Recent reviews by Slowacki

This is a pretty unique game. I think the best way to describe it would be a Stardew Valley meets Recettear meets a restaurant manager game mishmash. Then add about a hundred tiny minigames to it and some crazy characters and you pretty much get yourself a Dave the Diver.


The main activity of the game is diving in the blue hole, where all kinds of fishes can be found. You hop in the water, hunt for fish for the sushi restaurant, gather ingredients and weapon parts, avoid aggressive fish and try to manage your (not so) limited air supply while doing all that. It's fun, it's super relaxing and straight-up addictive.

The first 20h of the game, I literally couldn't stop playing. Collecting fish cards, fighting pirates and bosses, upgrading weapons and discovering the secrets of the lost civilization I wanted to do it all. And as you progress, more things to do open up, breeding fish, managing a farm and so on. Haven't had this much fun in a game for a while.

The game loses some steam later on, however. AFAIK the chapters were being releases during the early access and the devs had to keep the players busy between chapter drops. Later on the game gets a bit too grindy and there's a lot of things to manage. Diving, sushi restaurant, 2 farms, fish breeding, night diving, GYAO and other things require a lot of micromanagement and when you finally open a second location, it's just too much work. I just wanted to dive, man.

One more thing that bugged the hell out of me is the inconsistency with the hand-holding. Sometimes the game would give you an unskippable pop-up and small mini-game to try out new mechanics, other times, you didn't even know that there's something new to do. Hell, I didn't even figure out you can refill the wasabi yourself until 15h into the game.


I think the pixel graphics of DtD is great. The characters, fish and surroundings look absolutely beautiful. Especially, the first and main zone of the blue hole is an absolute masterpiece for me. The lively colours and lo-fi music feel amazing and even after unlocking all of the content the game has to offer, I think I spent most of the time in the first zone. It's just so good.

I felt a bit underwhelmed with the final couple of areas, I think they were visually rather dead compared to the initial zone. It doesn't help they're mostly non-randomized, so there isn't much exploration to be done. The shallow and medium depths change quite often, which is very refreshing. The rest of the game is rather static in comparison.


The wacky characters of DtD definitely add a lot of charm to the game. From the stoic Bancho to anime-obssessed Duff they all find original and funny in their own way. There's a lot of interactions between Dave and the other characters and they're often quite hilarious.

The main story, however, feels pretty bland. At first it's quite interesting, but as you go further it reveals itself as a rather cookie cutter experience. No spoilers, but halfway through you'll probably already figure out how the game is going to end.


I think Dave the Diver starts VERY strong. I was in complete awe of it the first half of the game. The latter half is not as good, but I still think the game is amazing and definitely worth picking up, even at full price.

Helldivers 2 is a PvE Co-Op experience that lets you live out your Starship Troopers and Terminator fantasies. It's the new FOTM game that everyone is crazy about right now, however, after trying it I just can't buy into its hype.


At its core, it's a pretty cool Co-Op shooter. You dive in, explore the map, avoid or engage the enemy patrols and try to do as many objectives as possible. The couple of starting guns feel pretty juicy and when you use the stratagems you can enjoy the fireworks of bug viscera flying around.

With a good team, you'll probably have a lot of fun. Saluting at the ICBM launch, smashing Bile titans with Hellpods, accidentally getting wiped by your own mortar turret. It can definitely be hilarious and fun.

The vibe of the game is also pretty great. The first couple of days I was humming the main theme of the game, it's definitely catchy. In general, the audio is done right for sure. Both music and the game sounds are super nice.


Most people criticize the game because of the anti cheat or technical issues, but that's not my main problem with it. Helldivers 2 is just so damn repetitive. There's only a handful of mission types, like 10 enemy types per race, most weapons and stratagems are pretty useless. You'll also notice that there's only a couple of side missions and 'hidden' locations and they repeat all of the time. After you achieve level 20, there's just very little to do and all of the mission will play out mostly the same. It will mostly be running around and kiting the mobs until you do as many objectives as you can and extract.

It doesn't help that if you don't already have a team to play with, your experience may vary greatly. Playing solo absolutely sucks. Playing with randoms is a 50/50, sometimes you'll get a pretty great team, but often you'll have people who will just run around and die all the time wasting reinforcements.


The game is indeed pretty buggy. Most of the lobbies just error out while you try to join them and even if you do manage to join, you'll often get kicked and have to play through the whole animation of arriving at your ship and then walk to the map to start another mission. Hosts will also disconnect during missions and if that happens you're left with nothing.

Another thing is the graphics while initially good is rather repetitive. The same copypasted assets and some weird graphical bugs make the game a bit hard to look at.


I don't think Helldivers 2 is a bad game overall. There's definitely a reason why it's so popular right now. I think if you have a solid group of friends to play it with, it can really shine. However, after all the initial wow factor I feel like there's just not enough depth to keep me playing.

