Recent reviews by Kellamity

In my opinion the best DLC for Escape Simulator so far.
Puzzles are diverse and creative, not like anything you've seen so far in base game and previous DLCs. I played as a team of 4 and everyone had something to do. The last room is particularly fun with company!
This DLC is heavily inspired by Harry Potter which is a plus for me, because of all the references. For everyone who is not familiar with HP, it still feels magical and looks gorgeous.
Also, this price is more than fair (maybe even a little low) - 4 rooms took us almost 2 hours and are really high quality.
Highly recommend and congratulations to the developers!

Just... no

I wish for a mixed recommendation button for this game...
I set myself a pretty high difficulty level because I wanted to get all my achievements in one go, so this review will be heavily affected by it.

It's not such a bad game, it has its moments but I am left with overall feeling like after a mediocrate noir book... If you want to be a good cop boss - there is no way. You can be a community serving one with enough crimes committed to get you a long sentence and be happy about it. I was the cop who had to do it all - all calls answered, mafia kept happy, all other affairs handled. I earned my money quickly but the game punished me every time it had to and had an opportunity to...
Let me explain.
Between chapters your cop rooster gets shuffled - almost all of them become tired, few of them are fired, and some low professionalism lads are hired instead. When this first happened to me I was furious - I kept my team as happy as I could, trained them, paid them under the table, and what? I had to replay that day so many times to somehow handle all requests, not make those who are left dying on calls... Then just a few in-game days later almost all of my highest-ranking staff got killed... I was staring at the screen for a solid 2 minutes before smacking ALT-F4 with whatever was left of my energy... When a game intentionally nerfs you is one thing, but abusive RNG is another.... This happened all over again in Act 3 and I almost cried.

This Is The Police is the best in its first act. Cool cop boss simulator with simple yet effective investigation mechanics. I wish it stayed this way for longer. Detective investigations are cool, but everyday cases become ridiculous pretty quickly (I noticed a few days into Act 2, but it probably started sooner). I imagine Freeburg is way smaller than Miami or New York and yet there can be multiple shootings, mass riots, and violent homicides each day... This makes Acts 2 and 3 almost unbearable as you cannot send a single police officer (even with insane professionalism) alone... Maybe SWAT would make a difference but I refused to use them for the sake of achievements - if your game gets this punishing without any real differences in the overall story yet achievements look like they are intended for multiple playthroughs then something is badly planned... It's just not worth my time and after playing it the way I chose it it was not worth spending so much energy on it...

I look forward to a better game that could utilize Act 1 mechanics better and maybe introduce a little more enjoyable story... There is no way to like Jack Boyd as a person, especially after finishing his story.

With the release of CSII, I feel like writing a small tribute to the game that changed city-building simulators forever.

With almost 500 hours of designing, building, struggling, and modding, I can say without a doubt that City Skylines in its final form is an outstanding game. Players have full freedom to create their lovely (or broken) cities even in such details as single benches and bushes. For me, it worked best on the neighborhood scale - placing manually (with mods) each building, then roads, and pavements, and finally all decorations and foliage. My first city broke quite spectacularly because of traffic, the second one because of the failed dam, and the third one - my slowest creation, is thriving with public transportation and extended industry.

You don't need mods to enjoy it, but a lot of them are making less polished aspects of the game easier - traffic management with vanilla is hectic, and cargo trains can break if you don't think them through. It's not an issue for most of the time, but if like me you wish to make some memories with beautiful photos mods will deliver insane new depth to both looks and gameplay.

Overall I love this game. It outgrew a spot in my heart created by Simcity, taught me lane mathematics, and prepared a lot of patience for Cities Skylines II - which I am happy to observe grow until the day I will be ready to leave a review for it as well.

Terra Nil has an idea about itself and it makes the game stand out in its genre. It's not your everyday job to save a planet and restore biomes in a way that allows different animals to thrive. It's a resource management game in its early stages, then it turns into a puzzle game with very satisfying aesthetics during biome planting, and at the very end becomes a logistic planner to clean up all left-out technology.

