is this the best written game of all time? is such a thing even possible to quantify? regardless, za/um's rpg masterpiece is a true masterclass in its worldbuilding, narrative development, and characterization. the game's narrative has a depth that no other game has come close to matching and it does so while managing to stay focused and fun to play. every character has their own unique story and pathos, with a strong narrative and sense of theme tying the whole story together.

untethered by more mainstream sensibilities, disco elysium has a deeply rich world brimming with ideological conflicts, characters with their own personal histories and issues, and a story that is grounded in both real-world concepts and those unique to the game's fiction. and it does so in a way that doesn't feel overwhelming or obtrusive, as often happens in other games that try to convey a deep world and narrative.

disco elysium's narrative is something that feels truly alive, with the story reacting to your actions in meaningful ways that don't require constant focus on every minor choice but do impact the story in important ways.

the voice acting provided by the final cut is also an immense standout - it's rare that every performance in a game is standout, but i genuinely think every one of disco elysium's voice performances is great, from large ones like the main detectives to smaller ones like the various characters in the city.

my personal favourite part of disco elysium, its excellent worldbuilding and thematic conflict between optimism and cynicism, is executed with such true sincerity that it's hard to not find it affecting even if you disagree with the ideological positioning of the game.

if you haven't played disco elysium, i can't recommend it enough. if you have, then you likely already know how amazing it is.

it is one of the best nonlinear narratives to ever grace the medium, and it is truly a shame that we may never see more from the world of elysium. regardless, this is one of the few games i currently really consider a must-play.

Gostei da arte desse jogo, simples e não muito desafiador. É uma roleta russa praticamente só que com uma espingarda. O bacana é que o jogo te da itens para melhorar a jogada.

Seu objetivo é sobreviver a 3 rodadas, nessas rodades serão colocadas balas reais e de festim. Usando os recursos você pode ver qual é o cartucho (azul para festim e vermelho bala real), recuperar uma vida, fazer o oponente perder a próxima rodada, aumentar o dano da espingarda para 2.

Não tem muito segredo, só ficar atento as cores do cartucho e utilizar os itens com sabedoria.

O jogo é bem divertido, daria ali para perder um bom tempinho jogando, e tem um visual único.

Silent Hill 3 is a game I played when I was younger but never finished. Even without completing it, I always felt there was something off about this game that made it less interesting than the others, and now I understand why.

This game can be divided into two parts: from the beginning to the middle, and from the middle to the end, because they feel like two completely different games. From the start to the middle, the game abandons the traditional level design and puzzles, essentially throwing them out the window. It becomes a never-ending fetch quest—go to a location, walk around until you've checked all the locked doors, find item X, and move on. This gets tiring very quickly because you realize your exploration doesn’t matter. You're just entering rooms to grab a single item to move on to the next area (and sometimes, finding the item or dealing with the camera can leave you feeling lost), making the game map feel more like a long corridor than a living, interactive setting.

The game doesn’t help itself either, as during these long corridors, combat isn’t encouraged. Combine that with the monsters that pose no real challenge for the first half of the game, and you’re simply going from point A to point B to reach the next scenario.

From the middle to the end, there’s a plot twist (which I think is good, but later on, I realize it could have been used better), and the game returns to the old format, though it still leans heavily on these closed corridor fetch quests.

The puzzles get a lot better, but if you've played the first two games in a row, you might feel a bit tired, as they could have introduced some new locations within Silent Hill, though that’s a minor issue.

I find the game's ending quite stupid. You struggle to figure out where to go because the setting turns into an incomprehensible brown blur, and you'll often get lost because of it. Combine that with the double-damage enemies, and it can be frustrating. The bosses are okay; I’ve seen people complain about the final boss, but with patience, it’s not too difficult to beat.

I do have an issue with the game's length. Coming from Team Silent, who had two incredible games under their belt, I was surprised to finish this game in just 3 hours and 47 minutes on my first run, which feels quite short for a game that could have offered much more.

As for the story, I think it’s good. I have a lot of affection for the first game, and many of the callbacks to it are well done, but the supporting cast feels weak, especially when compared to the excellent secondary characters in the first two games.

This game adopts a lighter tone, which at times clashes with what’s happening, but I understand the shift, as they couldn’t just repeat Silent Hill 2 (not even Konami with the remake can pull that off, so there’s that).

I really enjoy the soundtrack, and for me, it gave the cutscenes much more emotional weight. I genuinely believe the scene with Douglas and Heather in the car is one of the most beautifully directed scenes I’ve ever seen.

In the end, I think it’s the weakest of the first three, but with its short duration, it’s still worth checking out.

What an absolute delight of a game.

Astro Bot is everything I could want out of a modern mascot platformer--eye-popping colors, a satisfying weight behind every punch and jump, fun and varied gimmick powerups, and tons and tons of optional levels to unlock and collectibles to grab. And, my favorite of all, a huge central hub world that evolves and populates as you progress.

The levels themselves are surprisingly short--they'll take, at most, fifteen minutes to complete if you're poking your nose into every nook and cranny for bots and puzzle pieces--but I think that works to the game's advantage; it doesn't give the powerups the opportunity to become stale or overstay their welcome, and it means that checkpoints can be placed relatively close together, so a death will only set you back a couple minutes of platforming. This also means that running through them again for anything you missed won't eat up too much time, so the grind for coins and missing collectibles isn't too burdensome.

The optional challenge levels, though equally short, are a little more onerous; some are ridiculously simple, only requiring you to punch out a couple of waves of voxel-style enemies to earn the special bot at the end, while others demand twitch reflexes and precision platforming. You can expect to restart each of the latter a dozen or so times on average--and though this was frustrating, I will say that I never felt that many of those deaths were particularly unfair. They require you to retain a decent understanding of how far you can push Astro's jump and glide, or keep track of enemy and platform timing, or just not choke, but hitboxes are tight, coyote time is in full effect, and it'll typically feel like more of your own fault than the game's when you do have to restart. I do wish they had implemented a pity checkpoint system after a certain death threshold in those levels, though; getting unlucky with enemy cycles during the final stretch in certain stages could get tiresome after ten or so attempts.

The game's theming is...a point of contention, and on one hand, I absolutely understand. Flying around on a Dualsense™️ glider to collect the missing parts of the PS5™️ mothership™️™️™️ as a little guy who is absolutely going to become as many marketable plushies as possible after this is a little embarrassing. But on the other hand, I am absolutely not immune to nostalgia-bait. I did, on more than one occasion, gasp with delight when I came upon a bot that was themed after one of my favorite objective flop titles, and then gasp with delight again when I unlocked an accessory for them that granted them a unique animation upon being punched in the hub world (and that's another thing--most of the 150+ special bots have accessories and animations that can be unlocked from the gacha machine in the hub world, a carryover from Astro's Playroom). It never really felt like a cynical attention-grab to me; most of these cameos feel like they were crafted with the care and attention of a team that is truly passionate about games.

In all, I think Astro deserves all the hype and praise he's getting, and I hope we see a lot more of him--and of Team Asobi--in the future.