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The Rise of the Golden Idol is a worthy successor to The Case of the Golden Idol, and I'd go so far as to call it an improvement. Coming from someone who thought the previous installment was absolutely brilliant, this is very high praise.

To put it simply, the Golden Idol games are the purest and most satisfying crime deduction experiences money can buy, right next to The Return of the Obra Dinn. Every case is clever, compact, and complete. Without exception, the truth is always revealed in the clues, the answers are never obvious, and the drag-and-drop fill-in-the-blanks mechanic means it's almost impossible to guess or to complete a case without thoroughly understanding what really happened.

TROTGI has the same grotesque art style as the original, but the switch to high-resolution illustrations (compared to the original's pixel art) makes it significantly more palatable. The music is diverse and atmospheric, making each case feel like a new experience. The additional content between cases and the chapter-wide Events pages tie all of the cases together into a cohesive narrative.

What's extra nice is that, while this sequel is full of callbacks to the original, the story is completely self-contained. If you haven't played the original or, like me, you've forgotten a lot of the original's details, TROTGI is still a fantastic experience.

All in all, this is a wonderfully mind-bending, satisfying, and compelling mystery, and I'd recommend it to any sleuth who loves a challenge.

I'm a sucker for cozy farming sims, but Roots of Pacha stands out as one of the best since Stardew Valley.

The elements that it has in common with kindred games are executed extremely well, but it stands out because of its uniqueness:

* You and your vibrant little tribe are actually discovering agriculture and technology bit by bit -- your character isn't being artificially forced to reinvent the wheel or personally source crafting materials that should be commercially available; you're creating things that have never been seen before in the game's world.

* Things like animal taming and fishing are performed through minigames, but unlike every other farming sim, these are actually fun and engaging.

* The characters are all likable in their own way, with distinct and absorbing stories, interesting relationships with other characters, relatable circumstances, and a sense of importance in the community. They tell you things you actually want to know about each other. Their preferred gifts actually make sense: a child will have many of the same tastes as their parent, the woman who lives with wolves will like herbs that repel fleas, etc. The heart events are well executed, feeling significant, appropriate to your level of familiarity with the character, and giving you insight into them. Best of all, they don't feel like one-off skits, because they're talked about by other relevant characters afterwards.

* There's no formal currency, just a measure of your contribution to the tribe. Whether or not you contribute, though, the tribe still advances, so there's not the ridiculous feeling that the fate of the community rests solely on the shoulders of your character.

All in all, it's an entertaining and cozy look at prehistoric times, with a wonderful cast of characters and some truly unique features.

TLDR: a great retro puzzler that avoids frustration through clever mechanics

As others have mentioned, this feels like a spiritual successor to The Incredible Machine but with an unexpected dash of Lemmings thrown in. I loved The Incredible Machine back in the olden days, but I wasn't big on Lemmings. Brilliantly, though, Captain Contraption's Chocolate Factory manages to sidestep everything I found frustrating about this genre of game.

Instead of requiring 100% perfection, the you only have to hit 75% of your quota per stage. Instead of a strict budget limit, it gives you a par cost to shoot for. Instead of making you 100% complete every area before moving on, or even finish every stage in an area, you just have to hit 30% completion.

Since every stage has three goals (hit the 75% quota, hit the quota under par cost, and hit the quota in a wacky variant of the stage), this means that you have options. If you want, you can brute force your way through, hitting the quota on every level through expensive and complex mechanisms. If you just can't figure out one stage, you can go back to one that was easy for you and try to get it under par and/or complete the wacky variant.

The presence of the leaderboards is surprisingly encouraging as well. They show you where your solution to a stage ranks in terms of cost, speed, and results. When the par was 450 credits and you only spent 300, you should feel proud, even when you see that someone else managed to do it in 60 -- that just means you've got more to learn about the mechanics. When you go back and try to figure out how someone did it so simply, you inevitably figure things out that will help you in the levels to come.

In short, it's fun, it stretches your brain, and it's way less stressful than its forebears. I recommend it.

OUTBRK is exactly what I was hoping it would be. It's not a perfect game, but it's consistently very enjoyable. If you've ever wanted to chase storms, this is probably the closest you can get without risking being torn limb-from-limb by an F5.

There are only three caveats I could mention. First, your experience with the game will likely be directly proportional to the beefiness of your PC. You basically spend the whole game looking at clouds, and graphics quality makes an enormous difference. On Fantastic settings, the clouds are gorgeous, realistic, and it's easy to tell what's what. On Medium or below, it's a lot harder to know what you're looking at.

Second, it's a little janky. Some roads are impassible because the terrain mesh is above them; other roads float a bit above the ground, making them easy to fall off of and/or get stuck inside of. When players disconnect, the game occasionally freezes -- in the 9-ish hours I've played, I've had that happen twice. I don't seem to lose any rewards I'd earned for that particular chase, but it's not ideal. EDIT: A few hours after I posted this review, an update was released that fixed all the roads, and the game no longer freezes for me. The developers are extraordinarily on top of things.

