Recent reviews by Dynamonic

A fantastic puzzle game, which is essentially 'Picross' with a twist, created by the same developers too (Jupiter).
Basically, you solve nonogram puzzles, where you form pixel-art pictures using the numerical clues to the sides of the grid, which denote how many squares you need to fill in on a particular row or column.
Once you've created those pictures, you can combine the items you've created to form even more puzzles.
It's my first experience of 'Picross', and it's highly addictive!

The developers, Jupiter, have proven to be absolutely amazing in developing Logiart Grimoire during the Early Access period too, actively responding to virtually all bug reports and feedback mentioned in the game's forum, and making rapid changes in response to it. I don't normally pay much attention to games whilst they're still in Early Access, but I made an exception for this because of Jupiter's excellent interaction with their community! The game is rapidly becoming better and better with every (frequent) patch.

The concept might seem daft, but make no mistake, this 'simulator' is highly addictive, very relaxing and serves as a fantastic fit for the likes of the Steam Deck!
The sense of satisfaction you feel as you turn gaming's grottiest locales into gleaming, brightly colourful paradises is unrivalled.
The premise is simple. You're a brand new power washer in the community who starts out from scratch by finding a van dumped, making it your work van and cleaning it up. Locals admire your work and recruit you for cleaning jobs both big and small. You get paid for your services and you can use the money to buy shampoos which soften up dirt on different surfaces, plus upgrade your 'arsenal' with new, more powerful washers and nozzles, which will help you tackle those more stubborn stains in later levels.
There's a nice simple story going on in the background too, which you'll see unfold through text messages and some surprises in the very game environments you work in, and it will genuinely get you curious as to where the story is going and what will happen next.

This isn't one of those cheap, tacky simulators which you'll only play as a novelty for a few minutes. This will undoubtedly eat up hours of your life with it's simple, pick up and play where you left off nature! A great way to unwind!

Do you love Playdead's LIMBO and INSIDE or Tarsier Studio's Little Nightmares series? Do you own a controller?
If you answered yes to those, then you are in for a nice treat with Somerville! Although it rather disappointingly fails to reach the heights set by those titles, and the game's clunkiness will likely prevent you from wanting to play through it more than once, which is a real shame, and hopefully a patch or two will change that feeling in the future.

It's hard to talk about Somerville without spoiling it, and it certainly is a game best experienced with no knowledge of what to expect.
The intro sequence in particular is one of the greatest intros I've ever seen in a videogame, and I was simply blown away by all the eye and ear candy that was going on!
This intro quickly introduces you to Somerville's excellent sound design, which remains impressive throughout the game, and a very exciting opening set piece, although that segment probably does end a little bit too soon. As a result, the initial impression of the game as it properly opens up after this seems a little more underwhelming, and the game struggles to reach the intro's height again, even though it's not too long before other interesting elements and set pieces are thrown your way.

One of those interesting elements are Somerville's puzzles, which are pretty original in places and will leave you with a 'Oh, that's clever!' impression when you (quickly) figure out what the solution is. Sadly, the game's occasionally broken physics do let some of these puzzles down though, and will sometimes leave you with a 'Glad I don't have to do that again' impression, when the game engine itself gets in the way of you solving that puzzle smoothly.

The game has other flaws too, the most obvious of which is the 2.5D movement. Similar to Little Nightmares, your character can move around freely in a 2.5D space, and to be honest, I don't think it's working as well at the moment as it does in Little Nightmares II. Some of the puzzles work great with the 2.5D movement, but when you're simply traversing the landscape, it doesn't feel as fluid. You'll often clip the environment around you, and there are places where you'll feel drawn to explore where there's no visible boundary, only to be hit with an invisible wall. I have also encountered instances of my character being stuck inside the terrain, forcing me to reload the last checkpoint, which thankfully are very generously placed.
You have to be ridiculously precise with interacting with objects too. I spent way too much time trying to get my character into a very specific spot to interact with a plug or switch. It does take you out of the experience a little bit, and you will often end up wishing the movement was on a 2D plane like LIMBO and INSIDE, but when the game does something great with it, it's great! But sadly, the clunkiness is enough to drag certain parts of the game down and leave a lasting poor impression.

Also, a quick note for you Ultrawide monitor owners out there, I'm playing this with a 21:9 Ultrawide monitor and the game scales pretty nicely to my aspect ratio and resolution, with miniscule black borders on the left and right, not enough to notice in normal gameplay though, and it looks very nice.

Along with many other users here, I'd been unable to run this game because of EA's new anti-cheat service, and managed to eventually access the game using some workarounds, which included editing configuration files and manually giving EA's launcher administrator privileges.
If you manage to get through that, then there's a pretty solid football game to be enjoyed, which is essentially more of the same old FIFA. I mean, if it's not broke, why fix it right? Loving the addition of the FIFA World Cup at last though!
Sadly, I have to leave this review as 'Not Recommended' as it's still not quite 'Pick-Up & Play' once installed for many users without workarounds, months after release, which is unforgivable for a massive publisher like EA. Might be worth it in a nice sale though if you've got the time to get the game working.

