Recent reviews by Kougar

This one's a gem hidden in the rough. Your choices will reflect on who you are, and there are different routes to take within the story. Puzzle and problem solving elements are not especially hard compared to say Myst/Riven, but if you gloss over some of the interactions it will make much more work later.

The PDA element maintains a current list of tasks/goals as well keeps a history of previous dialogue interactions. This keeps the game casual and relaxing to play through, though plenty of the narrative and history can be bypassed or missed outright if simply completing the game.

I'd recommend if you like a little exploration with rich art wrapped in a heartfelt story, based on interesting take of a dystopic future sci-fi reality.

If you enjoy immersive worlds, exploration, problem solving, a little sci-fi dystopia, and cats, then this is everything you could want. Stray is a touching story wrapped in a beautiful world experienced though a novel character. Take it from another feline, this is an excellent game for fellow feline aficionados out there.

Great DLC, has something for everyone. It's split into three separate stories, the first is reminiscent of the original Talos Principle. The second is a very fun continuation of TP2's puzzles & style. And the third is Croteam's revenge for all those people complaining TP2's puzzles were too easy... featuring an ultra hard mode 24 puzzle set alternating between complex problem solving and brutally cold logic problem puzzles. You won't solve them all in one sitting. Or five. If you enjoyed TP2 then you will absolutely want this DLC for the puzzles and for the continuation of the Talos Principle story.

As an avid fan of the original Talos Principle I strongly recommend this game. The original game set a very high bar, yet with TP2 Croteam has managed to craft a game that raises that bar even higher.

For people new to the franchise I also recommend the game, it is optimized better for newcomers with less brutal logic puzzles and a more guided, smooth overall experience. You will not need to have played the original game to get a grasp on the history or how things function as TP2 will quickly get you up to speed and also fill in the backstory, should you ask for it.

The original game integrated a lengthy discussion on philosophy and the self into the overarching story. TP2 continues that tradition with a philosophical introspection of how the self & their choices pertain to civilization as a whole. As such, your responses and choices in how you interact with others will determine your options later in the game and partially change the story outcome.

This game has plenty of space for exploration, some scenic vistas to enjoy, a beautifully crafted soundtrack, and the most comprehensive screenshot editor baked into the game that I've seen yet. TP2 has a depth and effort put into it that even without seeing the interviews you can already tell Croteam deeply cares about the game.

Whether you want a better philosophical discussion than you received in college or you just want some fun Portal style logic puzzle problem solving, this game can cater to both. It has a $10 lower price than TP1 launched at and yet offers far more game & puzzle content than the original Talos Principle (~7GB vs ~70GB), I simply cannot recommend this sequel enough!

A game about the end of life, closure, and moving on. It's an emotional journey where the player can go at their own pace as they ferry acquaintances, friends, and family to to the other side. You'll need to keep that box of tissues ready.

It's a heartfelt game designed to help those dealing with loss to be able to cope and move on. There are crafting & RPG elements similar to Stardew Valley, though it's a very relaxed style with no deadlines or loss of items or timetables to keep. The only real goal is to be the best host you can be for your passengers and give them the best final send off that everyone deserves.

This game was an unexpected find, full 6DOF motion with advanced customization options to further tune ship handling and flight controls for those that want to do so. True fully 3D environments to fly around within. There is the usual linear story and side missions, and then an endless generation of jobs and random signal event on the side you can choose to ignore entirely or make a career out of. Meaning the local cluster is a sandbox one can play around in and do things when they choose. There are even locations not part of any mission that can be explored for resources.

Resources are important because this game has a surprisingly complex crafting system, though with a dozen ways to earn credits it soon becomes easy to craft ship components, or the myriad of advanced bits and doohickeys required to craft high-tier tech. Then you can further optimize said component with catalysts (which themselves can be crafted). Is that one weapon or ship component you just found too high a level to use? There's a crafting recipe to fix that. Found the most perfect weapon stat configuration you could want and want to keep it around longer? There's a crafting recipe to upgrade an item up one level. Like an item's stats but its quality tier was too low? Yes, you can craft it into a higher rarity tier too.

