Recent reviews by Brent

~OVERALL RATING~
90%

~ SUMMARY ~
One of the most beautiful games ever made. The cinematography, art design, themes and concepts work harmoniously to immerse you in ancient Japan. You feel like you're playing through a dramatization of the samurai era. The music is absolutely stunning.

The story is good, character development is solid and gameplay is fun. Progression is great, and it's a good balance of open world and linearity with the story. It's a masterpiece in so many ways.

The only thing holding me back from going above 90/100 is that there just isn't that much "delight" beyond the art style. There's lots of cool stuff, but no real surprises, big plot twists or major character progression "moments". It just feels a little safe. Still a stunning experience, but we'll see how memorable it is.

~ DIFFICULTY ~

🔲 My 90 year old grandma could play it
🔲 Easy
✅ Normal
🔲 Hard
🔲 Dark Souls

~ GRAPHICS ~

🔲 MS Paint
🔲 Bad
🔲 Meh
🔲 Graphics don't matter in this game
🔲 Good
🔲 Beautiful
✅ Masterpiece

~ MUSIC ~

🔲 Bad
🔲 Not special
🔲 Good
✅ Beautiful

~ STORY ~

🔲 This game has no story
🔲 Like playing Angry Birds for the story
🔲 It's there for the people who want it
🔲 Well written
✅ Epic story
🔲 A Tolkienesque masterpiece

~ PRICE ~

🔲 Free
🔲 Underpriced
✅ Perfect Price
🔲 Could be cheaper
🔲 Overpriced
🔲 Complete waste of money

~ REQUIREMENTS ~

🔲 You can run it on a microwave
🔲 Average
✅ High end
🔲 Supercomputer

~ LENGTH ~

🔲 Very Short (0 - 2 hours)
🔲 Short (2 - 15 hours)
🔲 Average (15-30 hours)
✅ Long (30-60 hours)
🔲 Extremely long (60-110 hours)
🔲 No ending

~ FUN ~

🔲 I'd rather watch paint dry
🔲 Hard to enjoy
🔲 Repetitive
🔲 Actually pretty amusing
✅ The kind of fun you'll remember
🔲 Ride of your life

~ REPLAYABILITY~

🔲 It's a one-time experience
✅ Only for achievements
🔲 If you wait a few months/years
🔲 Definitely
🔲 Infinitely replayable

~ WORTH BUYING ~

🔲 No
🔲 Wait for sale
✅ Yes

~OVERALL RATING~
72%

~ SUMMARY ~
All in all a pretty fun hack'n'slash game. Good graphics, good combat, good length, good sound and balancing and fun spells to make combat more interesting.

Quite a bit isn't converted to English but it mostly makes sense and is totally playable. The Workshop is great fun for playing around with skins, and I love the Easter Eggs the developer included tucked away in the game.

Level design is pretty basic and progression a little janky but all in all a good game.

~ DIFFICULTY ~

🔲 My 90 year old grandma could play it
🔲 Easy
✅ Normal
🔲 Hard
🔲 Dark Souls

~ GRAPHICS ~

🔲 MS Paint
🔲 Bad
🔲 Meh
🔲 Graphics don't matter in this game
✅ Good
🔲 Beautiful
🔲 Masterpiece

~ MUSIC ~

🔲 Bad
🔲 Not special
✅ Good
🔲 Beautiful

~ STORY ~

🔲 This game has no story
🔲 Like playing Angry Birds for the story
✅ It's there for the people who want it
🔲 Well written
🔲 Epic story
🔲 A Tolkienesque masterpiece

~ PRICE ~

🔲 Free
🔲 Underpriced
✅ Perfect Price
🔲 Could be cheaper
🔲 Overpriced
🔲 Complete waste of money

~ REQUIREMENTS ~

🔲 You can run it on a microwave
🔲 Average
✅ High end
🔲 Supercomputer

~ LENGTH ~

🔲 Very Short (0 - 2 hours)
✅ Short (2 - 15 hours)
🔲 Average (15-30 hours)
🔲 Long (30-60 hours)
🔲 Extremely long (60-110 hours)
🔲 No ending

~ FUN ~

🔲 I'd rather watch paint dry
🔲 Hard to enjoy
🔲 Repetitive
✅ Actually pretty amusing
🔲 The kind of fun you'll remember
🔲 Ride of your life

