Recent reviews by Quarex

I cannot get over that there have been like a half-dozen amazing remasters released just in the last couple of months, but this one really speaks to me given how much fun I had finally playing System Shock 1 with its own recent remaster. They took the game that got me into immersive sims and brought it elegantly into 2025, and though I have not played the original in like 20 years at this point it really seems like all they did was make it play smoothly without making any negative changes whatsoever.

Granted I played an OSA Agent for the first time after being perpetually scared of ditching guns for psychic powers, but as a result I can confirm that this is indeed just as enjoyable a way to play through the game as any other. Though I admit I could never tell if the "make an enemy attack other enemies" power was not working or if I was just using it incorrectly. Literally the only other negative thought I had about the game is that it occasionally has mission-critical items stashed on corpses you might be 100% sure you searched already, but somehow missed. Probably only added a half hour of searching overall to my 20 hour runthrough but when everything else is AMAZING it is noticeable. Still, the game plays so incredibly well that I am seriously considering an almost immediate replay--good thing I have like four other remasters to get to first.

Anyway, SHODAN LIVES, please buy and play this game as soon as possible, thank you. Seriously her dialogue still gives me chills at times; no mean feat for a game where half the voice actors were seemingly people handed a microphone as they walked past the recording studio

This game magically came into my life right after I learned about Allan Quatermain, and I was kind of excited to discover there was a recent video game involved in that universe. But when did I play it? I do not own it, so I guess there was a free weekend, but I have absolutely no memory of that and I feel like I would have surely given it more of a chance than that? Maybe it was SO GOOD that my brain knew it could not handle it and wiped the memories from my brain entirely. Seems more likely than it being forgettable!

Well I finally found out what all those Russians must be so mad about--there is a minor voiceover error in the intro where the text reads a year off from what the narrator is saying. Now I finally understand all the negative reviews; they are upset that this otherwise perfect game has even a single flaw!

Excellent remaster, runs and looks utterly phenomenal in 4K, though I have to say weirdly the remaster is least noticeable here of the three given the original looked better than the first two to begin with. But still a welcome release and it remains a must-play title for anyone who gets even the slightest tingle of excitement when you think about geiger counters, gas masks, and assault rifles.

Mmmm delicious clowns from Russia, numnumnum

Played long enough to confirm that 90% of the negative reviews are undoubtedly bots from you-know-where. Runs spectacularly in 4K and of course looks fantastic too, and based on the real reviews out there I have no doubt the rest of the unparalleled awesome gameplay is intact. If you never got onboard the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. train the first time around, and especially if you want to play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 but wisely recognize there is a whole TRILOGY of amazing backstory out there, well, here they are, priced amazingly well considering how great each game is in turn, and especially if you catch them on sale!

Mmmm delicious clowns from Russia, numnumnum

Played just long enough to confirm that 90% of the negative reviews are undoubtedly Russian bots. Looks beautiful and runs smoothly even at 4K, just as it should. The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series is second only to Fallout to me when it comes to my overall favorite genre, post-apocalyptic nightmares--and considering how good the Metro 20XX series is, that is pretty high praise!

Mmmm delicious clowns from Russia, numnumnum

What a grand and intoxicating experience. The moment the Oblivion Remaster was announced I knew I had no choice but to finally replay ... Morrowind, my first Elder Scrolls game. I would have gone back to Arena but every time I get out of the starter dungeon--whether emulated or on my MS-DOS machine--the game crashes so yeah I think Morrowind is a safe place for modern gamers to start in revisiting the Elder Scrolls anyway (what is Daggerfall???). It largely plays like a modern FPS/RPG because it helped usher in that era of game in the first place, another aspect that helps make it an easy recommendation no matter how many years have passed. And its worldbuilding, narrative, and even gameplay are unrelentingly enjoyable as long as you are prepared to take some notes and stick with it.

