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Kathy Rain – 10 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/13/2026
Posted in: Android, iOS, Linux, Mac, Mobile Reviews, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, Steam Deck Playable, Steam Deck Verification, Switch. Leave a comment

Publisher: Raw Fury

Developer: Clifftop Games

Release Date: 05/05/2016

Available On

Whether you love or hate Sierra point-and-click adventure games, they are the gold standard for storytelling and world-building for this genre. Although many games struggle to overcome the typical issues of the genre, we can often overlook them for their other remarkable achievements. The game boasts a captivating narrative, well-developed characters, impressive voice acting, and a captivating atmosphere, complemented by intriguing visuals and music. Kathy Rain is a modern-day recreation of what made Sierra games so great, and I’m not sure I wanted a decade to discover it.

You play as the titular Kathy Rain, a troubled college student in the mid-90s who ends up stumbling upon a murder mystery involving her family. The game does an impressive job building this up from just a weekend curiosity to an all-out paranormal investigation. While 75% of the game is the build-up to the paranormal part , there’s an underlying question that I could never shake. Is Kathy completely sane? She had a troubled childhood, and there are a few scenes depicting her past, but the sudden death of her grandfather sparks a murder mystery that involves the entire town. I would rather not talk too much about the story and spoil a lot, but the story is the majority of what makes this game worth sticking to.

There are some usual adventure title issues that pop up. For one, players often find themselves unsure of what to do half the time. Without a walkthrough, you will be clicking around on every object like a mad man, trying to figure out what to do. At least the UI is well designed. Each item is labelled on the screen with simple white text, and you can click on it, and Kathy will talk about it. If there’s more than one action, a few icons will pop up around that object. There ‘s inventory at the bottom. Like all games in this genre, you can use the object with anything else to make things happen, but the object hunting can get really tiresome, stretching out unnecessary playtime. Occasionally what seems logical in real life doesn’t work in the game. For example, one scene has Kathy making a homeless person perform a play in front of someone to distract them. You need to zap him with a taser to feign a seizure for the distraction. Having to literally use every object on everything in every single screen can get really tiresome, and Kathy Rain is terrible about managing it. This game would be difficult to enjoy without a walkthrough, and that’s a shame.

Because this is a detective game, you have a list of topics to talk about with certain people, and to advance the story, you need to trigger the correct sequence of events. If you don’t talk to someone about a topic and miss it, you will get stuck often. It’s almost like this game wasn’t designed to be played without a walkthrough at all. Outside of that, Kathy Rain has a great atmosphere with some cool visuals and world-building. As you discover new locations in town and talk to people, you get a backstory of the town and Kathy’s family, and it really pulled me in. The voice acting is pretty impressive, and unlike Sierra games, there are adult themes here with cussing, as it’s not trying to capture a teen audience. There are some captivating visuals towards the end of the game, and the music is very atmospheric and surreal-feeling. Sometimes the game feels too grounded in reality, and the paranormal side feels like a striking contrast and actually stands out too much.

Overall, Kathy Rain is a pretty good adventure title if you follow a guide. I feel the most interesting parts of the story and the twist start to crescendo into something weird and exciting, but the climax is never really focused on. It fizzles out before things truly start getting odd and crazy, and I feel a sequel could really drive that home. While Kathy Rain has neat visuals and they look good, the resolution is pretty low, and it’s difficult to read in some spots. However, anyone who loves adventure games will really get into this game. I feel like being more adult-focused and less teen-driven can bring a layer of intensity to the game and story that most don’t go for in this genre, allowing for deeper themes and more complex character development that resonate with an older audience.