I found Terra Nil easy to learn, with just enough challenge on the recommended difficulty to still be relaxing and enjoyable after a whole day at work. At the same time,
I feel like this game is a bit short and does not provide enough replayability, but I count on devs to release some more content or maybe Workshop support.
[VITA NOVA UPDATE] I love it! More places to fix, better animal handling and new achievements! I can fully recommend this game in it's current state.

With that Terra Nil can join my elite group of games to play when I just want to see pretty graphics, fix some puzzles and fully enjoy time spent with it.

I am in love with this game but so many won't be.
I am trying to achieve everything but so many will get bored early.
I am playing in semi-stable 60fps but most will play with barely 20fps.
Lore is amazing and pulls so much from what's already established but at the same time, the main story is not that captivating.
Many characters are lovable, well constructed, and amazingly voiced, others are just shallow and uninteresting, all of them animated with a stick up their bum - but feminine running animation is gorgeous and light.

Does this make Hogwarts Legacy a bad game? In my opinion not at all - but the target audience is not what one would expect.


Harry Potter books are specific - they are mostly slow-paced, heavily descriptive stories full of wonders and a lot of time to proceed with the story. Up until the last chapters we are exploring the world of Wizardry with a great deal of affection and curiosity.
Avalanche Software took great inspiration from this and is revealing their creation rather slowly and unlike any other modern action game. At first, we got some action, then almost none but this is used to create enough space to wander - and there is plenty of space to wander. The first time they allowed me to run around Hogwarts undisturbed I just walked to discover what was hidden in the castle. It's a rather peculiar choice regarding hard-core gamers but the ideal solution for Potterheads, younger audiences, and casuals. You will get immersed only if you are willing to accept a slow tempo of progression.


This is a very pretty game but not graphically and I will elaborate a little about that. I tried low settings, medium settings, ultra settings, and even raytracing but to be honest that doesn't matter. This game is not pretty by current graphic standards set by game-benchmarks. It is stunning and gorgeous because of its environmental storytelling and details. Oh, so many details! I don't mind occasional stutters and drops to 20 fps when I can just stop for a second and admire armors humming, galaxies swirling around under the roof, or owls flying between buildings. Hogwarts Legacy has an ambiance unlike any other game and a carefully crafted world full of so many details, easter eggs, references, and small events you will want to stand around and to nothing to admire them. You don't need 60 fps, raytracing, or ultra in 4k settings for that - they are working just as well on low in Full HD.


I love/hate Avalanche that they made me progress the main story so far to unlock so many big game mechanisms but at the same time I didn't get overwhelmed by them too early, I got to adjust and use everything available for me at each point. I can't remember the last game that encouraged me so smartly about using everything I am learning and at the same time showed me what I still have to learn. I was constantly but gently getting pushed forward by curiosity and anticipation. Each time I progressed I was heavily rewarded all around the map! it is such a great way to make you WANT to go back there and explore!


As I mentioned this game will match mostly specific audiences - so many people will drop it because of a slow pace, lack of understanding of source material, and annoyance caused by unstable performance. Everyone else will love it so deeply and will get lost in Hogwarts during magical beasts' caring, potions brewing, or flying around just to admire the view. I love that it turned that way because sometimes you just need a slow-paced, comforting game for an awful evening at home. This game wraps you in a warm blanket of magic experience, lets you wander like a kid, and with a gentle hand pushes you to keep exploring.

All my high expectations have been met - it is truly the best Wizarding game ever created!

I and my friends were a little late to the Escape Room trend but once we started we couldn't get enough. There are a lot of rooms near us and in less than a 1-hour drive but it's tough to synchronize our schedules to find more than 1 slot a month to play. We needed a faster, easier method to play some cooperative puzzles and that's how we found Escape Simulator!

