Recent reviews by Philobie

I jumped into this game completely blind after first hearing about it at the game awards. The price seemed a little steep, but I took a leap of faith as I was looking for something fresh and unique. What I expected to be a fun little puzzler turned out to be one of the most creative and mind-bending puzzle games I've played since Portal. The puzzles are just challenging enough to be satisfying but never to the point where they are frustrating. The art style is amazing and compliments the weird, abstract world this game is set in. Cocoon is a breath of fresh after a long year of disappointing AAA games and exhausting hype cycles, and it's quickly become one of my favourite games of 2023.

Wealth beyond measure, outlander.

It's buggy in its current state as of the time of writing this, but fortunately what I've experienced is purely visual and hasn't broken the game for me. The game itself is simple and short; your goal is to jump start a ship stranded in interstellar space and make your way back to Earth. It's a roguelite, so expect to die a lot, but don't feel too discouraged, as each death sometimes unlocks a new perk that can give you certain benefits like increased health or walking speed, but with a trade off. Some perks work more like skulls from Halo and don't offer anything except make the game more difficult. Some of these skull-like perks include fewer batteries, no weapons on the ship, increased enemy spawns, and far greater turret spawn rates. These not only make the game more difficult, but can completely change the rules and force you to re-adapt your play style, which helps replayability and gives you a reason to return to Cosmodread, even after you've mastered it on vanilla mode. If you're a fan of this genre, Cosmodread is a hard game to pass on, especially at its low price point.

Despite it's low price point, I was hesitant to buy this game. Not because I thought it didn't look worth $10, but because I was worried I would be too scared to even play it. Dreadhalls is hands down the scariest game I've played in VR. I haven't felt this kind of fear playing a video game since Amnesia the Dark Descent, which this game resembles closely in terms of atmosphere, tension, and its cosmic horror themes. As an Amnesia fan, this game made me super nostalgic, and I've been waiting to play a game like this in VR for some time now. The sound design is excellent, and much like Amnesia, a lot of the psychological fear comes from its positional audio and ambient sound effects, so make sure wear your best headphones for this one.

It's short, clocking in at just about 2 hours on your first playthrough, but that's a good thing since it doesn't overstay its welcome. Its price is definitely justified at $10, but it's the best $10 game I've played in a long time. To thrill seekers and horror fans who have become desensitised to modern horror games, this game is a breath of fresh air.

tl;dr If you like Amnesia and wanted to play something like it in VR, this game checks almost all the boxes.

Fallout 4 VR can be a fun time, granted you have a PC from the future to run it. On top of being poorly optimised, some of the design decisions just baffle me. All the two-handed and heavy weapons in the game are held with one hand, which impacts immersion and takes away a lot of the weight and satisfaction you get from handling these weapons. It's clear no thought or consideration went into the VR implementation- it's very much shoehorned in there and things like menu navigation (which you will be doing a lot of) is unchanged from its 2D counterpart, and being presented with flat, non-diegetic menus in a VR game feels jarring and takes you out of the experience.

While Fallout 4 in VR doesn't add much to the original experience, there is definitely something to be said about seeing the Commonwealth in VR. New depth is given to the world and the sense of scale of everything around you is something that has to be experienced, because no explanation can do it justice. This novelty VR brings to games is inherent to the medium, and Fallout 4 VR is no exception. Speaking of scale, I could never adjust the world scale quite right. When I adjust my height to match the height of the NPCs, everything feels half the scale they should be, and when I do get the scale right, I'm practically at elbow length of everyone. Unless you're role playing as the pint sized slasher, this might pull you out of the experience- given the multitude of technical issues that plagues this game hasn't done so already.

Have you heard of the indie hidden gem, The Witcher 3?

Ever been to a music festival on psychedelics? Me neither, but Paper Beast is probably the closest I'll ever come to it.

Half-Life: Alyx is the culmination of Valve's years of VR experimentation, and it gives us a glimpse of what AAA VR games can accomplish. This game feels appropriately Half-Life; the writing is as strong as ever and the narrative never takes control away from you. Oh, and the shooting feels solid! Analogous to Half-Life 2's physics based puzzles, the puzzles in Alyx, while never truly challenging you, are frequent and serve to break up the pace of the firefights, as well as take advantage of the unique perspective and interaction that only VR can offer. The game rewards you for thoroughly exploring each of its highly detailed levels with resin; the game's primary form of currency that you will use to upgrade your weapons. Weapon upgrades help make up for the game's small weapons loadout, and since you are never given enough resin to fully upgrade all your weapons in one playthrough, you're going to favour whichever weapon compliments your playstyle. This can even incentivize multiple playthroughs; upgrading different weapons and seeing how they change the flow of combat. The game will take you anywhere from 8 hours, or possibly even 12 and over depending on the difficulty you're playing at and how thoroughly you explore the levels. It's not a long game but it's also not terribly short either, so you won't be left disappointed.

Half-Life: Alyx is just filled with so many cool, memorable moments, and you can tell that a lot of care and effort has been put into creating them. This may all sound vague, but I just really don't want to risk spoiling anything, because I find a lot of the surprises Alyx keeps for you just that good. I will say this though; Half-Life: Alyx has one standout level that sets itself from the rest of the game, and you will absolutely know it when you reach it. Also, you won't be ready for Alyx's ending.

This is Valve's first big single-player venture since Portal 2, and their first return to Half-Life since Episode 2's gut-wrenching cliff hangar which we are still talking about 13 years later. Half-Life: Alyx is my first GOTY contender for 2020, and it was worth the wait.

A near perfect remake that keeps the core mechanics of what made the original so great and refining it, while also modernizing graphics, controls, perspective, etc. This game calls back to a time when video games were rife with unlockables and challenges that warrant multiple playthroughs, so you won't be starved for content despite the short campaign (btw there's 4 campaigns; scenario A and B for Leon and scenario A and B for Claire). If you've already played the 1998 original to death, have never played it, or you don't even like horror games, this is a great gaming experience that I would recommend to anyone regardless.

i've been playing visual novel games all my life, but have since stopped playing them after my mom made me move out and I was forced to find a JJob. lately i've been interested in retUUrning to the genre I was once so fond of, and doki doki literature club SSeemed to be a good, albeiTT safe, gateway back in.

the four girls that MMake up the main cast each feel unique and are aesthetically pleasing.  is the timid bOOokworm of the group, she is pretty, but totally unstable and you shouldn't talk to her.  is the brat of the four frieNNds, but hIIdes under a moe exterior. like , it's best if you just ignore her.  is the protagonist's close childhood friend, but history doesn't beat chemistry, right? to hell with her, never talk to her. finally there's moniKKa, who is the most talented, intelligent, popular, funny, athletic, and beautiful girl in the game. delete the others. the game is better without them.

all you need is monikAA.