Gaming Gideon
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Gideons Gaming Latest Reviews
Ball X Pit is certainly a unique game and for a time I found it interesting, but if I’m being honest the urge I had to play it felt eerily similar to the urge I’ve had to play crappy mobile games. There is an incremental progression that can be addicting. But after the first few hours I can’t say that I was actually having fun with the game, because it felt like an idle game.
Monster Train 2 is a deck building game that is packed full of content, at least in part by including half of the content from the first game. Beyond that, it’s a better polished and more refined version of Monster Train. While it still features a few of the first games flaws, it’s pretty much an ideal sequel for this genre of game.
For now, however, as long as Arc Raiders remains true to its initial vision. It’s one of the best multiplayer games ever released, with some of the greatest emergent gameplay I’ve ever seen. Arc Raiders is definitely my game of the year.
Ghost of Yotei is a safe sequel, and in some ways, that’s a great thing and will be precisely what a lot of people wanted. For me, however, I was hoping to see some large improvements from Ghost of Tsushima, rather than a reskin.
LEGO Party is a safe mimicry of the genre popularized by Mario Party, but that’s the exact type of game that non-Nintendo platforms have never seen and desperately needed. While it can’t match the charm of the inspiration it brazenly wears on sleeves, it’s still a respectable party game that actually manages to pin down most of the things that make Mario Party a hit in the first place, all while charging less to boot!
Ultimately, despite its repetitive nature, Hades 2 is simply more Hades, and that’s not a bad thing. The story is compelling, the characters, dialogue, and line delivery are fantastic, the combat is more thoughtful than the first game, and there’s twice as much level and boss variety compared to Hades 1. It’s an excellent sequel, even if being more of the same didn’t always strike the right chords for me.
The failed balancing act, the broken multiplayer, and the lack of friction, especially the lack of friction, all pull No Man’s Sky down from the throne where it should be, from where it realistically could be, given Hello Games’ track record of updates. No Man’s Sky is a game I love to play, yet often find myself asking myself, ” Why am I doing this?” as I stare blankly mining a rock while in no danger for a new upgrade I won’t need. It’s like being in a perpetual mobile game dopamine treadmill, but without the horrid monetization aspects. Yet, the beauty of space can’t be denied, and I always want to fly to just one more planet. Just one, more, planet.
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.