Children of Morta is a beautiful and surprisingly wholesome Roguelite game about the family of Bergsons, who stand guard against the corruption seething from the title mountain - Morta.


If you're looking for a true roguelike experience, Morta might not be it. It's very forgiving, as your characters don't really die and just teleport out to a safe place instead, while keeping all of the gathered xp and gold. If you're a seasoned roguelike player, you might want to crank up the difficulty to hard, as the normal one was a bit too easy for a Binding of Isaac veteran like myself. If you instead look to get through the story, while not sweating too hard, you'll be happy to know that there are no challenges in this game that you can get stuck on. It's mostly really smooth sailing with a retry or two peppered in between chapters.

The game plays like a rather simple Hack & Slash, it's solid, but nothing revolutionary. Abilities are unlocked and/or enhanced when the characters level up. Runes can be gathered to mildly change how the spells and attacks play out. There are also some items to be gathered that give passive boosts or special active abilities. Personally, I found them a bit uninspiring. Not bad, but don't expect complete shifts in how the game is played like you would in Binding of Isaac or Enter the Gungeon.

The twist comes from the fact that even if you find a character with a playstyle you're fond of, you can't play him too much or he'll be weakened by the contact with corruption. This and the fact that levelling your characters gives specific bonuses to all other family members, encourages you to frequently change the hero and learn them all. Some may find that annoying, personally I found it refreshing. Then again, I genuinely enjoyed playing all of the characters except for maybe the 'fire girl'.

The enemies are generally okay in terms of looks and require you to get to know their attack patterns to not die too soon. I found the bosses to be very well designed, they hit hard and require figuring out the right tactics in order to beat them. They're also NOT bullet sponges as often is a case in roguelikes, there are no gear-checks, just smart plays.


I've gotta say, Morta looks simply amazing at times. The Bergsons house might just be the best pixel art piece I've ever seen, period. It's so detailed and alive, I could stare at it for hours. Generally, all pixel art in the game is really solid, characters are detailed, the dungeons are grim, but full of small objects that set up the tone and build atmosphere.

I've also thoroughly enjoyed the music in the game. The tunes range from very warm and welcoming, through some really nostalgic pieces to more sinister ones. The Bergsons house theme was definitely my favourite.

Special kudos goes to the narrator whose sandpaper-like voice sets an amazing mood for the game. Definitely reminded me of Bastion and that's a good thing!


As I mentioned before, don't expect a classic roguelike experience from Children of Morta. However, in terms of story, that is definitely a compliment. It's the first roguelike I played with such a strong focus on the story. And quite a story it is. I was truly enchanted by the narrators voice and coming back to the family house was all pleasure after each completed (or not) dungeon, to see what changed and what happens next.

Morta is definitely a great game to play if you're in need of some positivity in your life. It put me in a very cosy, family mood and I think it should be a beautiful experience for anyone to play through it.


Children of Morta might not satisfy you completely in terms of gameplay, if you're an experienced roguelike lover. However, the game does make a good use of the roguelite elements to deliver an engaging, beautiful story and some of the best pixel art to be seen in a game. I'll definitely be back for the DLC, when it's there!

Find more reviews at Balance Patch.

Blasphemous is a Souls-styled metroidvania game, where you take the role of The Penitent One. A Cvstodian, martyr of sorts trying to carry out the mission given to him by some higher power. Or something like that, I think? It's pretty confusing... It's a solid experience with an amazing art style that's slightly let down by some poor design choices and story that doesn't make much sense.


Blasphemous could be divided into two parts, the platforming and the boss fights. The latter is mostly great and I don't have much complains about.

Most boss fights are actually quite fun and challenging enough (exceptions: two early and easy bosses and Exposito which is a random mess). They require some pattern analysis, patience and sometimes quick reactions. My two favourites would probably be Quirce and Melquiades, very fun and intelligently designed fights. Keep in mind, those are not Cuphead or some DS levels of hard, usually a few tries and you're done, sometimes even one is enough.

The platforming can be fun, but can also be frustrating as hell. I'm almost always opposed to instakill mechanics in games and it's no different for Blasphemous. Spikes have probably killed me the most time throughout the playthrough and I think that's really not what I'm looking for in a game. It doesn't help that there's something weird about the ledges in the game, sometimes I was sure I should land on one, but instead I would kinda phase through it an fall to my death. The game also seems to have a fetish of slowing you down while traversing, by putting lots of timed traps that block your path for a few seconds. On the other hand, the enemies you meet in the world are designed really well. Each zone has (mostly) it's own unique enemies and often times I found them really annoying or hard at first just to have that 'Oooh, that's how you should fight them' moment, which I think is a sign of smart enemy design.

