Recent reviews by Wendy

Space Marine 2 is just mediocre—boring combat, meaningless class progression, and opening dozens of doors every level isn't my most memorable gaming experience. It's rightfully praised for lack of micro-transactions, it's undermined by the extremely limited launch content.


Narratively, Space Marine does well in capturing the 40K universe. It's dark, disgusting, and gritty; the character, environment, and sound design are all incredible; and running this game on maximum settings was really something to behold, and worked wonders with photo mode.

All the dialogue was immersive and engaging, carried by some great voice acting performances. The developers outdid themselves by staying true to the franchise, and that seems evident by how many people are praising the authenticity of the campaign.


While the aesthetics are great, it's not enough to outweigh the cons here.


It's a straight copy from the predecessor. You feel perpetually weaker than your character looks, all the large enemies are damage sponges, and any melee combo takes multiple seconds of windup before dealing the same amount of damage as a series of light attacks.

Ranged weapons are similarly weak. There's no reason in using anything other than the Melta for the majority of the campaign. It provides the most crowd control and damage. Anything else does virtually nothing, almost like the devs were scared you'd have too much fun with them.

You just don't feel like an Ultra Marine here. It's a horde-based game where I'm meant to kill hundreds of enemies at once, and I'm just light attacking enemies until the execution icon pops. Rinse and repeat for the entirety of the campaign.

Honestly, even World War Z was a more palatable title. For as many problems as that game has, at least I felt like my actions were impactful. There was some use for everything I could pick up or interact with. Could count on my one hand how many times I felt that in SM2.


Space Marine 2 has an excruciating formula of letting you fight an encounter for two minutes, forcing you to run a minute away to a metal door, then waiting for that to open so you can repeat step one. By the end of the game, I felt like I had opened hundreds of doors.

There are even instances where you would just stand still in front of the door, waiting for thirty seconds of dialogue to finish before you could move forward. Was it not possible to design anything more appealing? Are short zones not able to be connected seamlessly?


Most perks—even high level ones—are mere numbers calculated in the background. 10% more damage here, 5% reduced damage there. There are very little game-changing perks that really flesh out the class fantasy. It's only percentages and marginal increases.

There's definitely some mileage here. There are metas to the highest difficulties of content. But I don't think the difficulty alone is enough to overpower how lackluster and uninspired the combat is, as well as the perks provided from leveling.


Only three maps with three game modes. At least it's there? But I wouldn't call this feature-complete in any capacity. It seemed hurriedly latched on to make the game feel more finished than it actually is, to be completely frank.


Space Marines 2 is an extremely boring game that doesn't innovate from its predecessor. The combat was a chore, the progression isn't meaningful, and there's almost nothing that stands out from this game outside of its grimdark aesthetics.

I'm certainly happy that it's made a lot of 40K fans happy. But honestly, anything that this game does, another game probably does ten times better. If you aren't connected to the lore, definitely look into the game more before buying it based on hype alone.

Update

The limited uses for the spirit box has been removed due to player feedback. I'm changing my review to positive as my central concern has been rectified. However, I will keep the original underneath this for any curious what the drama was.

Thanks for communicating with the players. That's more than I can say for a lot of companies.
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Bureau of Contacts uses generative AI for their ghosts. From their April blog post:

"[...] a generative model that can realize not only content, but also meaning. In other words, the ghosts in the game: [1] analyze context; [2] simulate moods and attitudes towards what they hear/occur; [3] make decisions on their own will and reasoning, parodying human behavior and 'cause and effect relationships'."

Using the spirit box, you can communicate with the AI. What's not advertised is that players begin with 100 "Spiritism"—or one hundred uses of the spirit box. When these uses are exhausted, players need to spend one dollar to purchase more or they communicate with a different ChatGPT model.

Their project manager, Dizzich, provided more clarity on these two AI models:

"To make a long story short, without Spiritism, Ghost will behave exactly as it does in other similar games. Using Spiritism, the generative AI takes over the whole "communication" module, and influences the in-game behaviour module to attack you if you say something threatening or insulting."

Bureau of Contacts is advertised with "smart" ghosts, but you're never told that it's limited. The main selling point of this game is locked behind a microtransaction to refill your spirit box. In other words, without Spiritism charges, you are not experiencing the full, advertised game. This is extremely deceptive and I'd be wary of this before purchasing.

The game seemed incredibly rushed. Handful of menu settings don't work, the game reuses most assets, and there is a substantial amount of clipping. There is also a soft-lock when entering a room; the door closes and you're unable to go out, forcing you to quit and redo an entire chapter.

Would redoing a chapter be that bad? No, under most circumstances. But Frightence decided that your walking speed should be the same as a snail. They even reference this in the achievement by saying "Why this fella walking so slow?" but still concluded that the speed was perfectly fine.

