Recent reviews by Boreder

An underrated gem by Supergiant Games. The gameplay isn't the most appealing aspect, I'll admit — it does grow on you and winning each rite does grant its own satisfaction, but as the difficulty increases and the story goes on it can get a little grating because the AI's advantages over you start to become more pronounced.

The gameplay however, isn't what makes Pyre enchanting. It's the characters. While I haven't yet played all of Supergiant's games, I can safely say that the characters here are the most fleshed-out. Each and every one of the colorful cast has their own unique personality traits, quirks, and admirable qualities. The choices you make regarding them are not to be taken lightly as a result. They facilitate the story, and allow for many different outcomes depending on what you decide at each pivotal moment.

I applaud Supergiant Games for creating such a vibrant universe (that I would love to seen an animated series of, but alas), and hope more players can look past its faults to appreciate this finely-woven tale intermittent with fantasy sports matches.

Transistor is fantastic. I thought it was a game that favored style over substance and that's why I was put off so long from playing it. I couldn't have been more wrong. One minute into it and I was already enthralled. The soundtrack melts you into the world and the beautiful art absorbs all of your attention.

Contrary to the cold and unfeeling nature of the enemies that make up The Process, there is nothing artificial about the gameplay. I don't know how Supergiant Games came up with this, but they managed to strike gold. The upgrade and function system is some of the best I've ever experienced in a game, and the difficulty is changed so very dynamically. It's not just the common increasing attack and damage every time you level up and enemies that get more hp when you increase the difficulty - each level feels rewarding and the difficulty adds more challenges without going about it the lazy way.

I only wished the story (which is highly captivating) was longer because I love the gameplay so much. Other games should take inspiration from Transistor for how to make creative gameplay rewarding. Also, at least there's new game+ so you can continue.

I don't even need to talk about the music. I knew the music was phenomenal before I even picked up this game, and now I'll be adding it to my daily listening routine.

For it's price, it's highly underrated. A neat fighting game with pretty graphics, cool mechs, awesome animations and a nice overall polish. I really recommend picking it up with friends.

A fun little physics-based game that can keep you occupied for hours just watching random battle combinations from the various cast fight each other. Many games end up with zany results and no two battles are the same.

SOMA. What a superb sci-fi horror game. It’s more than that - it’s a freaking masterpiece of storytelling. I was a big fan of Frictional’s Amnesia: The Dark Descent so when this came out in 2015, I knew I had to play it. However, I didn’t get around to getting it until recently when it came on sale. And man I should have played it sooner. I recommend going into this game completely blind like I did, so avoid the rest of the review if you haven’t played it yet.

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I came into this game without any prior knowledge on it at all other than knowing that it was made by Frictional games. SOMA starts off kind of slow and you soon come to realize that it’s not heavily focused on gameplay mechanics or has as much complexity in puzzles as Amnesia or Penumbra; it’s mostly centered on its story and world-building. But what a story it is. I was engaged from start to finish and the simplicity of the gameplay (not being given marked quest objectives or inventory) added to my immersion.

This story will take you on a ride. A ride with a ♥♥♥♥-ton of emotions and self-deliberation. The graphics and atmosphere are truly stellar, and completely mesmerize you with the surroundings you’re shunted into. Creepiness and scares abound in this game, but I learned that they don’t really make up the focal point of the experience. The monsters are plenty terrifying, however the true horror, as you’ll learn, is the dreadful realization that humanity is all but extinct and the few that remain are digitalized into artificial intelligence entities (including yourself). You come to this understanding slowly as you progress, and the sheer gravity of that sinks in – especially since the character you were playing (Simon Jarrett) was living the nice urban life in Toronto mere moments ago. Being immersed in the story evokes a jarring, vicarious cognizance in the player to this shift. Moreover, what this game does more than engross, is bring about many moral and philosophical quandaries that have you contemplating even outside of playing. Some of the key themes that it touches upon are the concept of identity, the parameters that define life, the digitalization of human minds, and many more. All in all, a multifaceted, idiosyncratic, exploration of the human condition.

