Reviews Rate the game you finished/retired

[Mivey]

Finished Layers of Fear 2

So on its head, it might be strange to touch this game in 2025, when a remaster of both games is out, but from what I understand, the 2024 game is less a remaster and more a reimagining and conclusion to both games, then a just a full copy of both titles (as I aim to find out), so I also wanted to give LoF2 a try. These are short games, so that also helps.

Similar to the first game, we play an artist struggling with their work. In this case it's an actor, who is forced by their kinda crazy director to go through a sort of soul searching to "built the character" they need to their next film. As part of this, he also digs deep into our past, and it turn out our protagonist has some rather traumatic stuff to deal with.
I won't give away the big dramatic reveal, but it is ultimately a question of identity, with our choices essentially determining who we truly are in the end. There is also plenty of supernatural shenangians, plus an interesting cameo from the first game.

The setting is on a boat, with strong Titanic vibes. As with the first game, it takes places in interior locations only, though they get crazier and zanier as the story goes on, with locations that might as well be underground caves, or the ocean or abstract horror landscapes of various kinds. The actual "gameplay" is pretty much nonexistent, you just walk, open doors and click on things. Though this time Bloober made things more interesting by chase sections where a monster can kill you if you fail. They are mostly incredibly simple, but they do serve to keep things spooky.

Overall, a pretty decent horror title, though mostly psychological horror. If you want horror that is more visceral, then perhaps not the best choice.

 

[Mivey]

I finished Observer System Redux

Finished another horror game by Bloober Team, continuing my recent streak of playing their back catalogue (mostly in preparation for Cronos)

Perhaps unsurprising, but this is another psychological horror game, in first person. The big difference to their other projects is the setting. Observer takes place in a cyberpunk setting, in the 2084, after a "great war between East and West" (so basically WW3), which left a lot of the world in ruins, allowing in the case of Poland for a corporation to take it over and establish a new republic, though this time one that is a corporatist dictatorship, essentially. We play as a cop, though basically half-retired and used as a so-called "Observer". Special cybernetic units that are isolated from the regular grid to protect from being taken over by adverseries, whose main purpose is, well, to observe, allowing the other rest of the cops to come in and their cop stuff (presumably harrasing minorities and anyone else they come across).
Our particular Observer is really looking for his missing son, who worked for the company but had to go into hiding for an explained reason.

Most of the horror parts come from the exploration of other people's minds, where our Observer can literally "plug into" their brain. You can see the influence of Layers of Fear very strongly in those sections. Lots of super impressive visuals, overbearing symbolism, you get the picture.

Visually quite stunning, especially from a small team from Poland (I believe at the time made by around 30 people, a far cry from the 250 people Bloober is employing in 2025). It's a relatively short game, it took me 10 hours, despite wasting a lot of time by looking at every little detail and playing its silly minigames. Probably something one can finish in half the time, if one sticks to the critical path.

 

[lashman]

which left a lot of the world in ruins

no, no, that's just how poland looks in general

 

[Mivey]

Finished Lunar: Silver Star Story



I started playing this one years ago on an emulator the first time, but never finished it. The remaster adds some nice features like a turbo mode for battles (not sure if this one wasn't added already by a previous version), which greatly helps make this game less tedious.

The actual game is a very traditional turn-based JRPG, that is overall pretty light in terms of difficulty, but also doesn't add much to the genre that other games didn't have. Lunar mostly shines due to its story, which is basically a straight-up love story between the heroes Alex and Luna, and secondary love stories between the other four characters. What is also pretty unique for JRPGs is the setting. We play on a moon, kept verdant and liveable by some kind of magic, and the "blue star" that everyone talks about is clearly some kind of blue planet, looking a bit like Earth (though the continents don't line up, so very likely not actually Earth). That part of the setting is not explored in Lunar 1, though I suspect it will play a bigger role in Lunar 2.

In Lunar 1, we are instead on a relatively simple story to save the world from a big bad guy who wants to conquer the world. This does get a little more complexity, once we understand a bit the motivations of the villain, but honestly, it doesn't add that much. Ultimately, Ghaleon is just a power hungery asshole who doesn't have much intrinstic motivation beyond being kinda jealous and being power hungry.

It helps that Lunar is pretty short by RPG standards, it took me about 22 hours to beat the first game.

