Recent reviews by jodymacgregor

"We have a tech driven solution with a turn-key that's optimized for the cloud," says my boss. Meanwhile, the whole office has embraced 32-step verification and one of my coworkers has a spreadsheet to organize their bar graphs about pie charts, or possibly their pie charts about bar graphs. It's a distressingly relatable exaggeration of office life, apart from one thing: my boss and coworkers are all elongated wooly creatures called llamaworms, and so am I.

In Gunpoint you're both of the classic cyberpunk archetypes: you're a hacker spy who busts open corporate security, and a noir detective solving a mystery. Implicated in a crime you didn't commit, you commit a whole lot more while figuring out who was really responsible.

You do that by breaking into 2D buildings with a rewiring tool that lets you twist technology so that a lightswitch opens a door or a motion sensor overloads a power point. Each level's a hermetically sealed puzzle, but one you might be able to brute-force thanks to your Bullfrog Hypertrousers. You can almost always leap through a window, land on a guard, then pummel them into next week.

Gunpoint's got a sense of humor that comes across in absurd moments like that, and through the story, told in text messages, in which you work both sides of a corporate duel you're rarely forced to take seriously.

The best and probably only trombone-based rhythm game we'll ever need, Trombone Champ's ridiculous parping sums up 2022 perfectly. Tooting along clumsily to its mix of classics, anthems, marches, and dance music is even more fun than watching someone else do it, even if half your notes are declared "NASTY". User-made levels extend its relevance, whether based on One-Winged Angel from Final Fantasy 7, or Liz Truss's resignation speech.

Although The Forgotten City is built on myths – you're investigating a cross between the curses of Midas and Medusa that turns people into gold – its version of ancient Rome is packed with historical detail. I didn't know Romans were mad for fish sauce until I found it everywhere in this game, and though I did know how gross the Romans' public toilets were, seeing them in first-person sure brought it home.

Arrowhead gave Gauntlet the same chaotic co-op sensibility as their other games, Magicka and Helldivers. If you play a wizard it's even got a cut-down version of Magicka's spellcasting system where you combine elements for different effects.

With friends it gets competitive because when a monster with a crown dies you can pick it up, but it gets knocked off your head once you take a hit. Whoever's got the crown at the end of a level gets a huge bonus to their score, so there's always a scramble when it clinks to the floor. It's not as much fun solo unless you play the elf, which transforms it into a respectable twin-stick shooter.

Every level's an arena that transforms around you while you frantically dodge robots, every character is a different playstyle, and every song on the soundtrack is a banger. You're in a nightclub with one hell of a light show and also your dance partners are robot spiders.

Take the part of any Grand Theft Auto game where you roam around causing mayhem, ditch the plot, add a protagonist who's actually likeable. That's Goat Simulator.

It's singleplayer, but like most comedy games you'll get more out of it if you play with a friend beside you to share your bafflement.

Every member of your crew of data thieves and mercs has a well-written backstory worth uncovering. Even the dog has a secret for Christ's sake. My favourites was the shaman who used to lead a punk band - look at that, an actual punk in a cyberpunk game - so I asked if he could sing.

"I was the front man for a punk band, boss," he said, as if I was an idiot. "♥♥♥♥ no, I can’t sing."

It may have magic and elves, but Shadowrun: Dragonfall is the most punk cyberpunk game around.

Different as they are, Supergiant's previous games—Pyre, Transistor, and Bastion—have all been summed up the same way. Story, art, music, voice-acting, atmosphere? A+. Combat? Kind of B-. Hades feels like a response to that, a Supergiant game that focuses on the fighting and elevates it to the absolute top-tier. This isn't a spoiler because you've looked at the score, but they nailed it. The combat's fantastic.

Hades doesn't short us on the other stuff either, though it easily could have.

Read the full review here.

Imagine if Planescape: Torment was inspired by Life on Mars and China Mieville's The City and The City instead of Dungeons & Dragons. There you go, that's your review.