Recent reviews by CommodoreKong

I really loved the first Hollow Knight game, playing it twice on Steam and once on Switch. I was really looking forward to this second entry for a long time. Unfortantly I was let down by many of the design decisions by Team Cherry.
Hollow Knight was a challenging game, and i was expecting the same for the sequel, but the way Team Cherry went to make the game challenging was very poor. Having your character take two hits from most enemies, having what feels like an increased hit point pool for even the most basic/common enemies, a badly designed early economy, having a second currency for your tools for no reason when they just could of had limited uses after each save point, boss battles that feel like a slog due to not only run backs but how tanky they can be plus regular enemies that spawn during them.
There are still things I like. The visuals are great as expected. The world is interesting and the music continues to be great.
I wish I could recommend this game like I would the first Hollow Knight, but I just can't. It doesn't feel like the fun, challenging first game, but an un-fun and often tedious slog.

It's been a long time since we got a new Katamari game, and I'm glad it's finally here. Having different eras to explore is a great way to shake things up a bit visually. The core gameplay is still here and still solid. If you're a fan of the series you're not going to go wrong picking this one up.

A truly excellent Vampire Survivors type game. 4 characters with unique properties, a lot of varied weapons, and various ways to play the game that can unlock upgrades to characters or weapons. The devs have also been doing a good job of adding new content to the game. If you're looking for a fun turn off your brain type of game this is a good choice.

As a fan of starship fleet based combat in media I picked up the physical version of Sins of a Solar Empire many years ago and fell in love with the great combination of RTS fleet battles with light 4x empire building gameplay. In the years since I picked up the Steam version and probably put in more than a thousand hours between the two versions. Sins 1 became one of the forever games on my hard drive along with Team Fortress 2 and Rise of Nations, always installed on a computer in case I felt like playing it.

I'm happy to report that Sins 2 will likely replace Sins 1 as a forever game on my hard drive. The game is very similar to Sins 1 with some great quality of life features, like being able to build ships directly into a fleet so they're automatically added to a fleet when built instead of needing to hunt down the nearest ship yard is an amazing feature that makes the game so much better. The various upgrades you can get for your capital ships are great, as well as the reworked ways you can upgrade planets.

The other big new feature where planets shift position over time, changing the warp lanes between them I'm not a big fan of. Given how long Sins games can last which often require multiple play sessions I find it much easier for the map to be fixed so I better remember where things are, however I can see why some may like a dynamic map. The feature can easily be toggled on and off when setting up a game so no complaints there.

I do have some minor issues which I do believe will be addressed over time. Right now it feels like there's some balance issues especially with the economy but given Sins 1 had years of updates I'm not worried and sure things will change over time. The upgrade menu for buying upgrades for your empire does feel like a mess. It feels hard to easily see which ones you've bought and the AI art used doesn't really feel all that coherent.

Overall I will of course recommend this game. I'm really looking forward to the upcoming expansions and I'm hoping this game will see total conversion mods for Star Trek and Star Wars like I loved so much in Sins 1. I have no doubt in a few years I'll be sitting on hundreds of hours played in Sins 2.

Even though I enjoy Marvel movies I wasn't sure how interested I would be in this game. I was actually pretty surprised. It's a solid X-Com like game with the spin of you build a deck of cards for each character's actions. There's different types of cards and restrictions on what you can play. Overall the battle system is a lot of fun and puts a nice little spin on the traditional X-Com style tactical game.

The storyline itself is okay. Nothing too amazing but about what you would expect from a Marvel videogame. The voice acting can be pretty hit or miss depending on the character.

During your off time you get to build up your friendship with the different heroes which is a nice little break in the combat. Overall I suggest giving this game a go if you like turn based tactical games.

Such a simple game using only the control stick to move around and avoid enemies while you auto attack with power-ups, yet it's incredibly addicting. I bought this back when it was $3 but it's still more than worth it at $5 and will provide better value than many full priced game.

Also a perfect game for a Steam Deck if you have one.

A fun, worthy successor to the first Psychonaunts game that was a long time coming (I backed this game in the initial Fig kickstarter campaign). Lots of interesting, creative stages and funny dialog. I did get hit with a progression bug that made it impossible to continue. There were some patches but I still had the issue so I sent my save file to Double Fine support, hoping the next patch would fix the issue. Instead they sent me back a fixed version of my save file which was really cool of them.

A fun little rogue-like Peggle game. Worth checking out if you've enjoyed Peggle.

A fun little Halloween themed game made by a small team. It's not perfect, it's pretty short (6 levels, took me around 5 hours to beat) and the combat is a little janky, but overall I had a good time playing it. The visuals are great and the game throws something new at you every level. If you're looking for a fun little Halloween themed game I would check this out.

It's been 13 long years and Valve really delivered. In the same way Half Life 1 felt revolutionary for it's story telling and connected worlds and Half Life 2 felt revolutionary for the physics Half Life Alyx felt revolutionary to me.

Just seeing City 17 rendered in so much detail in VR was amazing. The production values are amazing, Valve obviously spent as much time and money as they needed on this game and other VR games I've played so far just feel so much more limited in scope. The visuals are truly amazing aside from a few bad looking assets here and there.

Combat feels more intense in VR. Combat is very much designed around VR and some of the limitations you face (like slower reloading). You typically face fewer enemies and have overall fewer combat encounters than a flatscreen Half Life. There are enemies like the armored headcrab that can only be shot in the soft underbelly who would be much easier to kill in a standard game but in much harder in VR. The only surprise to me was the lack of melee weapons in the game.

The game switches between horror sections and more standard combat against the Combine section/levels. Every level feels really well designed for it's section, for example you're often running very low on ammo in the horror areas but have plenty in the Combine sections.

Despite being a prequel the story really ramps up and I was constantly looking forward to the next story section. The new character Russel is pretty fun and I enjoyed his interactions with Alyx. Despite being a prequel it doesn't lean as heavily into character cameos as you would expect and there's several characters missing that you would expect to show up.

The two new gameplay elements are upgrading your weapons and scavenging through the environments for upgrade materials and ammo. Both of these are really designed for VR and work really well, the upgrades because you have a limited number of weapons and I feel like the scavenging is much more fun in VR than it is in normal games.

Puzzles return, but not the physics puzzles you would expect. You use Alyx's device to link broken power lines behind walls and solve 3D puzzles. Both are fun enough but the lack of physics puzzles made the game feel a little more static than Half Life 2 in a way, which was too bad.

Overall I had a ton of fun with this game. If you have a VR headset it's a must play. I'm hoping the next Half Life game is also in VR since it does feel like a few things were missing from this one.