Recent reviews by Mrs. Argent

DarkSector is an interesting stop in Digital Extremes' portfolio - It's the Genma Wars (Harmageddon) to Warframe's Akira. Severely hamstrung by a troubled development cycle and a publisher who wanted a gritty late '00s shooter in lieu of the original vision, DarkSector is a game that had a lot of potential but never fully realized it.

I couldn't necessarily recommend it to general audiences, particularly since the PC port is really rough, but many of the ideas DarkSector pokes at (or was planned to poke at) ultimately ended up recontextualized and polished for Warframe. If you're interested in how game development can span several projects or are a Warframe diehard interested in how the Dune-meets-JoJo dungeon crawler came to be, it's definitely worth the detour.

Immensely enjoyable, and a great value to boot. Does a excellent job integrating System Shock 2's more fleshed out survival horror mechanics and atmosphere with the original 1994 release of Shock 1's cyberpunk stylings.

Like every great Source Engine release, it had a insanely troubled development cycle that dragged out over a decade - and it was worth the wait.

Jabroni Brawl is good, clean PVP action with a sense of humor and more variety than you can shake a stick at. Whether you've whittled away the past 20 years playing Valve games and trolling Facepunch or you're a normal human being, Jabroni Brawl's got a lot to offer you.

As observant and droll of a game about game development and the design process as it ever was. Shout-out to Narrator VA Kevan Brighting reprising his role effortlessly, on that note - after eight years, getting voiceovers to blend seamlessly with existing content is no mean feat.

Come for the sense of humor, stay for the lawyer-baiting mentions of multiple other copyrighted IP.

A native port to modern OS, high resolution support, and improved key rebinding make a cult classic even better. Very much worth the purchase - Even over 25 years on, Shock is a very ambitious title with game and world design that feel ahead of their time.

I have noticed some rendering issues with certain textures, but other than that this version introduces a trove of new features - including 21:9 ultrawide support.

A biting, sardonic, yet deeply emotional adventure involving an eccentric cop investigating a murder in the downtrodden remains of a city scarred by an old war...and the loss of his own memory during a breathtaking bender. Meticulous emphasis is placed on worldbuilding, particularly the setting's history and politics - virtually every exchange can reveal things that make Revachol feel more and more like a real place.

Disco's writing and gameplay merge effortlessly through a novel spin on conventional RPG mechanics: The game's skill system envisions each major stat as a entity with a distinct personality who can converse with the player, sharing information with - and sometimes misleading - them. Different builds significantly alter gameplay experience, puzzle navigation, and even how the player interacts with the world on a fundamental level.

The art style makes it look like a painting come to life - gorgeous yet pretty well optimized. However, this also leads to my main complaint for core playability: The art style, when combined with the isometric perspective, makes it somewhat unclear where the player can and can't go at times. The game has a "highlight interactable objects" function that helps with this, but I feel that a "highlight walkable space" key might be good to have too.

This game almost feels like it was made specifically for me: It draws significant inspiration from '90s RPGs like classic Fallout and Planescape Torment, yet is also rooted in much the same political zeitgeist as Night in The Woods and follows similar progression. In addition, it appears that ZA/UM are as huge of Twin Peaks fans as I am.

Oh, one last shout-out: Ltn. Kitsuragi is the perfect foil and deuteragonist to The Detective. It's interesting having a distinctly human lens follow The Detective through his antics - constantly serving to remind us that The Detective is in fact a real person and not just a Guybrush Threepwood-style slapstick screwball.

Feels a lot like Metal Gear Solid V with Halo's gunplay. I mean that in both a good way, and a bad way.

It's pretty solid overall but doesn't really have quite the 'wow' factor it could. The open world format is somewhat underutilized due to a lack of biome variety, and the main missions are somewhat lacking in noteworthy setpieces. Pacing issues aren't helped by a relatively minimal plot, which is functional but has some aspects that interact weirdly with established lore. The use of boss fights - something the series was never huge on by design, with classics like Halo 2's Tartarus being the subject of considerable mockery - is often pretty awkward with inadequate design consideration given to the environment the player is fighting in.