The controls were rather smooth, which is crucial in games like this one. However, there were some moments where I felt like I lost control of the character during a jump, I'm pretty sure it was due to some weird bug. I was a bit annoyed with how the dodging works, though. Sometimes you can slide through the enemy, other times they actually have a hitbox, some projectiles hit you while dodging, some don't, it was wildly inconsistent.

The worst part about the game was however the horrible design of quests and relics. First of all, backtracking in Blasphemous is NOT fun. And if you want to have a high % completion rate, prepare to do it a lot. I've defeated the last boss 10h into the game, but decided to do some achievements and it took me another 5 hours of running around to reach half. The quests are often a complete mystery. I frequently didn't know what the NPCs needed, so I ended up visiting them every now and then or just checking the wiki. Some quest items have hints indicating what they're used for, but many sadly don't. Some quests are time limited which is not really indicated clearly and on the first playthrough you'll almost always fail them. What's more, the map doesn't show you NPCs or any points of interest, you can't mark them yourself either. Oh, you've seen some secret area you couldn't reach? Well, good luck remembering it 5 hours later when you actually have the required item to go there. Even worse, the teleports are few and far between, which means that even if you know where to go you'll have to run and jump there and the shortcuts are often really crappy and/or deadly so you don't save time. On top of that, there's LOTS of hidden areas that require relics to reach and those relics are hidden in really non-obvious places, which means you may as well not reach those places at all during a playthrough. And the fact you can only 'wear' 3 relics at the same time is utter nonsense, only adding the annoyance of going into menu to swap them every few steps.


Definitely the strongest point of the game. The art is heavily based on some important Christian pieces (art, buildings, sculptures, you name it) but twisted into something really grotesque. The bosses, enemies, npcs, levels and even the protagonist are all deliciously deformed. There are some pretty repulsive lore fragments and images throughout the game and I loved it! The artist(s?) working on the game has done some astonishing work and I really hope to see more of this style in the future.

The music may be a bit unnoticeable, because it's not too loud or 'obvious', but it's there and it's doing its work. The classical guitar tunes sound very sombre, yet delicate giving the game an inspired atmosphere. I though it had some deep roots in Spanish way of playing the guitar, but maybe it's just my feeling.


The lore in Blasphemous is pretty rich. There's loooots of collectibles and each one has it's own lore description. I think I read most of them and they do build an image of a deeply f*cked up world, kinda Souls-like, but more religious-fruitcakey. The problem I have with it is that if you compare it to the Souls lore and story, it doesn't make much sense. In DS series lore is, also, rather hidden and you, also, get it mostly from item descriptions and NPCs' dialogues, but in DS it actually makes sense, the story comes together and even though there are gaps here and there you can make out the story of the world and understand the significance of the protagonist and his deeds. Meanwhile in Blasphemous, there are some connections, but there are too many whys, hows and whats left unanswered to make up a full story out of what we have. It's hard to even grasp why The Penitent One is doing what he's doing. I've read multiple 'theories' and 'explanations', but they only make sense in some areas and are often completely wrong in some assumptions (going against the existing lore).

Maybe it's just temporary and the upcoming DLC(s?) will shed some more light on what's actually going on in the game. I sure hope so. So far I know who each boss was and how miracle affected them, but I have no idea why did I even have to fight them... If not, well, it would mean the creation of lore and story was just half-assed for the sake of the game looking dark and grotesque.


Despite its flaws, I strongly believe Blasphemous is a game worth playing. It's provides 10 hours of solid gameplay and some top notch visual experience. Additionally, the devs are still actively working on the patches and a DLC, so maybe at least some of the design choices will be changed, bugs fixed (some already have) and game will become less annoying to play.

Tomb Raider (2013) is a reboot of the series letting us witness Lara Croft growing up into the badass explorer we know. It's a rather linear Action-Adventure game with some degree of freedom of exploration. It shows us Lara's very first expedition, which is to find the lost kingdom of Yamatai. Stranded and trapped on an island entombed in storms, Lara has to find the way to save her friends and escape, while solving the mysteries of the Queen Himiko and the aggressive tribe led by a madman Matthias who took control of an island.


I must say the very beginning of the game really threw me off. Immediately you're being forced into a Quick-time event galore, which means for the first 10-ish minutes it's mostly running and mashing some random keys on the keyboard to progress through the story. Fortunately, the game gets much better afterwards, although I'd say it's still a bit oversaturated with QTE.

Most of the time we spend climbing, jumping and traversing ropes to get from one point to another, often under pressure of time and by time I mean while trying to escape crumbling buildings, bridges and ladders. The movement is smooth enough most of the time, however, from time to time, especially when climbing I've managed to repeatedly jump into abyss in the same place, just because Lara was still stuck in the horizontal movement while I pressed jump to actually get higher. The game also doesn't have an option to sprint, which might feel a bit weird as it's usually a crucial element in all of the modern games, but it didn't bother me much in the end.