I think I'll put in a longer break before I return to this world to play the sequel.

 

[MegaApple]

Finished Assassin's Creed Revelations on Steam (last week)



Beginning, ending and the Altair segments seemed made by the excellent Brotherhood team, and the middle story by a b-team (not a bad part, just doesn't fit a trilogy finale).
This game is only for those who want to see the conclusion of the trilogy story.
Even with this taking in mind, there are a lot of flaws. Less flaws, rather than underbaked stuff.

• Progress is lopsided, you can get the best weapon and armor by doing some random sidequests.
• Bomb system is "great to have" but ultimately, you only use it one type of bomb (unless its doing optional objective)
• Hookblade is genius, but very little ways to utilize it

You can feel like the original director of AC2 and Brotherhood leaving Ubisoft (plus 1 year dev period) affected it a lot.

That said. HOLY HELL is the ending so good as fan of Ezio story.



Rating - 2.5/5

 

[Mivey]

Finished Blair Witch.




The connections of this game to the source material seem fairly loose, and sadly there isn't nearly as much supernatural stuff as the "witch" title implies. That said, this is overall still a pretty good horror game. I remember playing this in 2019 on gamepass, and being super impressed by its graphics. It doesn't quite hold up in 2025, mostly since I end up comparing it to titles like Alan Wake 2, which isn't fair but the super static foliage just looks a bit basic and super fake once you have seen the kind of mesh shader based magic that Remedy can pull off.
The actual horror elements are handled quite well, though the fact that you basically never see another characer, excpet for your dog, kinda hurts the game. It's hard to tell an interesting story if all you do is hear them from a phone or a walkie talkie. It's clearly a budget thing, as Bloober back then simply didn't have the resource to put many people in their games. It also helps that the game is very short. Took me 7 hours to beat it,

Can recommend it to any fan of horror games, but one should keep their expectations in check.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Finished What Lies in the Multiverse (Studio Voyager, IguanaBee / Untold Tales, 2022)

A story-heavy pixel-art puzzle platformer centered around a mechanic that lets the player instantly swap back and forth with an alternate version of the level (this is where the multiverse angle comes in), where different mechanics and physics apply. On top of that there's a bunch of mechanics that Celeste players will immediately recognize, like the Space Jam / Dream Blocks. The sound design is a bit reminiscent of Fez. So, good ingredients, and the resulting game is good as well.

The story is a bit odd - it starts off as pure comedy and is pretty funny, too, but little by little sneaks in darker tones and by the end turns into full-blown drama. Somewhat unfortunately, the dramatic parts did not really do it for me, to overwrought and heavy-handed. But it didn't really take away my enjoyment of the game either.


7/10

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Also finished It Takes Two (Hazelight / Electronic Arts, 2021)

It's quite simply one of the best 3D platformers ever made, wrapped in a story that looks and feels like a Dreamworks animation movie for the big screen. And it is all that while also being a co-op only game, and being accessible enough for casual gamers to have just as much fun with it as seasoned veterans.

Any gamer who doesn't outright hate platformers needs to rope in someone/anyone to play this game with at some point.


10/10

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Also finished Season - A Letter to the Future (Scavengers Studio, 2023)

The game's own description "third-person meditative exploration game" is spot-on, so the average gamer will probably be bored out of their mind - however, for anybody who really enjoyed Kentucky Route 0 (as I did), this is probably the game that comes closest to KR0 in terms of mood, artistic accomplishment and pace - with slightly less literary ambition, but considerably more eye-candy.


9/10

 

[fantomena]

Finished



Well sorta a replay, but first time I played it earlier this year via PC game pass when I had that for 3 months on my older my PC where the game ran terrible. This time I played the enhanced edition maxed out and it rean beautifully.

Game is gorgeus and story is interesting, but gameplay is worse than the original and the original had my curiousity more.

Score: 7.8/10

Finished



Short (like 1.5 hours), but interesting game with a curious concept. Didn't care for the story much as Im not interested in football and it's a football-story driven game, but I enjoyed everything around that.

Score: 8/10

Finished



Very good pont and click game, with great voice acting and an interesting story. Story did go a bit too offrail towards the end and some parts of the story I didn't like, but otherwise a great game.

Score: 8.2/10