Recent reviews by pluckylump

I don't know what this is, but it's exactly for me.

Can you use the mighty powers of jumping on things and combining things with other things to stop all the apocalypses? Probably, not! But you'll have fun jumping and japing while learning what it means to be human. As a bonus, every purchase comes with the cure for cancer! That's value.

5 Farrows out of 5.

The earliest man was called to the sea, its majesty unrivaled by land, its secrets deeper and more horrible. Subnautica perfectly captures the beauty and abject horror of the ocean.

While Evoland 1 fell short of what I had hoped for with the cool premise and neat art, but a lack of focus or coherent reason for its evolving game art premise, Evoland 2 is beyond any expectations I had. It's bigger and better than I would have hoped for. It's one of my favorite games.

Hey, "Night in the Woods" is probably one of the best written video games of all time. It is uncomfortably relevant in ways that games never are. The setting is a small American mining town crumbling in economic decay after the closing of the mine. Long standing businesses are struggling to stay open or are empty skeletons haunting the landscape. Everyone works at the handful of chain businesses that have swooped in since Mae, the main character, left for college. It's a world instantly recognizable.

Also recognizable is the character of Mae. Her thoughts are relatable, her actions are actions many of us remember doing ourselves. Like many of us, there's also something deeply wrong with Mae, and she won't talk about it or deal with it. She is struggling with a mental illness. She's become self destructive, and even though you are Mae in the story, you can't help her until she wants help. The helplessness of her mental illness is made real for you. The normalness of her in every respect destigmatizes her mental illness. She's just like anyone and she has a mental illness.

Where the game really shines is that despite all this doom and gloom, this hardship and strife, the characters are capable of joy and fun. They are clever and funny. They aren't defined by their struggles, it is only one aspect of who they are. The script is full of quotable lines and fun little gameplay moments that highlight the fun the characters are having together.
There's also the promise of an unspeakable supernatural horror if you're not already down.

This is a top all-time adventure game for me. It hangs with the big boys like Monkey Island and Grim Fandango. Play it using your favorite digital to meat-flaps interface today.

Love is the wrong word for a game that makes you live through the out of control death spiral of a man who has lost everything, but I still have strong positive feelings for this game. It's a real bastard of an emotional rollercoaster down into the blackest parts of men's souls -- a rollercoaster absolutely worth riding none-the-less.