~ REPLAYABILITY~

✅ It's a one-time experience
🔲 Only for achievements
🔲 If you wait a few months/years
🔲 Definitely
🔲 Infinitely replayable

~ WORTH BUYING ~

🔲 No
🔲 Wait for sale
✅ Yes

~OVERALL RATING~
82%

~ SUMMARY ~
Super fun! The game is so incredibly accurate in capturing the feel of the movies, but they do it in a much higher quality way than the movies did. It's such a fun look at how society would perceive the first cyborgs. Gameplay is great, music is awesome, progression system is fun. The visuals are absolutely stunning - the city feels so damn gritty and real. Unbelievable graphics. They've done such a high quality job of putting this game together. Love it.

It's lacking a little bit of soul though. Some of the writing is a little cardboard, using caricatures instead of real people. And because it's a story-driven game, it gets in the way a little.

It's not well optimised either. I'm running it on a 3080 and it struggles in some parts. Enough that I had to run some parts on the lowest settings and still I was getting 20FPS. Sadly this meant I ran most of the game on low settings so I couldn't enjoy the incredible visuals they created for it.

~ DIFFICULTY ~

🔲 My 90 year old grandma could play it
🔲 Easy
✅ Normal
🔲 Hard
🔲 Dark Souls

~ GRAPHICS ~

🔲 MS Paint
🔲 Bad
🔲 Meh
🔲 Graphics don't matter in this game
🔲 Good
🔲 Beautiful
✅ Masterpiece

~ MUSIC ~

🔲 Bad
🔲 Not special
🔲 Good
✅ Beautiful

~ STORY ~

🔲 This game has no story
🔲 Like playing Angry Birds for the story
🔲 It's there for the people who want it
🔲 Well written
✅ Epic story
🔲 A Tolkienesque masterpiece

~ PRICE ~

🔲 Free
🔲 Underpriced
✅ Perfect Price
🔲 Could be cheaper
🔲 Overpriced
🔲 Complete waste of money

~ REQUIREMENTS ~

🔲 You can run it on a microwave
🔲 Average
🔲 High end
✅ Supercomputer

~ LENGTH ~

🔲 Very Short (0 - 2 hours)
🔲 Short (2 - 15 hours)
✅ Average (15-30 hours)
🔲 Long (30-60 hours)
🔲 Extremely long (60-110 hours)
🔲 No ending

~ FUN ~

🔲 I'd rather watch paint dry
🔲 Hard to enjoy
🔲 Repetitive
🔲 Actually pretty amusing
✅ The kind of fun you'll remember
🔲 Ride of your life

~ REPLAYABILITY~

🔲 It's a one-time experience
✅ Only for achievements
🔲 If you wait a few months/years
🔲 Definitely
🔲 Infinitely replayable

~ WORTH BUYING ~

🔲 No
🔲 Wait for sale
✅ Yes

~OVERALL RATING~
75%

~ SUMMARY ~
A clever, story-driven game about morality, time, power, religion and society. Short, but great.

~ DIFFICULTY ~

🔲 My 90 year old grandma could play it
✅ Easy
🔲 Normal
🔲 Hard
🔲 Dark Souls

~ GRAPHICS ~

🔲 MS Paint
🔲 Bad
🔲 Meh
🔲 Graphics don't matter in this game
✅ Good
🔲 Beautiful
🔲 Masterpiece

~ MUSIC ~

🔲 Bad
✅ Not special
🔲 Good
🔲 Beautiful

~ STORY ~

🔲 This game has no story
🔲 Like playing Angry Birds for the story
🔲 It's there for the people who want it
🔲 Well written
✅ Epic story
🔲 A Tolkienesque masterpiece

~ PRICE ~

🔲 Free
🔲 Underpriced
✅ Perfect Price
🔲 Could be cheaper
🔲 Overpriced
🔲 Complete waste of money

~ REQUIREMENTS ~

🔲 You can run it on a microwave
✅ Average
🔲 High end
🔲 Supercomputer

~ LENGTH ~

🔲 Very Short (0 - 2 hours)
✅ Short (2 - 15 hours)
🔲 Average (15-30 hours)
🔲 Long (30-60 hours)
🔲 Extremely long (60-110 hours)
🔲 No ending

~ FUN ~

🔲 I'd rather watch paint dry
🔲 Hard to enjoy
🔲 Repetitive
🔲 Actually pretty amusing
✅ The kind of fun you'll remember
🔲 Ride of your life

~ REPLAYABILITY~

🔲 It's a one-time experience
✅ Only for achievements
🔲 If you wait a few months/years
🔲 Definitely
🔲 Infinitely replayable

~ WORTH BUYING ~

🔲 No
🔲 Wait for sale
✅ Yes

MEH. So bland.

