Recent reviews by pinzi

It's fun when it works.

But you know what's not fun? Getting "credentials invalid" message after every 2-3 matches.

I enjoy this game a great deal! The world is huge, open and beautiful. You can choose the order you do things. I finished the main story, yet I have not explored even half of the places on map properly. Collecting stuff is satisfying, even though rewards are often disappointing, for instance collecting worse stat pieces of clothing. At times it felt like I played the game in wrong order, because all items I found were weaker than my current ones.

Exploring Hogwarts itself is easily my favorite part of the game. Most puzzles are easy, but some make you stop and think. It’s rewarding to realize the solution by yourself.

The voice acting is high quality. I often just stopped to listen idle chats students have in the school. Some of them interact with each other and there are small events happening in hallways, but sometimes they are having two different conversations, so if you stop to listen to them, it won’t make much sense. I wish there was more depth to the characters involved. They felt somehow shallow. I didn’t particularly care for any of those I encountered. I wish lectures or classes had more depth to them, as well. It’s pretty much short cut scenes followed by “fetch this and return to me”.

The most disappointing discovery for me was the choices you make don’t make exactly a huge difference. Even choosing the meaner options (me roleplaying as Slytherin) makes character still appear empathetic. Also, using unforgivable spells have no consequences. Some disposable characters will acknowledge it, like fellow goblins will react with a disapproving line or two when you kill or control their teammate, but that’s about it. One actual side character disapproves it, but then again, no consequences. You can throw unforgivable spells left and right in front of your friends and professors without worry – they will not care that you’re using dark magic. I expected people would be at least shocked seeing you avada kedavra enemies so lightly, but nah, it’s all cool. I was hoping for more challenge in battle. Even on hard difficulty, I felt overpowered against enemies quite soon.

Anyway, it’s still a game worth the price and sets nice standard for open world games to follow. Easily one of the best ones I have played and will continue to play further. Hopefully there will be more content to this game in the future.

I appear to be somewhere in the middle of the game so far. It's really pretty, I enjoy the aesthetics of it. The first mission has been my favorite so far, because it gave me real SCP vibes. At times, it feels like What Remains of Edith Finch, which is not a bad thing, but not particularly SCP-esque. Some puzzles are incredibly easy, others made me feel dumb. (Without spoilers, if you want to save your time, fragments puzzle requires you to click and drag, not just click. It may save some frustration for you). My least favorite parts are the chase sequences. They're not scary, just tedious. There are jumpscares, but in my opinion, mostly well placed, so it feels like horror game at times. Hopefully rest of the game is as good. I'd already recommend it at this point. B)

I used to enjoy this game a great deal, one main reason because it used to run smooth as butter, even when escaping the cops. I don't know what you have done to it, developers. Now it's a laggy mess for me after all the updates, and I tested it on different settings, changing all possible variables. I know it's not my PC, because it can easily run heavier stuff. It's a shame, because I was going to get back into this gem after seeing you added achievements. Oh well, RIP chill drug dealing simulator.

Can't recommend it in it's current state.

This game was a pleasant surprise! I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I do. It's relaxing, quirky and fun. Managing a restaurant and a tailor shop simultaneously, killing humans, using their meat to make delicious dishes and stealing their clothes to re-sell to future victims, while trying to successfully evade the police.

The only minus is it's pretty short. Endless mode was a nice addition, but it didn't take long to unlock everything and have things going smoothly. Once you learned the routine of police visits, it gets easy.

Hopefully they will continue to develop this gem further. I'd love to see it evolve.

The first time I played SOMA, I noped out of the game soon after the first encounter with the lamphead monster. Now that I returned to it in 2022, it was still as creepy, but decided to push through the irritating sequence, which was worth it. The fear of the unknown was portrayed and executed well mostly. Once you learned the behavior of each monster, the stealth sneaky parts of the game turned quite tedious for me.

The quiet horror was my favorite - descending into abyss and having to walk at the very bottom of the deepest ocean, not knowing what lurks around you. The story kept me interested throughout the game, although at one point, you figured out which direction it was headed at. I thought it milked the 'oh, humanity' aspect unnecessarily much. Anyway, easily one of the best cosmic horror games I've ever played.

If delivering illegal packages (including humans and droids) in a dystopian city full of neon lights (where unlicensed jazz is punishable by death) sounds appealing to you, then this is the game for you. It's not a challenging game. Story is linear with minimal choices to make. There are lots of achievements, hunting them was one of the most entertaining part of the game for me. Graphics looks pretty for block environment. It's got a chill mood to it, with rain in the background most of the time. It's pretty relaxing running errands for people and AI in the world. If you liked roleplaying taxi in GTA, you'll probably enjoy playing this one.

PS. Don't stand too close to the lift when it arrives. I got stuck there a couple of times and had to restart the game from previous save point. Otherwise, I didn't encounter any bugs. It runs smoothly overall.

First of all, yay for having a lead female character who is strong, yet vulnerable, and not unnecessarily sexualized and simplified trope existing merely for the entertainment of the audience.

This game involves a lot of walking, occasional battles, and puzzles that require you to pay attention to details in the environment. It has quite a few horror elements mixed in all of it.

I personally love Norse mythology and the idea of descending into hell gave me chills, but the parallel with reality was far more impressive. Symptoms of psychosis were presented rather gracefully and combined into the game play. Such as having auditory hallucinations that at times help you, and other times are against you. Also seeing patterns in usually ignored menial things in the surroundings and giving significant meaning to them.

Graphics and design are beautiful. I kept stopping to admire the grim landscapes every once in a while. I enjoyed the battle mechanics, landing hits on enemies was satisfying. I played with a controller, which was far more enjoyable than playing with a keyboard and a mouse, imo. The only thing I found frustrating was having to backtrack to previous place after finishing a battle, rather than having a route that continued there from the battle area. It felt tedious at times and made it a little less rewarding to finish a battle, but it's not a big minus.

All in all, this already became one of my favorite games! And I still haven't finished playing the entire game.

Some spoilers included.

First of all, it is quite buggy, I encountered a few bugs during my gameplay. One of them was a major one that forced me to start all over. The first time I played it, I was hiding under a tree and got eaten by a troll and noped out of the game. When I gathered enough courage again to continue later and reloaded the chapter, it loaded me directly back into the nightmarish situation in which I'm stuck under the tree and a moment later get eaten by the troll over and over again, without being able to even attempt to escape. But once I restarted the game all over from the beginning, it worked normally again. Fortunately, this happened early in the game, so not much progress was lost.

I did enjoy the combination of Norse mythology and horror elements. Apart from the initial traumatizing troll experience, it wasn't exactly scary experience for me after that. It was interesting to discover more pieces of the story and interact with some of the creatures from Norse mythology. It didn't have jumpscares really, if you paid attention, the game warned the player with symbols and notes before encountering a monster.

It's an older game, which shows in graphics and controls. The daytime looked choppy with the highest settings, but the night time made all look prettier. Controls were clumsy and hiding near slight hill made the character bug and sort of jump up and down repeatedly until you moved a bit.

I enjoyed exploring the woods a lot and each time looking forward to what monster I might encounter next. Some were subtle appearances one can easily lose if not explored carefully, for instance I almost missed the Plague hag. I surely didn't discover all the monsters, which makes me want to revisit it in the future to try to encounter them all, it adds a little bit replay value to the game. Otherwise, it's quite linear story.

What an unique experience. It's more like a collection of different artistic pieces and temporary environments with little interaction, than actual game. There's a voice inside your head narrating his interpretation of these scenarios, sometimes without a pause, instead of letting you take it in as it is. I personally liked how it expresses certain elements of mental health issues.