There are some puzzles to solve in order to reach the 'treasury' of each tomb. They are not too hard, but also not completely trivial, I found them to be enough to make me stop and think for a second, but not something that completely stops the player in his tracks. Precise timing is often required and I can gladly say the movement and controls responsiveness are good enough to never be the blocking factor in solving the puzzles.

With stunts and puzzles being one of the two most important elements of the game, the skirmishes and gunplay (and sometimes stealth) is certainly the other one. There isn't much choice when it comes to firepower in Tomb Raider, there's five weapons available, but they do get upgrades and alternative fire modes as the game progresses. They all have their pros and cons, like bow being best for long range stealth kills or rifle being great for mowing down the hordes of enemies. Which leads me to the next point...

The enemies in Tomb Raider are no brainiacs, on normal difficulty they'll happily stand in front of you and unload a whole magazine in the air around you or hide behind obstacles that don't cover even half of their bodies exposing themselves for easy pickings with a bow. They usually employ a Zerg tactics where most of them die before they can even get close. You can find yourself in real danger only if you let yourself get surrounded, especially if the enemy group consists of a few big shield guys, who are pretty much unkillable without going melee and dodging.

This means that most of the game Lara is basically Rambo and to be honest, it's pretty cool. Sometimes you just want to slaughter hundreds of enemies while scrambling from cover to cover to avoid molotovs and machine gun fire. It does however mean that stealth is very optional and barring one mission where you are disarmed I just went guns blazing most of the time.

In the end, the game keeps you fighting and running under pressure most of the time and it's just fun. Action-packed, high-voltage fun.


I've got to say, Tomb Raider aged gracefully when it comes to how it looks, especially Lara's model, which is seriously well done. Apart from that the game has some nice, majestic views from the mountain tops and murky tombs with beautiful statues. But I think the best area in terms of visual design is the Shipwreck Beach. The combination of wrecks of modern ships, galleons, tanks and planes is simply amazing. My favourite area by far.

Sound-wise the game is okay. The soundtrack is not memorable, but it does a good job in building the atmosphere. Music is pretty important in making you think that something is waiting just around the corner, therefore building up the pressure and Tomb Raider's music does that well.

One funny thing though is the two sounds which Lara make when opening the treasure chests in tombs. They are always the same and I couldn't help myself but mock her every time she opened the chest (Oooh? Aaah...)


Definitely the weakest part of the game. I mean, the setup is pretty okay, some imaginary, forgotten kingdom with a supernatural queen, okay I can buy that, it's just how the story is unfolding that gives it horribly unrealistic and just straight up silly feeling. I mean, the Solari tribe must have like thousands of members, I'm pretty sure Lara alone killed off at least like 500 of them and they were still going strong. However, they don't breed, those are only survivors of planes/boats/whatevers that crash into the islands. And at one point it's mentioned that Matthias actually selects only a handful of survivors and the rest dies during the 'training' or is killed. Plus, they're being slaughtered all the time by the Oni, protectors of Himiko. This means that thousands upon thousands of people would have to be stranded on that islands, not to mention how many people actually survive a plane crashing or a boat sinking? This is completely unimaginable that something like that could happen unnoticeably.

The greatest mystery of the game is not the secret of the storms or what are Solari, or Oni, but what the hell is Lara made of? After playing Tomb Raider, I'm pretty sure that if you tore Lara in half, both halves would regenerate into a full Lara or crawl and merge back together or something. She can be impaled, beaten up to pulp, she can fall from HUGE heights, hell at one points she just straight up dies , yet there she is ready to run and kick ass in minutes. This unfortunately is a trait of Lara and Lara only. All other characters injure as easily as a normal person and get killed even easier than one. And what the hell is wrong with all the buildings on the island. Like yes, I get it, they're mostly old, but apparently there's a basically ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ army living there and everything is fine, yet, as soon as Lara sets her foot on literally anything, it all starts crumbling to pieces. Lara looks pretty petite although considering she's an unkillable behemoth maybe she is indeed made of steel and incredibly heavy.

I mean, one thing is sure, Lara is pretty thick, she finds all those notes and ritualistic imagery, but it takes her almost the whole game to figure out why Matthias has kidnapped Sam. She says it out loud and I'm just sitting there like 'duh?', not like it was HEAVILY implied throughout most of the game...

One last thing that grinds my gears is the Oni. Throughout the game they're being hyped as some kind of unkillable phantoms, yet, you just bonk them twice on the head and they lay dead like any other bad guy in Tomb Raider. Not even sure how Solari had any problem with Oni slaughtering them, did they even try to fight back? Or do they just lie down and wait for death whenever they see the Oni approaching?

On the bright side, collecting diary entries is pretty interesting as it presents some history of the island. I actually made an effort to collect all of them, because I got hooked up on the stories they tell.


