Mister Jack

Twelve Minutes Game Pass again. This is a point and click that takes place entirely within a two room apartment. The main character is trapped in a roughly ten to twelve minute time loop with his wife right before some very bad shit goes down, and you have to figure out how to prevent it from happening as well as how to escape the time loop. The interesting thing here is that puzzle solutions are often timing based. Since you only have, at most, 12 minutes per loop, you have to gather what clues and information you can in each loop so you can put it to use in the next loop. You're always working against the clock and even if you know what to do in a loop, if you do it too early or too late it won't have the desired outcome. Of course, if you get stuck this can result in monotony since you're repeating the same events over and over. If you need to restart a loop right away the game lets you do this by leaving the apartment, but otherwise you need to wait for your opportunity, and if you've been at it a while this can be kind of tedious. A Groundhog Day puzzle game is an interesting concept, though. Unfortunately, the thing that kinda killed this one for me is that the plot is mind-blowingly contrived and dumb. Despite strong performances from a cast with the likes of James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley, and Willem Dafoe himself, the twist ending completely obliterated my suspension of disbelief because it just relied on too many ridiculous coincidences. I thought to myself "There is NO WAY in hell this could ever really happen" and as soon as that thought enters your head any story it applies to is going to be dead in the water. I had an easier time believing in time loops than I did in the ending. Hell, I would have believed magic space pixies were behind everything more than I would have believed the ending. In short, I like the idea behind the game and I like how it's presented and I like the performances but holy SHIT the script really needed another pass. When I think about it, another game that does time loop puzzles and has a much more compelling story, even if it gets out there sometimes, is Ghost Trick. Unfortunately, this game is only available on the DS or iOS platforms, but if you have access to either of those I can't recommend it highly enough.

Miles is a standalone game but it's a shorter length. You can think of it like an expansion pack but one where you don't have to own the original.

Why the hell isn't Halo 5 on PC anyway. It boggles the mind.

Oooh he thicc

I haven't been to Kotaku in so long that I didn't even realize Jason had left. It certainly explains a lot since he was one of the last people doing actual journalism, and pretty good journalism too.

Remember that Epic vs. Apple lawsuit? We finally got a judgment on that. The results are as follows: - Epic knowingly violated their agreement with Apple and must pay 30% of the revenue they got through their direct payment system, which is 3.65 million dollars. - Apple was within their rights to kick Fortnite off of the app store and are not required to put it back. - Epic has to put out a statement admitting that Apple was right. Sounds like a clean sweep in Apple's favor, right? Well as it turns out there was one other judgment. - Apple can no longer restrict developers from including direct payment options in their apps that bypass the Apple ecosystem. When this whole thing started I didn't know who I wanted to win because I hate both companies, but as it turns out, they BOTH lose!

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles I finally wrapped this one up after playing it off and on since it launched back in July. This is actually a compilation of two games with ten cases overall. There was a time once back when this was Japan exclusive when I thought missing out on this game was no great loss since it was totally unrelated to Phoenix, Maya, or any of the other characters I'd come to love in the other games, but I have completely reassessed my feelings toward this entry now. While it's true that Phoenix and co. are completely absent, I grew to adore the new cast. Herlock Sholmes especially is an absolute himbo who steals every scene he's in. I friggin love him. This game also has my new favorite defendant in the entire series. There's just so many goofy, memorable, and not to mention highly animated characters on display here. They also have more presence here than in previous games, meaning when the story calls for it you can see multiple characters on screen at once or see them in the backgrounds during investigations. Herlock is a treat in this regard and you never know where he's going to pop up next. As far as the story goes, these games were clearly planned as a duology and the ten cases all connect to each other in some way. There's no filler cases like Big Top Turnabout here and every episode has some kind of new revelation in service to the greater plot, which is full of twists and turns that eventually lead to one of the most memorable climaxes in the franchise. It's a hell of a ride. On another note, the PC port here is pretty damn solid. I don't know if the character models were remastered since I never played the 3DS version, but they all look quite good and I often forgot that this game was originally on a handheld. If you're an Ace Attorney fan, don't skip this one just because Phoenix isn't in it. Trust me, you won't regret giving it a chance.