Reviewed On

Mixtape

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/11/2026
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Annapurna Interactive

Developer: Beethoven & Dinosaur

Release Date: 05/07/2026

Available On

There is a certain moment in our lives that everyone is always chasing or trying to recapture. We don’t know it when we’re in this moment, but it’s one of the biggest draws of nostalgia, especially for Gen X and Millennials. That moment is the first major turning point in our lives. Where we go from a teenager to an adult. It’s both exhilarating and incredibly frightening at the same time. This jarring shift happens faster than any of us want it to, and we are always trying to cling on to that childhood just a few moments longer, but for reasons we don’t understand. Maybe we don’t want to go to college; we want to pursue dreams or hobbies, or some of us just end up with the wrong crowd and can’t find a way out. That turning point is graduating high school, turning 18, and becoming an adult. A million social and economical responsibilities are thrust upon us and against our will, with many of us not ready for it or prepared for what society has to give us. This is that single fleeting moment that Mixtape is trying to capture, and this is probably the only game that I’ve played that has done it right.

Some of us may have had friends in high school, and after graduation we fell apart. Either by choice or unknowingly, just due to life and the way that current pushes us. Some may have gone away to a college in another town. Some may have got three jobs and are working constantly with no more time for fun. Some may have got into trouble and wound up in jail. Sometimes our parents move away after high school and we start a brand new life. Mixtape does a fantastic job of bringing you into this fleeting moment and the emotions behind each of those singular and granular events. From running away from a house party to finding a hangout spot and cleaning it up. Mixtape follows three high school friends, Cassandra, Stacy, and Van, as they try to prepare for the last major house party before graduation. This sounds cheesy and like something out of a mid 2000s teen movie, but it’s not that at all. That’s the end goal, but it’s everything in between that sweeps us up emotionally and keeps us glued to the screen.

The only other game I can compare this type of emotional depth to is Life is Strange. While that game is capturing a very different feeling of this age group, it’s similar in both aesthetic and tone. The game starts out with you skateboarding to a licensed track down a long hill. It seems overly long, the autumn leaves crunching under your wheels, the sun close to setting, and you don’t have a care in the world. Stacy is the main protagonist, and she breaks the fourth wall to talk to the player and introduce each track to her mixtape of life, if you will. She’s a music nerd and is trying to make her last and final mixtape to capture that fleeting moment, but she just doesn’t say it. This overly long downhill skate through a rural town in Northern California captures the first of those granular moments. You may remember doing things like this, but just the colours of the time of day, the orange and yellow leaves, the cool air, and laughing with your friends. The game overexaggerates each of these moments that Stacy is in while she’s listening to these tracks. It visually represents the feelings you have and probably remember. It’s truly magical.

Each room you end up in (each of the three friends) has objects you can examine, and Stacy will narrate with her inner voice, similar to Max in Life is Strange. There’s a similar vibe with the way sketch lines dance on screen and harsh sunlight filters through the room. The characters move in a stop-motion animated way, and this helps invoke that feeling of remembering your past. The game is set in the late 90s, so only those who grew up then will remember this specific time period. Internet was scarce, and there was no social media or smartphones yet. While I wasn’t in high school yet at the time, I was in the 4th grade when this game was set, so I have similar memories of playing outside with friends without a care in the world. Laughter echoing in my mind as I think back to those innocent days of youth where the only thing I had to worry about was how my hair looked. These are clearly also some of the only concerns with Stacy and her friends. They want to party and drink beer, and Stacy wants to be off to New York to chase down a music producer to show her a mixtape she has made to start a new career, school be damned.

When you select the orange highlighted items in each room, you will fall back to a memory. This is how each character is introduced and their personalities unfold. The developers did a fantastic job of giving us these three new characters in just a few hours and making you care about them. The writing is sharp and tight, and there isn’t a single scene wasted. The voice acting is fantastic, and I really got sucked into this game and never put it down. Each memory consists of a mini-game or some sort of simple gameplay element. That’s the only major drawback to this game. There isn’t much gameplay here. Some of the mini-games, such as flying through the air and doing jumps, can be fun, but again this is an exaggerated feeling. Maybe you’re just walking home from a friend’s house but feel so high with endorphins that it feels like you’re flying. This euphoric state is the type of emotion that is evoked from the player. Every feeling is visually represented rather than just talked about.

