Recent reviews by Technaugure

Chorus is probably the best Jedi-in-a-starfighter game you could find out there, ironically leaving behind the actual Jedi Starfighter games. It also has one of the most memorable scores in recent gaming history and a solid gameplay loop bridging the gap between the Rogue Squadron and Ace Combat games.

The story could be summed up with "What if Darth Vader left the Empire and joined the Rebellion ?", but Chorus' universe and lore allows it to be much more with its exploration of spirituality, belief and otherness in a way that feels more Dune than Star Wars.

All in all, Chorus is clearly an underrated game that deserves your money and your time ! :)

Probably the closest thing we'll have to a good Zorro videogame adaptation. A love-letter to swashbuckler tales with an early 2000s-feel (especially the Ubisoft Prince of Persia) ... And a pinch of Monkey Island's dialogues for good measure. The emphasis placed on exploiting the environment during combat is also pretty refreshing.

Wholeheartedly recommended !

(On a sidenote, congrats to the devs for placing easter eggs referencing 17th century Science-Fiction. The bookworm in me feels validated.)

A cute Zelda-like experience that doesn't overstay its welcome, with a zanny premise and probably zannier story. There are far worse ways to spend an afternoon !

So, Rollerdrome is a good game that falls just short of being a great game in my standard, because of its narrative. Herein lies the problem : it didn't need a narrative, as the gameplay is just THAT good.

It's a simplified and permissive Tony Hawk Pro Skater (Technically, Aggressive Inline, if you're like me and grew up during the THPS & "let's-put-together-a-clone-with-anything-with-wheels-hoping-it-makes-money" craze...) mashed with a third person shooter reminiscent of the bullet-hell tension of Platinum Games' Vanquish. Don't let the "permissiviness" fool you however: Sure, you can't splatter yourself on the curb thanks to Kara Hassan's plot-onium enhanced reflexes and agility ... but the opposition, with all their bullets, homing missiles and flamethrowers (and that's the sanest part of their arsenal), more than makes up for it.
Rollerdrome definitely IS challenging, but it leans closer to Platinum Games than to Neversoft (RIP).

But then, on the other side, you have the art-style and the narration. The Cel-shading is gorgeous, and the clear inspiration from 1975's Rollerball is an intriguing but welcome breath of fresh air. It takes from it the intriguing premise of the Rollerdrome and the surrounding media craze, the megacorporation backing it and a burgeoning revolution...
... And then, ironically, it rips a page from the 2002 McTiernan's remake by just foregoing everything in favor of spectacle and explosions. The game barely focuses on the competition and the protagonist through embarrasingly short interludes, and does not adress its setting at all save from two or three news frontpages.

That's a borderline-criminal waste of a promising premise, and why Rollerdrome didn't completely click for me.

To sum it up :

- Go ahead if you're looking for a challenging and original Shooter/Tony Hawk-hybrid.
- Skip if you wanted to check the game for its setting (and go watch the original Rollerball instead.)

(Steam Deck-note : It runs great, and is battery-friendly)

Greatly recommended. It's probably the closest thing we'll ever have to a new 2D Castlevania.

On a sidenote, stellar soundtrack. And David Hayter (OG English Solid Snake) voicing a samurai.

So, first, don't get it full price. It's basically a standalone of Borderlands 3. Kind of an evolution of BL2's Dragon Keep DLC. It's a competent game, if not a bit lazy with its mechanics at time. But it's Borderlands, so you most likely know what you're getting into.

Moment to moment gameplay will probably do the heavy lifting to keep you in the game, even in solo, as it's basically Diet-Borderlands 3 in D&D, and imho, 3 has the best gameplay in the series. Story, quests and dialogue are a bit better than BL3, but nowhere near the level of BL2 ... Or even Dragon Keep. The cast is nice but ... I preferred the banter of Dragon Keep. There is a real missed opportunity to do Dragon Keep with BL2 cast here : Wonderlands is basically Tina rambling alone while 2 randos (and the player, as the "newbie") try to keep invested in a PG-13 forgettable story.

So ... Yeah, I recommend it with a meh option. On sale. It's not bad, but if you want to start the Borderlands series, start with 2.