This game is much like Freespace, but with better ship control options, most interesting environments, and a greater freedom of options with its sandbox-style approach to missions/jobs/story and when you can choose to do them. I am a fan of the Xwing vs Tie Fighter series of starfighter combat and this reminds me of those... though with XvT I used a flightstick + keyboard and with this game the camera/fight control options are so well implemented I was happy to just customize the keyboard and mouse instead. This game has enough customization that it can appeal to both casual arcade style ship shooters and those looking for a more flight sim style control setup.

Everspace 2 has a free demo you can play up to level 5 which offers many hours of gameplay (you keep your progress if you buy the game), I would highly recommend trying it out for yourself! I wouldn't say the story or writing was anything special, but it was usually decent to good with plenty of snarky jabs thrown in proving that the game never takes itself too seriously. There's also a smattering of subtle and not-so-subtle nods and references to other sci-fi hiding here and there. Be warned there's a lot of mini-puzzles and exploratory hunting on missions if you wish to find every last item cache, and while not required to do so it may begin to annoy some compulsive completionists like me. On the flipside, once you're tech'd up and done everything there is you have access to rifts where you can spawn pure, unadulterated advanced combat engagements if that's more your craving. After having spent countless hours building credits, teching up, and customizing my own specific set of ships, skills, and abilities the Rift challenge system is proving to be a very nice touch that still has me playing even after finishing the story arc.

This is a game for people that enjoy the slow discovery of unraveling a lengthy story.

The negatives: Exploration is mostly limited with one-way zones and if you are the type of person that likes to explore everything you will be annoyed that there is no running mode when retracing your steps. The controls are a little janky, which if you are not careful can result in glitched animations when interacting with objects. The voice prompts are either glitchy or time out quickly, not sure if that was intentional. Also, after one specific autosave I was stuck frozen in the environment unable to move and had to restart a level. Controls aside, the graphics and gameplay are smooth even maxed out using a 1080 Ti on an SSD. The UE4 engine does have the usual surface gloss reflection issues, but otherwise the graphics are well done and there is plenty to look at!

Some minor spoilers past this point: The story is based on an alternate-history premise where the US stayed neutral in WW2 into the 1950's before joining the war. Meanwhile US inventions such as the ENIAC and nuclear weapons spurred counter-technologies in Nazi Germany. Despite facing defeat once again, thanks to an additional decade and a half of technological advancement this Nazi Germany easily had the tools to do what the real one could not and triggered a nuclear winter with plans to continue the Third Reich underground using its doomsday bunker plans. The story is haunting and it is long, but if you enjoy a lengthy narrative story in game exploration form and can overlook a rough user interaction interface then this is a story/game for you!

Very much a cute little game, perfect for younger kids. No violence, no killing, no pressure or game timer, just a small story and a relaxing wandering platformer. The game is split into four distinct regions, each one has three local areas. I say wandering because there is no official map, and if you don't pay attention to cues then you will be at a loss at where to travel to next. Being able to keep at least the basic layout in your head will go a long ways toward making it easy to know exactly where you need to go.

You'll be traveling back to various regions as you gain new abilities which alters how you play and what you can access, but it also makes it easy to find all the secret spots too. Some parts of the puzzles are not entirely straightforward, but the solutions are usually right there with just a little thought.

A pretty good psychological horror puzzler. Think Myst or Portal, but with lots of psychedelics in that nonexistent cake. Would very much recommend picking it up on sale!

Interesting story-sim hybrid game. This isn't a full-blown simulator as it first appears, it's possible to do things that should auto-fail the terraforming but don't seem to have any real effect. I'd describe it as a cross between Surviving Mars and Civilization VI.

Surviving Mars is a more technical, nuanced game that only ends when you close the game, there's no finite ending even after terraforming Mars. However in Per Aspera there's a finite ending, and it's more story focused than a 4Xer or sim style game. If you're looking for a more difficult game with city-building than that would be Surviving Mars. If you want a story/opera style narrative where a few ethical choices can change everything then Per Aspera has that.

While the graphics are more polished and the interface is snazzier, the UI is missing some obvious features I would've liked to have to make for easy building navigation. Per Aspera is a fun story game I can recommend if picked up on sale or in a game bundle, though if you are looking for replayability I'd still give it to Surviving Mars.