November Wrap Up

I really enjoyed Wuppo!

I played this for the monthly theme. I had forgotten I even purchased it until BLAEO user msboring27 wrote a fantastic review about it. That piqued my curiosity, so I gave it a shot.

Wuppo is a puzzle platformer where you play a creature called a Wum, who is looking for a new home. I think my favorite thing about Wuppo is definitely the worldbuilding. msboring27 mentioned that in their review, and I couldn't agree more. There are many different kinds of creatures to learn about. You can find films that give you stories and insights into the world. The story itself explains how most of these creatures came to be and the part they play in the world.

The gameplay is a lot of fun. You can switch between items to solve puzzles and use your weapons. You can also buy things at the stores such as outfits for your Wum. The game is fairly easy. The bosses aren't that hard and I think I only struggled on the last boss. I played on the normal difficulty, but I imagine it gets much harder on the higher ones.

Wuppo has fun environments that you can explore. The story is very basic but opens up the game to plenty of great worldbuilding, character interactions, and humor. If anything the game just reminds me of something I'd play on Gamecube or N64. I love wacky games like this.

I'd give Wuppo a 4 out of 5 ⭐

Games with a strong story or narrative are my favorite so I was really happy to get my hands on Subsurface Circular. Overall it did not disappoint. Sadly some of it got spoiled for me before playing, but other than that it's just a neat little text game. Almost like a visual novel but where you can choose most of your dialogue and talk to different robots.

The game sets up its own mood and atmosphere, without your character even leaving the train. The world is interesting and I enjoyed finding some easter eggs.. If you enjoy text-based adventures and/or mystery stories then you'll probably enjoy this. It's about 2 hours long and can be played in one sitting.

I also give this one a 4 out of 5 ⭐

Painkiller was chosen for me in the Play or Pay group. I've never heard of the painkiller games so I admittedly had no idea what the game was even about. Sadly, I won't have any nostalgic attachment to it, so I'm just giving my thoughts on an older game.

Painkiller is a frantic fast paced shooter where you have to kill big groups of enemies to clear the area. rinse and repeat. It does have a story but the main focus is definitely on the gameplay. Although this isn't my type of game, It was pretty fun to turn my brain off and kill thousands of undead creatures. It's actually a good stress reliever for the difficult month that I've had.

First I'll list off the bad:
Obviously, the realistic graphics didn't age well at all. Some of the boss fights were poorly designed. I spent ages trying to beat the last boss fight, then googled what the problem was. Once I googled how to do it, I beat it in less than 30 seconds. (not even exaggerating). Another boss had a lack of clear instruction and confusing mechanics. Another one gave unavoidable major fall damage during the battle. When googling how to avoid it, the game requires you to go back and do something else first. Overall half of the bosses were good, half were terrible. The last real issue I had was that it would crash a lot. Luckily it did autosave though.

Now the good:
Painkiller had a lot of fun levels and overall the level design was good. There was a very fun variety of weapons. Each one had two different types of bullets so it was fun to mix it up. The enemies were varied and fit the environment well. Overall it did a good job at raising the adrenaline levels and keeping you on your toes.

I enjoyed the first half of Painkiller a lot more than the second half. The second half just threw hundreds of enemies at you at once. It didn't feel strategic anymore, and more like living hell. I think that's the appeal of the game, but it just wasn't for me. I was terrible at it and I had to keep starting over at checkpoint several times. I picked the medium difficulty option, but apparently, my strong suit is not these types of games. I spent half of the game internally cursing. I have serious respect for people who beat this on the hardest difficulty.

Overall, Painkiller is a great game if you want to kill as many things as possible and feel pretty badass while doing it. I'm sure it was way cooler when it was released, but overall it did have some avoidable issues.

I'll give Painkiller: Black Edition a 3.5 out of 5 ⭐