Recent reviews by Dmitry Komarov

This game initially disarms with its painterly 2D aesthetic and earnest antiwar sentiment. Its animation is exquisite, and the dog companion—equal parts mechanic and emotional anchor—nearly steals the show. Yet, the repetitive puzzle design undercuts its narrative ambition, rendering its story more didactic than affecting. For mid-2010s Ubisoft, it was a welcome anomaly amid franchise fatigue—but one whose heart, while clearly in the right place, never quite broke mine. Still, credit is due to the team behind it—Valiant Hearts is a game worth knowing, and perhaps, despite its flaws, even worth loving, as player reactions and reviews suggest.

A touching story of a lonely protagonist, ironically told through the medium of animated penises. It could easily have been an episode of Rick and Morty, yet what we get is a brief narrative-driven game with latent potential in its multiplayer mode.

Genital Jousting gestures toward the quiet tragedy of the “little man”—alienated, insecure, and absurd in his desire to belong. Were it not for the phallic presentation, it might well have been an Annapurna Interactive title. But this is Devolver, after all: provocateurs committed to pushing experimental boundaries.

In the end, it’s an odd but memorable experience—an existential comedy dressed in flesh tones.

A Lego dream come to life — a physics sandbox dressed up as a heist game. It’s less about action, more about clever puzzles: figuring out how to tear the world apart just the right way, shaving seconds off an escape route. Every map feels like a quiet challenge to think smarter, not faster. The destruction is satisfying, but it’s the planning that really sticks. Bought it for the puzzles, stayed for the simple joy of breaking things.

This part tries hard to be cinematic, chasing Battlefield with heavy cutscenes and scripted moments. Early missions feel sharp, with decent mechanics and tense pacing. Later, it loses steam — maps get simpler, encounters start to blur together. The first half is where the real game is. Visually, it still looks great, and playing on higher difficulty makes it feel less like an interactive movie. I didn’t even think about touching multiplayer or zombies — I only got it for the campaign, the same one I first played back in 2018 on my first gaming laptop. Just like with the original 2005 Call of Duty 2, it’s a memory purchase, not much more. Worth it if you catch it on sale

This game holds up surprisingly well in a few areas. The audio design still works — rain, machine guns, debris — all make you feel present even with outdated graphics. Explosions and smoke effects are better than expected from 2025. Level design and enemy pacing stay solid, especially noticeable on higher difficulties when you know exactly where and when the next wave hits.

The real reason I bought it wasn’t the gameplay though (and I’m not a fan of the series, or of military shooters in general). It’s tied to childhood: summer breaks in the countryside, an old laptop overheating on my knees, endless evenings replaying the same missions. At full price it’s a rip-off, but for a few dollars on sale, it’s a piece of personal history, another brick in a Steam collection.

I remember playing the first Horizon on my friend Lesha's console after a Tom Grennan concert in late 2018. We were drinking whiskey with cola, sitting on the floor in his rented apartment in Moscow, with his girlfriend — who would soon become his wife — beside us. Now, they’re expecting a child and have their own home. We’re in different countries now, our fates separated for many years. It’s amazing how games can bring back such memories.

That is why the decision to bring formerly PlayStation-exclusive titles like Horizon, God of War, and Ghost of Tsushima to PC feels long overdue. There’s something satisfying about seeing these games collected on a single platform, unbound from hardware, because they finally become accessible in the way great games should be: available and replayable after decades.


The strongest part of Horizon Forbidden West is its visuals. The level of detail — from character models to vast landscapes — is consistently impressive, often bordering on photorealistic, yet it never loses its distinct artistic identity. It's not just about technical fidelity; the environments are thoughtfully designed, full of movement, light, and texture that make exploration rewarding in itself. The ruins of Las Vegas, lit by holograms at night, are stunning.

The game is also defined by its scale. The open world is not just large — it is dense, layered, and at times overwhelming. The first few hours flood you with dialogue, quests, and world-building, not unlike Cyberpunk 2077. The main story is clear by the seventh hour, much like in CP as well. But this doesn’t mean HFW settles into a routine. For instance, you can’t simply climb a machine the size of a building. You have to reroute power through broken satellites, shift the weight of rusted structures, and navigate systems. Compared to the first game, everything feels more complex. The side quests that touch on romantic storylines are surprisingly decent too.

The skill system is important here. Boss fights change drastically depending on how you've developed Aloy’s abilities. Difficulty settings make the game elastic — it can feel like a casual adventure with little resistance or something close to a soulslike, where each encounter demands precision and planning. The dialogue often feels mechanical, in my opinion — functional rather than engaging. For players looking for deep RPG mechanics, this isn’t that kind of game. Choices don’t carry much weight, and character development is largely predefined. It's an action game with light RPG elements — not the other way around. But the plot is solid, so don’t worry about that.

It's a blockbuster. Polished, expensive, and packed with cutting-edge tech, Horizon Forbidden West is a showcase of production value. How much soul it actually has is up to you. But spending a week or two in its world is, more often than not, a satisfying experience.

Star Wars Jedi turned out to be one of those rare games that feels both overproduced and underwhelming. I can’t recommend it—not with a straight face, anyway. Admittedly, I’ve never been a devoted acolyte of the Star Wars mythos. My exposure is limited to the cultural osmosis of flickering television reruns: something about a Republic, a Darth Vader, and a family named Skywalker. That’s the extent of it.