Most of the scenes are bonding experiences each person had with each other, but the overarching story involves trying to get to that beach party and the unaddressed feelings of Stacy leaving for New York and possibly never coming back. It’s pretty emotional and moved me quite a bit towards the end. Cassandra’s overbearing parents and Van’s underbearing mother both get thrown in, and it all just worked. I’ve played so many short indie games that just can’t do a story or character arc right in such a short time because it requires sharp writing because you can’t waste a single scene. Running through a local abandoned dinosaur exhibit and taking photos on a crappy digital camera, trying to rent videos while drunk, etc. The music is also a huge part of stirring up emotions, and it feels like each track is set just right. We’ve all heard these songs before, and I recognised most as I grew up with my parents listening to these songs. Most are set between the late 60s through the 90s, ranging from rock to post-punk and grunge metal.

Overall, Mixtape is such a nice surprise and a treat for those who grew up in the late 90s. The analogue media that floats around the game’s mechanics and vibe is something that a lot of us miss. It just reminds me how much smartphones and social media have destroyed creating intimate moments with friends and the feeling of discovery. We aren’t forced to go outside anymore and make memories but instead can create them digitally. While I understand the benefit and convenience that this tech has brought us, there is also an ugly and dark side to it that can’t be ignored. Between Mixtapes‘ fantastic visual style, licensed soundtrack, and the very specific way of invoking emotions, there’s so much crammed into this 3-hour game. The three characters are well-written and surprisingly memorable, and I feel like this game is something I might go back to someday.

Reviewed On

5.1 Surround Sound

Cloudpunk – 6 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/08/2026
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S. Leave a comment

Publisher: Ion Lands

Developer: Ion Lands

Release Date: 04/23/2020

Available On

Cyberpunk games that are good are far and few between. They either nail the aesthetic but don’t have a good story or gameplay. Even fewer have interesting lore wrapped around their particular flavour of cyberpunk world. Cloudpunk does this part right. Building interesting lore on top of a compelling story with interesting characters, but sadly not getting the gameplay part right. Despite this caveat, the game is worth playing if you love stories and interesting worlds to explore. Cloudpunk pits you as a delivery driver, Rainia, who migrates from the Eastern continent to the city of Ravalis to escape her past. You end up doing delivery work for the titular Cloudpunk black market service. What unfolds is Rainia getting pulled into a crazy plot with interesting characters and the fate of the world itself.

Cloudpunk does a great job trying to make you feel small in its oppressive overworld. The lore for how this world has come to be is pretty deep, and there is a lot of NPC dialogue and quests surrounding this. The game is set hundreds of years into the future in which few cities remain and most of the world’s population are inside those. There is a class system where capitalism has taken over the world for good, and CEOs live on top of the clouds with better air and water, while the poorest live in the duct systems, farming algae and surviving cold storms from the massive city ventilation system. It’s a really fun world to be a part of, and hearing all of these stories helps build all of this up. Like the best RPGs out there, from The Elder Scrolls to The Witcher, the small parts are what matter the most. You get a large map, and each part of the city is broken down into burroughs. When you land in a part of the city that is walkable, you can see faces on the mini-map. These are optional NPCs to talk to that either give side quests or just some lore to fill you in on the everyday life of people. The morality about androids and them having rights like humans as well as the abuse they go through and how they are implemented into society is very detailed here and sucked me right in. Phillip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov are clear inspirations here.

Outside of walking around and talking to people, you can pick up items scattered around that are just junk parts. Either sell them or keep them, and they might be useful for someone, but most of the time it’s just for cash which is needed for gas, repairs to your HOVA, and adding optional cosmetic upgrades to your apartment. You spend most of the game in the HOVA cars, and as you zip around, you can easily damage the car and have to repair it. You can buy a few simple upgrades and eventually get to pick a much better car halfway through the story. The HOVA feels fine to drive, but navigating this game gave me Jak II vibes, and that’s not super great. The game’s world feels like it was built in the PS2 era. Very small maps that are cut up between loading screens. The same “whooshing” sound effects as you pass by cars. Many of the neon signs repeat often, and while the scale of the city is grand, it’s all an illusion. The foggy sky, distant neon buildings, infinite skywalks and buildings. None of this is explorable just like older games from 20 years ago. When you do land on a walkable area, it’s mostly just sidewalks to run around to the next navpoint. There are no puzzles or combat in the game, so it’s just a vehicle for an enjoyable story and interesting lore.

