Gaming Gideon
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Gideons Gaming Latest Reviews
I doubt many who bought Wild Gate were looking to play Call of Duty Lite. They likely expected epic space ship battles and cool clutch gameplay moments, and while that framework definitely exists, it’s currently unbalanced to a severe degree. I want to keep playing Wild Gate, but the more I play, the less I like it, and Moonshot Games will have to implement some drastic changes to keep me flying into the Reach.
The end result is that Dead by Daylight is an incredibly graceful and strategic game of cat and mouse that is largely best played with randoms. The scoring system has degrees of success and failure and greatly incentivizes killers to play their roles and survivors to work together. I can see why it’s still going strong after 9 years. It certainly has a few live service hang-ups, but Dead by Daylight is definitely a game worth playing anyway and one of the best asymmetrical multiplayer experiences I’ve ever had.
Death Stranding 2 keeps the spirit of the original by continuing to be a game about deliveries. However, it threw away its soul by removing any and all friction involved in those deliveries. Instead of overcoming obstacles, the most direct path rarely has any, and the entire game is designed to allow you to ignore its core gameplay loop without engaging with what the game actually is. I can’t overstate just how disappointed I am with this sequel.
Nightreign isn’t even a full-priced game, and I’ve already put over 100 fun-filled hours into it, with more to come. I’ll take that any day over a full-priced 15 to 20-hour “cinematic experience” the industry seems to be in love with. The way Nightreign blends the replayability of a rogue-lite game with the skillful nature you come to expect of a FromSoft game is nothing short of amazing.
RoadCraft has updates ahead of it, including some kind of “hard” mode. I look forward to seeing it evolve because there are aspects I enjoy, and heck, if I ever went back to SnowRunner, I’d miss the ability to manipulate the terrain greatly. But as it stands, RoadCraft doesn’t feel right. At best, it feels more like a toy and less like a game. At worst, it just feels like busy work.
I’d love to talk about and gush over all of the cool aspects of Wilds, but for a review, there’s largely no point because the overbearing streamlining, hand-holding, and dumbing down of the game completely ruins those cool aspects for me. Anything positive thing I could say would have a hundred caveats waiting in the wings. For the first time, I have a new entry in one of my favorite video game series, and I have absolutely no desire to play it.
Avowed is almost a good game. Its meaningful choices and excellent combat are held back by a trite gameplay loop of open but not-quite-open zones with poor scaling and a bafflingly bad tier system for your gear.
Regardless Oxygen Not Included has some of the most unique and clever gameplay designs I have ever seen. There are very few games where you could put a degree in various sciences to work, but fewer still, are the number of games that could use them and remain playable and fun for those without them. I’m pretty sure that Oxygen Not Included manages to be both, and that’s incredibly impressive.
Monkey sees numbers go up, monkey happy. That’s Balatro in a nutshell. It has an incredibly addictive gameplay loop that manages to activate the same neurons that predatory gambling games and mobile trash love to prey on. The thing is, there’s nothing remotely predatory about Balatro. It’s just a rogue-lite card game with absolutely no stakes. Well, except for the sleep you might lose by playing it well past bedtime.
Uncle Chops Rocket Shop is a game that will make you sweat. It applies a type of pressure I’ve rarely encountered in a video game. Other games will challenge your reflexes, your ability to adapt, and even your ability to think strategically. Uncle Chops Rocket Shop, however, challenges your ability to learn, and apply that learning in various scenarios under the threat of death.