Third, it's based on real world historical weather events, not dynamically generated. The number of different scenarios right now isn't exactly huge, and it seems like plenty of players learn exactly where tornadoes are going to develop and the paths they'll take. I hear that the number of scenarios is going to be expanded, but until that happens this game might not be extremely replayable long-term. EDIT: The aforementioned update expanded the scenario count by >30%, and many additional scenarios are planned in the near future.

Overall, it's a blast as long as you go into it aware of its imperfections. EDIT: It's just a blast. Period.

Other games: "Sorry, you can't go there right now. You could run into sequence breaking content, or unbeatable enemies, or puzzles that are impossible with your current abilities."

Immortals Fenyx Rising: "Do what you want, I ain't your dad."

The game's an absolute blast. It offers a level of freedom and power you just don't see in other modern games. It offers cleverly designed puzzles, but gives you options to blow through them using your divine powers. It offers challenging combat, but lets you become so powerful you'll be able to take down most enemies in a couple hits. It makes you earn your upgrades, but is generous with materials and currency. It deals with some weighty themes and surprisingly detailed Greek mythology, but does so in a way that's consistently good-natured and hilarious throughout. Basically, it prioritizes fun over everything else, and it absolutely succeeds.

I wholeheartedly recommend giving this one a play.

Noita is a game whose charms can take a while to shine through. I've tried and bounced off of Noita a half dozen times since I first picked it up in Early Access. I loved the look, the feel, and the per-pixel simulation, but I couldn't get into it.

Then, recently, I finally did. And it's glorious.

The key to enjoying Noita is being willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of learning and experimentation. Just picked up a wand that insta-casts Giga Black Hole? Give it a try! On your next run, you'll know how it works.

If the punishment for learning is too severe for you, though, I'd recommend checking out the Workshop mods, particularly the one that adds checkpoints between levels. The game is best enjoyed as the roguelike it was intended to be, but mods can really help you figure out the game until you're ready to try it for real.

I thought this was going to be a Bethesda game!

Instead, I've got to deal with beautiful, realistic character models, professional voice acting, and a virtually bug-free experience on launch. Where are the trees and rocks floating six feet in the air? Where are the bottomless holes in the terrain mesh? Where is the jank?

It's like I don't even know you anymore, Bethesda.

The Case of the Golden Idol is a brilliant game of deduction. There are clear parallels to the fantastic The Return of the Obra Dinn in that the mysteries are each presented as moments frozen in time to be explored and examined, and it should be noted that both games share the same dedication to tight logic and satisfying deductions. Golden Idol's mysteries are a bit less overwhelming, however: although they add up to a cohesive, compelling narrative, they're presented as discrete moments to be solved one at a time. This allows them to get pretty tricky without letting the subtle clues get buried under a mountain of unrelated evidence.

The visuals and music are often distinctly unpleasant but highly polished and evocative. The style is clearly a deliberate choice, and it does an excellent job of meshing with the disturbing nature of the story.

My one complaint would be the length of the game. I finished the main story and DLC in a little over eight hours, playing at a leisurely pace and without using hints. That's mostly due to the fact that Golden Idol completely avoids filler and length-padding mechanics. You don't have to slowly walk from location to location or tediously interview suspects; you can solve the mysteries as fast as you can read, think, and click. Still, I would have liked to see a bit more.

Overall, this comes with my highest recommendation. If you're a fan of tightly written mysteries with rock-solid logic, get it.

I am in awe of this game.

Shadows of Doubt simulates a living, breathing city with depth and detail beyond what I thought possible. More than that, though, it's thoroughly fun, often challenging, and one of the most beautiful and immersive voxel-style games I've ever seen.

SoD gives you a remarkable amount of freedom. Sure, that means you can investigate cases from countless angles and with myriad techniques, but it also means you're free to simply not act like a detective at all. You can just as easily be a burglar, a thug, a stalker, or an agent of absolute chaos.

The jobs can start to get a little easy if you act like an amoral sociopath: if you want someone's fingerprints, you can kick down their door in the middle of the night, beat them unconscious, and take their prints (along with their most valuable worldly possessions, before chucking the rest of their belongings out through their newly broken windows). If you try to put yourself into the role of an honorable investigator, though, the game can be pleasantly tough.

Really, all I would ask for at this point is more. More (yes, even more) systems simulated. Deeper social connections to others (discussion topics, friendships, romances, enemies). More feeling of belonging to the city (and less like an outsider living in its margins). The game is already awe-inspiring, but I'd love to see just how much further the devs could take it.

A shining example of a sequel done well. The satisfying gameplay is exactly the same as in the original Subnautica, but the environment and story are entirely new. The game itself feels slightly more compact: the crafting recipes are a bit less demanding, the map is a little smaller, and the story elements are more plentiful and frequent.

There's more to the narrative this time around, and the protagonist is a complex, thoughtful character. Is that a good thing? Yes and no. The original had you playing a silent protagonist whose only directive was to survive, but a compelling and often surprising story slowly revealed itself as you explored. Below Zero, by comparison, feels a bit more gamey and linear from the start.

Overall, though, it's an excellent game, particularly using the VR mod. I definitely recommend it to any fan of the original.