Recent reviews by Puck

Day one review: So far, so great!

The undeniably great: This game is *gorgeous*. The UI is superb, the transitions are amazing, every character looks great, the animations are on-point.

The seems-great-so-far: Gameplay is fun! I haven't learned the maps much, and mostly using Jeff right now to get a feel for the game. Balance seems to be set to "everyone's strong in some way". Jeff's ult is great, Hawkeye one-shots me, dive tanks (sorry, "Vanguards") make me desperately scramble and look for help, and figuring out how to navigate all that to do well while not dying is (so far) enjoyable!

Monetization seems good. I'm not a fan of ~$20 skins! It looks like the currency you earn playing can be used 1:1 to buy most (all?) things the premium currency buys, and this game's gotta pay its highly-skilled creators somehow, so...

So far great, looks like it has real promise for the future!

This excellent indie game features random (but tweakable) fantasy characters you play from the beginning of their heroic journey all the way to retirement, with excellent turn-based tactics combat in between great little comics showing how their story progresses.

Multiple pre-made campaigns as well as procedural options, with all sorts of sliders and options and choices that make each game (and character) end up wildly different.

When finished your characters end up in your "Legacy" where they can be re-used from, or show up as random NPCs in your later games!

I'm very, very fond of this game. A bit like comfort food when I need a mellow, fun story of my own to play.

Tried Multiplayer last night and it's great to learn the friend who connected gets access to my DLC while we played. The game even has support for Remote Play Together, which I'll try with someone who doesn't even own the game some time!

As a "live service" game, this may change at any time, but: I'm enjoying this quite a bit!
(Currently level 30 and waiting on part 2 of the season to unlock to progress.)

I think the TLDR is "It's free, pretty fun, and hasn't annoyed me like so many other games have lately".

It does feel like a game where they said "What do people like in other games? Let's cram that in!" but unlike some other messes I've played, here it (mostly) works. To attract Americans it has a healthy does of gun stuff. They grafted "Pokemon" on, but unlike Palworld went their own way with the designs, which I appreciate. It's got some powers straight out of Control. (I'd like more, and maybe the later levels give me that?) And, of course, there's base-building, crafting, and "talents" of various types.

The story is... fine. It's a sci-fi/SCP style bit of a mess, but is mostly an excuse for the things you're doing, whether that be find a lost person/item, investigate an area, or... dance under a disco ball until the Disco Ball boss is no longer immune? I was going to say the questing itself is pretty standard, but I can't recall a single "collect 3 rat tails, not all rats drop tails" type thing. Instead they're mostly straightforward, and very few have "what am I supposed to do, where do I go?" moments. That alone is much appreciated (see the "hasn't annoyed me" above).

Gathering and crafting works for me. Resources respawn at a fast enough rate that you can nearly circle through large enough resource areas until you have as much as you can carry. Nearly, I say, so it doesn't feel "too fast" either! Oh, and while there is a carrying limit, it's very generous -- I didn't even know there was one until later in the game when I gathered a ton of water up.

This first season appears to be a "novice" season, and it shows. Early on enemies are the slowest, dumbest, weakest zombies you've ever seen and let me be clear: That's *great*. Later on you get faster enemies that can actually shoot back, but even those feel like you're being eased-in to the gameplay.

Boss Fights (which I haven't experienced "endgame" versions of) are very good so far. Weak points, phases, and gorgeous design. Like the questing, I can't remember a single frustrating boss fight (yet?)

Base building is solid, despite a few "snapping" annoyances I expect will be fixed in the future. I love that you can move your entire base to a new place on a ten minute cooldown. When you level up and move on to the appropriate quest zone, you just find a place you like and plunk it down. I've been playing with friends and we set up our own "neighborhood" as we level up together. Even though our server is "full", we only had trouble finding spaces very early on (which can be littered with low level houses from people that probably quit but haven't despawned yet). Even there it wasn't *that* much of a problem, but once we left the 1-10 zone we easily found lots of open spots.

I don't have much to say about the "Seasonal" aspect, as it's still early on in the first (official?) season. I have a feeling that'll make it much easier for new players to join in as new players start. The list of what you can keep across seasons seems to mean experienced players won't feel too robbed, so I'm cautiously optimistic. But still: TBD

Even in a season, access is rolled-out. I've hit level 30 as of this writing, and can't progress in the main quest or even safely enter the next zone until it unlocks for everyone next week. You might think this is annoying, but it actually feels freeing to not must-grind time to reach some unspecified max level. Weird, right? It also has the benefit that I, as someone who plays more than my friends, level up quickly, but then can help my slightly-lower level friends even more as they progress. And have a cooler house. :D

There are a bunch of currencies/crafting materials that right now are provided at decent levels. Nothing has (yet) annoyed me that they're expecting me to pay them to be able to play/enjoy the game, but I do worry that'll change late-game. So far, cosmetics seem like the main sale? They're expensive, but unlike other games you pretty much have one character to dress up so it feels more like a way to say "thank you" for a fun F2P game.

Sorry for the ramble, but there's a lot to talk about in this game. There are a lot of systems in here, and it is very weird that none of them have bothered me yet. That's quite an accomplishment.

As noted a few times above, there's a lot more of the game for me to see, and a whole "Season Wipe" to experience before I know if this has legs.

But if you want to a multiplayer survival game that's free, weird, and pretty darned fun, Once Human is a great choice.

I adore the Subnautica series. Play it, from the start, as unspoiled as possible.

Was the first Subnautica a more enriching part of the series? Sure, but Below Zero is a solid B+ follow-up.