A fun game, heavily inspired by Playdead's LIMBO and INSIDE games. White Shadows does a good job of presenting an intriguing, dystopian environment, which reminded me a lot of BioShock's Rapture and Columbia settings. There's a lot of environmental storytelling which will definitely make you curious enough to keep going to find out what is going on, and the game makes some nice use of classical music for it's set piece sequences.
The game itself is short and not difficult, and can be completed in just a couple of hours on a first playthrough, with puzzles definitely being on the simple side of the difficulty spectrum.

The gameplay, animation and movement definitely aren't as fluid and natural feeling as they are in Playdead's titles, and there are places where the sound design seems to abruptly end or not sound quite right as you enter new areas. Also, some gameplay sequences seem to be thrown into the game, with no clear reasoning behind them or proper introduction to the player. It's easy to lose track of what is going on or why things are happening the way they are. However, they do change the game up a bit and do a good job of keeping you interested.
The game also abruptly limits or takes control from the player in places for some cutscenes, which play out in real-time and can cause some scenes to drag on a bit too much.

Ultimately though, this is a great first game effort by Monokel, which will be thoroughly enjoyable to those who enjoyed games like LIMBO, INSIDE and Little Nightmares. I'm excited to see what they might produce next!

Good things to know (No Spoilers):

- I finished the game on Normal difficulty in 15 hours. (Including side activities)
- The game is a direct sequel to RE7, but it is much better in every way. (I loved RE7 too)
- Fans of RE4 will notice a lot of similarities to that game too, in many different, great ways.
- The game never gets dull, and the 'tone' of the game changes drastically from area to area.
- The game has many side elements for you to explore, which really add to the experience.
- I found 'Normal' difficulty to be significantly easier than in other RE games, dying only once or twice in my entire first playthrough. It's still challenging though in other unique ways.
- The game fully supports Ultrawide resolutions.
- The game features Ray Tracing on compatible NVIDIA and AMD cards. It looks great too!

Overall, this is right up there with the best Resident Evil titles, and you'll be particularly impressed if you enjoyed Resident Evil 7 and 4 in particular. The game is probably best described as a blend of the two.

Some impressions from the demo:

-The game supports Ultrawide resolutions! (I played it in 3440x1440)
-Some people have issues with the tight FOV, although personally, it didn't affect my enjoyment.
-The 60 minute timer is just right for completing both demos with some exploration. ('Castle' is shorter)
-The game looks stunning on the top settings! And it runs very smooth too!
-Despite being first-person, the demo gave me stronger RE4 vibes than RE7.
-Being able to barricade doorways and use the environment to help you is a fantastic feature!
-The character animations are fantastic and Ethan's movements in first person seem so natural!
-I love the emphasis on exploration and collecting treasures, which you can trade with the 'Duke'.

A game developer conference like you've never seen before, and a masterpiece in...err...marketing! Well, it must be, because I just spent over an hour playing what is essentially a big advert for Devolver's upcoming titles!

With the way Devolver has done E3 over the last few years, I suppose it was only a matter of time before something like this landed onto our PC's, and in all honesty, I think they've pioneered something which could be spectacular if other publishers followed suit.
This is a 'game' which essentially has you explore a nice fun twist of a conference showfloor, and gets you to venture into areas themed around Devolver's upcoming titles, where you can watch the trailers of those games and look at nice little props too.

To make sure you watch EVERY trailer, and fully explore this rather 'threatening' show floor, Devolver's marketing machine has cunningly filled the game with achievements, which you know you HAVE TO collect because, they're ... well ... achievements!

In all seriousness, this is a great marketing idea from Flying Wild Hog and Devolver, and does a great job of showcasing their titles. You'll only play through it once, (twice maybe to finish up finding some secrets for the achievements), but you'll probably come out of Devolverland Expo excited by at least a couple of the titles they show off here. And that, of course, is the whole point of this game!

A fantastic insight into the development of Half-Life: Alyx, and the victories and struggles of life at Valve in the lead-up to the game's release!
Geoff Keighley has done a fantastic job of chronicling Half-Life: Alyx's development, including some fascinating stories of how ideas came about, ideas that were changed or scrapped, and even some never before seen information on some of Valve's shelved projects.

There are tons of amazing elements of interactivity too, with things such as soundboards, 3D Models and videos for you to interact with and experience!

It probably goes without saying that this interactive book contains heavy spoilers to the plot of Half-Life: Alyx too, so do not venture into this if you haven't experienced or finished Half-Life: Alyx yet.

This is a must-have for any Half-Life and Valve fan, particularly if you love things like Valve's Developer Commentaries!

So far, I've played the first few missions of the original C&C and think that Petroglyph and EA have done a stellar job of remastering the game! It's the game you know and love, with some beautiful visual and audio tweaks, without changing too much!

Here's some things you probably want to know:

• EA's Origin client IS NOT used or installed for this game.
  
• You can easily switch between the original and remastered visuals and audio.
  
• The game accommodates Ultrawide setups by way of moving the UI/HUD into the black borders.
  
• The remastered score is very faithful to the originals, whilst now sounding meatier and more modern.
  
• The game supports Steam Achievements and Trading Cards.