Recent reviews by ＜コ Squerbs コ:彡

Remnant 2 is best played with a friend. You can have up to two classes and there are plenty of synergies and build combinations. You have a main weapon, a sidearm, and a melee weapon and you can augment them all with mods that change their damage and mutators that add special effects.

Don't bother with the lore and the voice acting/writing for the humans is low quality but the other beings and creatures are well voice acted and written. Do yourself a favor and bring a friend to this game, otherwise it can be bland.

Bonus: one of the classes has a pet dog and you can pet the dog

Half-Life: Alyx is the single greatest VR title out, even now in 2023. This is the premier title that shows exactly what VR is capable of and how every VR game should play. I played through the whole game on the OG Vive on a 1070 and i7 6700 at 90hz and it was great. Now with a new build and an index headset + knuckles controllers, the game at 120hz feels brand new.

It sounds trite to say that the audio is a major part of a game but in HL:A, the sound design and music and positional audio really take you into the world. Even in spots where I knew there were going to be sudden enemies I was still startled due to how good the audio is and how good the level design is.

MILD SPOILERS AHEAD: The story follows Alyx on a quest to save her father after the combine kidnap him. There are a small handful of other characters and they all feel like they fit in and belong there. The game does have some jumpscare parts and one scary sneaking section but they are tastefully done and they teach you about safe navigation through the world and add to the immersion. I am startled easily and I was still able to enjoy the whole experience.

There are a handful of weapons in the game that fill their respective roles well. Reloading weapons is "realistic" enough to make you feel powerful but also "arcady" enough to not get in the way of the flow of combat. Upgrades are not mandatory but they add variety to the gunplay and there are a few QoL upgrades too (optics, bigger magazines, alt-fire modes, etc.). Make sure you are searching under every box and behind every half-wall for the upgrade material.

If you have a VR headset and don't have this game, you are majorly missing out. My hope is that Valve makes more VR games because HL:A alone makes the investment worth it. After finishing it once, I recommend playing through again with the developer commentary.

Tips:
0. If you are having a "mongoose timeout" error, add "-novid" (without the quote marks) to the launch properties. It will just skip the Valve into video with the bald guy with the valve in his head and has no effect on the rest of the game.

1. If you are startled easily or get too immersed, I recommend lowering the sound and use off-ear audio. You still get immersed but have a little more grounding to reality.

2. Even on the hardest difficulty, the game provides enough healing items and ammo to get the job done if you are paying attention. If you want to make it extra hard, try throwing away some ammo or healing items. You can also try to limit yourself to using only one of the two available "pouches" to store a healing item or grenade (or use neither for even more challenge).

3. Don't forget to check out the workshop for a small but high quality collection fan-made mods and new levels and some totally different stories!

Note: I played all three Mafia games on the Steam Deck and they were all their respective definitive editions. I did not play them on their original release dates. As of this review, the game doesn't show the button prompts and just shows a blank squircle so I'll save you some googling:
Hold X 99% of the time when interacting with things like doors and cars
Press Y when in melee combat to counter an enemy
Press B to melee and hold it to launch a haymaker or to interact with downed but not dead enemies
Press A if the other face buttons aren't doing what you expect them to do
Hold down on the d pad to pick up a body or throw an explosive out of your car
Hold up on the d pad to heal
Hold right to turn off the car stereo (press to change channel)
Hold left on the d pad to attract an enemy without breaking stealth

Mafia 3 was a lot of fun and I enjoyed the 55 hours I put into it. You could finish it in around 30 if you wanted to, faster if you ignore side quests and mess around less than me. I recommend doing the "Faster, Baby!" DLC first out of the DLCs and to do it when the game "opens up" (you will know when, its pretty early). The DLC is the strongest of them and it rewards you with a great car and a recurring side quest that gets you extra income so you don't have to wait very long to upgrade yourself, your cars, or your weapons. It doesn't make you overpowered as it has an upgrade tree attached to it.

The gameplay cycle is this: rattle a mini-boss's cage until they make a mistake, kill or convert them to absorb their racket, delegate their racket to one of your allies to get rewards, money, and side quests. To keep things from getting stale, they have different flavors and coats of paint. I recommend doing some stealth and some frontal assaults to keep things interesting. All weapons are viable but some are more powerful than others.

The story is less "Mafia" than the first two but it is still strong and has a satisfying ending. I did hear myself think "I don't want the game to end" and stalling for around an hour at the end before deciding it was time to put the game to bed. I'm glad I got to experience them in a row like this. I hope the next one returns to its roots but this one was great. $30 was a good price point.

If you liked Mafia 1 and 2, this is a less streamlined, next chapter with some extra fat to chew on. That isn't a bad thing but it is a bit jarring coming from the extremely lean, streamlined, and highly focused feel of the first two. If you're on the fence, you won't be disappointed and if you're a fan, I think there's plenty here to love, including some returning characters and unexpected but pleasant surprises.

Elden Ring is the culmination of every Soulsbourne title and even has a little Sekiro thrown in there too. This game is huge and there is always new stuff to find and explore. every build is viable for PvE, magic is goofy-OP in a good way, dexterity builds have lots of nuance with the new Ashes of War system but you can still go pure strength and RB-spam your way through your enemies if you want.


Now get in here and kill some bosses, maidenless.

Shadow of the Erdtree DLC: more weapons, faster combat, totally new moves and areas that fold in on themselves like Dark Souls 1. The DLC is hard but tempered by a new golden-seed type item that you collect which increases your damage and decreases damage taken (only works in the DLC area). You still have to git gud, the DLC is an end-game area.

Its ok I guess

If you like deckbuiders this is a great one. If you are new to the genre its even better! There is enough familiar and new content to keep fans and newcomers happy. You can plan GQ with the traditional fighter/mage/ranger group but they also have a druid, bard, paladin etc and each class has three sets of cards that specialize so there is tons of room for experimentation.

If you are looking to make things harder there is a rogue-lite and rogue-like mode for campaigns that offer permadeath and other modifiers open up as you play one run to alter your next. Camping abilities between nodes are great and add useful buffs that are necessary on the harder difficulties. Don't forget to manage your out-of-party members so they can be successful in their side-missions!

I never thought I would enjoy a match-four game this much but it has a good mix of strategy managing mana and moving tiles. The game also encourages you to use your health as a resource. A lot of the time I enter a room and think "how in the heck am I going to pull this off?" and then defeat the room even with misplays. The different bum-bos are different enough that they only need a little play before you can pick up on the loop and stenghts/weaknesses. Great voice acting, music, and charming graphics round out the experience. Definitely worth the price.

This game is completely ruined by the broken and needlessly complicated co-op mode. If you want to play with other humans you have to do half the #@$%ing quest before you can summon them via an "sos flare." Both you and your friends have to watch all of the cutscenes in a quest before you can play together. What is the point?

This is the most backwards, rediculous, bull@#$% way to co-op with your friends. There are like 4 layers of joining before you can play with somone other than randoms and you can't play entire missions together. It is a crime that they advertise this as co-op.

Thanks Capcom, for turning what was supposed to be a fun game with my brother into a night of tedious frustration. You reminded me why I should do much more research before buying a game from you. Save your money everyone, unless you want to play this solo.

Payday 2 is really fun if you play with people you know. Online play without friends is hit or miss, offline play is a joke unless you are solo-stealthing. You can go really picky and min/max or pick out skills you like but some builds will be more effective than others. If you want to complete missions on the hardest difficulty (Deathwish) some min/max is required. The game and DLC go on sale constantly. Good game.