I wanted Cloudpunk to be more. I really got invested in the characters. There are a few plot twists in the story and the character arcs that got me hooked. I kept coming back to the game wanting to know what happens next. The writing is incredibly sharp and intentional. The voice acting is a bit different from many other games. It sounds like real-life dialogue. A lot of emotion and nonchalance from Rainia over life-or-death situations. There’s depth to all of the characters. The game forces you to struggle with feelings about androids and whether they should be treated like machines or humans. This is all just in the dialogue. I can only imagine if this game had a larger budget with a more detailed world to explore, this could be something huge. Deliveries are also all the same. Pick this up and drop it off. Sometimes you get a choice to decide the fate of certain characters, which is nice, and you really do sit there and think of the consequences.

Driving around the same areas for nearly 10 hours gets tiring quickly. I wound up ignoring everything else in the game, such as stopping at food vendors and merchants, as they served no purpose. The only truly grating issue was that lengthy dialogue would play out with nothing to do. There’s no navpoint given to you so you can drive while listening to the dialogue. Many times I just sat there staring at the screen for many minutes. Outside of this, the voxel art style is to be desired. I didn’t care for it, but the overall style they go with is passable. I feel like the game’s world isn’t done justice with this art style, but the neon-soaked blacks and greys work well enough to invoke emotion when streaking through the sky to the next destination. The music is really good, with retrowave-style synth and techno music as well as the never-ending rain. There’s a lot of potential here in a sequel or something, but there are a lot of reasons for someone not to care for this game. The game features up to 7.1 surround sound. With my 5.1 system the world came to life. HOVAs whizzing by, characters walking around, rain pattering on buildings, sirens going off behind me. The soundscape is half of what drew me into the game.

Overall, Cloudpunk has sharp writing and well-written characters with enough lore and a unique take on a cyberpunk setting to be worth your time. I feel a lot of the extra stuff is a waste of time, and the map design is very early 00s feeling, and that can be both good and bad. There’s nothing to do outside of driving around and doing deliveries minus a timed mission here and there. The art style, while quite good, has a voxel style that doesn’t do the overall art direction justice, but what’s here is pretty good and worth your time if you love stories and lore.

Reviewed On

5.1 Surround Sound

Crisol: Theater of Idols

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/03/2026
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Unsupported, Steam Deck Verification, Xbox Series X|S. Leave a comment

Publisher: Blumhouse Games

Developer: Vermila Studios

Release Date: 02/10/2026

Available On

Have you ever been afraid of the Sun? In Crisol you should be. You are Gabriel Escudero. A warrior sent by the Sun god to set things straight on the twisted island of Tormentosa. The story is very disjointed, difficult to follow, and overall not very interesting. It has some neat ideas peppered throughout, but the game is so spread out that the story elements are lost on the player. The main hook in Crisol is the blood weapons. You get five different weapons that share ammo with your health. This makes the game a survival-horror light, as the horror elements aren’t really explored much and just lightly tossed in. You must fight living puppets, which are neat and interesting-looking enemies, but the same few repeat often. In fact, there are only four types in the entire game. The types of enemies include melee puppets, crossbolt puppets, stalker types, and flying puppets. It gets old really fast, but it’s not the only thing that gets worn out in the game.