Some fun new setups, polished gameplay, and a new corner of 4546B to experience that's both familiar and strikes out on its own. Great voice acting throughout, and a fun storyline to progress along.

Did I mention there's a jukebox for your base? That can play MP3s from a folder? Did I put "20 Minutes of Oxygen" by The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets in mine? I sure did!

Gameplay so fun it's even a good time when you lose (screaming and laughing while dying is common).

The setting lore is superb, dropping you into a full-of-itself, smiling ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥-laden fascist world (let's be honest, one we're not far from). Propaganda and training videos on monitors in your ship between missions are superb. Voice acting is great, from the NPCs to the ironic liberty-praising battle-cries from your own characters.

Progression so far (I'm only level 13) feels great. I'm on the free battle pass track, but have already earned half the "Super Credits" to unlock the paid one. Or buy multiple items directly from the "Super Store". If you're into cash for cosmetics, the prices are what even a cheapskate like me would call reasonable. (skins the price of indie games is a crime)

Within an hour of gameplay I had the main theme "Nice Cup of Liber-Tea" stuck in my head. It's been five days now and I'm still humming "BUM BUM BUM BUUHHHHHH DA DA DAAAAA" constantly. It's my first new ringtone in ten years! (It replaced Rains of Castamere which perfectly encapsulates how I feel about unsolicited incoming calls)

Update: I'm level 76 now and have unlocked everything -- all Stratagems, all Ship Upgrades, and everything in every Warbond, and I have enough spare SuperCredits to buy the next Warbond.

I'm going to have to upgraded to the Super Citizen version just to make sure Arrowhead gets some more money from me for all the hours of enjoyment they've given me!

1.0 Summary: Beautiful, mostly chill factory builder with a very fun tech tree/gameplay escalation loop, intriguing storyline parsed out through AI/[redacted] voice lines. A+, highly recommended

You'll start chipping bits of Iron out of a deposit with your screwdriver, soon build an "autominer" that'll mine until it fills up, then set up Miner buildings that feed out onto conveyor belts to a Refiner that smelts tore to ingots which can then head down conveyors to a constructor that turns ingots into basic items.

Then you'll start merging those items (via more conveyors, or later, drones/trains for longer distances) into Assemblers to create more complicated items.

Everything makes sense, and the game moves as quickly or as slowly as you'd like, and you can accomplish the requirements however you'd like. That's the biggest difference between this and others in the "sci-fi job sim" category -- you play however you'd like. This includes simply stopping the plan/build aspect and just go exploring the huge gorgeous map and its many secrets. Now that we're in 1.0, those secrets can provide great QoL benefits too.

There is wildlife that's angry you're there but combat isn't a big part of the game and you can set them to "defensive" (only fighting back after you start something) or even completely passive if that bothers you, leaving you with just beauty, the build challenge, and exploration.

I've ~200 hours on the XBox store version and adore this game so much I bought it on Steam to play with friends here too (Molly's Save Game Mule can copy your progression!)

Fun gameplay, enjoyable characters (ROCK AND STONE!) a "hub" that's fun to hang out in between missions, variety, weapon options galore, fulfilling progression, and gobs of new content with not even a hint of microtransactions. They've effectively had multiple "Battle Passes" that you don't pay for and can't even optionally give them money to level through them faster.

Love this game, love its creators.

The only real flaw this game has is it's not cross-play. If I could get friends across PC and console installs to group up it'd be absolutely perfect

Baldur's Gate 3 is an astounding achievement, and one of the finest games I've ever played. Every aspect of this game has been crafted with not just tremendous skill but love.

Larian didn't have to performance-capture everything but they did, making the conversations so immersive they transcend the genre.

They also didn't have to give us ~80 hours of amazing gameplay and storytelling that branches in so many varied ways you'll want to play it again and again but they did.

They didn't have to make the cosmetics/content just everywhere in the game rather than paid-for-DLC but they did and that might be the biggest immersion-helper there is here. Never being told about a "store" means you're JUST ENJOYING THE GAME. DO YOU HEAR ME, OTHER STUDIOS?!

And now I hear they're working on making this fully cross-play?

Amazing. Astounding. A game I'm not even sure I'm worthy of. Standing ovation, and so much respect to Larian for Baldur's Gate 3

While there are still some ridiculous bugs*, Cyberpunk 2077 is an excellent action RPG with gorgeous visual design, gobs of great voice acting, and lots of options for how you play.

I played many more hours on my Stadia version (Street Kid decker and Nomad Gorilla-Arms+Sandevistan runs completed, a third run halfway), and picked it up here on sale to enjoy the upcoming DLC. The plan was to import my saves, but instead I started a new one (Corpo/Daggers) and 23 hours later here I am telling you I like this game.

*-in my first meeting with Panam in this new game, she was stuck prone under her car until just before she had to drive it

I often describe Stellaris as "Civilization in space" but it's so much more than that. You're not just expanding your territory, engaging in diplomacy, researching tech, and building up your planets, but also encountering random story-lines that can wildly change your plans for your play.

Each game has the potential to end up looking like almost any established sci-fi universe, depending on how things go. "Fallen Empires" may rise up to battle each other and demand you choose a side, like (SPOILERS) Babylon 5's Shadows and Vorlons. Or perhaps you'll created some kind of Federation of allies and engage in a cold-war against other, more hostile entities.

You can completely customize both your alien species and its culture to create what you want and then throw it into a hostile galaxy, trying to find its way.

I've played this since launch (when it was, admittedly, almost impossible to "win", but was still enjoyable) and its DLC and patches have improved it more and more over time.

Great game, highly recommended!