Recent reviews by Big Jim

I was going to type a lot here about the game but it's better to go into it knowing as little as possible. It's a third person survival horror game, a genre I have a decent amount of experience with, and is now a strong contender for my favorite of all time. If you've played a few resident evils or silent hills, I'd recommend turning the difficulty up, as my play through on normal turned out to be exceedingly easy.

This is one that will stick with me for a while.

Baba Is You is the most enjoyable puzzle game I have ever played. The core mechanics are interesting and fun without overwhelming you, and the difficulty curve is fairly generous because the game allows you to put off completing a large number of levels if you find them too difficult to solve.

There's around 50 hours of content for a die-hard puzzle fanatic, and closer to double that if you're a bit dim like me. The game will teach you lessons about persistence and patience that will flow over into your every day life. If you think exercising your brain is fun, give this game a go.

In my mind this game is fantastic for two scenarios:

1) Zoning out while you do something else, because it's almost entirely mindless

2) Making new friends and strengthing old bonds

I've played this game for many hours by myself while listening to audio books, because it keeps my hands busy but my mind free. I've also had multiple relationship partners play this game with me and we always had a lot of fun. It's certainly not a conventional game but it fills those two roles perfectly.

One of the best and most soulful experiences I've had with a video game. It packs the kind of emotional punch that I've previously only experienced with some books/visual novels and anime. Undertale combines an amazing soundtrack with amazing writing to produce a masterpiece.

This is hands down one of the best puzzle games I've ever played. The difficulty is paced well and you usually have enough options open to leave a puzzle behind and tackle it later if you get stuck. It's reminisant of portal 2's design, where you have set piece rooms requiring you to combine multiple elements to solve the puzzle.

Aside from the gameplay, the graphics are pretty amazing for the genre of game this is. The atmosphere this game generates is phenomenal when the sound design, art, and story telling all come together.

The plot is a carrot that will keep drawing you forward, forcing you to solve more and more puzzles so that you can understand anything about the world you find yourself in. The story is revealed slowly through snippets of text, requiring the player to piece together the narrative through the course of the game.

Overall this is one of the best games I've played in a long time, and look forward to playing it again after a few months to see how my perspective on it has changed. Would highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys tricky puzzles, lovely atmosphere, or clever writing.

Rise of the Triad is one of the best games of 2013. It manages to get just about everything right: Great music, great graphics, and great gameplay. If you played the original 1995 version of this game, you can really appreciate the work that went into recreating it, with practically every aspect making a return (except the level design, which we should be grateful for).

If you enjoy more arcadey type shooters, you really wont find a better game.