It is a Bethesda game so character creation is some of the most enjoyable around, even if they probably only perfected it with Oblivion. The process is extremely brief but immediately helps you feel invested in the larger world and gives you a hint of your place in it, and fleshing out the choices you make in the beginning--or of course totally abandoning them for a life of crime and leaping over mountains--provides some of the most enjoyable experiences you will have in this or any other game. There are eight million things to do and eight billion ways to do them and it is basically impossible to feel limited, and that is really what I am looking for in my open-world games. I am not going to say that combat is the best feature of the game, and Bethesda definitely had not yet figured out how to balance human reflexes against character skills just yet, but again if you make sure to begin by leaning into whatever combat type your character is actually good at, you will get the hang of it.

It is true for the most part what they say about Bloodmoon and Tribunal--they each have enemies in them that are so much harder than anything you encounter in the base game, including the final encounter, that it makes you wonder what the designers were thinking not at least retroactively raising the difficulty of the main game in response lest they realize they had made a world where "goblins in a sewer" were some of the deadliest creatures around. BUT the cool thing is that both games had genuinely awesome storylines of their own, including some Elder Scrolls-wide plot updates (that I never knew since I beat Morrowind the first time before the expansions came out and never touched it again until 2025) that are well worth experiencing first-hand. Tribunal in particular really hits hard with its dramatic and almost perverse twists on the main storyline, and for both you really feel like you have accomplished something when you wrap them up.

There is no justification to not at least give Morrowind a shot, especially now that we have entered the era of the literally automated modding process. I finally tried my hand at getting hundreds of mods to work together and failed spectacularly, so I gave up and used OpenMW's automatic installation to get the visual fidelity stuff working effortlessly and dove back in. I am sure Tamriel Reborn in particular is exciting for people who want even more areas to explore--yeah I am definitely not one of them since even going nuts and trying to visit places I never saw before I still probably only set foot in 50% of the locations in the actual game, let alone the hundreds or thousands more added by the insanely dedicated modding world keeping this game relevant for decades.

Oh wow I never wrote a review for this O.K. SO

You can probably figure out if you could play through the game based on your tolerance for slightly awkward first/third-person combat engines from 20+ years ago. IF that sounds like a workable challenge for you, then you can continue reading:

This is the kind of game where for ages after playing it you will suddenly find yourself wondering "wait but what did Horatio know???" or "was Gary really playing both sides?" or "who IS Smiling Jack/Beckett/Alistair Grout really?" and it is time for yet another trip back to a wiki or forums or whatever. The characters, the music, the environment, the mood, the nighttime; everything about this game's design is excellent in the first place (even moreso if you use the content restoration patch of course), and somehow the total is still greater than the sum of its parts. It is among a handful of games that demonstrated to my early-2000s self that not only had I been wrong to consider first-person RPGs suspect, but indeed to me the perspective is perfect for crafting memorably immersive experiences like this one.

If there is anything bad about this game it is that even with the cut content back in, there are still areas that you would love to have an excuse to hang out in that barely have anything to do in them, like the Santa Monica Pier, but like, it is always better to wish a game were longer than shorter!

I have been aware of and influenced by the Star Control games for 30+ years at this point, but I only finally completed one here in 2025. I have to say, I am sorry it took me this long, but I finally understand what I was missing (even if I realize this was not really made by any of the same people as any of the previous titles).

Star Control: Origins is a series of deep and intriguing contemplations about the nature of exploration, war, friendship, motivation, religion, deception, and self-justification, all wrapped up in a game where you explore large swaths of the universe and meet dozens of alien races with their own goals and motivations, sometimes breaking to shoot lasers at tiny ships or pick up valuables on a Little Prince-sized planetoid, and all in a setting graphically reminiscent of Paw Patrol. And it is fantastic.

If I have anything at all negative to say about this game it is that you move slowly enough at the start that it took me a few tries to actually finish exploring the starting solar system despite me exploring similar solar systems in a few minutes at most by the end of the game. Once the pace picks up a bit, so too does the game's fun, and honestly both continue accelerating pretty well together. You feel like you are progressing not only mechanically but also socially and, like, civilizationally, as you continue putting together the pieces of the grand mysteries of what the hell is going on and how in the world you are involved in it all.

