4^th game beaten in 4 days! This title is the one that represents my teenage years the best. I still have vivid memories of the day the SNES was released back in 1992, of how I was one the first in the queue of my local toy shop and the joy I felt when I first played Super Mario World. That parallax scrolling! I know I'm going to sound biased but it has aged extremely well. The gameplay is tight, the level design is phenomenal, the music, the sprites, the many secrets I spent hours and hours figuring out, I just love everything about this game! If you're fond of platformers and have never played a 2D Mario game, do yourself a favour and have a go at this one.

I must admit I was a bit disappointed. I had really liked Re;Birth1 because it was a nice blend of VN and challenging RPG. In this game, the difficulty is ridiculously low, at least for the main story, which is why it's much shorter this time round. Nepgear starts the game with such an OP weapon she can kill pretty much everything in one hit for half the game! The level design feels uninspired compared to the first game as it's just more of the same and the story is weaker as well. However, I can understand the appeal for the goofy characters and for what you get if you're ready to play through the game multiple times. I only got the normal ending and that's enough for me.

A great trip into past! As a child of the 80s, this game was right up my alley with its superb pixel art, soundtrack and gameplay. 198X features a series of mini-games inspired by iconic arcade games of the time. Like I said, the pixel art is what shines the most, so much so that I took a few screenshots to use as desktop wallpapers. The mini-games themselves are good and your "credits" are unlimited but that doesn't mean the game is overly easy. Be aware that the game is short, though. There is a simple story binding everything together. It's a little generic but definitely fits the game. Here's a little music to wrap up this review: Mitch Murder - Palmer's Arcade

When I first launched this game, I was really excited. I had fond memories of NFS: Undercover which I played 3 years ago and for the first few hours, I had a lot of fun. However, the game quickly became a chore to play. There is absolutely no story or background whatsoever. You either play the crazy driver outrunning the cops or playing the cop chasing (and ramming into) the criminals. You get power-ups but except for the road-spikes, none of them are fun to use. The difficulty is all over the place: some races are very easy to gold whereas other ones are much harder. The cars are generally fun to drive but a little too floaty. Finally, being a 10-year-old game unoptimized for modern computers, frame drops are not rare.

The first game I've played in the series and I loved it! I spent 18 hours on it but feel like it's only been half of that! The locations available in the main game are very extensive and detailed and there are many interesting ways to approach and kill your targets. The story itself is meh but the main appeal of the game is its replayability and how to find new ways to complete the missions. It feels like a puzzle game which requires creativity and tight execution. I played all the main missions twice, completed the bonus ones and I want more! Just as well I won Hitman 2 on SG last week (which is what pushed me to play H1 now).

More family fun! After playing TSO 5 with my kids last week, they wanted more and more they got! They enjoyed this one so much that by the end of the game, they completely took over. While TSO 5's story was bad but the game was very pretty, this next chapter has a much better story (yet still very far from the original plot) and the graphics are absolutely gorgeous for the genre. Sunward Games really outdid themselves. The bonus chapter, however, is quite poor compared to the rest and features a very annoying mini-game. Overall, a very pleasant surprise in an uneven series.

I don't have much to say about this one so it will be a short read ;) The story barely connects to the previous titles in the series and, as expected, is full of nonsense. You only need to think about what to do next as you very quickly lose track of why you're actually doing it. The puzzles are all very easy and the hidden objects scenes provide no challenge at all. The only upside is that the game is pretty and you can tell a lot of effort was made in that department. Another good thing is that I played it with my kids and it was good family fun!

DoW is undeniably a great game and was very refreshing when it came out. Unfortunately, while the gameplay is still very solid, it hasn't aged well and the resolutions offered by default all make the game blurry with added black borders. That sucks because apparently, the last two expansions for this game were updated to run with modern resolutions. Aside from these remarks, the game is really punchy and I really like how you control entire squads rather than individual units. I didn't get to the end of the campaign as I'd rather spend my time playing something else but I'm still looking forward to playing its sequel.

Night Call is a very nice VN in which you play a Parisian taxi driver on night shift forced by a twisted policewoman to investigate a series of murders. You get clues by talking to 50+ passengers (randomly generated on the map), listening to the radio, reading the newspaper and the few police reports you're given. While talking to the passengers, you get conversation choices which will make them share more of their personal story. You also have to manage your money and your petrol level if you don't want to lose your job. There are three investigations to solve but they take place in alternate realities: if you've met passengers during another investigation, they won't remember you and you won't remember them. Their personal stories are very good but get repeated quite a bit. The film noir atmosphere, on the other hand, is excellent. Unfortunately, the three investigations follow the same pattern and it's never hard to figure out who the murderer is. Besides, I noticed a few technical bugs and sometimes, the destinations in the conversations and the locations on the map don't match (I know as I'm a Parisian myself).

Many of you older players heard about this game when it originally came out 20 years ago. Well, I hadn't until recently and while action/RPG games have progressed a lot since then, it's still nice to play today despite being a little too hardcore. I really enjoyed the minimalistic UI, the radial menu system which forces you to be precise when you switch abilities, items and spells during combat sequences, and how the way you swing your sword is reflected by how you move the mouse. Pretty innovative at the time. The story is alright but quite generic. What I didn't like however, and why I wrote it's a little too hardcore for me, is that there were many points in the game where I had no idea what to do next. There is no journal or quest list. Sometimes you get a clue but most of the time you don't, which forces you to explore every nook and cranny hoping not to miss anything. I didn't have the time or patience to do that so after a while, I used a guide which made the experience a lot more pleasant. Many thanks to Lilith for gifting me this game.