More specifically, the game will have you questioning things like ‘what constitutes life’? Is it our consciousness or the biological components that make up our body? If, consciousness exists but in an artificial form, is it really living? Does your identity only belong to the original body you first inhabited? Or do your mental projections on the outside world delineate that?
SOMA also touches on some specific cogitations of the mind that I previously thought only I had – which gave the game even more meaning to me as I played. As a religious person, it even provokes some befuddling questions about the afterlife and the soul. When two or more consciousness exists of the same person, whose metaphysical presence takes precedence? Which life matters more and which one is the impostor? After all, they have the same exact memories and mind. AI and cloning could very well be just as sentient as we are in the near future, so this question may not be too far out.

In the same vein, the game also hits you with some difficult hypotheticals about how you value your own being compared to others. Is it the ethical choice to put other lives in front of your own despite self-preservation being one of the core parts of being human? Is choosing self-preservation really that unethical, since our whole universe is governed by our own physical perceptions?. This becomes even more complex when the ‘lives’ hanging in the balance here are basically collections of data and the effects of your actions will go unseen by you.

I also think that the ending of the game was perfect. It’s the perfect exemplification of how a story such as this needs to end. It was heart-breaking and dismal, yet also hopeful and beautiful depending on how you see it. Overall, it’s an ambivalent experience that’ll make you cry all the same. I know I did. The music that plays at the end, and throughout the entire game, are phenomenal.

The only con I might find about this game is that the gameplay is really simple. There isn’t really any survival element from other Frictional Games, the puzzles aren’t that hard, and most of the monsters follow similar patterns. However, that didn’t detract from the experience at all for me – in fact, it helped me to move along and focus on the story, making myself fully involved without having to worry too much about hampering gameplay factors.

To sum it up, this is a game that stays with you. This is a game that is one of the best sci-fi horror mediums of all time. This is a game with which I still don’t have all the answers to; I still have many questions about story aspects that I came across while playing. This is a great game.

10/10

I'll consider this review as a reccomendation for the whole original Dawn of War series, seeing as I've played them all.

Warhammer: Dawn of War is probably the best RTS I've played - not because it's the most balanced or the most mechanically masterful, but because it's the most fun. The W40k universe is amazing and Dawn of War lets you play all of the races and factions that are a part of it. This variety of playable races alone is a factor that makes it a fantastic RTS.

Dark Crusade is the best expansion and has the best campaign, but Soulstorm is the crest of the Dawn of War series and is the most complete game. It's also the one that lets you add the Ultimate Apocalypse Mod, which truly allows you to play the W40k universe to its absolute fullest.

Honestly, Dead Money is one of my favorite DLCs of all time. It was incredibly difficult, frustrating, disturbing throughout, and made you miss the Mojave dearly.

But it has a fantastic narrative; the questline that Elijah sets you on is highly engrossing and the story of the Sierra Madre is nothing less than extraordinarily haunting. I love how it forced you to stay on guard all the time and use your skills to survive - the difficulty of its horror setting added to my enjoyment of the DLC. Then there's the writing. Obsidian really gets to show their prowess in this particular aspect with this story as all of the characters are phenomenal: the dual personality of Dog and God, the sociopathic and conniving nature of Dean Domino, the solemn and enigmatic background behind Christine, and the radical mastermind behind the scenes, Elijah. Even the characters that weren't even really there were memorable; Vera's hologram and her desperate cries for Sinclair are sure to last in my memory for a long time. Then there are the themes that permeate the whole story, with the most notable ones being greed and letting go. When I finished the whole questline, the latter theme still stuck with me, as the DLC had emotionally gripped me from start to finish. It was hard to let go.


I understand it's not for everybody because it's unlike anything in the base game. The challenges and the despair that pervade the DLC are really jarring and not for the faint of heart.

Makes you proud to be an American...


Even if you aren't one.

Good times

Worst game eva