There are a lot of balancing issues in this game. For starters, you only get five weapons in the game. Your starter weapon is a pistol. You get a double-barrel shotgun a bit later, but weapons are spread pretty far apart, and you don’t get the final weapon until the last level. The main gameplay element here in combat is balancing health and ammo, as they are one and the same. You reload by pressing the spikes on the gun against your hand, and this draws blood out to fill your ammo. Of course this makes the game harder, as you are now scrounging for health stims and dead animals to absorb their blood. This is the only way to heal. Combat is, sadly, a bit janky-feeling. Animations are very slow, and you can’t quickly get out of animations. For example, if you are reloading, Gabriel looks at his hand before you can shoot. Another example is there’s a delay with the melee attack to parry, and this never feels right. Most of the enemies in the game are melee enemies, and they can swarm you. I never felt like I had a good arsenal to deal with these enemies. The pistol is really weak until halfway through the game, where you can get enough upgrades. The shotgun uses way too much health to reload, so you only use it to get out of a tight situation, which isn’t what the shotgun should be for. I mostly used the pistol through the entire game.

This really makes the game boring and repetitive. Once you fight the first few puppets and the weird and creepy tone sets in, you are over it. You later get a sniper rifle, which is very slow to reload and feels mostly useless as most of the combat is close quarters. The last weapon you get is a sub-machine gun, but it is incredibly slow to reload without any upgrades and is hard to keep stable and does little damage. This arsenal just never felt good to use or felt balanced. On top of all that, you need gasoline cans to sharpen your knife as it dulls with each attack. These survival-horror-type elements just don’t feel good here. There are a couple of boss fights, and the final boss is an unfair chore to fight. There is also an automaton named Dolores that roams certain areas and can grab you. These areas require you to sneak around and solve simple puzzles, and I felt these were annoying more than anything. Many times her AI would glitch out, and she would stop right in front of a hiding spot and never move, requiring me to run and risk getting hit.

Most of the game is running around finding keys and solving elaborate puzzles that can be fun or annoying depending on who you are. The clues are pretty useless, and I resorted to guides for most of them. Each main area has a central hub you come back to that has a save point and an upgrade station, and most of the game repeats like this. Run around various hallways shooting enemies, solve a puzzle, find a key, and repeat. Most of the game felt like a chore to play, as there was no variation in between. There were no scripted events, no opportunities for exploration, and nothing else to engage with. Just run around hoping you’re not getting turned around just to do it again later.

There’s clear inspiration from BioShock and Resident Evil here. From the various types of puzzles and main menu unlocks (gallery and models) from RE to the art deco style of BioShock. It looks great for a budget title. I felt that there was way too much pointless clutter everywhere, and the game is incredibly linear but hard to navigate. The map is mostly useless, as there’s no arrow or flashing icon of where to go next. Some levels were mazes of doors, hallways, ladders, and unlocking shortcuts. There are secrets in the game that give you chests, health upgrades, and more silver bulls to spend for upgrades. You need crow relics to buy passive abilities which I felt just didn’t do much. Many of these felt useless. What you really need are the silver bulls for weapon upgrades, and these are essential for survival. Without maxing out most of your weapons by the end, you won’t really get far.

The game suffers from a lot of FPS drops and dips down into the teens frequently. There were also multiple crashes when reloading from death, and the overall feeling of the game isn’t exactly polished. The game just feels like random hallways and rooms put together to make a level. There’s no cohesive flow to anything visually or mechanically. The entire game feels like a video game level from 2012 rather than a believable world. I applaud the small team for trying to do something different, but they bit off more than they could chew here, and it shows. The game is entertaining for those desperate for an early 10s FPS or something similar to Resident Evil or BioShock. The unique weapon mechanic isn’t balanced well enough to really pull you in, and the story is so disjointed and confusing that you won’t really care. There’s also the awful voice acting from everyone but Gabriel. The voice acting was so bad in some spots that it really pulled me out of the game. The story isn’t strong enough to save the game and the art style only goes so far. For the $20 price tag there’s some good value here, but don’t come in expecting greatness like the game it’s inspired by.

