Recent reviews by Samplepunk!

I never understood the appeal of the standard open world MMO formula until I played Guild Wars 2. My initial impression of the game was somewhat sour - after an hour and a half with my first character, playing solo, my experience was that Guild Wars 2 was nothing but a game where you run around, farm map events, complete often tedious sidequests, trudge through a story that has little depth, lament your lack of cool-looking armour, and wait for endgame before you're allowed to have fun. Perhaps it was silly of me to make this judgment based on the early solo experience - especially given that this is, critically, a multiplayer game - but that was years ago. Much later, I tried Guild Wars 2 again. A new character, with a different class, in a different starting zone, and this time in the company of a friend. This experience with Guild Wars 2's base game was a sheer delight. The story of Guild Wars 2 is expansive, adapting to player choice with a shocking amount of depth in fully voice-acted dialogue sequences. The lore of Guild Wars runs deep and complex, even where the plot is simplistic at best. The base game has sequences where the story is often boring, but it doesn't really matter. Guild Wars 2's cast of characters is incredibly lovable, and the game never takes itself too seriously. It's a refreshing departure from many of the other games I play. GW2 isn't trying to be an epic narrative or anything - it's trying to be a grand, fun, whimsical adventure, and through its free-form appproach to questing and exploration, as well as an almost overwhelming emphasis on open zone exploration, GW2 accomplishes what most modern MMOs don't - a sense of a journey. Though it's often janky and its gameplay is an acquired taste, Guild Wars 2 has quickly become one of my favourite games to play casually. The base game, as well as Living World Seasons 1 & 2 earn an 8/10 from me.

I was initially drawn into Dead Take by the endorsement of Sam Lake, director of the Max Payne and Alan Wake games. As a creator of excellent, often mind-bending experiences, his is a word I trust when it comes to the medium of video games as an art form. Dead Take did not disappoint. Starring Neil Newbon and Ben Starr as rival actors gunning for the same role in a notorious auteur's next film project, Dead Take is a horror walking-sim/escape room puzzler affair that is concise and satisfying from end to end. Though its horror elements leave much to be desired on the level of actual scares and tension, Dead Take paints a sickening picture of the lives affected by the ego of a single broken man in a way that makes the game memorable all the same. Minor supernatural and fantastical elements aside, Dead Take is an excellent example of realistic horror: the sinking realisation that the stories of the characters in the game are not very far removed from those of real people. Clocking in around 5 hours long, there's little to say about Dead Take without spoiling it, but I do recommend it for those interested in horror and film. 8/10.

I find it somewhat difficult to succinctly put my thoughts about Hollow Knight: Silksong into words. So much of my review seems obvious even to anybody who's only heard of Silksong in passing. The game is all gorgeous, hand-drawn art constructed into a masterfully designed metroidvania map featuring a character who is as iconic as she is engaging to control. Combat is fast and fluid, regardless of the player's choice of moveset, enemies are designed specifically around the toolkit available to the player, and bosses are equally challenging and fun. Not to even mention the music by Christopher Larkin, which is deserving of a review all of its own. Despite all this, something in me struggles to think of Silksong as a "perfect" game, and indeed, it isn't even my favourite game from its year of release. I played Silksong for 73 hours on my first playthrough, entirely without outside guidance. I found all three major endings, and achieved an 89% completion score on the whole game. Though I enjoyed the vast majority of this experience, there were several distinct points where I felt myself beginning to grow fatigued from the sheer scale and difficulty of the game. Very few challenges took me more than three attempts, but they all require a level of mechanical skill that is uncomfortable to maintain for long periods of time - and towards the back third of the game, I was so fatigued by the game that I had to put it down for weeks at a time. Metroidvania is an inherently intensive genre, requiring much in the way of mental load and map memorization, so the fact I made it so far in Silksong before feeling fatigued is worthy of praise, but it does not change the fact that this game is absurdly huge to the point where I enjoyed it less for its density of content. That said, it would be truly poor critique for me to say that any of this content is anything short of excellent, so I won't knock the game too hard for it. I've settled on a 9.5/10 score for Silksong. A masterpiece.