In particular, I think gunning for a ESRB T rating ultimately might be a gamble that won't pay off, cutting the potential for stuff like The Flood coming back to try and go for a broader audience it might not reach.

What's good? The gunplay and movement are dead on. The weapons all feel well tuned with clear niches, and the grappling hook - something I was initially skeptical on - feels a lot more in-line with Halo's sandbox than I was expecting since it's functional in a way that lets a creative player do wild things with it. Combat flow feels like it takes most of the notes it needs to from previous entries. Throwing objects also makes for a fun yet unexpected addition - Who doesn't love bouncing those exploding fusion cells off a brute's head?

In a world where death has been rendered utterly trivial, even a job as grave as assassination can be rendered so banal that the professional killing of electoral candidates, roided-out police chiefs, and libertarian seasteaders can be ordered with the casualness of a gig delivery service fast food dinner. A inscrutable, darkly comic tye-dye fever dream of a game.

Open-ended levels give players multiple ways to proceed and encourage exploration, often rewarding imaginative and thorough players. Every time you play a mission, you'll almost inevitably find something new - Cruelty Squad's level design really is a gift that keeps on giving.

The visual style won't be for everyone, but I love aggressively alien feeling games and Cruelty Squad really, REALLY delivers on that angle.

Recommended for fans of:
Obscure janky mid-late '90s/Early '00s FPS
Cactussquid's games (Particularly Mondo Agency and Hotline Miami)
The Deus Ex series
The original Halo: Combat Evolved (2001)
Brazil (1985)
Zardoz (1974)

In short? Die-hard series fans are in for a treat. Combat and dungeon flow are pretty basic compared to the main games, but care for detail and a breathtaking scope give players much to do and make the game worth the investment.

If you're in it for worldbuilding and exploration, ESO is an adventure of near-unfathomable scale which lets the player gain insight into places and things often seldom seen in the main game, spanning places from the Valenwood Isles to good ol' Vvardenfell and even some of the more esoteric realms of Oblivion. You'll get to meet significant figures from ingame literature like Vanus Galerion in person and cross paths with returning favorites like Divayth Fyr and Mannimarco at very different times in their lives. The game uses its position on the timeline - a very distant prequel to the rest of the series - very well for the most part, although some places (such as Skyrim's Solitude) are remarkably unchanged considering the near-millenium between the two. The end result is a depiction of Tamriel which really comes to life in a way that surpasses the main entries at times.

I never really was able to get into MMO combat so the fighting's really more just window dressing for the exploration, the real meat of the game in my eyes, but it's tolerable if about as monotonous as many MMO's combat systems can be. Players accustomed to main game combat won't have any issue adjusting, but after awhile it does start to feel like one is just mashing number keys and smacking their mouse while they stand perfectly still. Dodging and timing are rewarded, but oftentimes entirely optional in a entirely understandable concession to genre conventions. I've always been into TES more for the "action" part of the "action-RPG" moniker than the "RPG" part, admittedly.

Oh, a reassurance for the concerned, this game does not use the usual Gamebryo engine and is - frankly - significantly better off for it. In my 115 hours - at the time of writing - I have ran into few crashes or major issues.

What's there to say about New Vegas? Even a decade or so on, it'll keep you coming back for more with a varied and interesting cast, compelling writing (produced by series veterans in contrast to 3 and 4), and a detailed world that begs to be explored. A hearty ecosystem of third party content (including unofficial support by lead designer John Sawyer) sweetens the deal.

Bethesda's Gamebryo-based engine is a clumsy affair at the best of times, but as a third-party development produced under severe publisher restrictions and the last title released before 2011's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim introduced a fresh coat of paint it plays about as smoothly as it could, with rich character build options that allow for significant variety in play style.

Also, Danny Trejo (Spy Kids, Machete, From Dusk Til Dawn) lends voice talent among others. He's a favorite of mine.