Tomb Raider is a good game, it aged gracefully and it still is very much playable in 2019. It offers 10-15 hours of solid, action-packed fun. The story is a bit of a hindrance to the game as a whole, but it's digestible when you not take it too seriously. All in all a great reboot and great buy for a few bucks!

A Short Hike is a small and cutesy sandbox-ish game where you take a role of a bird leaving for a break in the mountains with her ranger aunt. It's a relaxing experience where you explore the mountain and its surroundings at your own pace, while meeting and helping other hikers.


The game looks pretty nice. The pixelated graphics is well made, however, it took me a while to get used to it, as it's kind of... blurry? It's also a bit too hard to predict where you're actually going to land when gliding, which makes it a tad annoying in the races or high up where your feathers freeze. Still, you've got to respect the artist for actually crafting so many tiny details all over the created world, it's the most pleasant experience to just fly around the island seeing everything that you've passed on the way up from so far away. The area feels very much alive and changes as you hike higher and higher.

The music changes from area to area as well. Down in the beach it's more slow-paced and relaxing, while it gets more atmospheric while reaching the summit. I feel like it gives A Short Hike its soul, makes it all come together nicely.


The game is mostly about getting the feathers so that you can actually reach the summit, however, you're not being rushed into it by any means. There are some small minigames, quests, tools and treasures that make it a fun experience. And you're free to take part in them (or not) whenever you want. Relaxation is the name of the game, so even if you reach the summit in an hour, you might just spend another one just exploring and treasure hunting like I did, just because it's fun.


If you want to just chill for an hour or two and have 5€ to spare then get A Short Hike. It's a wholesome kind of fun perfect for a lazy evening.

DIsclaimer: I've played the Redux version of the game, which is not reviewable, my playtime is around 3 hours there. I've opened the regular version of the game for a few minutes just so I could review it.

One of the most beautiful walking simulators, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is an atmospheric short story where we follow the steps of a paranormal investigator Paul Prospero trying to find out what happened to the title boy, Ethan Carter. Walking through a small, secluded town we discover its dark secrets, while solving rather easy, but enjoyable puzzles.


Most of the short playtime (around 2-3h) of the 'Vanishing' will be spent slowly pacing from one place to another, which makes sense as it's a walking simulator. From time to time, you'll stumble upon a body or a weird phenomena which will require solving in order to get to the bottom of the case. The area is rather linear and inevitably leads us from one puzzle to another.

The puzzles themselves are rather simple, but quite enjoyable. My favourite one was the house with the portals, one of the very first you encounter. It's not really hard, but requires some imagination and logic to solve (or you can always just brute force it, if you're like that). For seasoned players they shouldn't pose any challenge, and for newbies they should be just right to have a smooth experience of playing.


Yet all the walking and story feels merely an excuse to show the graphical prowess of the people that worked on the game. This game is 5 years old already, but it can be honestly breathtaking. This was definitely the best looking game when it was released and I still think it can challenge many games released nowadays in this category. From time to time, I found myself stopping and just looking around to admire the view.

The small, falling apart mining village is shown so vividly. The crumbling buildings look like they're actually crumbling, the dam is spectacular and the near-final lake view is amazing. The abandoned church at the top of the hill gave me the creeps just with how the light plays with the wooden benches inside it. If I had to imagine how an abandoned village in the middle of mountains would look like, this is exactly what I would think of, it's perfect.


Sound is an important factor in building the atmosphere in games and movies and I believe both the sounds and the music of 'Vanishing' are doing masterful job at it. Paul Prospero sounds exactly how you'd imagine a stereotypical private investigator from the movies sound like. He goes over the events in his deep, silky-smooth voice and you can't help but see him in your mind as this older, gray haired guy in a dark brown trench coat, smoking a cigarette, perfect casting choice in my opinion.

The music of 'Vanishing' is actually created by one of the composers of The Witcher 3 soundtrack. The ominous, instrumental pieces really create an atmosphere of weirdness and evil. You know, that something bad is going to happen soon. It keeps you on your toes all the time. Nothing really happens most of the time, you're just walking around, but the sounds and the track make you check your back every now and then, it just builds that feeling that something is coming for you. From time to time, more melancholic tones sound through, which fit to what the game is actually about.


As I've already mentioned, the game is very atmospheric. I think I'd recommend playing in headphones or with a good sound system on a gloomy, rainy evening to immerse yourself in the created world the most. Going through the desolate village is a bit of a creepy experience and I always had that feeling of some evil lurking around, just ready to pounce at me. And to be honest, I really didn't want that as I hate scary games. Hence one of my criticism of the game is that, putting an actual jump scare in just one place in the game might not be the best idea. Especially because at that place you're already an hour into the game and kind of accept that there won't be anything actually scary in the game, just the atmosphere. I'd rather play out the whole game just feeling uneasy than have my heart jump in that one moment. Probably not an issue for most people, but it really got me good and I hated it.