Alien: Isolation Finally got around to this one thanks to Game Pass and it reminded me a lot of Condemned: Criminal Origins in a good way. The developers utilized some clever and sadistic tricks here to really up the tension. For starters, the alien is completely invincible to every weapon you have, and at best you can temporarily drive it away if you have something to set it on fire. While I imagine some people will gripe at this, it does dispel any notion that you can fight this thing. More than that, however, is that fact that there is no auto-saving except at a few specific story-related moments. 95% of the time, the only saves you get are the ones you make yourself, and saving the game at a station takes about five seconds, during which you are completely vulnerable. The alien actually killed me once while I was in the middle of saving the game. As if that isn't enough, each save station has a cooldown period before you can use it again. It definitely makes you more cautious because you don't want to lose progress by dying, but sometimes the save stations are a little too far apart. I had to redo up to 15 minutes of progress on more than one occasion, sometimes multiple times in a row, and when that happens it gets frustrating and not very fun, but this is a problem that could easily be solved in future games by putting just a few more save stations in the environment. Props to the alien's AI, too. It's quite relentless and will learn to adapt if you use the same trick too many times to get away from it. I never felt like I could exploit it to make it do what I wanted or move how I wanted it to move like I could with Mr. X in Resident Evil 2. At no point is the xenomorph ever going to stop being the biggest threat in the game, and rightfully so. I also liked the android enemies, which are cheap uncanny valley knock-off versions of the more sophisticated Weyland-Yutani androids. That's a brilliant design and their robotic one-liners as they chase you around the ship are super memorable. If I have one major complaint it's that the story runs out of steam before it's over. The big climax of the game happens around maybe 3/4 of the way through but then it just keeps going for several levels. The last few missions are mostly just constantly backtracking to flip switches, push buttons, and power up generators while a pissed off xenomorph who never ever leaves stalks you in an enclosed space, which is more tedious and aggravating than anything. Remember, if it catches you at any point you have to push all those buttons and flip all those switches all over again unless you were lucky enough to manage a save in between. I think if they shaved off the last two or three hours of the campaign it would have been much tighter and ultimately more satisfying at the end. It's still a damn good survival horror game though. I'd love to see Sega make more of them, if not another Alien game then at least something else, because they've done it enough times now to prove they know their stuff.

You're good, man. I had my issues with the game but I can understand why someone else might love it.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice Game Pass again. I heard all kinds of talk about how this one is a masterpiece and a must play and how it'll change the face of gaming forever and...it's just okay. That's not to say there aren't things to like. The graphics are superb, the story and presentation are compelling, and the sound design especially is top notch. In fact, I'd recommend playing this with headphones on, preferably with 7.1 surround if possible. As a storytelling experience, Hellblade is indeed quite ambitious. As a game, though? It kinda falls on its face a bit. Most of the time you're just walking around and looking at things. The environments are beautiful, sure, and there are puzzles, but the puzzle solutions almost always consist of, again, walking around and looking at things. It gets pretty monotonous. There's no map or markers of any kind either. The only guidance you get are the voices in Senua's head, who are not always helpful as you can probably imagine. If you get turned around you can spend a long time just trying to figure out where you're supposed to go and that's both boring and frustrating. When you actually do fight, combat is as basic as can be. There's only one weapon, not many enemy types, and your moveset is just light, heavy, kick, dodge, and parry for the entire game. It looks neat visually thanks to some cool cinematography, but it's really not that fun to actually play. I ended up turning the combat difficulty to easy by the end because otherwise it's just such a chore to get through. Would I recommend this? Well, if you go into it with the understanding that it's pretty close to a walking simulator and keep your expectations in check then you might be satisfied, but then again you could probably just watch a playthrough on Youtube and not miss much. I like everything about this game except the gameplay, but that's a pretty damn big caveat.

You get it free if you own the original, which I did not at the time.

