Recent reviews by idbrii

Fun thinking game to play with kids with some serious themes that are good discussion (difficult relationships, nonviolent crime, secrecy). Presented in the style of film noire, but they've put silly twists on the adult parts of the genre: the Detective's bread problem (instead of film noire's typical alcoholism) and the big case is a stolen lunch (but it gets deeper). Young kids may have trouble playing it alone: my 7 year old got stuck on the first puzzle because he didn't know the word "divorce". But we're having fun playing together!


It's a well-written detective story where you fill in the blanks like Golden Idol but walk around to find clues and talk to suspects. Works great on gamepad. The early game is pretty easy, but some of the later deductions are more difficult (they are the game's challenging puzzles). My only complaint is that deductions stack up at the end without any more clue gathering — I enjoyed talking to people and inspecting items.

Has a fun but not challenging system for finding clues in items where your magnifying glass reveals details as it passes over the image. Find three clues and you're done. But in reality, the detailed version of the image actually contains essential clues. (And is visible in full from your inventory!)

Freddy is hilarious!

My kids both played this game and seemed to really enjoy it. I played a bit with them and enjoyed the silliness of the writing.

It's a great way to get your kids to want to read. The language isn't too hard and there's lots of video game between chatting with animal creatures.

Playing a deck builder that removed mana/energy feels very novel. Instead, you play a single card and there are ways to play cards without ending your turn. All the creatures have turn timers ticking down instead of attacking every turn. I've only won one run, but so far I'm enjoying the strategizing a lot.

Not a bombastic power fantasy like Monster Train, but finding a good build and making it happen is great!

Gamepad support is okay. Often the wrong location has focus on the map and sometimes navigating the cards in battle is awkward.

Some parts of Outer Wilds are tedious. You often need to retrace your steps. Sometimes you mess up or miss something and have to repeat a loop. Even though there's an autopilot, sometimes it flies into the sun so you can't just sit back. However, there are often shortcuts that you find (not unlock). Figuring out that improved route and nailing it can be rewarding, but I often forgot when returning to this game after a break. It pays to finish it in a few sittings instead of over a year.

I enjoyed Outer Wilds when I first played it, but put it down for too long and really had a hard time getting back into it. The frustration pushed me away (especially in the spooky area and Brittle Hollow which both punished mistakes with a reset).

However, this game provides the most incredible feeling of adventuring through a star system. It's an incredible detective game that doesn't hold your hand and you solve so much by just figuring out where to go. The ship computer is very helpful (especially for picking up where you left or tagging known locations), but never gives anything away.

If you finish Outer Wilds, it's because you really applied your brain. I wish I'd played hotseat with a friend to think, remember, and see together. I think it'd be a fun experience and smooth out some of the tedium.

Haven't finished it, but really enjoying my wizarding time. It's a great combat puzzle game that keeps doling out new kinds of scenarios and abilities to keep things interesting. I've gone back to a few missions to get my missing bonuses and get more Confidence (a hilarious way of unlocking outfits).

Strong recommend, especially if you like the writing in Tom Francis' past games or the trailer. The dialogue is right up my alley.

I don't think it looks good, but the art direction is consistent and works.

The detective gameplay is fantastic. It starts out very easy to teach you how the system works, but gets quite challenging and you have to pick up on subtle cues to deduce the solution. If you get stuck, there are hints to push you to an answer. (I used one hint which required some additional gameplay to unlock so you don't take them lightly. The hint was directed but very specific so it didn't reveal everything but pushed me closer to the right direction.)

If you liked the gameplay of Obra Dinn and don't mind Golden Idol's look, then give it a shot.

Magicka is great and the spellcasting system is brilliant, but hard to recommend in 2023 because in Chapter 9 I hit a 100% crash. There's a lot of game before that point, but even after experimenting with a bunch of Windows compatibility modes (including Win XP SP 3 as recommended on the forums), it still always crashes (tried 6+ times).

While playing, we encountered a bunch of other crashes, but this one occurs while loading into a new room so there seems to be no way around it.

Instead, get Magicka 2. It probably works better.

The crash:
System.InvalidOperationException: An error has occurred during the Clear operation while trying to clear the depth or stencil buffer, no DepthStencilBuffer surface exists.
at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.GraphicsDevice.Clear(ClearOptions options, Color color, Single depth, Int32 stencil, Rectangle[] regions)
at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.GraphicsDevice.Clear(ClearOptions options, Color color, Single depth, Int32 stencil)
at Magicka.GameLogic.GameStates.LoadingScreen.EndDraw()
at Magicka.GameLogic.GameStates.PlayState.TryDestroyLoadingScreen()
at Magicka.Levels.Level.ChangeScene()
at Magicka.Game.LoaderFunction()
at Magicka.Misc.TrackedThread.StartThread()
at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart_Context(Object state)
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()

I'm not a giant cat person, but Stray was fun. There's some boring cat interactions like scratching, but many fun ones like nuzzling legs or knocking stuff over. Stray gives you lots of space to cat around while also delivering a narrative with some tension-raising action sequences.

Initially enjoyed the intro and getting to the first town, but talking to all the robots didn't deliver enough story to pull me back regularly and I stopped playing for a long time. Eventually, I got out of the first town and that helped push me along for awhile. The action sequences between each town are very engaging but the town can be very slow. I forced myself to avoid trying to do everything in town (find all the music sheets) and instead focus on enjoying the being a cat and accomplishing my mission.

I thought the climax and conclusion were great. My kids watched me play some and they enjoyed it a ton too.

I'm not usually one to complain about performance, but with a 3080 it was hard to hit 4k60 at max detail. I found the res scale didn't help (going above or below 100%). I knocked the resolution down to 1440p (which switched it to exclusive) and turned shadows to medium and got a more solid framerate.

It says partial gamepad support, but you can't actually play with a gamepad. Actions you activate with spacebar (firing the gun) aren't accessible on gamepad.

Lot of fun playing this with my kid when it was on GamePass (got this in a bundle). Note: doesn't support cloud saves on Xbox PC or Steam and Xbox PC wipes saves when you uninstall!

The assist mode options to turn off Oops let him play with less anxiety. The characters and dialogue were enjoyable and he loved the boss battles.

It was a bit long, but I think it did well to shake things up.