The Witcher is a game I find difficult to discuss, because even though I enjoyed it, it feels like almost every positive thing I have to say about the game is a backhanded compliment. The voice acting is just fine. It's not great, sometimes its not even good, but it gets the job done. The graphics? I'm sure they looked good back in 2007, but they've aged poorly, and the cracks begin to show whenever the hair or cloth physics start to glitch out. The story? Coneceptually fascinating, chock-full of interesting, morally gray choices that have a great effect on the narrative. But the phenomenal plot falls mostly flat, when character dialogue is poorly written and even more poorly presented. Gameplay is very simple: primitive action combat that asks nothing more of the player than to click enemies in time with the main character Geralt's flashy sword moves. Its supplemented by a fairly intricate alchemy and potion-brewing mechanic, but interacting with that mechanic is mostly optional on an easy or normal mode playthrough. Honestly, there are mostly just two things that kept me engaged throughout: the atmosphere, and the faithfulness to the books. The Witcher does a fantastic job of building the kingdom of Temeria into a living setting. Whether it's in the poor outskirts, the slums of the Temple Quarter, or the countryside village of Murky Waters, the art always manages to nail the setting as it is outlined in the books. The main plot hook of the game being Geralt's amnesia is nothing short of genius, at least on paper. Given that Geralt is a character with six whole novels worth of backstory and character, a trope that is usually a cover-up for a lack of character writing or a third-act twist is instead a tool for dramatic irony. Unfortunately, that irony doesnt work if the player hasn't read the books, and that means players like me who only started reading the books after getting into the game are left scratching their heads. Ultimately, The Witcher earns a 7/10 - you can read my extensive, full review on my blog - link in bio.

F.E.A.R. 3 is not a very good game. I have no previous experience with the F.E.A.R. series, but I'm given to understand that the third entry is by far the worst - and I'm inclined to agree. With flaccid gunplay and a truly awful story, what little value there is in F.E.A.R. 3 lies in its co-op systems and the simple brainless fun of shooting bad guys. Aesthetically, F.E.A.R. 3 languishes in gore and edgy darkness that comes off as equally performative and perverse, as the game relishes in all of its worst aspects. The best thing about this game is that it doesn't last very long, and can be burned through in about 4 hours. I am very thankful that I didn't have to spend any longer with this mediocre excuse for a first-person shooter, and I struggle to recommend it unless you have fun playing bad games and have a friend with similar tastes. I have little more to say about it. 5/10.

I think I love Final Fantasy VIII. This game is one of the black sheep of the Final Fantasy franchise, and it's not difficult to see why. Its progression system is weird and unintuitive, its story is difficult to parse, its main character is abrasive, and its aesthetic is a far cry from anything the franchise attempted before or after. Indeed, FF8 seems to be one of the more disliked entries in the franchise, often overlooked between its direct predecessor and successor. Needless to say, I began the game with very low expectations - more out of curiosity than anything else - but I was quickly shocked to discover that not only is Final Fantasy VIII captivating for its faults, it's also one of the most compelling narratives I've encountered in a video game, with an incredibly well-realized cast of characters that have gone on to become one of my favourites in the franchise. The main character, Squall, is moody and unlikeable at first, but throughout the story he begins to unravel, becoming both relatable and sympathetic through his relationship with his fellow mercenaries and especially Rinoa, his love interest. The result is one of the more emotional stories told in the franchise, along with Final Fantasies X and XVI. The world FF8 takes place in is also deeply intriguing, with a fully laid-out history and lore that makes the story engaging even during downtimes in the plot of the game itself. Said plot is often contrived, and would greatly benefit from many minor edits, but it is more than made up for by its visuals, which slowly ramp up from impressive and modern to shocking and avant-garde. The original soundtrack of Final Fantasy VIII has quickly made its way up my video game music ranking to a spot near the top with its modern take on fantastical orchestra. Though perhaps not as iconic as other soundtracks in the FF series, I find it to be far more interesting to listen to than most of the others, and can see myself listening to it well into the future. All told, I think Final Fantasy VIII is an incredibly underrated masterpiece, and though it hasn't aged very well, anybody comfortable with playing PS1 RPGs should absolutely give this one a shot. 8.5/10.

I find it rather strange that I have very little to say about Still Wakes the Deep. It's an atmospheric horror walking simulator set on an oil rig off the coast of Scotland, featuring heavy elements of sci-fi and body horror. It has excellent character writing, voice acting, environments, and sound design. It's a tight, 6-hour experience, and I loved most of my time with it. However, due its nature as a walking simulator, it has little in the way of memorable gameplay - which is fine, when the narrative is strong enough to carry the experience, but it does make it somewhat unmemorable. Though the plot and storytelling are rather great, with especially well-written dialogue and characters, it fails to interrogate any one character or theme, and only really adds up to a good experience in the moment, especially considering how much time in the game is devoted to plot beats rather than any actual story elements. It's far from being a stand-out in the genre, but it's good enough that I can recommend it to any fans of atmospheric horror. 7.5/10.