The story is a bit controversial as well and by story I really mean the conclusion of it. I enjoyed going through the puzzles and getting to know more and more about the events that happened in the village. And then it turns out !SPOILER ALERT! nothing paranormal actually happened and the whole story is just a ruse, thus invalidating everything that you played through . It's a daring way to end it and I understand people that hated that. I wasn't bothered by it too much, but it did feel like an easy way out.

Nevertheless, I do think, the story up until that point is just interesting and really got me into trying to get to know what happened.


In the end, I do think 'Vanishing' is a pretty great experience. It is a short game, keep that in mind, so if you're one of those people that want to have hours of fun for each dollar spent, you will be disappointed. If you, however, want to have some quality time, it might just be a game for you. The stunning visuals, great soundtrack and creepy atmosphere makes it worth playing. It's like reading a good detective story, but you get to be the guy who is uncovering the dark secrets.

It's one of those games that make you wish that Steam had a more complex grading system rather than the binary one. Crashlands is a game that reminds many (including myself) of Don't Starve. In my opinion it is to Don't Starve, what American remakes are to European original films. It's goofier and more flashy, but in the process loses the idea of what makes the original so genius.


Crashlands drops you into an alien world, where you need to craft and help the locals to retrieve the packages lost during the crash landing. You have to scavenge and hunt mobs for materials that allow you to craft better gear and challenge harder mobs. It's actually fun for the first few hours, until you notice, this is it, that's basically the whole game. Just grind to craft another workstation, another weapon, another armour. It might have been okay as one of the possible activities, but it gets really old when it's the only activity available. And you have to do it a lot. There are 35 levels of equipment and they increment in twos. This means, the same gameplay loop has to be repeated around 17 times, that's at least 10 times too many. It's also possible to 'domesticate' pets, until you notice, that it's basically another part of the crafting system as the domesticated pets create materials which you'll need to create your weapons and armours with. It doesn't really help that the design of most of the gear is rather uninspiring. You can have the same sword/axe/helmet/etc. every 2 levels. I mean, it looks different, but the only actual difference is that it deals a bit more damage than the same item of the lower tier and a bit less damage than the item of the next tier. Only the gadgets and devices are a small breath of fresh air, at least some of them offer interesting, new mechanics.

Another gameplay element that's gravely underdeveloped is base building. There are possibilities of building furniture, plants and some other random stuff, but they (mostly) serve no purpose. You can just put them around if you feel like it, but there isn't really any good reason to do so. The only things that are actually needed are workstations, which allow you to craft better and better gear (there's like 20 of them) and pets nest. The rest of furniture might as well not exist.

The enemies are nicely designed in terms of their looks and attack patterns, however, they all suffer from one major problem - bullet sponging. Most of the time you'll find yourself slapping the enemies with your ineffective weapon for mediocre damage and just running around to not get hit. When you get better weapons, you'll move on to other enemies which will have the same spongey feeling to them. On the other hand enemies attacks welcome you to the world of hurt. Most special enemies will deal enough damage to one-shot you. There are many defensive stats, but at some point you'll probably notice, that the most important one is indeed the HP, that lets you survive the one hit and quickly heal up, the rest probably matters, but there isn't any in-game explanation of what do they exactly do. Like what does 20% toughness do? Does it decrease the physical damage by 20%? More? Less? Does it mean 100% toughness makes you invulnerable to physical damage? Who knows...

Enemies' attacks usually give you a lot of time to dodge, but it's unfortunately balanced with the speed your character is moving. By far one of the most frustrating things about Crashlands is the fact that most of the time you're literally crawling through the world. Being able to activate the 'turbo mode' helps a bit, but you can't have 100% uptime on it, so that sucks. Something like a Don't Starve's 'Walking stick' would be a great help to the game - that is an item that allows you to walk really fast outside of combat, but has to be switched to a weapon during combat, so it would still not be that easy to dodge the attacks.

There are also some minor bugs in the game, where quests aren't properly marked on the map or your teleporting doesn't work the first time you click (happens A LOT). Not that big of a deal in the end, but it does show the lack of polish of the game.


The story initially got me interested. It was a bit goofy, a bit crazy but it held up. I was following it rather closely until the end of Savannah, the first act. After that though, I was a bit underwhelmed with the game mechanics and just felt like finishing it up for the sake of being done with it, reading just a part here and there to still know what's going on. Reaching the last level, Tundra, I was so worn out I would just skip every dialogue ASAP. It didn't matter anyway and it did feel stretched just for the sake of having three acts.

This might have been different if the quests were a bit more creative, but unfortunately they aren't. 90% of the quests will be your typical 'kill this/gather that/talk to someone'. As I mentioned before, it might be interesting enough for the first act, but after that you'll find just skipping most of the dialogues and then checking your quests screen for the item that you actually need to gather up to finish the quest.


