Recent reviews by picel broth

I have nothing to say other than this is easily one of my favourite games, the atmosphere is unparalleled and the game can be equal parts charming and existentially terrifying. If you really get into it this is a game that you will never forget the experience of. Unbelievably peak.

This version of the game is a complete mess. Expect very poor performance, DLSS will be absolutely required, and be prepared for it to crash a lot. Frame generation makes the game into a stuttery nightmare and in order to properly see the ending you have to go into the original game's video settings and change Model Detail from High to Medium. I wasn't even allowed to see the damage it was doing because having MSI Afterburner open always seemed to cause an instant crash. More importantly on just a fundamental level the original game's art style and atmosphere has been completely gutted in exchange for "ooh shiny".

So why am I giving it a positive review?
It's free, and certainly a more interesting and playable tech demo than usual. Any excuse to play Portal again is a more than welcome one.

This game is absolutely phenomenal, and easily one of the best I've ever played.

It made me go from just knowing what Tetris was, and not really seeing a lasting appeal, to being absolutely obsessed with the game and realising just how well designed it is.
It's not perfect and it won't click with everyone, one issue is it can have really hard difficulty spikes when you're starting out and haven't developed a decent amount of speed, but even after countless replays the journey mode still gives me goosebumps, it's so unbelievably immersive. On top of everything the experience is only made greater if you have a VR headset.

In terms of gameplay, it's modern guideline Tetris. If you're okay with that, you won't have any issues, but if you're a boomer and prefer classic, you can adjust some settings to make the experience a bit harder, such as going down to a 1 piece preview and disabling the hold feature. If the visuals are a bit too much you can also change the piece colours to a traditional colour scheme, but you really shouldn't use this for your first time playing journey mode if you can help it. Also for boomers you can play a very faithful version of NES Tetris as one of the effect modes which is brutal but a fun challenge. Took me a while to mention but the Zone mechanic added in the journey mode is such a simple yet deep and incredibly fun to use addition and is just what the game needs to feel truly fresh.

Absolute must play if you even slightly like Tetris. The price may seem a bit steep, but if it clicks for you like it did for me then it will be worth every single penny.

I've really enjoyed my time going back to these games, some are way better than others but all are certainly worth taking a look at and most have aged shockingly well.

The way they're all presented with little facts for each one in the collection is a very nice touch and are a true joy to read, though these are still flash games under the hood, so there's no controller support which is a shame but I get why this is.

The store page mentions remastered artwork, along with a higher bitrate for all music and sound effects. The remastered artwork is definitely an upgrade, though for some games it's quite hard to notice the difference. I don't doubt that this is true, but there's some oddities. For example, the menu music for Achievement Unlocked 2, Amazing Plan by Kevin MacLeod, has always had some painfully distracting background hiss. This is carried over into the version seen in the collection, with seemingly nothing done to the audio. It's not a deal breaker by any means, but considering how popular the game is it's strange that nothing was done. Some sound effects, for example the one that plays when you're typing the alphabet or pressing shift 5 times in This is the Only Level 2 are still deafeningly loud. A general volume slider for each of the games you play would be a really nice thing to have as an easy way to account for this.

Additionally, there's some really poor performance found in the later games like Elephant Quest and Achievement Unlocked 3 when using fullscreen and using the high resolution setting. For Elephant Quest it was manageable but for AU3 I had to have the game windowed and at its original resolution to play it comfortably which is a shame because they're some of the best looking games in the collection. I also noted some bugs that weren't in the original (from what I remember!) such as the numbers in Achievement Unlocked and the player position on the map in Elephant Quest both being very misaligned.

However, all of these are mostly nitpicks and can likely be fixed in an update. The overall experience is very enjoyable, I'm happy with the collection and glad to finally, properly support all of those involved.

I think it would be hard to recommend this collection to someone who is unfamiliar with these games as the free versions on the internet still exist, but if you are nostalgic for any of these games and played them growing up I think you'll find it's well worth the asking price and a good time is in store for you.

Entirely worth it for Disparity of the Dead alone to be honest. There have been no games in a very long time that have made my jaw drop and leave me speechless quite like how that game did, particularly its ending. Genuinely incredible game. It's also now freely available on itch.io I believe.
Almost all of the other games are at least worth playing, some are better than others, and even if they don't resonate with you, they won't take up very much of your time.

Has some issues, I feel like the story can treat the player like they're very stupid sometimes, but it's still well worth playing. I felt like the QTEs were a bit too easy compared to something like Heavy Rain, especially considering I picked the higher difficulty, but on the flip side, bad things happening to a character seems to be far more dependant on the actual decisions you made rather than just failing a QTE, which I'd argue is better.

Speaking of, decisions actually feel quite impactful in this game, I played genuinely trying my best but I had more than a handful lapses in judgement, and especially near the end that's all it takes for a much darker ending. It sounds cliché but for more than a few situations you really need to stop and think before you act.

Also, the flowchart feature with global & friend stats is fantastic and should be in every game in this genre. Making a terrible decision and then seeing that as little as 2% took the same path as you is a truly brutal feeling that I haven't felt elsewhere.

Memes aside, this game was very enjoyable, the story kept me very interested the whole time, the acting quality is all over the place (in an entertaining way) and the visuals are still shockingly good, and I wasn't even playing on the highest settings.

As for the PC specifics, the system requirements are an overestimation, it ran very well for me, with only some light stutters, usually at the start of a scene, which stopped when pausing and letting the game load a bit more.
I went in expecting the keyboard controls to be poor, but actually they're really fun to use and in tense moments using the mouse directions come very naturally. However, in scenes where you're controlling your character's movement, changing directions can be really unresponsive. But overall, keyboard and mouse is a very valid option for playing the game.

Really great game, honestly ahead of its time in some aspects, definitely a game everyone should try at some point.

this game made me jump at a fart noise

this game is far too deep for my tiny brain but even at a complete face value glance, it's enjoyable yet depressing and very thought provoking, and reminded me about just how important creating things is. i really should have played this a lot earlier.

Not the best game in the world, but its amazingly dumb fun and for that it's highly recommended, especially with a friend. It's also pretty enjoyable with little to no knowledge of the series. Works well on Steam Deck out of the box too, despite being unsupported.