Recent reviews by Calico

In a word: CINEMA!! I went into Stray only knowing that it was the game about a cat and some robots. I don't want to spoil anything for you, but it's so much more than that and I loved every moment of it! The art design, the worldbuilding, the characters, the story, the gameplay, all of it is so expertly crafted. I might play it again soon to find some of the things I missed!

Let me get this out of the way first: the text-to-speech voices are awful. I understand why they used them for the ping system, but it makes no sense with the traders and cutscene narration. Also, the writing is often awkward, which doesn’t help with the already robotic line delivery.

That said, Arc Raiders is an otherwise fantastic game! It’s incredibly fun with great gameplay and gunplay. The Arc enemies are INTIMIDATING and downright devious sometimes. The aesthetic is a cool vibe, and the maps are genuinely fun to explore.

Honestly, the tts voices are my only real gripe with the game. The PvE is thrilling, the PvP is tense, and the world is intriguing. If you’re looking for a stellar looter shooter (or even if you’re new to the genre), I really recommend it!

I'm really enjoying Windblown a lot! The combat is fast and fresh, with a nice sense of rhythm to it. The characters are fun, and I love the world and environments. There's just enough of a story to be intriguing, though I hope they keep expanding on it in future updates. It's in "early access" still, but what's there already feels pretty polished, and the developers are continuing to support it. I've been playing mostly solo, but the multiplayer is great too! I definitely say it's worth playing!

Star Birds is charming, fun, and definitely not as simple as it looks! I went in thinking it would be a Kurtzkezadt themed Dorfromantik in space, but it's not that at all. It was a lot more challenging than I expected with some really satisfying "ah-ha!" moments.

The available story content took me about 9 hours to "beat", but it took me 23 hours total to get all the achievements. They have more missions on the way in a few months, and I'm looking forward to them! I want more Star Birds!!

I’m a big fan (and backer) of the original Hyper Light Drifter, and unfortunately Hyper Light Breaker doesn’t really have many similarities to it besides the title, aesthetics, and maybe the combat.

That said, on its own merits it’s not really a bad game. It’s a good foundation to grow into something more, but at the moment it’s just a bit empty, repetitive, and half-baked. What’s there is interesting as far as being a work-in-progress, and I was willing to wait to see what it turned into as it was developed more.

Sadly, they just announced that they’re laying off the team and cancelling anymore work on the game after one final update. While we still need to see what that update brings, the game is so far from being worth the price that I’m pretty confident in saying that I don’t recommend buying Hyper Light Breaker. If you haven’t played Hyper Light Drifter, definitely get it instead.

It’s heartbreaking, Heart Machine.

Edit: the dev team is entirely laid off now and the publisher announced that they won’t even be releasing the final update they promised. The game is fully abandoned, and *no one* should spend any money on it at this point.

I backed Book of Travels on Kickstarter. I tried playing as soon as it went live, but I ran into a nasty bug a few hours in that killed me. There were a lot of bugs back then, so I decided to wait until it was in a better state before giving it a try again.

Sadly, most of the dev team has been laid off and the game is abandoned. I don't recommend buying the game in its current state. I was really hoping they'd be able to pick it back up eventually, but it looks like the team that's left has moved on...

FURRY BATTLEFIELD!!

Edit: I regret to inform you that furry battlefield is now full of bots and using genAI since my previous review. I don't recommend it anymore.

!!DO NOT PURCHASE THIS GAME AT FULL PRICE!!

The development team has announced that they're shutting down the servers next month. All of the rewards in the game are focused on the online aspect, such as earning currency and items to customize your avatar. While most of the puzzles are still enjoyable offline (with a big exception for fractals), the game that's left is not the full game that they're still charging full price for without the online component.

That said, if it is on heavy discount, I found it pretty fun to explore and solve the puzzles. It's a really interesting concept, that is unfortunately being abandoned before it's even been out for a year.

Balatro might not seem like much on the surface, but it's incredibly addicting! If you're interested in deck building mechanics with a poker twist, I definitely recommend it!

I've really truly fallen in love with Sky! It's such a wonderful, chill little game. The gameplay itself isn't all that complicated or "gamey" at all, but it's so nice to just exist in the world for a little bit. At it's core it's a social game, and I have made some friends from around the world in it!

My only criticism is the monetization. It started as a mobile game, and it shows... A LOT. All of the cosmetics are extremely expensive, both the ones using in-game currency and real money. Right now there's a cape that costs 177 candles (in-game currency) which is about $50 USD.

So yes, that is a HUGE issue but it hasn't affected my enjoyment of the game itself.

If you can look past the predatory monetization, it's worth at least playing through Sky's main storyline!

Edit: Some of the older content is having some issues lately. I still love the game and play it daily, but as a new player it might be frustrating to run into some jank. I still recommend it, but understand that Sky is many years of content layered on top of each other, sometimes haphazardly.