"Oh, you can run Cyberpunk 2077 on ultra? Yeah, that's pretty cool, but can you run QUAKE II?!?!?!"

Is that really a thing? God damn. I haven't experienced it personally but if that's true then the app is even worse than I thought. How the hell did Microsoft push out something so shitty and how is it still not fixed?

The Ascent This was another Game Pass game. I must admit, Game Pass is a pretty good deal, but by the time my trial month is up I'll probably have beaten all the games on there I am currently interested in playing anyway so I'll most likely cancel it until Elder Scrolls or Starfield comes out. Getting to The Ascent, I've seen some cheeky people saying that this is "Cyberpunk 2077 done right." Well these people don't know what the hell they're talking about. Not that The Ascent isn't good, it is, but Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world FPS RPG while The Ascent is an isometric twin stick shooter. The only thing they have in common is that they're both in the Cyberpunk genre, and even then The Ascent leans harder into the sci-fi because there's aliens and whatnot. It's worth playing, but don't think of it as some kind of Cyberpunk stand-in. Something very important to emphasize is that this is not a DIablo-esque dungeon crawler with constant loot drops. Enemies will sometimes drop weapons and armor, yes, but the stats on each piece are fixed like in a normal RPG. There is a decent variety of guns and you can upgrade the ones you get at a gunsmith, but every riot shotgun you find is going to be the same so the only thing dupes are good for is selling for cash. This game is a shooter first and an RPG second. That's not to say there's no build variety. Even if the guns are standardized, you can unlock cybernetic combat abilities to use in fights. You get two normal abilities and one ultimate ability, and mixing these up is where the real fun is. It takes a few hours to unlock more than just frag grenades, but once you do the combat becomes a lot more interesting. Each type of gun also comes in ballistic and energy versions, with ballistic working better on organic enemies and energy working better on robot enemies. You can equip two guns at a time so I usually used one ballistic and one energy, though depending on the kind of area you're in you'll probably be swapping them out often, which I consider a good thing. Something unusual for a twin stick shooter is that you're also encouraged to duck and shoot from behind cover when it's available. Sometimes you just gotta Leeroy Jenkins a group of enemies but if you recklessly charge into an armed mob you'll probably die pretty fast. The story is interesting and the voice acting is surprisingly good. Unfortunately, the game ends right when things start picking up. They obviously plan to continue things in a sequel or in DLC but it still kinda sucks when you're getting into the narrative and it suddenly just stops. The game is also quite beautiful for an isometric twin stick shooter and even offers ray tracing. However, I did have some severe frame drops from time to time, usually when entering a new area, and I'm on a 3060 Ti so I'm pretty sure it's not me. Apparently this is a known issue with the PC version that is supposed to get patched at some point. Some people claim to have issues with the online co-op but I can't verify that because I never played online. There's no matchmaking so if you want multiplayer you need to find some friends to invite. If you already have Game Pass I'd recommend giving this one a try. If not, I'd still recommend it, but maybe wait a bit until the next steam sale when it has hopefully gotten a few patches under its belt.

I wanted a dungeon crawler to play on my pc, preferably one that isn't developed by a company that covers up rapists, so I got this on Steam because it was on sale for a little over six bucks.

Actually I just discovered Tetris Effect is on Game Pass so I guess I can find out for myself.

Damn, you're gonna catch up to me at this rate. I'm at 412.

What exactly makes that version of Tetris worth $40? I could never really wrap my head around that.

Damn homie. What's your trophy level right now?

I agree but you know how out of touch corporations are. The fact they're choosing to release it without co-op means they thought it was a good idea, or at least better than delaying it again.