Game is just not enjoyable. I'd recommend spending your money elsewhere.

Bloodwash has a phenomenal first act that is completely undermined by awful sound design and the frustrating inventory system. Multiple lines of dialogue, as well as many sound effects, don't abide by your audio settings; and it was often that I felt my ears were in danger of another shrill jumpscare.

At some point, I nearly muted the game from the Windows sound settings. It was impossible to trust when something was going to stay at normal volume so I opted to protect my ears instead, which took away a huge chunk of Bloodwash's experience for me.

Similarly frustrating was the inventory system. Additional dialogue sequences can be unlocked by using certain items on the NPCs. However, accessing those items requires scrolling through your inventory individually. It was annoying having to locate the correct item for several seconds before being able to use it.

Overall, Bloodwash is good for a cheap one-hour thrill. And buying with the Torture Star bundle, it's nice to have in the PSX horror collection. But be mindful of the audio problems, and go in without many expectations; because as many others have said, the second act is a bit rough around the edges.

Green Hell's nutrition and injuries system bring positives to the survival genre, but are unfortunately undercut by the irrelevance of base-building, an incredibly short narrative, and an irresponsible portrayal of Indigenous communities in the Amazon rainforest.


Green Hell is very limited in accessibility options, which affects the hearing and visually-impaired. While players may delight in the seamless customization for keybindings, the lack of colorblind and subtitle options are disappointing. Obvious options, such as motion blur, are also excluded which many will find frustrating.



Green Hell is a survival game set in the Amazon. The game features equipment crafting, resource gathering, and base building, which may prove useful as you journey through the narrative. Green Hell also features a survival mode, where players can attempt to last as long as they want without progressing the story.

Players may also play the challenge modes, cooperative multiplayer, and the free prequel. For those wanting to customize their experience, there is an option to tailor the survival mode to your liking; either by turning off hostile tribes, fatigue, nutrient deficiencies, or even health loss itself.


The game is visually stunning and strongly portrays the hostility of the uncharted Amazon; the weather effects feel impactful, the environment feels detailed, and the world is immersive. While the game is often clunky, there was a pleasant realism while adventuring that made the game feel alive.

This realism paired nicely Green Hell's more robust nutrient system: macro-elements.

• Fats⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀
  
• Carbs⠀
  
• Protein
  
• Hydration

It makes the foraging experience feel rewarding, especially when the player desperately needs something. It's also very punishing, so it's recommended to stock-up on food items to maintain a balanced diet. This is one of the better systems added to a survival game, and it would be nice to see other games take note.

Their wound system is also impressive. From rashes to lacerations, the player can inspect individual limbs by rotating them to locate the injury. Not only is this visually-engaging, but further incentivizes the player to explore their surroundings safely to forage herbal medicines for healing.


Green Hell advertises base building as a central mechanic, but creates an environment where the player ignores it throughout the entire game. Buildings are destroyed easily from a single enemy, there exists an underwhelming amount of furniture/decorations, and defensive buildings do not exist.

Since resources are often tedious to retrieve (ex: only able to carry three logs at a time), and building the frames themselves are just as frustrating, you can spend hours building a base only for it to be destroyed by a single raid by hostile tribesmen. It's too aggravating to care about.

Being apathetic towards base building in a base building game is not great. It's furthered by the story mode, which requires you to run through different parts of the rainforest. You could build your base in one area, but the story may ask you to run seven minutes in the opposite direction.

This is how most crafting goes too.

What's the point of crafting iron weaponry? Throwing a single bamboo spear into an enemy's head kills them instantly. This is the same with the bow. Since they are exceedingly easy to craft, and don't take hours of farming up rare resources, why would I bother making anything other than that?

Green Hell totally undermines their gameplay experience with weapon imbalance and poor base building. It's been out for several years, and the bare minimum one might expect with building is simply non-existent. Wall torches, fences, defensive walls — all non-existent.


Slight narrative spoilers, be warned!

The story argues that the modern, outside world is cruel to the Indigenous communities living in the Amazon. But this narrative loses all impact when one recognizes that the developers are participating in the same actions that they are attempting to criticize with Green Hell.

The fictional tribe represented in the game, the Yabahuaca, are nearly identical to the Kayapó living in Brazil. Instead of using their medium to positively represent the Kayapó people, they instead turn them into narrative backdrops that serve no other purpose than to springboard the story of the protagonist.

Creepy Jar did nothing to represent their language, and instead relied on a fictional language that the Kayapó don't speak, voiced by someone not Kayapó. Why bother making the moral argument that the world is cruel to Indigenous people when you barely represent the communities you're taking inspiration from?