The one genuine cultural gift Star Wars ever gave me was a detour into mythology: Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, followed by Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey. That was the real adventure—an anthropological deep-dive into narrative structure, far more engrossing than anything this game had to offer.

The game itself is fragmented across planets, each a showcase of Unreal Engine’s visual might. Strands of the protagonist’s hair sway delicately in digital wind; gears shudder and slam with satisfying weight. Horizons stretch wide, offering a sense of scale. And yet, once the novelty fades, you're left with the bleak realization: this is a plodding platformer with questionable design choices. Tedious sequences repeat with minor variations, and the Metroidvania-inspired save system means every small triumph is undercut by the resurrection of previously defeated foes.

My patience ended somewhere on the outskirts of Eilram, when a hologram murmured something about a "fascinating tomb." It wasn’t. I quit shortly after, with the lingering sense that I had been wandering through a tomb myself—one built not for a Jedi, but for fun.

The first 40 minutes hinted at promise. After that, the narrative dissolved into a monotonous loop of wall-running, rope-swinging, and narrow corridors that induced more claustrophobia than cosmic wonder.

A beautifully rendered box, yes—but peel back the foil, and it’s not chocolate inside. Just licorice taffy. Sticky, bitter, and impossible to chew through.

Mafia unfolds like an interactive film, a moody reverie of cinematic precision that recalls the works of Coppola, Scorsese, and Leone. The city, draped in rain, especially feels like a living painting, its every reflective surface an invitation to pause and absorb. From the very first glimpse of the city at night, it’s clear: this is not mere virtual scenery. The neon lights bleed into the wet asphalt, headlights carve thin streaks of light through the rain, and every reflective surface seems to shimmer with a cocktail of red and yellow tones. One is drawn into this world not only through the sharpness of its visuals but through the subtle sonic details: the scrape of wet shoes on cobblestones, the low murmur of old radio static, the hum of traffic. Each detail is steeped in the atmospheric quality of classic gangster films, with facial animations so vivid that they seem less digital than human.

Yet, for all its visual and auditory splendor, the world feels oddly hollow. The city, though meticulously crafted, exists only to serve the story — a beautiful but static backdrop. There’s no room for exploration or side ventures; the world is essentially a stage, where the action unfolds episodically, almost like a play. In this sense, the game’s environment functions more as an asset than a true living world.

Gameplay follows the same deliberate pace — slow, methodical, grounded in realism. It lacks the frantic energy of GTA, offering instead a more restrained, narrative-driven experience. There are no side missions, no character upgrades; instead, it’s an immersive dive into a well-crafted, linear story. The emotion is palpable — every glance, every slight twitch of a lip feels heavy with unspoken history. One scene stands out in particular: a quiet, devastating moment when the protagonist returns home after a brutal massacre, only to be greeted by his lover, whose simple, detached response to his desperate question — "Will you marry me?" — is a single word: "Okay." The understated nature of the moment gives it an eerie, almost noir-ish weight. It’s a scene that lingers, not because of its grandiosity, but because of its restraint.

For those who hold The Godfather and Goodfellas in reverence, Mafia offers a cinematic experience that, while not expansive in its gameplay, will resonate deeply. It’s not the chaotic freedom of modern open-world games, but rather a quiet, compelling treasure for those who appreciate the artistry of its craft.

The Sinking City is a fevered plunge into a nightmare city, drenched in noir and interesting kind of horror. Not fear, exactly—more like revulsion, a deep-seated unease at the sheer wrongness of things. The city is damp, swollen, festering. The kind of place where the walls sweat and something with too many limbs might be waiting just around the corner. It's Lovecraft way of body horror: mold, mucus, slick organic growths spreading over brick and flesh alike.

The game channels The Shadow over Innsmouth and At the Mountains of Madness, with its grotesque hybrid creatures straight out of The Call of Cthulhu. For my wife, the fish-headed monstrosities were a dealbreaker, too unnerving to continue. For me, however, the grotesque hybrids and other zootropic NPCs were a plus — the essence of Lovecraftian terror, the kind that disturbs without ever fully revealing itself. I’m not a huge fan of the writer himself, but I do appreciate his cultural influence.

The gameplay, though, is a little bit mess. Combat is clumsy, and the open-world mechanics feel shallow, leaving the city more like a forgotten diorama than a living place. The story hits familiar detective beats, but lacks the depth of its Lovecraftian inspirations. It’s a game that struggles to live up to its potential but still offers a raw, unsettling atmosphere that will haunt the right kind of player — if they’re willing to endure its flaws.

Discovered the game thanks to Steam Next Fest, where I caught the demo for the sequel, Snowfall. The original, Yes, Your Grace, was on sale, and I was in the mood for some pixels.

Turned out to be a pleasant surprise. At first, I was a little bit worried — what if it turns out to be nothing more than a pixelated point-and-click visual novel? But as more options unlocked and the management side of things kicked in, it all clicked (hah). The Polish folk band Merkfolk sets the tone with a fantastic soundtrack, while the game itself offers an ironic take on medieval roles, blending in simple moral dilemmas and the kind of cliffhangers that make classic management sims so compelling week after week.

What truly stood out to me was how seamlessly the game crafts a vivid world of war, diplomacy, and family turmoil with just a handful of well-designed mechanics. As king, you must navigate tough decisions, keep Grevno from falling, and address your people's needs—all while an enemy army marches closer, supplies dwindle, and the treasury runs dry.

Yes, Your Grace is a perfect example of how indie games, at their best, achieve emotional depth through restraint. Four hours in, and I’m sold.