Recent reviews by Seltyk

It's just... so boring. Bland characters with bland personalities speaking to each other with bland dialogue, and the game has the audacity to do a whole lot of nothing on top of that. The sluggish, boring intro drops you off into a boring world with little to do and minimal direction. Oh, and while I'm at it, if one enemy sees you for even half a frame, everyone on earth suddenly knows your location. Bleh.

But at least Josh is genuinely good representation of autism in gaming, that's nice.

I put nearly 250 hours of my life into CSGO, and almost none of that was standard game modes. CS2 launched not as a sequel -- the way *every CS game on Steam* did before -- but as an update, nay, a replacement for CSGO. That replacement had big shoes to fill, and it doesn't cut the mustard. The new lighting is distracting, my top-shelf hardware can hardly run the game at 60 FPS, and (new paragraph to emphasize):

They removed almost all the good game modes! No Arms Race, no Retakes, no Wingman! I never played Demolition but that's gone too.
Come back when this game is actually done; when it looks and performs well with all the old modes included. Right now, Counter-Strike """2""" is a beta with a fancy name that erased its own history.

Received via gift.
The difficulty curve is a brick wall after the 3rd or 4th date, the passion system isn't explained, the baggage system discourages getting to know the characters (whose ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ idea was that??), and Sarah is one of my least favorite characters in literally any fiction I've ever experienced. And after all that the game has the audacity to not really be fun. Also, you know what you bought this for, and I have bad news: it's mid.
Oh, and don't even think about turning the difficulty down mid-game: you gotta restart. Like, actually erase your save and start over. Just play on Chad/Stacy so the baggage system ♥♥♥♥♥ off and the difficulty isn't infuriating.
To summarize the gameplay, losing never actually feels like my fault.

There is one thing that rocks about this game: Lailani. The best one. She alone changes this 3/10 to a 4.

---{ Playtime }---
☑ Didn't finish
☐ Under 2 hours
☐ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☐ Very long
☐ Unending

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☐ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Elders

---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Excellent
☐ Good
☐ Fine
☑ Gets old fast
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Graphics }---
☐ Lifelike
☐ Excellent
☑ Good
☐ Fine
☐ Bad
☐ Hurts my eyes

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Excellent
☑ Good
☐ Fine
☐ Bad
☐ I wish I could unhear that

---{ PC requirements }---
☑ Potato
☐ Smart toaster
☐ Laptop
☐ Enthusiast build
☐ Oil barons only
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Not much to master
☐ Easy to master
☐ Easy to learn, hard to master
☑ Hard to learn
☐ Hope you have a PhD

---{ Grind }---
☐ None
☐ If you care about leaderboards
☐ Not necessary to progress
☑ Average
☐ You'll have to quit your job
☐ Downright agonizing

---{ Story }---
☐ Avatar: The Last Airbender
☐ Entrancing
☐ Above par
☐ Average
☑ Minimal
☐ No story

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☐ Wait for a sale
☐ If you have some spare money
☑ Not worth buying
☐ You might as well just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☑ Basically none
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ Blackwake
☐ The game itself is a bug terrarium
☐ Unplayable. Literally.

---{ Overall }---
☐ I had fun
☑ I did not have fun
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☑ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

(Format adapted from mikethe1st)

Gears for Breakfast has made themselves the gold standard for indie developers:
People said the game is too easy, so Seal The Deal added extremely hard challenge levels, to much praise.
People said the game would benefit from multiplayer, so that was added in DLC too, to much praise.
People said competitive multiplayer would be fun, so Creator DLC was born with Vanessa's Curse, to… some praise.
Modding was available from the start, and the community is very active.
The game came from a successful Kickstarter campaign, despite doubts in the wake of Yooka-Laylee.
The first DLC was free on launch day, to my pleasure.
The devs weren't afraid to push back the launch, knowing that "a delayed game is eventually good".
Speedrunners were on their mind from day 1, and they call that community "The Boop Troop" owing to a now-patched glitch.

Also the game is fun.

Just buy it and the DLC already. You're missing out.