~OVERALL RATING~
72%

~ SUMMARY ~
I don't know, something about this game lacks soul. It's all very well crafted - visually, gameplay, progression, but it's a bit bland.

One thing that gets me is how little personality Cal, the protagonist, has. He's quite flat the whole way through, except the token "angry" bits, which he chills out really quickly after.

Another is how bad the cosmetic system is. You'll go through some elaborate, extensive puzzles, only to unlock... a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ moustache. The rewards are completely disconnected from the effort. And they're ALL pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥. There was one or two outfits that are ok, but I really don't give a ♥♥♥♥ whether Cal's hair is parted on the left or ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ right, and certainly not enough to motivate me to do puzzles.

So yeah it just makes it feel like filler content, and it disincentivises you from wanting to explore and collect.

Another thing is how they devalued your adventure at the end. You spend the whole game chasing after these macguffins, and then at the end they're like "oh look, there's a shortcut just next to the pub". It's such lazy writing and undermined what could have been a cool story. Still, overall pretty decent.

~ DIFFICULTY ~

🔲 My 90 year old grandma could play it
🔲 Easy
🔲 Normal
✅ Hard
🔲 Dark Souls

~ GRAPHICS ~

🔲 MS Paint
🔲 Bad
🔲 Meh
🔲 Graphics don't matter in this game
✅ Good
🔲 Beautiful
🔲 Masterpiece

~ MUSIC ~

🔲 Bad
🔲 Not special
✅ Good
🔲 Beautiful

~ STORY ~

🔲 This game has no story
🔲 Like playing Angry Birds for the story
🔲 It's there for the people who want it
✅ Well written
🔲 Epic story
🔲 A Tolkienesque masterpiece

~ PRICE ~

🔲 Free
✅ Underpriced
🔲 Perfect Price
🔲 Could be cheaper
🔲 Overpriced
🔲 Complete waste of money

~ REQUIREMENTS ~

🔲 You can run it on a microwave
🔲 Average
✅ High end
🔲 Supercomputer

~ LENGTH ~

🔲 Very Short (0 - 2 hours)
🔲 Short (2 - 15 hours)
✅ Average (15-30 hours)
🔲 Long (30-60 hours)
🔲 Extremely long (60-110 hours)
🔲 No ending

~ FUN ~

🔲 I'd rather watch paint dry
🔲 Hard to enjoy
🔲 Repetitive
✅ Actually pretty amusing
🔲 The kind of fun you'll remember
🔲 Ride of your life

~ REPLAYABILITY~

✅ It's a one-time experience
🔲 Only for achievements
🔲 If you wait a few months/years
🔲 Definitely
🔲 Infinitely replayable

~ WORTH BUYING ~

🔲 No
✅ Wait for sale
🔲 Yes

~OVERALL RATING~
86%

~ SUMMARY ~
This is such a beautiful game. It reminds me of Wildermyth - lovingly hand crafted with it's own unique, chill but emotive tone. This game's quite a bit more serious though, as the storyline is pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dark at times. Although there are overall chill vibes, there's a background tension reminiscent of DREDGE that something bad is coming, and you don't really know what it is until the story beautifully unfolds.

I've done a complete playthrough in 9h, and did horribly. Lots of people died because of my mismanagement. I am so, so keen to go back and try and help the colony at the least survive, but ideally thrive. The gameplay is fun, as there is a card battler component, but the adventure and RPG aspects are cool too. Can't wait to get back to it.