It's a bit different feeling than analog rooms but it's close enough. Puzzles are diverse - based on locks, ciphers, puzzle boxes, etc. as well as electronic devices, physical/chemical/biological experiments, and old-school items breaking with a hammer. Rooms made by devs follow certain schema but it's not repetitive nor boring - you learn new tricks in almost every scenario. In general, we enjoy this game, and are coming back to it now and then to calm down the urge to go to a real-life Escape Room when we can't find enough free time or money :D

PROS:
- pretty - this game looks really lovely. Cartoon graphics makes everything very readable and sharp so it's pretty hard to not notice important puzzles
- very creative puzzles - even though there are a lot of locks in almost all dev rooms you don't get bored with them because it's always a different way to get the combination. Secrets are in general nicely hidden sometimes even in plain sight, you don't get too much headache over them but get that nice rush of satisfaction after figuring them out.
- good implementation of clues - I wouldn't say rooms are linear. Multiple puzzles are available from the start and I don't think we had to start with a particular one even once. What we found more challenging was to divide them between ourselves. This is also not your typical Point'n'Click game when you have to combine items 'till they work. Most clues are simple but specific, you can easily figure out where to use them. Some clues are maybe too guiding but for good reason (why would anyone write a vague book?). When you are stuck you can always use a hint button and those clues are very nicely done (we used them maybe 3 times across all rooms available in the base game and both DLCs).
- cool design - rooms have themes and they are designed very well. Music fits nicely, sounds are immersive, and items scattered around are just enough distracting.
- workshop support - community rooms vary in quality but the best ones made our jaws drop. It's marvelous what people can make with the in-game level editor and we are actively waiting for the next rooms of our favorite creators.
- controls - those are fine. You can pin items to your view, wear certain objects, and take a look at what your buddy is doing. The only thing that bugged me a little was the unintuitive way of picking up items but I got used to it.

CONS:
- some bugs - it's not bad but some stuff happened. Once the script didn't start at all - we still could finish the room by brute force (but we didn't) but we couldn't access certain mechanics and clues. In the other room, one puzzle glitched and was unsolvable. For both cases, the game restart helped. I think if you are not trying to fight with this game the chance of getting bugs or glitches is low.
- no VR support - this game would be so good in VR. I get that it's probably way too hard to implement it satisfyingly but still - I wish I could play it with goggles.
- the number of people playing matters a lot - the first couple of rooms didn't have enough puzzles to share between 4 people and we still had this issue from time to time later on. Sometimes 4 people trying to solve 4 puzzles generate too much chaos, other times 4 people are working on a single puzzle and struggle to communicate effectively. We played token hunting when someone didn't have any input. Some rooms are almost claustrophobic when played as 4 player team.

In general - worth the price, worth the time, worth the fun :)

I'll be honest - art style was the first thing that caught my eye when I played the demo.
Cute little lamb, grotesque-looking bosses, adorable followers, and a place for a base full of potential.
I wondered how this game will turn out and it didn't disappoint me one bit.

For me, it's a great mix of games I couldn't force myself to play - Binding of Isaac, which felt annoying and a waste of time, and Oxygen Not Included which was tedious and sometimes boring. Cult of the Lamb takes what's best from them and mixes it in perfect proportions for me. As a player who respects time spent in-game and appreciates good mechanics and design I was hooked for so many hours without frustration, tiredness, or boredom. For people who are experienced with rouge-likes, this game will be too easy and caring for cult too boring - for me, limited options of weapons, simple pathing, and very obvious cues from enemies were really helpful and spared me so much rage.

