Recent reviews by Lightbringer

Far and away the best RPG I have played in some 45 years of gaming. Fantastic story, near note prefect translation of D&D mechanics into CRPG form, playful humor, real pathos, seamlessly branching story at both macro and micro scales. A real once in a lifetime sort of effort. I never replay RPGs, but I am eager to do so here. A magnificent, sprawling, work of art.

Ostensibly a multiplayer survival game, Valheim manages to capture a lot of the magic that made first generation MMOs like Ultima Online and Everquest so much fun. Unlike those titles, however, you can control what people you are playing with, and even what your world looks like.

Low poly models are combined with excellent shader, particle effect, and lighting to make for one of the best examples of great art direction out there, too. Fighting your way across rough seas in a thunderstorm is exhilarating and beautiful stuff.

While the netcode seem to have some problems at this stage (be wary of de-sync and server side lag issues), this is a very impressive early access game from a small indie studio. Well worth the current price.

A gloriously addictive time sink. Dive in and disappear into Valheim, you won't be disappointed.

Satisfactory (and Factorio before it) are like "Work: The Game" if you handle any sort of development/operations work in your day job. That said, the reward loop is much faster than in the real world and you get a similar sense of satisfaction at a job well done whenever you complete an optimization or refactoring of your process chain in the game.

Somewhat counter-intuitively, Satisfactory is somehow less stressful in 3D than Factorio was in 2D. Maybe because you know you can always build vertically to escape the sprawl, or maybe because you can take in more of your factory at a glance from a high enough vantage point.

Regardless, if you like the building and resource management of RTS games. If you like the relative lack of conflict in god games. If you have ever looked at the way someone was doing something and thought "with a little effort, that could be made so much more efficient." If you are addicted to "How It's Made" videos. Then Satisfactory is a game that you must pick up.

Gorgeous, gripping, and just hard enough to make you work for it without it quite turning into endless teeth gnashing (at the default settings). Frost Punk is a sublime blend of God game and RTS, where the only enemy is the cold and the consequences of your own decisions when building out the laws your people should live by.

Fail. Fail endlessly. Fail hard. And ENJOY it.

The campaign is a bit rough with minimal "correct" solutions, but the core gameplay is fantastic. Particularly if you are normally a turtler in RTS games. This is basically one big turtling RTS.

Solid unit diversity, interesting tactics, tower defense like elements combined with RTS turtling mechanics, fairly deep resource balance tiers (growth is not hard, but requires paying attention to do right), and small mistakes can undo all your hard work. As it should be.

Fantastic, but brutal, game.

A fantastic and deep tactical turn based strategy game, BATTLETECH does a brilliant job bringing the 80's table-top game experience to the PC in a way that it hasn't in over 20 years. With tweaks to core gameplay, a solid story, and a great mercenary business management meta-game, BATTLETECH reaches X-Com levels of brilliance. If you love tactics focused turn based strategy games, you should pick up BATTLETECH ASAP.

Crude, childish, overblown, and completely hilarious and engaging. Shadow Warrior 2 is an FPS in the vein of Borderlands, only more focused with better twitch mechanics. Tons of fun weapons and a fully co-op-able campaign make it a great LAN party (or online) game. 4 player limit is a little disappointing, but pretty standard nowadays. Honestly, if you like FPS games, either solo or co-op, you can't go wrong with Shadow Warrior 2.

A wildly loopy RTS with vicious AI, Planetary Annihilation colorful, fun, and challenging. While a more structured single player experience would be nice, there is a lot here to enjoy, even if you hate competitive multiplayer RTS games. Worth in just for the hilarity of smashing moons into planets or piloting a veritable "Death Star" about a solar system.

Classic, sprawling, tactical combat RPG. A little rough around the edges, Wasteland 2 is still a compelling post apocalyptic experience. If you've played any of Wasteland's spiritual successors (the Fallout series) the setting and tone will be pleasently familiar, but still its own thing. Be sure to explore all the little nooks and crannies, there are plenty of nice little surprises that reward the completionist.

Absolutely brilliant subversion of narrative structure and gameplay. Simple, engaging, funny, compelling, and thoughtful; "The Stanley Parable" feels like it was birthed from the brain of Terry Gilliam. A fantastic piece of surrealism in interactive form.