~ DIFFICULTY ~

🔲 My 90 year old grandma could play it
🔲 Easy
✅ Normal
🔲 Hard
🔲 Dark Souls

~ GRAPHICS ~

🔲 MS Paint
🔲 Bad
🔲 Meh
🔲 Graphics don't matter in this game
✅ Good
🔲 Beautiful
🔲 Masterpiece

~ MUSIC ~

🔲 Bad
🔲 Not special
🔲 Good
✅ Beautiful

~ STORY ~

🔲 This game has no story
🔲 Like playing Angry Birds for the story
🔲 It's there for the people who want it
🔲 Well written
✅ Epic story
🔲 A Tolkienesque masterpiece

~ PRICE ~

🔲 Free
✅ Underpriced
🔲 Perfect Price
🔲 Could be cheaper
🔲 Overpriced
🔲 Complete waste of money

~ REQUIREMENTS ~

✅ You can run it on a microwave
🔲 Average
🔲 High end
🔲 Supercomputer

~ LENGTH ~

🔲 Very Short (0 - 2 hours)
🔲 Short (2 - 15 hours)
✅ Average (15-30 hours)
🔲 Long (30-60 hours)
🔲 Extremely long (60-110 hours)
🔲 No ending

~ FUN ~

🔲 I'd rather watch paint dry
🔲 Hard to enjoy
🔲 Repetitive
🔲 Actually pretty amusing
✅ The kind of fun you'll remember
🔲 Ride of your life

~ REPLAYABILITY~

🔲 It's a one-time experience
🔲 Only for achievements
🔲 If you wait a few months/years
✅ Definitely
🔲 Infinitely replayable

~ WORTH BUYING ~

🔲 No
🔲 Wait for sale
✅ Yes

~OVERALL RATING~
65%

~ SUMMARY ~
First thing to note: this is really a tech demo. It's mostly done by one dude, who is a total powerhouse. It's a 2h runtime.

It's fun though! It's an on-rails FPS with some cool upgrades and cosmetic options available, and is overall a good game. If this game was longer, it'd probably be much more popular. It does all the basics in a good Crisis-like FPS. Good times!

~ DIFFICULTY ~

🔲 My 90 year old grandma could play it
🔲 Easy
✅ Normal
🔲 Hard
🔲 Dark Souls

~ GRAPHICS ~

🔲 MS Paint
🔲 Bad
🔲 Meh
🔲 Graphics don't matter in this game
🔲 Good
✅ Beautiful
🔲 Masterpiece

~ MUSIC ~

🔲 Bad
🔲 Not special
✅ Good
🔲 Beautiful

~ STORY ~

🔲 This game has no story
🔲 Like playing Angry Birds for the story
✅ It's there for the people who want it
🔲 Well written
🔲 Epic story
🔲 A Tolkienesque masterpiece

~ PRICE ~

🔲 Free
🔲 Underpriced
🔲 Perfect Price
✅ Could be cheaper
🔲 Overpriced
🔲 Complete waste of money

~ REQUIREMENTS ~

🔲 You can run it on a microwave
🔲 Average
✅ High end
🔲 Supercomputer

~ LENGTH ~

✅ Very Short (0 - 2 hours)
🔲 Short (2 - 15 hours)
🔲 Average (15-30 hours)
🔲 Long (30-60 hours)
🔲 Extremely long (60-110 hours)
🔲 No ending

~ FUN ~

🔲 I'd rather watch paint dry
🔲 Hard to enjoy
🔲 Repetitive
✅ Actually pretty amusing
🔲 The kind of fun you'll remember
🔲 Ride of your life

~ REPLAYABILITY~

✅ It's a one-time experience
🔲 Only for achievements
🔲 If you wait a few months/years
🔲 Definitely
🔲 Infinitely replayable

~ WORTH BUYING ~

🔲 No
✅ Wait for sale
🔲 Yes

~OVERALL RATING~
84%

~ SUMMARY ~
This game reminds me so much of Portal. It's a magnificently crafted game across every axis. The story, the plot twist, the art design, the gameplay, the character development. All done so beautifully.

I've read quite a lot of H.P. Lovecraft's novels, and this feels like a game directly from one of those stories. A huge amount of love has gone into this game.

The game was supremely popular this year, but it just didn't sound appealing. "A Lovecraftian fishing game where you dredge up stuff from the water" held me back from buying it. I'm so, so glad I listened to the reviews as it is so, so fun and... moving too.

The real story only unfolds slowly and carefully as you play through the game, and the plot twist is so elegantly done that all the pieces fall into place in a way that is so incredibly satisying.