Battletoads (2020) I have Game Pass for a month so I figured I might as well try some more games while I have it. Unfortunately, the Battletoads reboot is really kind of a mess. It has no idea what it wants to be. Most of the time it's a brawler, but then oh, now it's a racer, now it's a puzzle platformer, now it's a bullet hell game, now it's a puzzle game. It can't just pick a genre and stick with it. I know the old Battletoads games mixed things up sometimes, but never this much. I honestly wouldn't even mind the constant changes so much if not for the fact that most stages are very long and the new gameplay types wear out their welcome long before they're done. The turbo bike tunnel section lasts for ten minutes! Imagine playing Warioware and each game lasted for ten minutes. It's excruciating. Frankly, the gimmick stage I ended up liking the most was one that was just a bunch of quicktime events of the toads trying to do boring office jobs. It was short, simple, and kind of amusing for the couple of minutes it lasted. The brawler stages are probably the most fun part of the game, but unfortunately even those are pretty flawed. Each toad has different strengths and weaknesses, which sounds cool on paper but Zitz ends up being objectively the best character because he's the fastest toad, meaning he has the best dodge and adds the most hits to the combo counter. The flashy, high damage finisher moves that are a Battletoads staple are rarely worth using because unlike other brawlers, there are no invincibility frames and the finisher animations are just too long to rely on without taking a hit. You're better off just using regular attacks most of the time and that's a drag. I can't say I'm a fan of some of the creative choices made either. I don't like the art style or the updated designs. The Dark Queen in particular has a misshapen mouth and freakish hands that are bigger than her head. The plot of the game also reimagines the toads as a trio of incompetent jackass losers who usually make things worse whenever they try to be heroes. I can see how this could be funny in theory but the unapologetic 90s attitude played completely straight is what I found kind of charming about the other games. Shining a spotlight on it and making them into loser dorks feels like they're explaining the joke and trying too hard to be funny. Honestly, they feel like completely different characters. The new villains are also lame. I hate to be so negative because I can tell they were trying very hard to make something cool, but it just didn't really pan out. The difficulty is more fair than the old games at least. What a lot of people don't want to admit is that the old Battletoads games could be pretty poorly designed at times and they rewarded memorization more than skill or reflexes. That's not an issue here but what you're left with still just isn't that engaging. The brawler sections can be fun, sure, but if you want a brawler you are better off just playing Streets of Rage 4, which is a much better game. I came away from this one feeling pretty disappointed. The clock says it took me only 3 hours total to beat it but it felt like much, much longer.

Something tells me they were getting antsy about delaying it for so long and are anxious to just push out what they've got before all the hype dies.

Inside out tracking is the big one for me, but only having one cable will definitely be a big deal. I sorta wish it could be a standalone unit like the Quest 2, but I'll take what I can get. I've heard rumors that Valve is looking into making one as a follow-up to the Index anyway.

Psychonauts 2 I finally took up Microsoft on that $1 month of Game Pass to play this. Before I get to the game, I just want to say the PC client for Game Pass is a piece of crap. It spent hours getting errors every time I tried to download a game and I eventually had to completely reset the app settings for gaming services and app installers on my brand new desktop for it to work, and MS didn't even suggest that solution on their own tech support. I had to go looking in forums for the answer. It's a Microsoft app on a Microsoft OS. Why do I need to jump through hoops to get it to work? Anyway, putting that aside, Psychonauts 2 was totally worth the wait. After so many years I'm sure a lot of people will be wondering if it could possibly live up to the hype and I'm here to say that yes, it does. I love the first Psychonauts but this sequel is no doubt a better game than its predecessor. The cartoony graphics look great and remind me of the puppets used by Laika, the platforming is tight, the levels are wildly imaginative and mind bending but never frustrating, the enemy designs are very clever, the writing is more mature while still being very funny, and the themes on display here are really thoughtful and heartfelt. It's just a great game that anyone who enjoyed the first Psychonauts is going to love, not to mention one of the best platformers in years. Double Fine stumbles sometimes with their games but this might be the best one they've ever made. All those years of development were not put to waste.

New cutscenes with terrible writing and voice acting and absolutely no lip movement during dialogue, worse soundtrack like you said, moving combat from 2D to 3D makes it much clunkier and harder to both aim your attacks and dodge enemy attacks, menus are worse and more cumbersome to navigate, clipping issues, performance issues, glitches...there's really just no reason to pay money for the remake over emulating the original for free.