Recent reviews by Clover Beaw

A couple years ago I was pouring through Gupi's music on Spotify when I came across 3 tracks called, "Race 1", "Race 2" and "Race 3" on an album called the "Bunny Hill Original Soundtrack". The album art features the boldly rendered Benny with some extra details to make it look like vintage Japanese box art.

I spent the next week listening to Race 2 on loop like I would any other song I found myself obsessed with, to where I felt the need to share my find with my musically like-minded friend. It was only as I shared the music did the question of "Is this an actual game?" came up.

Up until this point I had errantly assumed that the soundtrack was a concept album. Music for a theoretical skiing game where you played as a cute animal critter.

With this new question prompted I finally decided to look to see if Bunny Hill was actually something I could play. Much to my simultaneous delight and embarrassment, I quickly found the game was available here on Steam.

I was blown away by the aesthetic style of the game immediately. The heavy metal UI with super saturated colors, the vintage graphics, an the punchy, bright sounds all came together to put something that felt like a dream PS1 game in my hands.

The gameplay I have since heard described as a "mobile game /pos" and I can't super disagree at this point. My initial impression, however, wasn't entirely enthusiastic. The controls are insanely simple, with moving left and right, and jumping being the only meaningful interactions with races. This left most results in races feeling more random than skill oriented.

However, the charming visuals kept me chugging forward. My initial frustrations also melted away as I began to get a better intuition for the race tracks, and I started focusing on what I was enjoying about the game, because I suddenly found I couldn't put it down.

(WIP)

I am not thrilled to write this because it's clear to me how much effort was put into Skul, at very minimum in terms of it's visual presentation. The main character and all his various forms have a delightful amount of variety and many of the backgrounds and set-pieces have a ton of visual flair. Character design ranges from cute, to unusually sexy, to straight up uninspired, however--The enemy design is effective, but not especially creative despite the opportunities provided by the game's unique premise.

Unfortunately outside the visuals there isn't much else to praise. The actual gameplay completely lacks a sense of weight or impact, with combat at best feeling slippery and repetitive. There is next to nothing to say about the sound design, and the music is instantly forgettable. Enemy AI is completely uninspired, with the few bosses I could get muster getting being so immensely disappointing that it sucked my will to continue trying completely out of my body. Spoilers but the second set of bosses is a shockingly shallow imitation of the Mantis Lord fight from Hollow Knight that seems to completely miss what makes that fight so fun and iconic. Add on top of that a UI that is needlessly cluttered, an equipment system with esoteric and hard to follow skill trees, and half-baked mechanics that hamper the balance of the different ways of playing and it was near impossible to have a playthrough that actually felt strong or unique.

Somewhere in the future the folks who made this game have something better, I am certain of that--However with the absolute wealth of Rouge-lites and 2D action games available for people to play it's hard to find any reasons to recommend Skul. Honestly worth skipping unless you can get it on some kind of fire sale.

Outer Wilds is a game I hugely recommend, but also find I don't want to say too much about.

One of the finest 3D adventure games I've ever played--Tons of amazing puzzles, remarkably creative world building and a conclusion that is as charming as it is thought provoking. Avoid spoilers at all costs, but if you want a unique first-person experience few games are going to do better than of Outer Wilds!

Made me do puzzles for 30 hours and then made me cry. Game of the Year.

I've bought this game twice, and it was instrumental in me losing over 100lbs at one point. I could've never imagined the physical confidence a video game could give me until I dumped over 100 hours into Beat Saber between Oculus and Steam.

If you like Rhythm games but have struggled to get into them, give Beat Saber a chance. It's accessible, has an amazing selection of official soundtracks, and an amazing modding community.

Seriously, it's OK if you feel dorky for a bit. Once you get used to it, there are few things that'll make you feel as satisfying as beating a track on it's hardest difficulty.

My only Souls experience up until Elden ring was a few, less than chartiable hours with the original Dark Souls, and arguably Hollow Knight. I was initially put-off by the games difficulty, but was enticed by the sense that a lot of what I found to be difficult came from skills I could genuinely develop while playing the game. Once my ego got out of my way, and I allowed myself to experiment with more play styles the game opened up significantly.

The visuals are frequently gorgeous, and occassional breath-taking, which is incredible for a game that has next to no cutscenes or obvious load zones. Incredibly thoughtfully designed, the open world feels genuinely like a completely open world. Everywhere you see is somewhere you can go to.

Even if you wouldn't imagine this genre of game to be for you, if you're given the chance at least try it. I was hooked after 12 hours of playing. I don't know how much more it'll keep my interest outside the 100 I ultimately gave it, but it was well worth every hair pulling moment it put me through.

Except Malenia--What an absolutely rotten fight lmao

I've been playing Isaac off and on over the course of what feels like the last decade. I have my own personal style of playing, and my entire house has built up a culture of references and memetics entirely related to the shared experience of playing this game. It's made me laugh until I hurt, it's made me angry to the center of my being, it's made me cry tears of joy--I've never been so completely moved by a piece of media that also has as much scatalogical as it does.

Infinitely replayable, brilliantly inventive, kinda retro but remarkable modern. All other top-down games would wish to be this one. Rogue-likes could all learn something from Isaac's mechanical design. Could be my favorite game of all time, because even after 700 hours of play there is still so much in it I can and want to do.

Thank you Ed <3

Sharp, creative and surprisingly intuitive! If you like literally any kind of card game, Inscryption scratches that itch in a way few other games can.

This games visuals are often inspired, and the sound design is insanely clever, but it's not entirely mind-blowing as to justify the price tag. It's only Tetris, but maybe it's prettier than other Tetrises(?).

The menu's are miserable to navigate, and the lack of Steam VR's ability to suppress the floor boundries really breaks what feels like the intended visual effect of having the whole Tetris space around you.

Huge swing and a miss, maybe get it on sale.

Everything every Melee player told you makes Melee Melee is here but you don't need to be a wizard to do it. Character design is perfect, music goes off constantly, gameplay is buttery smooth and incredibly forward thinking. If you're feeling burned out on Smash Ultimate (and hell if I could blame you) this has a big chance to scratch that itch.