~ DIFFICULTY ~

🔲 My 90 year old grandma could play it
🔲 Easy
✅ Normal
🔲 Hard
🔲 Dark Souls

~ GRAPHICS ~

🔲 MS Paint
🔲 Bad
🔲 Meh
🔲 Graphics don't matter in this game
🔲 Good
🔲 Beautiful
✅ Masterpiece

~ MUSIC ~

🔲 Bad
🔲 Not special
🔲 Good
✅ Beautiful

~ STORY ~

🔲 This game has no story
🔲 Like playing Angry Birds for the story
🔲 It's there for the people who want it
🔲 Well written
🔲 Epic story
✅ A Tolkienesque masterpiece

~ PRICE ~

🔲 Free
🔲 Underpriced
✅ Perfect Price
🔲 Could be cheaper
🔲 Overpriced
🔲 Complete waste of money

~ REQUIREMENTS ~

✅ You can run it on a microwave
🔲 Average
🔲 High end
🔲 Supercomputer

~ LENGTH ~

🔲 Very Short (0 - 2 hours)
✅ Short (2 - 15 hours)
🔲 Average (15-30 hours)
🔲 Long (30-60 hours)
🔲 Extremely long (60-110 hours)
🔲 No ending

~ FUN ~

🔲 I'd rather watch paint dry
🔲 Hard to enjoy
🔲 Repetitive
🔲 Actually pretty amusing
✅ The kind of fun you'll remember
🔲 Ride of your life

~ REPLAYABILITY~

🔲 It's a one-time experience
🔲 Only for achievements
✅ If you wait a few months/years
🔲 Definitely
🔲 Infinitely replayable

~ WORTH BUYING ~

🔲 No
🔲 Wait for sale
✅ Yes

~OVERALL RATING~
95%

~ SUMMARY ~
I consider Cyberpunk 2077 a masterpiece. The storytelling, the gameplay, the graphics, the art design, the music, the sound design... everything works together brilliantly.

It's a huge open world with a massive amount of things to do and explore. They've struck an amazing balance of driving you to follow main storylines, secondary missions and freeform exploration. This makes for a super liberating and fun game. The characters are great and the only complaint that I have is that none of the characters really interact - they are all kinda isolated from each other in your story.

The Phantom Liberty expansion is one of the best I've ever played. Just as brilliant as the original story, it opens up a whole new game within the game.

I've completed Cyberpunk twice now (once on GOG and once on Steam), and I'm sure I'll be back again in a few years.

~ DIFFICULTY ~

🔲 My 90 year old grandma could play it
🔲 Easy
✅ Normal
🔲 Hard
🔲 Dark Souls

~ GRAPHICS ~

🔲 MS Paint
🔲 Bad
🔲 Meh
🔲 Graphics don't matter in this game
🔲 Good
🔲 Beautiful
✅ Masterpiece

~ MUSIC ~

🔲 Bad
🔲 Not special
🔲 Good
✅ Beautiful

~ STORY ~

🔲 This game has no story
🔲 Like playing Angry Birds for the story
🔲 It's there for the people who want it
🔲 Well written
🔲 Epic story
✅ A Tolkienesque masterpiece

~ PRICE ~

🔲 Free
✅ Underpriced
🔲 Perfect Price
🔲 Could be cheaper
🔲 Overpriced
🔲 Complete waste of money

~ REQUIREMENTS ~

🔲 You can run it on a microwave
🔲 Average
✅ High end
🔲 Supercomputer

~ LENGTH ~

🔲 Very Short (0 - 2 hours)
🔲 Short (2 - 15 hours)
🔲 Average (15-30 hours)
🔲 Long (30-60 hours)
✅ Extremely long (60-110 hours)
🔲 No ending

~ FUN ~

🔲 I'd rather watch paint dry
🔲 Hard to enjoy
🔲 Repetitive
🔲 Actually pretty amusing
🔲 The kind of fun you'll remember
✅ Ride of your life

~ REPLAYABILITY~

🔲 It's a one-time experience
🔲 Only for achievements
🔲 If you wait a few months/years
✅ Definitely
🔲 Infinitely replayable

~ WORTH BUYING ~

🔲 No
🔲 Wait for sale
✅ Yes