Recent reviews by aagstn

If ever a game aged like milk it is Braid. The commentaries are quite interesting and the new graphics add to the presentation. The problem is the puzzles are really not that great. The puzzle platformer was new and fresh 20 years ago. Now there are hundreds of games that have done this concept better and it really makes it stand out just how poor this game is. Maybe worth it for a nostalgia trip on sale, but when games like Fez, The Pedestrian, Inside, Limbo, Superliminal and many more exist it is hard to make time for something this mediocre.

I played this initially on Game Pass and enjoyed it enough to buy it later on Steam for another playthrough a couple of years later. This is a really interesting departure from the Steam World franchise and is more of an exploration type game with light puzzle solving.

Story has you looking for resources on an alien world to find it covered in mysterious gunk. You use your available tools to remove the gunk and slowly restore the world. Gameplay loop is removing the gunk and defeating the three enemies types while scanning and solving puzzles. The game has a nice 5 hour run time and does not overstay its welcome. It is mostly linear but there are hidden resources to find and things to scan off the main path.

I liked the voice acting and all the characters in the game. On sale this is an easy recommendation for anyone that enjoys exploration and puzzle type games. At full price it is a harder recommendation with the short run time and the limited objectives to complete.

Performance was great with the one exception of an elevator section. That had a few segments that brought my 3080 down from 120FPS to single digits briefly. Weird bug but nothing that really effected gameplay as it didn't last very long and didn't occur while doing anything but riding the elevator.

During my playthrough I had no crashes. I did have weird frame rate drops that required a restart to fix once. The game does have a lack of polish, but the story and gameplay make up for it. The shooting segments were mostly enjoyable though some of the enemies are too bullet spongy even on easy. The highlight of the game is the exploration and getting to be a detective solving all the side missions. This extra detail helped elevate this game above its budget development status. Recommend on sale.

Great looking tables. The Williams tables in particular are well detailed. The physics for them are off on every table. Zen seems to be applying the same physics they use on their digital tables to the real tables and it unfortunately ruins the experience a bit as they don't behave like a real table.

Unfortunately this is the only game in town for pinball so we are stuck with bad physics if you want to play Williams tables. Many of their originals are fun but even this has become hit and miss lately. Maybe get some on sale, but if you already bought tables with FX3 I would just stick with those. The arcade they added in this one isn't very interesting and features like ray tracing cause the frame rate to tank even with higher end hardware.

This is a unique puzzle game that uses photos and perspective for most of its puzzles. Overall I enjoyed my seven hours with it quite a bit and felt it was worth picking up. The final puzzle is a love it or hate it one as it bumps the difficulty curve big time. A walkthrough can solve that if it seems too much. Overall I was able to play through the entire game with no help, but the game does contain minor hints in the start menu if it sees you spending a lot of time on a level. The story is honestly pretty whatever. We see so much about environmental disasters in this age of climate change we live in. Cait was well voice acted and a nice companion in the later game. It is worth going after many of the achievements as they encourage you to do some fun stuff with the camera aspect of the game. Explore, experiment, and enjoy is my biggest recommendation for this game.

If you started with Sniper Elite 4 and 5 like I did there is just no way to go back to this. Sniper Elite 3 holds up, but this gameplay is just not enjoyable.

No effort was made to bring the puzzles into the modern era. If you have the patience for spending hours wandering around deciphering obtuse puzzles or just want to play with a walkthrough it might be worth it.

This is a fun, if at time frustrating, VR remake of 7th Guest. It nails the atmosphere of the mansion and its fun to explore the rooms. Cut scenes capture the feel of the 90's very well. Most of the puzzles are very well done with the exception of the final one which honestly I would recommend just saving 10 coins to skip. It does have some of the usual fiddly VR control issues, but overall it was a fun experience and I would recommend it during a Steam sale.

A fun sequel to the very good Red Matter. I played that one on PSVR so the upgrade in visuals here was very nice. I enjoyed the story, found the VR puzzles to be enjoyable and control well. The combat isn't great, but put it on easy and just get passed that part. Great VR experience overall and worth the price.

I loved the first Talos Principle and was really looking forward to this one. I'm happy to say that Croteam outdid themselves with the sequel. The game is loaded with puzzles to solve, has solid voice acting, and plenty of philosophy to make you think.

The puzzles are the most important part and they did a good job of balancing difficulty with the sequel. The puzzles are in the realm of Portal 2 or Q.U.B.E. 2 where they ease you into a concept in a new area and then you may get stuck for a bit until you have that moment it clicks and you feel some accomplishment solving it. I didn't need a guide for any of the main puzzles. There are 12 Golden puzzles that are very hard and some stars to solve in each puzzle area that will take some time and thought to work out.

The game has 12 areas with smaller puzzle rooms and an open area to explore to look for secrets and extra story information. I enjoyed these overall, but some are perhaps a bit too big and you can spend quite a bit of time wandering around looking for things.

There is quite a bit of dialog to have with the other robots. I found this part enjoyable, but understand some may want to skip the talking. If you want you can skip many of these conversations or end them early to go solve puzzles. The game is very open in how it lets you play. There are multiple endings and story paths to give some replay value. I definitely will be playing this again to revisit the puzzles and see the other story paths.

This game is an amazing value for the price they are asking. Over 30 hours of content and reasons to return and play it again down the road. I thought the story was very compelling and was a great follow up to the first game. Highly recommended for any puzzle fan.