Recent reviews by Shivoa

Open world RPG of a generation, this is one of the densest collection of quests worth experiencing of any game you'll play despite also being a very huge game. Also deep with mods and customisation.

Resident Evil 2 was a project that could have fallen apart extremely easily. Remaking a 21 year old title in a genre whose popularity has been up and down, bringing back most of the story beats and even design decisions while completely remaking the visuals and how the game controls (goodbye fixed cameras). And yet, what has arrived is both a great recollection of what has always worked for horror games along with enough new to feel modern and accessible. This should end up in classrooms as an example of how to refresh old games while retaining their identity.

The thing I noticed playing the Lost Legacy recently is its reputation for brevity is more about Uncharted 4 being lengthy. Which means a shorter spin-off is still basically the same length as any of the games in the original trilogy. The difference here being more of a focus on "wide linear" open areas that allow some choice of how things are approached (and environment reuse), while also providing plenty of narrative progression through corridors (showing off the visual splendour of modern AAA assets).

While the Tomb Raider series has slowly been losing me since a high point of the 2013 reboot, the most recent Uncharted is the best the series has ever been for me. I wonder if the switch of protagonists is enough to give the series new life away from the conclusion of the numbered series or if Naughty Dog are going to head in this ludic direction with an entirely new cast and maybe even universe for whatever they're working on right now.

Just enough of a variant on the 4X formula to keep things a bit interesting. Quests & hero units mix things up while equipment bring the traditionally space-4X process of unit customisation down to the ground.
Still pleasant enough visuals in 2021 and, for the most part, a clean UI that allows you to get on with it.

Search for Long War 2.

Unlike sequels (Payback, Heat) based on the same engine, this game doesn't work with Origin in Offline Mode so you have to play connected to their servers. Even the solo play option isn't offline.

Wait for the price to go back down under $10 and hopefully to fix some of the worst bugs (eg Medikit dupe/loadout wipe; old audio issues; crashes) but this is the fun of Xcom encounters with none of the slowly advancing between combat due to smaller tighter missions.

A builder with a single (controllable) protagonist who you inhabit while doing much of the construction stuff you'd normally do in a god game. You develop robot helpers in the later stages of each run to provide remote construction and management (usable via the map view that zooms into something that looks like the normal view in areas with radar coverage), at which point you can start playing it more like a builder. It's almost like the modded (huge) tech trees of Minecraft, except this retains the top-down view of classic management games. Ultimately, as I iteratively design these huge chains of machines that take in raw material and convert them to final products which can be used to fund more research or placed to expand the factory, it feels a lot like a more open ended version of the puzzles in many Zachtronics games like Infinifactory.

Always, I keep an eye on the power use of everything, watching the pollution which will waft out and enrage the warrens of hostile creatures that live on the planet I've crashed on. My playstyle leans on efficiency and relatively green operations (while still fundamentally mining out the local resources), unlike the really expansive players who ramp up and consume the world with their endless smog and high power factories. You can dump hour after hour into tweaking designs and working out exactly how best to feed various intermediate stages in the factory process here, which is where I feel it sits next to a Zachtronics game (almost offering a way to gamify circuit layout or similar tasks without overlapping with existing programming-style games around that theme - it's all conveyors, loading arms, basic detectors, circuit conditions, and very simple logic here).

An exceptional tactics game that simplifies the miniatures without stripping it of the character of huge 'Mech combat in a crumbling universe of fiefdoms.

Come for the mission encounters, stay for the strategy layer: playing as mercenaries trying to make ends meet while a pawn in larger events.

In the very first scene (after the tutorial introduction), I was the titular crossdressing character as she fumbled through an encounter with a cute boy in a dress. He fell apart under my stern questioning and we ended up making out; all the while my character explained to her twin brother how this was only happening because she was being forced to act like him for reasons not yet explained.

This is a somewhat fantastical setting which works around issues of consent and power dynamics in relationships that contain (often explicitly negotiated) dominant and submissive roles. The dialogue is often smart, regularly funny, and very thirsty. Each scene feels both open and uncertain due to the option to pick an interjection or just allow the conversation to continue. Sometimes new responses will appear and old ones drop out as the scene progresses, or refusing to jump in will itself be considered unusually suspicious. Add in the game layer that's woven into the story of trading votes, managing suspicion, quickly building rapport... and you've got a lot of choices to manage. Combined with the writing, this keeps everything moving along and reinforces the themes of the story. Clever and hot, even when playing with Christmas jumpers to hide the nudity, this game is for mature audiences only.

(Played through via initial release, hence low time played on Steam)