This game reminds me in some sense of the System Shock remake--and yes I realize that came out -after- Star Control: Origins--but both crucially recognized that great design is great design, and keeping almost everything about the original game(s) intact when recreating things for a modern audience, while smoothing over any infamously rough aspects of the design or mechanics, proved absolutely the right call in both cases. Star Control: Origins even basically kept the same music that played when you flew through hyperspace in Star Control ][, which certainly made my Demoscene heart happy to hear. And I even saw that the developers smoothed over things with the developers of the first two Star Control games and seemingly they started integrating their designs by the time of the expansion here; dare I hope for a Star Control IV: Origins II? That would probably end up my favorite space game ever if it came out as well as I am envisioning.

I barely knew what this was or when I had bought it, and even after playing it I am still mystified by its entire vibe and purpose, but I know I had a surprisingly fun time in the last half hour and would definitely suggest anyone who is into androids and cats pick this one up on sale. I admit I was not entirely sure the word "cat" in the title was literal for most of the game though

Hot damn. So, first off, congratulations to me--in 2021 I realized I finally had both the free time and the motivation to tackle my Steam backlog, and in the subsequent ~4 years I have gone from almost 400 games to fewer than 40, and this is the last adventure game I had in my backlog. Particularly notable because I HATE ADVENTURE GAMES and I cursed myself for being tricked into buying so many in various bundles or based on stellar recommendations over the ~15 years when I had barely any time for gaming between grad school and raising a tiny human child and such. But APPARENTLY I saved quite possibly the best for last, so great work all around.

Firstly, I want to make it clear that Tales From the Borderlands is going to be a great experience for anyone playing it, because the setting is easy enough to grasp, and the stories told and the characters telling them are all excellently introduced and for the most part have appropriate narrative payoffs (excuse me, though, designers, but how DARE you show Tector in like every single "in the next episode" scene and NEVER USE HIM AFTER THE FIRST EPISODE? I WAS INVESTED IN WHAT HE WAS GOING TO DO NEXT). But oh boy, if you have played every Borderlands game multiple times like I have, then finally experiencing this is like a speedrun of all the feelings you ever had about the series, being mostly positive occasionally bordering on ecstatically joyous or devastatingly sad, and then a handful of "WHAT? NO! ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥!" as is tradition.

Not really much else needs to be said about the game honestly--if you have ever played a Telltale Games adventure game before you know largely what to expect mechanically here, as you get to wander around and investigate areas to learn more about the plot and advance the story, occasionally switching to some quicktime button-pushing or mouse aiming events for fights or other tense scenes--probably more frequent here than in other games, which certainly makes sense for the setting. Everything looks exactly as it should for the Borderlands world, to the point that it is kind of eerie at times and feels like you should be able to hit a button and transition to a first-person perspective holding a gun to explore per the FPS iterations of the series.

What I will say about story specifics without getting into spoilers is that I was absolutely not hooked by the opening scenes of the opening chapter, which is part of why I kicked it down my backlog a couple of times over the years, but I regret this now as by about five minutes into that scene I was invested, and stayed invested for the rest of the full five episodes. I certainly have my preferences--I would say overall they get better as they go--but you are really going to have a good time through the entire game. Particular highlights being chapter 4 setting up what you assume will be a side joke that ends up in an absurd yet climactic fight that ranks among the best fight scenes in gaming history despite being absolutely played for laughs, and chapter 5 somehow actually outdoing everything else in the game before it (and many parts of the other Borderlands games at that) and serving as the best possible finalé, possibly to the entire series but certainly for this game. I am definitely excited to get back to my replay of the entire series now (also something I have been putting off since I know this game comes chronologically between Borderlands 2 and 3) and see all the cameos and references I missed from not having played this sooner.

Also ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ the end song annihilated me and I am totally stoked to see it is by Swedish sisters. What up ladies, du är mycket bra ock jag talar bara lite Svenska, förlåt