It would have been a great opportunity to explore a different culture and break the stereotyping that's consistent in media surrounding Indigenous people. But Creepy Jar did the same thing that Green Hell criticizes, which makes the entire narrative seem shallow and boring.

An enjoyable mix of Rust and Albion. I've not gotten that far, but the initial impression is really good. Give this a shot!

Did you want to play for two hours, only to die to something silly and have to restart all the way at the beginning? That's this DLC. You might ask yourself, "They must compensate you for this, right? Loot and Experience!" No. You get zero loot and zero experience. You will get nothing from completing this DLC. It's actually one of the worst expansions I've ever played in a video game before.

Have you ever wanted your Dark Souls to artificially slow you down through literal waist-high swamp water and quicksand? Have you ever wanted an uninspired Anor Londo copy that has more doors and ladders than it does enemies? Have you ever wanted those bonfires to be spaced twenty miles apart so you had to walk back for several minutes every death?

Code Vein allows you to pay $60 to relentlessly torture yourself with everything above while also providing a overwrought narrative that puts modern Shōnen to shame. The combat is clunky and uninspiring, even though convoluted, and the progression system is a slog.

Dark Souls may have taught you to have an iron will and persevere through the most dreadful challenges, but it never prepared you for this abuse. Would recommend saving your money and finding something else to spend your time on.


The Story


Things that aren't memorable here:

• The story.
  
• The characters.
  
• The dialogue.

Things that are memorable here:

• Having to walk at -90% movement speed through boring interactive memories

How many times do those memories occur? Often. The fundamental ability-gathering of the game is constantly rife with memories that take twenty minutes to tell a one minute tale. Sure, you can skip it. But if you want any narrative at all, you'll have to sit through dozens of them.

The characters are boring and uninspired. They are caricatures of terrible anime tropes; along with backstories and dialogue that'll prove this point. At a certain point, I skipped just about everything the game would allow me to as it was that soul-crushingly awful.

The story feels like a fan-fiction written by a thirteen-year old. In standard pubescent lechery, the actual plot is lost about halfway through chapter one to make room for the several female characters that'll wear scantily-clad clothing and have their breasts nearly popping out of their tops.

If you are looking for anything enriching, this ain't gonna be it.

The Environment

Code Vein does everything it can to shield itself from how short their game actually is. Since bosses are relatively easy and enemies all have the same three moves that are mastered by the end of the first act, players would finish it in reasonable enough time.

But that's just not good enough. So, a quarter of the way through the game, you'll have to wade through swamp water that'll decrease your movement speed substantially. Maybe the next act will be better, you might ask. Nope! It's a maze of stairs and ladders that takes at least three hours.

There's a flame level that forces you to heal every twenty seconds because every mandatory path is covered in fire that is as unavoidable as it is dangerous. The level after that forces you to wade through quicksand that's even slower than the swamp water from before.

At a certain point, it feels more like you're fighting with the game than the actual enemies themselves. Constantly trying to find ways to squeeze a little more speed from your character while becoming exhausted by how far apart the spawn beacons are.

What might have been a very interesting and captivating look into the environment is constantly soured by the fact that you constantly have just a little bit more to go. Often, you'll feel compelled to just turn off the game because it acts like a chore the majority of the time.

The Combat

Most abilities or mechanics in the game are either fundamentally weak or just plan unneeded. I've used the same weapon from the first act just upgraded and transformed. There was never a reason for me to use anything in my inventory aside from the actual healing ability.

There might be certain enemies that might be easier by imbuing certain buffs onto your weapons, but I never really found myself hitting that hard of a wall that I needed to reevaluate really anything in my arsenal. It just felt convoluted for no reason.

Usually, the walls that you'll hit have nothing to do with buffing or debuffing. It's more a consequence of the enemy mechanics themselves as they're often too fast to give you any opportunity to either (a) hit more than once or (b) heal yourself after being wounded.

It creates a scenario where almost every enemy is just dash-dash-dash-hit. Even the smallest enemies turn into mini-bosses that you have to begrudgingly fight through to get to an even more boring boss using the same mechanics with larger hit-boxes.

It's tolerable enough, but it's definitely nothing to write home about.

Overall

Empty world with an even emptier cast. The flawed nature of nearly every aspect of the game is immediately noticeable upon launch and the only redeemable thing about the game is probably the soundtrack. Which you can access for free on YouTube.

Don't buy it and spend your money elsewhere.

This game is a variant of the match-three genre.

The gimmick is that you have multiple characters that operate based on the colors you subtract from your board. There is also a line order, so you can send these characters to either the front or the back before attacking, which will directly correlate to how those colors will affect them. The game does a good job at disguising this as strategy, but the fact is that it becomes a tedious grind once you fight multiple enemies at once.

