Recent reviews by Tendrael Umbra

The Talos Principle 2 is genuinely one of the best games I have ever played. It does a perfect job acting as a sequel to the original Talos Principle with an expanded scope and improved gameplay and visuals. All of the new puzzle mechanics are very interesting and combine together beautifully.

While the original Talos Principle focuses heavily on the philosophy of the self, what it means to be human, and what it means to be aware, Talos Principle 2 focuses heavily on the philosophy of society, what a proper society should do for its members, and the role of a society in the context of both the planet and the cosmos. The characters included in the game are charming and each bring different opinions and points of view to the table, and the dialogue choices you make feel extremely impactful. Characters will remember all previous interactions they've had with you, and can even be persuaded to hold different viewpoints if you present the right arguments. The game's climax manages to be the most beautiful and breathtaking part of the entire game and actually made me tear up a bit.

If you like puzzle games, this is an absolute must-play.

While the first Ace Attorney Investigations game is slow and somewhat dry, the second game is easily the best ace attorney game ever made and easily carries the whole collection. It's packed full of fun gameplay, compelling mysteries, and the usual cast of weird and eccentric characters that you'd expect. This is a must-play for any fans of ace attorney or mysteries in general.

No photosensitive mode means this game is unplayable for me. I know that such things weren't standard when this game came out, but imo it's still a dubious design choice.

Honestly, this game is a bit of a mixed bag all the way through. There are a lot of really interesting elements but it feels like none of them really reach their full potential.

Testing Elements

positives: All of the new testing elements introduced in this game are really creative. Even the Pneumatic Diversity Vent that was removed from the final release of Portal 2 gets a lot of good uses here.
negatives: The new testing elements very rarely appear outside of the chapters that introduce them, meaning that it feels like few of the testing elements get the attention that they deserve. It also means that the new testing elements have very few, if any, opportunities to be used together.

Level Design

positives: The general level design is quite good, but rarely stands out. The most interesting aspects of the level design are the heavy reliance on a single portal device for a large section of the early game, and the inclusion of a number of test chambers that aesthetically bridge the gap between old Aperture and New Aperture.
negatives: The difficulty of the puzzles is extremely easy. There are harder puzzles in vanilla Portal 2 than any of the puzzles in this game, which is a bit of a letdown compared to the difficulty provided by other mods like Portal Stories Mel or Portal Reloaded. In addition, very few of the levels feel aesthetically like they take place in the same Aperture as the one in Portal 2, which is a sharp contrast to Portal Stories Mel, which easily feels like it could take place in a different part of Aperture.

Characters and story

positives: Emilia Conley, a character introduced halfway through the game, is easily my favourite character from any Portal 2 mod. Her moments of neuroses are charming, and her status as a brainscanned ex-Aperture employee (who DIDN'T go insane in the process) makes her occupy a unique niche that no other character in any other in the Portal universe fills.
neutral: The story is only really okay. Not amazing, not terrible, and kind of forgettable overall. The sole exception to that is the ending.
negatives: Stirling, the AI core with you through the early parts of the game, isn't as endearing as characters like Wheatley or Virgil. His obsession with cleanliness is amusing, but it never feels like he has much character behind that. In addition, the decision to make him into the villain of the story was even less compelling, as Stirling simply isn't able to match the scathing hatred of GLaDOS, the bumbling evil of Wheatley, or the cold indifference of AEGIS. His character is the equivalent of a boring janitor or accountant, and he really doesn't work as a villain.
On the story front, the ending is an actual downer in a way that doesn't feel in line with most other Portal games or mods. Most endings tend either towards being melancholic (Portal 2, Portal Stories Mel) or ominous (Aperture Tag, Portal Reloaded, Portal 1). Having an outright downer, especially after the final boss and lead up to it, feels jarring in a way that didn't sit right with me.

All in all, I do recommend the game, but I definitely don't think it's as good as it could have been, and I'd love to see all of the new testing elements added in this mod used to make some more interesting puzzles or used by other mods altogether.

Honestly, this game was extremely unfun and exceptionally frustrating to play. The game has a tutorial, but it does a bad job explaining the mechanics and barely scratches the surface of the gameplay before throwing you into the deep end. Once I got to the second level, I was dying multiple times every screen and while I would always eventually win, it always felt random whether or not I'd win, as the game did a very bad job at giving feedback for whether or not I was doing well. The camera controls are fighting you at every opportunity, and the parry, which is your only defence, is awkward to use and doesn't seem to work half the time.

While the game might be easier to grasp if one is experienced in the spectacle fighter genre, this game does a bad job tutorialising its own mechanics and has an insane difficulty spike early on that makes it nearly impossible for inexperienced players to actually learn the basics of the gameplay. I'd have requested a refund if I didn't pass the 2 hours maximum playtime.

Most open world games like this often leave me feeling aimless and disinterested after a bit of play, but No Man's Sky is engaging in a way that keeps me coming back to it again and again. Every time I think I'm going to run out of stuff to do, I find new things. The fact that the devs have continued to add new content to the game has really kept me coming back, because even if I do everything in the game, the next update is just going to add even more.

This game is not good. The writing passes for a B movie at best, and into outright cringey at worst. A substantial amount of the game is just following characters doing ordinary. mundane things as they go about their daily lives. This is fine in moderation, but having to deal with this constantly made me feeling like I was watching the start of birdemic. None of the characters act like actual people, the choices you make barely actually matter because the storyline is so heavily railroaded, the "gameplay" is boring and unengaging, but the game constantly acts pretentious about it, and is so up its own ass with fake deep dialogue that I found myself really put-off.

If I actually paid money for this game, I would feel very ripped off.

While not as solid an experience as its predecessors, Hitman 3 does a wonderful job wrapping up the World of Assassination Trilogy. The focus on a more cinematic experience creates some amazing and wonderful levels, and the continued production of free content in the time since its release is amazing. Moreover, the fact that Hitman and Hitman 2 can both be enjoyed in this game at a fraction of the filesize makes this one of the best ways to play the trilogy.

The game speed is tied to FPS, which makes it borderline unplayable on modern hardware. Why a game that came out in 2015 decided to do this, I have no idea. Even limiting the game's refresh rate through launch commands had limited success in fixing this issue.

I can become besties with a catgirl sex priestess, mommy domme an elf princess locked in a cursed chastity cage, and romance the demon queen. This is everything I've ever wanted from a game.