- Cute, cartoon graphics which won't get old and will run on most PCs without problems.
- Whole design! Adorable satanic lamb, caterpillar riding on a snail, and fat cat merchant.
- Very responsive fighting mechanics. Once or twice I couldn't figure out what was going on, but you are always in control of your hero. There are no random changes of direction unless you are whirling your analog stick like a madman.
- Amazing sound design. Music, ambient, pooping, followers talking - nothing takes you out of immersion.
- FOR CASUALS - great difficulty balancing and multiple ways to personalize it. You can pick up tarot cards but you don't have to. You can seek fighting or resources. You can invest in your weapons or your followers - basically player is in charge of the progress rate and I love it!
- The base building is simple but that's enough for a break between fights. There is plenty of ways to gather resources. If you focus on building and cult expansion like me then you will have plenty of everything near the end - my flock eats like kings and generates money so fast it's ridiculous.
- Dice minigame - it's simple, it's nice, and I like it.
- All those little details - poop recycling, followers interacting with each other, dancing, cute sleeping poses, and so much more! It is pure joy for me and I giggled like an idiot through the whole experience.
- YOU CAN PET DOGS!!!
- Also kraby w grach

- For me - the last fight seems easy? I guess it's because Heket and Kallamar taught me a lot about fighting in this game.
- For hardcore fans of rouge-likes it's probably too simple
- Few bugs here and there but in my case nothing game-breaking. The few most annoying glitches were fixed within a few days after the premiere.

It's one of the most relaxing, simple yet spectacular, and beautifully designed games of this year.

I am simply amazed at how fun can it be to shift perspective from a human to a cat and create an environment that is believable for us and at the same time so accessible for an animal.
Even though it is a relatively short game, I found myself deeply immersed in the environment and so excited to explore on paws every single corner. The best part of this exploration is lights - neons, LEDs, and all other sources which create those beautiful images you can admire from all possible perspectives. Clementine's apartment is hands down the loveliest location I've seen in video games recently.

Overall I recommend this game for any casual gamer, who just wants to look at beautiful (and sometimes grotesque) locations, solve relatively simple but enjoyable puzzles (I promise no frustration), and maybe meow at everything (=^ェ^=) Don't forget to snuggle!

I am a long fan of the Half-Life franchise and I had the urge to replay the first game for a very long time. When I finally got to play it... Oh boy, it got ugly and wonky after so many years. I tried to enjoy it, but couldn't, so I thought maybe I could go with the remake.
So yeah, that's how I got here... Happy and mad, with a feeling of fulfillment and disappointment, torn by this game more than by Fallout 4. Take this review with a bit of salt because I might not remember the original game in as much detail as I would want to.

Everyone who loved the original game and has some patience; for people who played Half-Life 2 and wonder how the story went at the very beginning; for people who love Source Engine.

- the graphic is: good enough/so much more pretty (pick one)
- the soul of the original game is still strong
- all levels are designed in a way player knows where to go next and it's amazing. I swear modern level designers should study Vortigaunt-conveyor-belt-hell-level as an example of guiding players just by how the level looks
- hidden easter eggs and details
- good old Source Engine movement and physics
- the first part of the game - Black Mesa, is amazing. Levels have more sense and are enjoyable. The design is spot on, a lot remained from the original game with some modernizations which I really loved.
- most achievements are really fun to do

- Xen... Don't get me wrong it looks stunning. The first time you end up there you are in awe. But the further you go it gets more and more annoying, ugly, and buggy. It's not even a difficulty problem, it's more of a feeling it's being dragged so much without any content. There is this small arena-like chamber with nothing inside it, there are like dozen of vents in one sequence without any action/shooting/puzzle parts... The worst moment was this damn elevator of hell near the end of Interloper... I almost dropped the game because of frustration. Yeah, I don't remember Xen being a nightmare during my playthrough of the original game.
- Hitboxes but not of enemies... Physics works really well until there is some kind of invisible wall. So many times my pizza box got knocked to the outer dimension because of an invisible hitbox of something... I missed Gravity Gun so much when it got stuck in the vent...
- There are some tiny bugs, mostly in Xen, but they are not ruining the game
- Those damn 3 achievements with carrying objects through the whole game... It was not worth it...