Rating: 7/10

Played episode 1 of this yeeears ago and remember finding it very underwhelming at the time. Liked it a lot more this time around! Probably helped that I've been deprived of a new Telltale for so long. Definitely was lower tier for the studio, but I've yet to play a Telltale game I haven't enjoyed.

Gonna keep my actual thoughts/choices to its thread

Abandoned

speaking of which! This game seemed FINE but apparently is like 10+ hours and I def wasn't enjoying it enough to put more time in. It was like a very generic noir but with a cast of Bojack-esque talking animals, didn't seem that special. Not sure why it had such high reviews on Steam tbh. PASS!

Completed

Mannn I love this series. Between this, Tomb Raider, and God of War I'm really liking all of these reboots of series that I never really played as a kid.

This def held its own among the first two. It did feel a lot shorter but had possibly my favorite two levels of any of the games? One was a clearly John Wick inspired club location which I liked both for that homage and the fact that it had some GR8 sound design. My woofers were putting in some WORK! The other was an absolutely massive level set in China which felt more open world than any other level I can think of. I never really go back and replay levels but this is the first one that's tempted me since it seems like there's so much you can do

The cutscenes/plot were as nonsensical as ever but I mean that's par for the course with these games. The gameplay is more of the same which is all it really needed to be. Keep crankin these out and I'll keep playing em. Something about the sandbox element just feels endlessly fun

Abandoned

idk, really wanted to give this game a chance after reading such great reviews about it but it just felt so...unremarkable. Clearly aping off BioShock right down to the undersea setting, but it pales in comparison with its worldbuilding and especially characters. It did have one good sequence (in the ~3 hours I gave it) where you're getting stalked by a creature which was p suspenseful but even that just felt like a knockoff Big Daddy sequence. Didn't seem like a bad game by any means but, if anything, I'd rather just play the superior version of it again instead. Pass!

Completed* (*kinda)

Kinda made a mistake not waiting to play this one since there's only two episodes out (with apparently three more to come) and I'll probably forget all about it when/if the rest of them get released.

But this was...dece! The "overwhelmingly positive" reviews aren't really warranted, but I did like the art style and the writing in this, both felt p atmospheric and was good for some SPOOKS.

Biggest disappointment was this being advertised as a Choices Matter type game which it very clearly isn't. There's like one single choice you get to make per episode which, if they DO matter much, doesn't really pay dividends in the first couple eps at least

Completed

One of the Steam reviews for this was just "another annapurna banger" and I could prob just leave it at that honestly. Annapurna is pretty much the A24 of indie games to me. I've liked every game I've tried from them, they're all so UNIQUE and fresh.

This wasn't their best game but I still really enjoyed it, fun little 4 hour adventure (with a p sick voice cast). The one-line version of the plot is you're pretty much Bob Dylan's nephew who goes on an adventure and turns into Ziggy Stardust. It gets real wacky and weird and the musical element is incorporated in a really fun way into the levels. It really makes you FEEL like a rockstar. HELL yeah!

Edith Finch > Sayonara Wild Hearts > Outer Wilds (so far) > Artful Escape > Gorogoa > The Unfinished Swan. All good to great tho!