I don't know what to say about 1000xRESIST. It's incredible. A masterpiece. Thought-provoking, and emotional, and powerful in a way not many games ever manage. It has no gameplay to speak of - you walk and you talk, and that's it. I'm almost grateful for that. Action gameplay could have interfered with the thoughtful direction style of the story, whereas puzzle-solving or turn-based gameplay might have felt interruptive or frustrating. It helps that the game is incredibly visually striking, calling to mind games like Killer7, VA-11 Hall-A, and NieR: Automata. That said, it's a dangerous thing, to exclude engaging gameplay from a video game; one must rely on a script to make up for it - and nothing short of masterful would do. Thankfully, 1000xRESIST has a masterful script. It tackles an impressive number of topics and issues, but more impressive than the number of topics is the grace with which they are handled. I didn't feel at any moment that an element of the story was being underplayed, and no beat overstayed its welcome. 1000xRESIST is not a game for everyone, and that's a good thing. It feels uniquely written from a specific perspective, for a specific audience, and in the current climate of video game releases, that's actually very refreshing. This isn't to say I don't have any criticisms of the game, but what few I have are very uniquely my own, and don't hold much water from an objective perspective. Art for everybody is art for nobody, after all. It's difficult to discuss 1000xRESIST without spoiling it, and the game is best experienced as blind as possible, so without saying anything further, I leave it with a 9/10, and the most emphatic recommendation I can give. If you only ever take stock in one of my recommendations, let it be this one.

Rabbit & Steel is not the type of game I normally tend to drift towards. Though I have been known to enjoy specific roguelikes such as Risk of Rain or Hades, it's a genre that I often stay away from, for the most part - in many cases, the lack of progression inherent to roguelikes leaves me unsatisfied, and the central appeal of the genre, being the gradual understanding and learning process of a game's systems, is very rarely enough for me to get hooked. Rabbit & Steel appeals to me in a different way - its gameplay. Many roguelikes - and indie games in general - seem to fall into similar aesthetic or mechanical categories, which makes Rabbit & Steel feel like a refreshing breath of nighttime air. It takes the basic idea of roguelike and roguelite progression and applies it to a gameplay style that I not only hold near and dear to my heart, but also see far too little of beyond its established niche - MMO-style raiding. It uses a simplified version of the global cooldown systems present in Final Fantasy XIV and World of Warcraft, combined with intricate bossfights and a cutesy, lo-fi aesthetic that makes the game simultaneously heart-poundingly exciting and extremely relaxing. With myriad upgrade items and characters to unlock, as is par for the course with most roguelites, Rabbit and Steel challenges a gaming skillset that I rarely have a chance to engage with, and does so in a thoroughly enjoyable way. With every increase in difficulty, more mechanics are added to the raid encounters, and as your toolkit is every-so-slightly different in each run, your knowledge of the encounters themselves matters more than your knowledge of what the most optimal build or strategy is. Though I have little more to say about it, Rabbit & Steel is a game I loved to bits, and I recommend it to any who might have an interest in MMO raiding. 8/10.

Ever since beginning my journey through the Final Fantasy franchise over two years ago, there was no title I dreaded playing more than Final Fantasy IV. Being the only entry in the series I had played before, I went into FF4 with no small amount of nostalgia - and though I played it too long ago to remember many details about its narrative and characters, I could vividly recall the visuals, the music, and the emotion held within this 15-hour RPG. I remember absolutely falling in love with it, and so I was worried that the game wouldn't hold up. Being the first game in the series to really hone in on the narrative aspect of the RPG genre, there was plenty of reason for FF4 to make mistakes with its pacing and characters - it would have made sense if it sucked. Thankfully, my worries were unfounded. Final Fantasy IV feels reminiscent of a soap opera - every narrative and character beat is steeped in melodrama and overwritten to a degree that might cause other narratives to drown in exaggeration and lose all meaning. Every line is written as though it's the most important thing in the world, every conflict is settled through either a fight or a sacrifice, and the tone of the whole story is nothing short of bombastic. That said, with the visuals of the game being so simplistic, the intensity of the writing actually serves to compensate for a lack of other emotional indicators, balancing a boring presentation style with its excess, and keeping the game interesting. Every character has something to do in the narrative, and the large rotating ensemble cast is always entertaining and compelling. The result of this tonal balancing act is a surprisingly emotional story. Aided by an excellent soundtrack and a healthy dose of nostalgia, Final Fantasy IV manages to deliver a truly compelling narrative - surprisingly so, considering its simplicity. The world Cecil and Co. explore throughout their journey is impressively vast too, featuring double the content I was expecting from the game. For its epic journey and memorable characters, Final Fantasy IV earns a 7.5/10.