Recent reviews by Toikka

It's the original Sims, and it even comes with the beloved Finnish translation in it. Works really well. Takes me back to a better time.

A phenomenal action adventure, I did not expect this to be an immersive sim! There's just a sense of love poured into every nook and cranny and the journey from start to finish is not only breathtakingly beautiful, it's like playing through an Indiana Jones movie. I would describe it as an open world Hitman / Dishonored mix with a focus on melee combat, but really it's an Indiana Jones simulator and it works really well! You'll spend plenty of time puzzling, discovering and sneaking around many exotic locales.

The story is great, with a great focus on the tone set by the movies - really awesome performances from the entire cast. The puzzles are complex enough to make you really think. The first person perspective really works together with the melee combat focus - although I would have loved to find more Adventure Books in the start of the journey, as it gets really hectic later down the line, especially with the fight clubs scattered about - and all the cool moves are in books you get like 10 hours after the hard bits.

The amount of detail in the visuals is surreal. I wore down my screenshot key about halfway through. It must have been such an undertaking to make all these unique artifacts, murals and props. It's such a flex to go from a museum to the Sistine Chapel all the way to the pyramids and have it all be so consistently detailed. Wish it had a photo mode.

I was expecting a letdown from the story's finale after setting such a strong sequence from all the setpieces and buildup, but instead I was really pleasantly surprised by how much of a complete package this all was. After chasing across the world for artifacts, you get to fistfight Voss (who knows karate) atop the Noah's Ark! It was surreal, and the entire adventure was such a thrill.

If I had to deck some points, it'd be Sukhothai, the third major zone of the game. The riverboat just isn't fun to steer and all the collectibles are a tedious grind compared to Gizeh and Vatican City. I also encountered several sequence-breaking bugs, one of them fixed (cat quest in the Vatican) and another one still unable to complete (side mission in Sukhothai, unable to return a statue to the mission giver). But that's a given with just how much content is crammed in here, and will hopefully get fixed down the line.

What a lovely journey, and a complete surprise. I've been a lifelong Indiana Jones fan and this game is all I've dreamed about since I was a kid. Who'd have thought?

Incredibly fast, epic indie shooter that soars to heights I have never seen. It's like Tribes x Titanfall mixed with Severed Steel, with surprisingly deep mechanics and insane tricks you can pull off.

There's so many cool mechanics here - you soar through this open world with your hoverboard, unlocking new agility skills as you go like triple jumps and grappling. There's a great deal of weapons and every combat arena is hectic and feels fresh every time. You get perks as you go that really mix up your playstyle. It's got a lot of love put into it, and it shows.

I just assaulted and shot up what I could only describe as Jabba's Barge on a huge desert level while wallgrinding on my hoverboard.

I have never played anything quite like this and it's a 10/10 for that alone. I can't wait to play more!

This didn't click at all for me. I played plenty of the games available, and none of them had enough fun elements in them to play further. It is very technically impressive - it truly feels like an 80's videogame console, with really amazing pixel art and effects. As an avid old NES player, and yes, owner of an actual bloatware Action 52 cartridge - the appeal is there! It is nostalgic. It is very pretty.

But it's not fun. The only game I got any fun out of was Pingolf. The game design on display here says on the store description "combining 8-bit aesthetic with new ideas and modern game design". There's plenty of clever gameplay in that sense, it just isn't fun to play, basically none of it. Confusing RPG. Floaty platformer. Generic SHMUP. Streets of Rage clone. Yes I learned to play them, they just weren't fun!

I feel the wrong ideas were followed in chase of that nostalgic display - would these games be of value as themselves or as part of a collection, or was it more that the developers wanted to make sure it FEELS like a game collection from 89? Would you actually WANT to play games from that era? Because whatever modern twist they added to the design, it wasn't enough.

Right now it feels like a throwback bloatware collection. The appeal is purely nostalgia, the games are very shallow - as it was back then. It's sad, because I was expecting to surely find something really cool here, rummaging through this vast collection of games. The visuals and commitment to the bit is insane. I love games like these. I love Mossmouth.

But UFO 50 didn't click, and there wasn't fun in it for me.

For five bucks, the nostalgia hit from the GTA2 days is worth it. Reminds me a little of State of Emergency mixed with the art style of Chinatown Wars.

I don't even like poker, oh god help I can't stop

EDIT: This is definitely my game of the year 2024. Addictive, endlessly rewarding and utterly life-consuming. A masterpiece and a mainstay like Tetris.

How lovely is this? TR was a huge part of my childhood and despite all the jankiness in the controls I get a sense of wonder and nostalgia I haven't had in years. What a lovely remaster - the right way, which is "the way you remember it" instead of forcibly upping the polycount on everything. PS. Always lock the butler in the freezer, it's always the morally correct choice.

Delightful.

An addictive non-game that works for the dopamine-addled brain.

I have played this mod for 20 years. That probably says enough.