And it mostly revolves around the in-game economy and overall gameplay mechanics.

The gameplay: To say character movement feels floaty is an understatement. You are at the helm of a LITERAL nuclear aircraft carrier. Driving is alright, but on-foot stuff is just soooo infuriating at times, especially when it comes to micro things, like taking a couple of steps to pick something up. It's unresponsive, delayed and feels hhhheavy. Everything that SHOULDN'T be in a multiplayer game.

Menu navigation and loading is also another grating element. It's very tedious, feels delayed and unresponsive. Just as an example: to interact with one of your businesses' work computer (to get missions, check status, etc), you have to go to said business, get to your laptop (sometimes "far"), reach a certain angle around the laptop to see a prompt, once you get the prompt and press it, your character does a rather long siting animation, once sat you press the next prompt to use the computer and a shorter animation plays. Now imagine doing this again and again and again and again. It's all slow, it's all awkward, makes you wish you were doing something else.

Some quality of life improvements came at a much later point, like how you can initiate missions with a phone call or through simple menus. But some critical ones are hidden behind a paywall (exclusive to the Expanded & Enhanced edition on consoles), notably an app that allows you to manage all your businesses. You can tell that the edifice is shaky as hell. UX is greatly lacking.
But while all of this adds to the frustration, it's the least of its issues.

The economy: It didn't start off this way when the online portion released. Now there wasn't that much to do back in the day, it was still a grind, but everything didn't cost 1 million. Nowadays, grind is the name of the game, and prices are out of control. Most cars go for at least 1 million, businesses, upgrades, weapons are also very expensive. The entire economy is skewed towards making you wish there was a way to expedite the process. And there is! Of course there is... You can buy "Shark cards", and all your grinding fears will vanish.
Granted there are more avenues to generate revenue today, both actively and passively. But at its core, the game is designed around the idea of making you WORK for it. "Go 10km, pick this up, drop it off 10km away again". "Oh you're playing alone? Too bad, here are 4 separate vehicles you need to drop by yourself". More modern content updates respect your time a little more, which is great. But it's a chore, work on top of work. You gotta spend money to make money to spend money on moneymaking. And adding to that the clunky controls, long loading times in public lobbies and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ menus, it can get very infuriating.

I get that urge to play GTA Online every few months. I go in, check what's new, grind the hell out of it to get what's interesting, and just fall back into that same old spiral.
My only hope is that the next title takes greater care in improving the user experience. I'm probably going to be playing the ♥♥♥♥ out of it, but god do I wish the industry could stop going after whales exclusively.

Titanfall 2 holds up well enough in 2024.

The campaign's length is decent-ish. It's varied enough and very "old CoD-like" (straight and to the point).
On the cheap, it makes for an entertaining 8 to 9 hours.

As for multiplayer, it's more or less lively, but matchmaking times can be very long, especially outside of weekends and happy hours. If you do manage to find a match, the balance can tip heavily in one direction, as the community is merciless. With enough good players on a team, there's a high probability that they'll steamroll you, and that subsequent matches will follow the same pattern.

A clear improvement on the first game.
At the time of writing (07/28/24), the game is free to play, making it an excellent way to test the next entry.

If you didn't play the first Intravenous, it's quite a lot like Hotline Miami mixed with Splinter Cell.
You've got different ways of approaching your missions (guns blazing, commando or ninja), and a bunch of tools at your disposal (guns and gadgets). Suffice it to say, replayability value is quite high!

One negative point for me, or rather an area for improvement, would be the way sound works, and more specifically the way enemies can hear silent gunfire through walls just as well as if they were outside. I would expect hard walls (without windows) and obstacles to reduce the range of sound.

Otherwise, this makes me quite excited to play Intravenous 2!