HurrJackal1

July 2026

  • Darksiders: Warmastered Edition: I started this sometime previously, but restarted. You are War, one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, who has been must traverse a fallen Earth, battling angels and demons, despite the final Seal not having been broken. traverse a fallen Earth. As a 3d Metroidvania, it’s more on the Zeldalike part of the spectrum, with “dungeons” and small puzzle areas off the interconnected world, and where (except for an endgame object hunt) revisiting areas once abilities upgrade is mostly for finding chests. Combat is ok, though the camera would be more enjoyable if zoomed out for that, particularly while underwater (swing blindly with lock on to deal with the fish), and there is often excessive combat (ok, ok, he’s War). Abilities are nicely varied with and the associated puzzles and exploration is ok. The shooting sections quickly overstay their welcome. The way it deals with regaining life (limited potions, which don’t reset on a death) can be unpleasant at times, particularly if you’ve hit a savepoint before a tough arena, with low life and potions, and no way to improve either in the area your trapped in. The inter-area teleport (“Serpent Gates”) is an annoying traverse – I would have preferred just a loading screen. 7+/10 – it’s worth a play for the good bits.
  • Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition: Different location, taking place within the beginning of Darksiders, and with somewhat different mechanics – though even more of a Zeldalike (there’s basically a Fire Temple, a Water Temple and a Temple of Time). It’s a mystery, however, why they decided that what would really improve the previous game was live-service style equipment, so you are drowned in different weapons and armour pieces of different quality and effects on stats and abilities and levels that you need to manage. You can sacrifice these to buff up special armour and weapons, but I kept wishing that I didn’t need to. There’s also eventually a side quest to shoot some crystals in exchange for buffs, but there’s no way of marking anything on your map. The dungeons and puzzles are very good, the combat is pretty good, but the pervasive and unwelcome inventory game drags everything down. 7.5+/10
  • Eriksholme: The Stolen Dream: A tactical stealth puzzler that could be set in another part of the Dishonored world with its industrial age aesthetic. You guide your character(s) to particular goals/exits while avoiding being spotted by police and others, with limited abilities to knock them out. Unlike Commandos, etc, there are no view cones, and being spotted in many levels is instant failure. There are some extra bits and pieces to collect (that may require additional exploration) for lore and world-building, but completing the collection is not ideal as although there are multiple subchapter breakdown, there’s no indication which subchapters have missed items available. Enjoyable, though only a few subchapters were particularly tricky. 8/10
  • The Impossible: A maze game with the forced perspective allowing impossible movement of your cube. The game is fairly brief, and its gameplay is fine, though it’s definitely no Monument Valley. I did not enjoy the Portal-inspired computer, and found it entirely unnecessary for gameplay. 6.5/10 (Steamgifts win)

Games I Will Not Finish

  • Slime-san: A good but very difficult precision platformer / racer with physics somewhat reminiscent of Super Meat Boy but with an extended moveset (plus various characters with modified physics). I think SMB’s difficulty curve is kinder, in part because Slime San will kill you if you take too long, while SMB only does that on some levels. (Steamgifts win)
  • Cryptmaster: Control 4 undead adventurers who are attempting to escape a dungeon by typing words to gain and use abilities and items. I admire this game far more than I enjoy it; objectively from what I’ve seen it’s an 8+ or more out of 10, as it goes its own way with its aesthetic and mechanics, and the sarcastic narration from the cryptmaster is hammily amusing. What I don’t ultimately love is the typing (you will need to type in every attack) and resource collection (you will type in the names of various insects on the walls) or the old-school blobber dungeon crawling. I’d definitely recommend at least trying the demo, however. (Steamgifts win)
  • Streets of Rage IV and Final Vendetta: I need to stop entering giveaways for old-school arcade games. I definitely have nostalgia for them (I played the original Streets of Rage back on the Megadrive) but my tastes have moved on, and the magic has gone. (Steamgifts wins)
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