I'm only getting started, but I can tell this game is gonna rock once I get a grip on the counter mechanic

This game has a phenomenal story, but it isn't as good as Yakuza 0's. On the flip side, Kiwami makes some changes to the gameplay from Zero (most notably a rework of Heat mode and the Dragon style) which are very welcome. It's not perfect, Majima Everywhere is a half-assed mess for one, but I've only ever played two games with this good gameplay. Honestly, these mechanics with Zero's story would be a heartbreakingly perfect game. I guess the ultimate metric is: did I have fun playing this? Well, considering I smiled like an idiot every time Majima shouted "Kirrrryu-chan!", I'm gonna go with yes!

Bonus: it works perfectly on Linux with Proton, but you may need to use a GloriousEggroll build.
Double bonus: DualShock 4 is supported and its button prompts are used.

Side note: the EULA is ass

This game has the single best narrative of any game I've played before and since, hands down. Probably a solid hour or two of cutscenes are thoroughly enjoyable, the characters are all masterfully played, and the plot itself is truly a thing of wonder. With great gameplay to go with it, it's hard to imagine anyone disliking Yakuza 0. As a prequel to one of gaming's most famous series and dozens of hours of content to explore, I whole-heartedly suggest that anyone with a compatible PC play this game!

Bonus point: it runs *flawlessly* on Linux with Proton, no configuration or version selection necessary!
Double bonus point: it recognizes my DualShock 4 and uses the PlayStation face button icons in button prompts.

Side note: the EULA is ass

I, uh— wow. Alright, here goes.

Song of Saya is a deeply flawed masterpiece. Despite its shortcomings, unfortunate as they are, what it does right really shines. Kotaku wrote "it manages to make the abominable, beautiful" which is by no means a lie. It knows how to use horror without relying on jumpscares; it knows how to let humans' twisted imagination do half of the work; it knows how to use shocking content without coming across as forced, though admittedly the shock value it relies on grew dull by the end.

The sound team absolutely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nailed it. They have that Akira Yamaoka thing going on, where the music would probably not be fit for listening on its own, but in-game it manages to single-handedly set the entire mood. Sounds get subtly more industrial as the backgrounds get more grotesque, the calm and relaxing female vocals accompanying most of Saya's dialogue are eloquently contrasted with gritty scratches in one side of your headphones. If nothing else, I can wholeheartedly say the music in this game is itself a reason to play it, which is telling.

Probably my favorite aspect of this title, if you'll allow me to invoke my inner Yahtzee, is that the game is very content with staring you down and saying "good job, you made the obvious prediction, and you're right, which means you get to sit here and suffer while it all unfolds". It convinces you to empathize with the horrendous behavior of certain characters, then laughs in your face when you realize you've been tricked. I absolutely love this, and it comes across very well. Not once did I see it coming, and not once did it get old.

There are three endings, which I promise I won't spoil. One gets you what you expect, one gets you what you want, and the other gets in one last punch to the gut and asks you questions you are by no means prepared to answer. It's this third ending that lets you close the game, finish your soda, and sit there dumbfounded for a few minutes in a desperate effort to make sense of what emotions you just felt.

There are so, so many things I want to say, but the bittersweet truth is that any more detail would be spoilers by definition. Now saddle up some cash and play Song of Saya!

It's a good puzzle game. Fairly straightforward, simple rules giving way to complex puzzles, and with fantastic art to go with it. The final level is awfully clever; never thought I'd see a boss fight in a puzzle game, let alone the level itself being a boss fight. It's awfully short, but quite enjoyable.

At the end of the day, here's my metric: several times while playing I said aloud "what is this game?" and "this game sucks!" but every time I did so in a fit of laughter. This game knows it's goofy, and it takes itself only seriously enough to keep up this facade that there's a plot in the background.

9.5/10

One of the best games. Ever.
DOOM Eternal will keep your brain operating at 110% efficiency from start to finish. And you'll never want to finish, either.

That said: I am extremely disappointed in Bethesda shoehorning their corporate nonsense into this game. Requiring a bethesda.net account, agreeing to their ToS, privacy policy (which should be called a no-privacy policy), and a separate EULA for the game that reinforces their right to log and track data… yeah, get lost bastards. But at least id listened to the public regarding DAC and removed it. That's really good on them!

Overall score: 10/10. Stop reading this review and buy the game.