For me the strongest asset of this game. Crashlands looks neat. It's colourful and it feels alive. Even though most of your gear does the same, it looks differently, based on the materials that were used in the crafting process. The enemies and allies look a bit (positively) weird, which fits the goofy, alien theme of the game. The animations are fluid, damage indicators clear and you can easily spot all the materials as they have their distinctive looks.

My only complaint here would be the lack of possibility (at least I haven't found it) to disable screenshake. I always turn it off in any game I play, and I found it as annoying in Crashlands as in any other game.


I actually liked the music of the game of the game and I think I had it on for most part of the game. It was nothing to write home about, but it also didn't get on my nerves, which is important, as the game is about 30 hours long and you'll be hearing lots of it on repeat.

The sounds were mostly well chosen. Enemy sounds were fitting, 'juicy' sounds were 'juicy' enough. No complaints there.

On the other hand, the person who decided to put the 'thumping' tree in the game, should really re-evaluate how it impacts the playthrough. Hearing that annoying sound for 'roughly' the 8 hours you spend in the last act was stuff of nightmares.


Crashlands does some things good, it does most things mediocre and a few things - plain bad. It is even a great game up until the point where you notice you've basically seen everything and still have around 20 hours of grind left. If it took 10 hours to complete, this review would probably even be a positive one. It's just, that the game is stretched to almost 30 hours, but the content is just not there anymore past the first act. I mean, you'll see new monsters and the story progresses, but it doesn't feel different enough to justify it.

If I were to describe Crashlands in one word it would be 'uninspired'. The gameplay design just doesn't change one thing and you simply can't have players doing the same for almost 30 hours, it's boring and frankly, quite tiring. The only thing I could think of after I've beaten the final boss was the LoTR's 'It's over, it's done', I was happy to finally finish it and I know, I won't be coming back.

More of a piece of art rather than a game, ABZU is definitely one of the most beautiful creations I've seen on PC. Colourful and vibrant, the underwater world is just amazing.


The gameplay of ABZU unfortunately isn't anything to write home about. One could call it a 'walking simulator', but 90% of the game takes place under the surface of water, so is it a 'swimming simulator' then? Most of the time is spent swimming from one place to another and 'beeping' on objects to solve puzzles. 'Puzzles' is a bit of a big word, as it doesn't really take any effort to progress. Any experienced gamers will immediately notice what's to be done to move forward, however, inexperienced ones shouldn't really have any problems either.

It's pretty clear that having an ability to move in this game is just a way to get from one visual wonder to another. But my, my, what visual wonders are those.


ABZU looks amazing. The game is a few years old at this point, but it looks just amazing. The world is so vibrant, the fish look like real, everything is so colourful and alive. The developers were definitely aware that the graphics is the strongest point of the game and that's why they added the 'meditation points' - places where you can sit and wander with your camera through the multitude of sea critters swimming in your vicinity. A great way to take some amazing screenshots.

There are different zones and each one has a different colour theme. The sea critters also change from zone to zone. Swimming along Giant Squids or Blue Whales looks just breathtaking. If you're okay with just experiencing a game visually rather than through engaging gameplay, you definitely need to play ABZU.


The music in ABZU is well made and fitting. Mostly instrumental, it enhances the relaxing experience of just swimming around. Sometimes a bit mysterious, a bit dramatic towards the end it complements the visual feast perfectly.


As I mentioned several times, ABZU is not a game in a classic sense of it. The gameplay is rather shallow and the puzzles really simplistic. However, if you feel like experiencing a visually amazing spectacle and just relax for 2 hours, this is the game for you. 20€ might be a bit of a steep price for it, but I'd say it's a good grab for 10€ and below.

One final note, the 'controller is strongly recommended' notice is pretty important. The controls are a bit clunky when using keyboard + mouse and it can be really exhausting for the fingers operating the mouse. Playing with a controller is MUCH more enjoyable.

Enter the Gungeon has finally become my favourite rogue-like. It took a few years, but eventually it dethroned the reigning champion: Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. This top-down rogue-like shooter is flashy, brutal, filled with gun puns (seriously, where did they get all those ideas?) and most important - LOTS of fun. At this point, I believe it's a must-play for any rogue-like lover across the globe.


The premise is pretty simple - a few daring adventurers risk it all delving into a bullet-kin-filled dungeon in order to find the bullet that can kill the past and change their life mistakes. But as you take control of one of those characters, you'll find out it's not as easy of a task as it seems. When you start, you only have your own, trusty gun, which, to put it lightly, is not that useful. But as the game progresses, more and more guns are unlocked and it does get a bit easier.