Since the enemies you fight are able to switch their line order very similar to you, this means that they can throw another character forward that is full health while the other one gains their hit points back. This would be fine, save for the fact that this happens every single time you drop them to a point where they are able to be killed. Forcing you to go back to the board, match a million healing and experience blocks before returning and doing it all again.

Now, I'm not an experienced puzzle gamer. I do not have the eye to see large combos on the map ahead of time like other players, but even if I wanted to get better at this kind of game, the tutorials would require an advanced degree in cryptography to even begin to understand what I'm doing. No menu is labeled, as if they couldn't spend the two minutes of programming time to throw in a couple of words for readability.

Another thing is this forced sex appeal. As if large-breasted zombies would somehow garner positive reviews because "Ha, boobs!", but the layer of detail in these images seem to be akin to that of a Microsoft Paint drawing. Regardless, it's just thrown in for no other reason than to have nudity in the game.

Overall, the game is boring and frustrating. There are much better match-three games out there that are currently free. The only thing that separates this from everything else is the tedium and grind in every level. I guess I'll give it a couple of points for not having microtransactions?

When your plane crashes into an island, you assume the role of a survivor of the incident, Eric Leblanc. Your goal is to find your missing son that appears missing from the wreckage. As you go about surviving the island, you notice that the strange and violent tendencies of the forest. Cannibals, caves, and mystery surround you as you try to hunt down your child.


The Forest is an open-world, survival horror game built off of an incredibly rich narrative and adventure. Playing this game with friends is highly recommended as the experience of the storyline and the discoveries you find along the way will be more pleasurable with all your buddies.

The game runs very smoothly and bears no issues when it comes to gameplay. Although there may be some slight bugs here and there, everything about The Forest is executed well and the game is genuinely entertaining. I would recommend if you're looking for a spooky narrative with tons of survival aspects.


First, I would like to give credit where credit is due.

The Forest delivers an awesome, awe-inspiring story. It does this without endless cutscenes or cinematics, allowing the player to be rewarded for exploring things around the world and piecing together the experience themselves. It has been a long time since a game has shook me to the core with how great the storyline was and it gave me a real sense of wonder come the end credits.

From the visuals to the enemy archetypes, I really enjoyed and savored every last minute of this game. With this being said, I would recommend taking The Forest nice and slow. Explore a lot, pick up all the collectibles that are littered throughout the caves, and try to piece together the secrets that await. The sense of satisfaction in that alone is truly something to behold.

Moving on to the crafting - how is it?

Well, good and bad. While you can be relatively creative with how you'd like to build up your base, it can be a bit tedious when you're constantly mobbed by enemies. While it doesn't impair you too much, there are times where you'd rather just cut down trees for an entire day rather than stop every few minutes to pick off a couple of cannibals. This made the crafting really mundane a lot of the time.

When you actually have time to sit down and build your base, it does become fun. There are all sorts of cool items that you build. Take monster appendages and stuff them into a torch to ward enemies away from your base; build a catapult and fire a bunch of weird stuff into the trees; or create an eight-story house. While there aren't that many items, the systems that are in place offer a lot for creative building.

I'd say this part of The Forest needs a bit of work, but it's in a good spot as of right now.

I had fun playing around with different arrow types and bombs. Some of the weapons that you can get are really cool too, with various stats and upgrades. I had fun using all the tools available to me in this game. A cool thing abou The Forest is there is never any power creep. Sometimes you want a fast weapon and sometimes you need a hard-hitting one. Use whatever feels good to you instead of rushing to "end-game weapons".

The exploring portion of this game - arguably The Forest's core component - feels well-implemented. The map is small enough that it won't take you long to figure out what you need to do. Along with the maps you fill in along the way, it becomes very step-by-step without hand-holding you too much. While you can find your way about using that map tool, it still feels good finding a cave entrance or secret area.


The musical score is very lackluster.

Now, I understand that the atmosphere that The Forest is trying to portray. This sort of lonely feeling, as if you really are in complete desolation. In some ways, having very little soundtrack makes the game ominous and sometimes nerve-wracking, but there were specific parts in the game that I wish really had some sort of instrumental portion. I think it would have added to some pivotal plot pieces.

Also, the combat feels a bit clunky sometimes. There are three different attack swings with melee weapons; left swipe, right swipe, and down strike. Some enemies are only killed with the latter and there were plenty of times that I struggled to find the right position to swing my weapon downwards. Admittedly, that was the most frustrating part for me in The Forest.


The Forest delivers a spooky atmosphere paired with a fantastic storyline.

There was never a dull moment when I played this game and everything about it is a blast. While you get some bugs here and there due to Early Access, this certainly deserves the money of anyone who is a fan of survival-horror. Play it with your friends and freak out together! This game is a great addition to any Steam library.

Good luck unlocking the mystery that surrounds The Forest!