Recent reviews by Phlarx

A short but very enjoyable game that is worthy of being spoken in the same breath as Return of the Obra Dinn, or The Case of the Golden Idol. Plenty of charm, satisfying solves, beautiful art.

A compelling detective game with unique and challenging puzzles and characters you can really get invested in. 100% recommend.

Easy to learn, hard to master, endlessly replayable. Incredible depth of both gameplay and customizations; every run is a new challenge.

Serene, unassuming, and beautiful.

An assassination sandbox: Hitman 2 is similar to the prior installment, but more. More levels, more items, more challenges, more little quality-of-life perks, more replayability.

Recommended for those that like this sort of game, if you're unsure, try the starter pack first (it's pretty cheap).

The most satisfying logic puzzle that I've solved, wrapped in a gritty, beautiful shoud of murder and pixely goodness.

Of all the VR games I've tried, this one has the most staying power. Some combination of the plethora of things to do, the perfect balance of realism and fun, and a wonderful developer make this my favorite VR game, hands down.

The developer really cares about the game and its community. His weekly devlogs are a delight to watch, and there's so much being added to the game each year, it's staggering. This year saw many things, but one of the most notable is the new Take and Hold map. I look forward to all the content coming next year.

Wonderful environments, wonderful story, wonderful sound, wonderful narration, wonderful emotional depth...

The whole thing is just exceptionally wonderful.

Rust, the game I bought back in 2013, was okay, and had the potential to be a really neat experience where you go off into the wilderness, and survive off the land. This game could have been just as fun solo as with a server full of friends. This game did not happen.

Instead, we got a game where 'survival' is primarily either a bit of hiding and a lot of respawning, or getting in the good graces of a horde of people that see you as nothing more than a means to an end. Perhaps if the community had been cultivated to not be the most toxic I've come across, there would still be hope, but sadly that is not the case.

There are PvE servers out there, but they lose their charm as you gradually learn how little depth the game truly has. There are clans, which might interest you, sure, but I've never been the sort of gamer to play games on a schedule.

Overall, not the game for me. Not anymore.

Update June 15, 2017:

Take-Two has declared modding illegal. This is a disgrace, and an affront to countless individuals who have put in long unpaid hours to bring new twists to a game they love. With this move by Take-Two, that love is lost, perhaps forever.

If they had only taken two seconds to think...

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Singleplayer gets a thumbs-up. Rockstar seems to have forgotten about it.

Multiplayer is balanced to encourage hackers. Either spend tens (or hundreds) of hours required to just start playing with the dlc's / buy a fancy car / whatnot, spend hundreds of real dollars to buy their macrotransaction shark cards, or find a friendly neighborhood hacker that'll give you that money for free.

If you buy it, buy it for the singleplayer. Multiplayer is only fun so long as you don't care about progression.