I'll keep playing this game because I'm having fun, and I'm fairly masochistic when it comes to video games but... I can't recommend this game in good conscience to someone who isn't into bad 90s videogame game design decisions masquerading as "difficulty" (and atleast then, they had the decency to have prebuilt F5-F9 quicksaves)

You need to be aware that this game is not your friend. It doesn't want to be. This game is more like your local cult guru. It will take your time and your money and abuse you, and trying to speak against it will anger his followers.

But you know what ? That's fine. No one has to tell you how to play the game. I'm a 3rd party map-using, save-scummer who lost all patience for this kind of game. And I'm having fun with how broken "gritty realism" is in this game.

You want to have fun with an unforgiving game where you play the local magic drunkard with no sense of balance and which barely tells you what qualify as loot chest and actively hides them in places the camera can barely see ? Go ahead !

You saw a funny video of Exanima's physics but can't stand games with no healing, barely any checkpoint, no readable map, no reliable combat system (unless you're ready to eat, breathe and sleep Exanima for 200 hours straight. Then you'll bump it up to ... 75% reliable ?) and generally no user-friendly feature, and you don't want to go out of your way tweaking your experience on your own ? Save your money.

A fairly straightforward versus party/fighting game to enjoy on an evening with friends. It doesn't have any online multiplayer, but doesn't really need it.

It has this old PS1/PS2-era multiplayer vibe to it, and is definitely the kind of game you could boot and play with your non-gamer family. All they need is one stick, 3 buttons, and mostly luck on drawing absurd power-ups.
(And you get to spare yourself a tedious game of Monopoly, Scrabble, or whatever it is your grandparents try to torture you with.)

Didn't have the occasion to play it on release. Bought it out of curiosity. Reviews from the press back in '21 exagerrated a lot of aspects of this game out of spite for the whole "hollow Open World" craze.

In summary ? It may be the best Far Cry/Ubisoft "go everywhere and do/collect stuff" game out there. Easily surpassing comparable games. The story, albeit formulaic, is pretty interesting too. It's thanks to the storytelling and the narrative design as well, which managed to immerse me without making me feel like completing secondary missions like I would do my chores. The clear 3 Act structure also kind of feels like playing a trilogy/duology in a single game, thanks to the separate storylines. Although the game clearly was thought as the start of a saga, it feels pretty complete and don't really makes you mad about the cancellation of the sequel.

On the other hand, gameplay is a mixed bag. There are a lot of nice ideas that just feel wasted. Zombies ("Freakers") are a joke at best and infuriating at worst: Hordes are fun at first, until you realize that running and gunning while throwing the occasional is preferable to setting up traps and using your environment. In the same way, difficulty settings feel tacked on and worsening the experience instead of enhancing it: "Survival" in particular removes general Quality of Life features such as Fast Travel or the HUD without giving clear alternatives, like visual cues for life outside of the screen flashing red when near death... All the while not removing any of the cheesy running & gunning strategy.

The worst offender there are probably the challenge mode, which has the potential to make you actively hate the game if you try to 100% achievement complete it. They are clearly a poorly planned afterthought tacked on a game that was definitely not designed for that kind of gameplay (especially not on the Steam Deck, on which they constantly crash).

All in all, Days Gone is an imperfect but still greatly enjoyable experience, with an interesting story and setting and gorgeous visuals. I'd still recommend it for those who want a proper "Walking Dead-esque" experience.

Note: Apparently, the data collection in the game is ... wild, to say the least. Other reviews cover it extensively. So, be warned.

It might sound like a terroristic outrage against the Metal Gear franchise to the fan, but seriously, it is not, at all.

Sure, you're running around at Mach 2 speed slicing almost everything without effort (You even get a counter to tell you in how many parts you sliced a tree !), but it's certainly not the massacre of the Metal Gear background fans (which I am) were awaiting. It actually blend nicely into the fluff, cyborg-mania explained as being the evolution of the nano-machines-mania of the fourth game.

The thing is, you don't get anymore that "WTF" feeling you had when Raiden was battling gekkos with his bare-hands when you needed a state-of-the-art $73.000-worth self-targeting Javelin missile shooted in its blind spot while it was unaware of you as Snake (or two, or even three...), just to be killing an average Call of Duty grunt with a peashooter the second after. War has changed, and WTF is the norm now.

On the other hand : It surely is beautiful and fluid in 1080p, but why in all seven hells is it crashing when you're not connected to internet ?!