Chinatown Detective Agency is a solid hardboiled detective adventure with a unique DIY approach to clue-solving-but it's most impressive as a cultural artefact.
A dark-fantasy western RPG with a compelling world and an ambitious narrative, Weird West is undermined by awkward combat and micromanagement. Weird West's rotating multi-character perspective will be an acquired taste, but makes sense as a method of world-building. It's got room to grow, but right now, it's challenging to build momentum in the early game and to persevere through the mid-game.
A must-play for anyone interested in narrative-driven games.
Still, there are some truly gorgeous dynamic action sequences that were welcome surprises, and a pleasantly playful sense of art direction that kept the more tedious times spent with Akito and KK from sagging. Even if the idea of a modern satire disguised as a horror-style mystery isn’t quite your bag, “Ghostwire” is a creative delight as a sort of alt-universe Tokyo sim, especially if you crave the feeling of hanging out in a FamilyMart (“FujiyaMart”) again.
Conway is a solid detective game that ticks a lot of the right boxes and fulfils standard sleuthing expectations. It leans well into the crotchety-old-protagonist stereotype which more often than not creates an interesting tension between Conway and his ensemble cast of neighbors, as well as with you as a player. It's not tremendously challenging in terms of hard solves, but it's more about the journey. You could do worse than spend 10 hours immersed in the small and all too human miseries of Dahlia View.
It's hard to say how impressions of Dog Airport Game might have changed if we'd gotten the game outside of a pandemic, but it's a lovely comedic slice of a forgotten time when air travel was normal. Just with tons of weird dogs and puns.
As someone with a lifelong soft spot for the medium-specific charm of video game glitches, Cyberpunk 2077's botched launch just ain't it. Even overlooking the rushed rollout, after an eternity of being bludgeoned in the face with hyperbole, running through 2077 feels like five different games stitched together into an entertaining, passably decent, generic behemoth.