Recent reviews by fallwith

As someone who gets disappointed when a grass block turns to dirt in Minecraft, the dopamine hit from having the opposite happen here in Refunct is quite enjoyable.

You can hit 100% completion and obtain all first playthrough achievements (leaving 3 others for subsequent playthroughs) in 30 minutes. That short time is sweet and filled with solid controls, soothing visuals and sound, and a gradual increase in what you're asked to accomplish.

This game is hella preem, chooms.

With the 2.0 patch level and the Phantom Liberty DLC now available, there is a fantastic amount of polish and content waiting for you in Cyberpunk 2077. Glitches are few and far between, minor, and typically resolved by saving, restarting, and continuing. I 100% completed The Witcher 3: Complete Edition on a different platform and considered that similarly complex title to be extremely polished and went through more issues with it than with Cyberpunk 2077 at the time of my playthrough. So I’m confident in thinking you won’t be frustrated.

The RPG character development aspects and extensive weapon and inventory item variety combine to provide for many choices of play styles. You can be a brawler, a hacker, an expert in small, heavy, or long range armaments, a master of blades, or a ninja - non-lethal or lethal. I enjoyed dabbling with all of these rather than heading all the way down any one path and was able to still handle every challenge.

The lore from Mike Pondsmith’s Cyberpunk 2013 and 2020 games is well represented here. Actor Keanu Reeves’ portrayal of the quintessential Pondsmith character is heavily featured throughout the entire game - including the DLC, which is a real treat for us fans. Beyond being a fan of Pondsmith, Reeves, or the wide ranging cyberpunk genre itself, fans of these particular video games will find lots to love with Cyberpunk 2077:

• The Witcher 3: Fans of CD Projekt Red’s other award winning masterpiece will have a sense of what to expect with Cyberpunk 2077’s level of quality, design, pacing, mature themes, respect for a rich lore while doing its own thing, encouragement of detective work, difficult story choices with tangible effects, beckoning for a ride, swordplay, etc.
  
• GTA V: GTA V fans will recognize the city that is alive and accessible as long as you don’t study it too close or try to open every door. The police wanted level, text messaging and calling, carjacking, GPS mapping, dark humor based society criticism, and acquisition of cash and possessions after heists are all here.
  
• Saints Row: The Third: Saints Row fans who enjoy a bit of the odd wackiness and adult humor while still wanting great gameplay with a coherent plot will find plenty to smirk at here. While I believe that Cyberpunk is closer to GTA than Saints Row, it’s certainly not afraid to embrace Saints Row style humor.
  
• Batman: Arkham Knight: You can optionally choose to fulfill a Batman character type role in Cyberpunk 2077. You take your wealth and enhance your physicality and toys and you can optionally clean up the streets, help or clash with police, etc. Particularly at higher character levels you can swoop down into hostile territory and make short work of a group of enemies.
  
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution: This first person shooter RPG features similar exploration, hacking, stealth, and difficult NPC affecting choices. Its cyberpunk theme that explores humanity’s cyborg enhancements and bleak, dystopian life for so many at the hands of so few echo loudly in Cyberpunk 2077.
  
• Thief II: Groundbreaking masterpiece Thief II sees much of its terrific stealth and multiple options for approaching a challenge represented well in Cyberpunk 2077. Amusingly, blunt instruments provide a non-lethal means of indefinite incapacitation in both titles. Thief II’s steampunk based warnings of corruption and greed that require the efforts of a hero and the hero’s friends find modern reinvention here.
  
• Metroid Dread: An optional path presented by the DLC offers very similar tension and well… dread that reminded me of Metroid Dread in a great way.
  
• Portal: In addition to the similar thematic explorations of the risks and rewards of leveraging powerful AI, Cyberpunk 2077 also pays a more direct homage to Portal in one of the game’s questlines.

Fans of these science fiction movies - while not strictly cyberpunk in genre - will also be grinning when discovering their references in Cyberpunk 2077:

• Ghost in the Shell
  
• Terminator 2
  
• Blade Runner
  
• Robocop
  
• Akira

And last but not least, fans of the U.S. version of The Office have a terrific easter egg of a quest result waiting for them to discover.

A must.

Scribblenauts Unlimited is the definitive entry in a franchise whose creative gameplay offers great fun for all.

You play as young Maxwell who uses a magic notepad to bring his imagination's fancies into reality in order to help others. You string together nouns and adjectives and then objects spawn into (or disappear from) existence. The game provides base objectives that can be satisfied as practically or ridiculously as you'd like. You might be tasked with rescuing someone from a wild animal intent on attacking. You can create a weapon for defense, create a barricade to keep the animal out, bring forth the Loch Ness Monster to frighten it, or simply modify the animal itself to make it less hostile.

Previous (console and mobile only) Scribblenauts titles offered the core notepad gameplay with very few trimmings. One would select a level from a menu and complete a single multi-stage objective. Unlimited offers a much richer and more complete adventure driven by a story that explains Max's past and gives him motivation to seek out and assist people. There is a large world to explore, divided into distinct regions that contain thematically similar places to visit. Within each area there are now several more minor tasks of assistance for Max to carry out in addition to the traditional multi-stage type of challenge.

High resolutions are supported, there are no more limits on object creation, objects can be attached to each other (fire hydrant and hose), favorite creations can be remembered for quick re-spawning, and the game features Steam Workshop integration for continual communal expansion.

Super Hexagon is a fun and addictive game that involves surviving for as long as possible as obstacles close in.

The player rotates a little outward facing triangular turtle (to borrow the Logo term) to avoid getting trapped by barriers.

