Content from Last 48hrs

UVS Nirmana This was a cool Zach-like, much better than Kaizen imo. It was a little short, but it was also $12 so I can't complain about that too much. When it ended I felt like it was only just starting to build to the really hard puzzles, so I would have liked to see a second set that continue to grow the complexity. But what's actually here is good, and fun, and I recommend it if you like Zachtronics games. Grade: 4/5

Saros Everything I was afraid of based on the pre-release media is true, they completely wrecked the balance of the game with their effort to dumb down the difficulty. The modifier system is technically optional, except as a practical matter you have to use it for the last part of the game because of [spoilers]. Okay, so whatever, they claim you can add stuff to make it harder to offset the ways you're making it easier, which is fine in theory, except that the system is so horrifically unbalanced that it's super easy to make the endgame a complete cakewalk for yourself without even meaning to. I never once did a run with a total modifier level below 0 (adding things to make it easier subtracts from your score, things to make it harder add to your score, 0 is the default) but still absolutely roflstomped the final boss. Eliminating the challenge at that point in the game just sucks, it completely steals the thunder of the ending. The narrative also isn't as compelling or well-told as Returnal, the weapons are less varied and less interesting, the skill tree means your runs are less varied from each other, the worlds have less randomness to them which also means your runs are less varied... everything about it is just designed to make it less interesting and more repetitive. The one thing it does have going for it is that the moment-to-moment combat and movement still feels great, it's very fun at that level. And if I stop with the Returnal comparisons for a moment I did have fun with it on its own merits, it's just disappointing as the follow-up to one of my favorite games of all time. Usually you expect the second game to improve on the problems of the first, but this did the opposite. Grade: 4/5

New mode added: Leon Must Die Forever, not quite Mercenaries but looks pretty fun.