Recent reviews by BinarySplit

I had grown weary of indie puzzle platformer games, and only tried Tick Tock Isle because was on sale. I was surprised to find that it was actually quite enjoyable.

Tick Tock Isle has interesting characters and a very charming aesthetic. It has so many hidden references to pop culture and literature, I remained interested in the setting throughout. Unlike many games like in the same sort of genre, TTI doesn't try to draw itself out with bad controls, repetition, a slow moving main character or non-interactive cutscenes. It just delivers a series of interesting events and challenges, held together by a story that wraps up before anything gets boring.

It's the perfect game for a Sunday afternoon - cheap, fun, not at all frustrating, and a good length.

As much as I hate Ubisoft for the scourge of Uplay, and despite all the complaints I have about quirks of this game's gameplay, Grow Home is a highly novel experience and I definitely recommend it, especially if you're fazed by how unoriginal games have been lately.

I spent some time AFK, so I'd say this is a 3-4 hour game unless you want to hunt achievements. I'm kind of disappointed that they didn't iron out the last few kinks (climbing is awkward and you will sometimes just randomly fall, you'll randomly drop objects when trying to drag them, walking up a slight incline often won't work, the camera is pretty awful), because this game could have been on the same level of enjoyment-per-minute as Portal. Still, it's a very good game. I hope Ubisoft makes more experimental smaller-budget games like this.

Pretty awesome. Only 2 hours though. Worth the price. You won't find any other game like it. Except Calendula. Kinda weird that 2 very similar looking games came out so close together. Anyway, Pony Island is awesome and you should play it.

It feels like the people making the design decisions never actually had their hands on a controller - like the game is optimized for sitting back and watching someone else play. It's full of cutscenes, menus that are really slow and horrible to use (but pretty!), lots of wall-humping animations that your character will do if you miss the "jump over the chest-height wall" prompt, camera effects that look nice but will start to make you nauseous after a few hours.

There's a really interesting story under there, and the broad structure of the game seems like it would be really great, but the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ controls and the need to constantly use those awful, awful menus really detracts from the experience. You will ragequit this game a lot.

UPDATE: After 30 hours, I'm actually enjoying this. It took 5 hours for me to get used to the controls, and the fan-made FOV fixer greatly reduces the motion sickness (get the FOV fix before you start playing!). The controls are still insultingly bad though. I mean, did they even playtest this? Every contextual action requires you to wait a second for the button prompt to appear before you can do the action. You can't do anything through muscle memory, you've gotta wait for those prompts or else you'll probably do the wrong action. It's really bad and completely unnecessary.

If you liked or are interested by The Stanley Parable, you'll definitely like this. It's a 30 minute self-contained experience. Definitely worth your time checking it out.

This is the best Metroidvania game I've ever played.

Game doesn't let you quit by hitting Alt+F4 or mashing escape. Instead you have to navigate through up to 3 levels of menu selecting the quit option every time. Why am I bringing up such a trivial detail? Because in a game that makes you ragequit as often as BLACKHOLE does, having to struggle with the stupid menu every time turns a bad experience into one that makes you want to throw your controller through the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ screen.

BLACKHOLE has great production value, a good story, decent gameplay mechanics, nice aesthetics and music, etc. but unfortunately I can't see any of that because I'm stuck on level 12, the lava keeps killing me and every time I wanna retry it I have to sit through a bunch of annoying cutscenes.

No matter how good this game otherwise is, I cannot endorse it because of how angry it makes me.

It's an RPG where all the grindy combat and running around everywhere has been replaced by point & click and hidden object mechanics. There's virtually no way to lose, so HotK gives you all the fun without the frustration. It's a pretty satisfying and relaxing way to spend 4 hours.

It's more frustrating than fun, but the worst part is that it fails to live up to its potential. The concept, music and aesthetic are all awesome, but the gameplay is incredibly tedious, and a lot of the time it relies on random chance more than skill.

This game is too punishing - if you slip up, you'll get busted/killed and have to restart the level, losing up to 10 minutes of progress. Sometimes you can evade or kill the cops/bouncers that chase you, but often there's nothing you can do about it.

The worst part is how slowly your character moves. At best you can sprint at the same speed as a drunk person, but you will quickly get tired and they will outrun you. Combine this with often getting stuck on bits of the level and you will find yourself wanting to throw your controller through your screen.

A fantastic roguelike. If you've ever enjoyed a roguelike, ToME is worth every cent.