Talking about guns, there's LOTS of them and nearly each one has a pun or a pop-culture reference in its description or in the way it works. There are small gun, big guns, explosive guns, weird guns, inverse gun, useless guns, gg guns and many more, coming to a total of over 240. I sincerely applaud the creativity of the developers. There's a gun for everyone and at some point everyone finds their favourite one that they'll always use above any other. Personally, I love using the Megahand, which is the reference to Megaman's Mega Buster. I think there are no true 'GG guns' though, like for example the Brimstone item in Binding of Isaac. Some guns can make a short work of the bosses, but then they'll usually be limited by their ammo capacity and/or usage scenarios. This slightly changed with the introduction of synergies. Guns synergise with other guns and passive items, which sometimes can produce truly run carrying results. It's rather hard to achieve such synergies though, it will not happen during regular runs, unless you're playing the gunslinger or find the Lich's eyes

Another crucial part of the Gungeon is the dodge mechanics. It's essential to your survival, but it does take some time to get used to. Timing the dodge rolls is actually way more important than the gun play. It's especially crucial when it comes to boss fights, as some of them turn into a real bullet hell and there's no way of avoiding all the projectiles without dodge rolling. Further down the Gungeon, using dodge roll in the right direction and in the right split of second is a matter of life and death.

The bosses in Gungeon are the true test of skill. They have significant amounts of HP and most of them can completely cover the screen in bullets. Additionally, not being hit during a boss fight grants you an additional heart container. Not getting the additional heart containers on easier floors usually means not having enough life to get through the latter, harder floors.

Enter the Gungeon, as every other rogue-like has many layers or RNG. Sadly, it feels like some runs can be pretty undoable due to it. Basically, most of the items and guns can be found in chests. The chests can be of different colours, some yield better items than others. Then you still need the keys to be able to open the chests in the first place. On the first floor, there'll always be enough keys as you can buy one from the store, but further down it can get pretty tough if you're unlucky. Same goes for ammo. All of the guns in the game have limited ammo capacity (besides the starting gun and few exceptions), which means you'll most likely run out of ammo at some point. Let me tell you, nothing is more frustrating in this game than having a great gun and not being able to find ammo for it for the duration of the run. Drops from clearing rooms are pretty infrequent and only improved by getting more coolness, which in turn is mostly gained from a few specific items. In this regard, I much prefer the Binding of Isaac, where there's much more regular drops and you can also gain the luck rather easily. Here, paired with the HP scaling of enemies, having bad gun or drop RNG can easily equal to an end of the run or at least make it painstakingly slow.


I really love the style of Gungeon. It's a top-notch pixel-art. Slightly goofy, really colourful and amazingly detailed. The gungeon is never visually boring, it always looks fresh and crispy. The colour palette choices are very well done as well, it's pretty easy to tell what's going to hurt you, where the enemies are and which projectiles are yours. I think it's a pretty important aspect for a rogue-like where one mistake can end your run. You need to immediately know what has to be dodged and what's safe and I feel like the visual cues are well-made for that.

The enemies look great as well, each of them has its own unique demeanor. It not only looks awesome, but also gives you an immediate information of what attacks to expect and where to focus your firepower first.


I can't really tell much about the music of Enter the Gungeon. I think it was pretty forgetful, I've had it on maybe for the first 5 hours of gameplay, but then for my sanity's sake I've replaced it with music from my Spotify playlist. I feel like that's a pretty common thing for rogue-likes though. I tend to spend a lot of time replaying the same levels, so listening to the same music over and over again can be pretty annoying. The only exceptions to this rule, in my opinion, were the original Binding of Isaac with amazing as always soundtrack from D. Baranovsky and Risk of Rain with it's very mysterious, sci-fi sounding music.

Guns on the other hand sound great. Each has it's own shooting and in some cases the explosion sound. The enemies' sounds (especially bosses) are also important cues to when and what type of an attack is coming your way. After enough hours, I could tell what to expect from bosses based on their charge attack sound. Useful stuff.


Enter the Gungeon is a game of pure fun. Today, after 115 hours of gameplay, I've finally beaten the last challenge, so I'm probably going to take a break from it for a while. However, I had a great time for most of those hours. From starting up and sucking really hard, to finally taking down the final boss after a really hard and long run, up until now with all the secret bosses, characters and NPCs uncovered.

I love games which are loved by their developers and Gungeon is definitely one of those. It's been worked on for 3 years and updated for free every time, improving the gameplay, fixing bugs and adding heaps of new stuff to play through. It's one of those games where picking it up at the full price is just worth it, in my opinion.

A note of warning though, being a bullet-hell rogue-like, Enter the Gungeon is a rather hard game. When you start off, you'll die and die and die until you 'git gud'. And then you'll probably still die from time to time. If you get frustrated easily or if you've never played any hard games before, then maybe this is not a game for you. If, however, you're looking for some challenge, just get Enter the Gungeon already and start shootin'.