The game features 6 difficulty levels total with 3 base levels and "hyper" versions of each. A level is considered cleared if the player survives in it for at least 60 seconds.

Super Hexagon encourages - without frustration - better and better performances. Initially, surviving for over 15 seconds will seem like a great accomplishment while the 60 second goal is thought to be impossibly out of reach. The barrier patterns are randomly strung together with each playthrough. This allows for techniques to be developed without the need for rote learning. Along the way to 60 seconds the player will repeatedly attempt to improve upon the current best score. Doing so will be met with visual and audio rewards.

The game's minimalistic design is rounded out with brilliant subtleties. Only the front tip of the turtle must be kept out of harm's way, allowing the sides to make contact. The turtle has a terrific little wobble as it is moved left and right. The color changes and playing field rotation change between difficulty levels and also at different time marks within each level. On the most difficult level, shadows are used to pull off a pseudo 3D effect.

For controls, use WASD + spacebar or arrow keys + Enter. Use long continuous movements by pressing, holding, and releasing instead of repeated smaller movements.

Super Hexagon supports Steam cloud syncing and online leaderboards which can be filtered to only display the results of Steam friends.

The Saints Row games improve upon the Grand Theft Auto model in a way similar to how Torchlight improves upon Diablo.

For example, instead of having to physically retrieve a car from a garage ala the GTA model, SR3 effectively allows to unlock vehicle models the first time you acquire them. If you ever want a vehicle you've used before, you can retrieve it from any garage or even have it delivered to you by using the in-game cellphone. Beyond this measure to make vehicle selection more accessible, SR3 also takes the vehicle functionality much further by offering full customization via upgrades. You can alter a vehicle's performance and handling as well as its appearance. Every aspect of the GTA open world style gameplay formula has been looked at by the THQ team and similarly made more accessible and expanded upon.

You can completely customize the physicality and appearance of your character. You can choose between 6 voice actors (3 male, 3 female) who have remarkably all recorded the very extensive amount of dialogue for the game. This is fantastic. You're not forced to accept a predefined character just to enjoy a rich single player story with great voice acting.

Saints Row: The Third runs more smoothly and offers vastly better input and camera controls (particular with regards to the mouse and keyboard) than any other game in the genre. This is an extremely polished title and one that is quite at home on the PC.

The campaign is lengthy and an absolute blast to play the whole way through. You're given fork-in-the-road choices at multiple points in the story and your decisions carry satisfying weight through the rest of the campaign. Your actions impact and are reflected by the city and its people throughout the story. There is a huge amount of side activities to accomplish and plenty on offer to pure sandbox gameplay fans.

There's a healthy amount of Steam achievements available but there is also a ton of internal achievements as well that typically reward you based on aggregating stat totals that build up just by playing.

Dishonored is a first person perspective action game with an emphasis on stealth and infiltration. You are Corvo, a royal bodyguard whose honor has been taken from him. You are on a quest to right the wrongs you've suffered and to restore protection to the ones you love.

The art direction is absolutely fantastic. The visuals feature a watercolor effect and brilliant lighting. The setting is the fictional city of Dunwall which takes cues from 19th century Britain. This once utopian city is powered by marvelous period appropriate sci-fi technology but has fallen into disarray as a result of an outbreak of plague and a resulting brutal totalitarian containment effort.

The gameplay is all about choice. There are many optional quests and several ways to approach the required ones. There's a pacifist non-lethal approach, a never-discovered "ghost" approach, and a straightforward chaotically violent approach based on tremendously satisfying swordplay as well as pistol and crossbow combat. Your choices are dynamically reflected by the environment as you progress. NPCs offer scratch-my-back bargains that can be trusted or disregarded. There's a subplot involving the acquisition of supernatural powers that can enhance either your direct or indirect approach to the game's challenges.

I was happily reminded of some of the best parts from Half-Life 2, BioShock, and Thief. The controls and actions are fluid and frustration free; providing for a really satisfying realization of ideas that encourages experimentation. Dishonored is fun, smooth, beautiful, and highly recommended.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is my favorite RPG on Steam.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is my favorite game of 2011 and my favorite entry in the Deus Ex series.

Eidos Montreal has delivered a masterpiece for their first title, this prequel to the much beloved original Deus Ex.

Waves is a fixed map style shooter that is the most fun game in the genre that I've played since 1987's Crystal Quest.

Waves describes itself as "accessible" and that label is absolutely spot on. Waves never aggravates with its gameplay and never frustrates with any part of its implementation. It is beautiful, runs at high resolutions, and was clearly built for play on a computer.

Waves boasts a Matrix / Max Payne bullet time buffer that can be tapped to get the player out of a bind. Bombs and clustering virus cells round out the experience.

Waves' multiple game modes all feel like peers rather than second class additions to a primary mode, and each are fun and varied.

Diamond Dan is a quality indie platformer / puzzler hybrid that's whole family friendly. You are Dan and Ann and you are Indiana Jones style archeologist explorers in search of treasure and adventure.

You explore temples across the globe. As you make your way down to the bottom of each, you need to be smart about planning a route and you need to use quick reflexes to avoid various pitfalls.

Each temple is made up of blocks that can drop, push, crush, block, burn, jab, drown, and snatch you. The movement and spawning of the blocks differ with each playthrough and each continent provides its own look and feel for the temples. Dan can shove blocks and Ann can break them with her pickaxe; providing two distinct gameplay styles.

The difficulty ramps up smoothly and prepares you well for the chaos inside the later temples. There are also checkpoint style doors located at various depths. Great Steam achievements. OS X and Windows.