Reviewed On

5.1 Surround Sound

Mouse: P.I. for Hire

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 05/03/2026
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S. Leave a comment

Publisher: PlaySide Studios

Developer: Fumi Games

Release Date: 04/16/2026

Available On

1940s cartoons have slowly grown in popularity, but especially their art style due to copyrights running out mostly from Disney. This had led to many horror projects or inspirations from these shows (Bendy, Cuphead). Mostly stemming from Steamboat Willy and his ilk, Mouse: P.I. for Hire doesn’t just take inspirations from the cartoon era it replicates but also other first-person games like Doom. Mouse is a first-person shooter that is very similar to the first two Doom games with some obvious elements of the newer reboots. First and foremost, P.I. for Hire is a fantastic game to look at. It’s not easy to make a black-and-white game due to the lack of colours that are used to give visual clues to gamers. Clearly the developers used white on black contrast to deliver basic video game language to players, and that’s quite tricky.

While I would love to say that Mouse is a fantastic Doom clone and is basically Doom: Steamboat Willy Edition, there are some glaring issues that kept this game from greatness. While the shooting mechanics feel really good and every gun has it’s own purpose and style there are some balancing issues with Mouse. You start out with the Mouser (haha), which is a semi-automatic pistol, and that’s totally fine. However, you get stuck with this single weapon for way too long. In fact, the weapons are spread so far apart it makes you want to stick with just a single gun. Like the newer Doom reboots, there are tons of pickups in every area. You rarely run out of ammo, so this doesn’t encourage mixing things up. That goes hand in hand with enemy design. Doom has a very distincft design that forces you to switch weapons for different enemies and their distance. Mouse desperately wants to be a close-quarters arena-style shooter, but these areas just aren’t big enough. There also isn’t enough multi-layering to give you breathing room or strategies. Most levels all play out exactly the same, which is multiple corridors bookended by an area with monster closets and almost no verticality. Some act as hubs, and as you come back around throughout the level, more monster closets will open, but this becomes very tedious.

There is a main hub that has your office where you pin clues you find in each level. You can also upgrade weapons with found blueprints and buy ammo and collectibles as well as play a baseball card-style poker game, which I didn’t find very interesting or fun to play. Maybe because I’m not a baseball fan. Money is accumulated incredibly slowly, so you have to be mindful about what you buy. If you don’t care about collectibles, you only use it to buy ammo so you’re stocked up before each mission. I wish there were more uses for money; again, this is part of the balancing issues in this game. When you upgrade weapons (up to three times), you get a cool visual added to the weapon but also a secondary fire option which harkens back to Resistance or Ratchet & Clank, but they aren’t as clever. The shotgun lets you charge up a double shot; the double-barrel shotgun lets you fire both barrels; the James Gun lets you shoot a burst of ammo; the mouser lets you do 3-round bursts. It’s not very diversified, and despite the amount of weapons you get, there are still more balancing problems with these. The pump-action shotgun and double barrel are mostly repetitive. The double-barrel is slow to reload and doesn’t let you carry much (12 rounds), and there are no long-distance weapons. Everything is short- to medium-range, but there are no long-range areas. There is only one explosive weapon (cannon) and one throwable (TNT), which make another pair of weapons repetitive. The brain gun is fun but doesn’t do much outside of exploding heads but requires constant contact. There’s a freeze gun, which I didn’t find useful, as it only freezes one enemy at a time and takes too long. I can go on.

I mostly stuck to the pump-action shotgun and the James gun, as those two complemented each other. Close-quarters damage and being able to shoot many enemies at once. I rarely touched the Mouser after unlocking those two. There’s a paint gun that does a bit more damage, but what I wanted were weapons that do splash damage or another type of fast-firing weapon. The enemies also always repeat. There are enemies with shields, melee enemies, big melee guys that take a lot of damage, and flying enemies, and that’s about it. This gets old really fast as there are nearly 15 levels in the game. Many levels look the same, with several set in swamps, warehouses, movie lots, etc. With everything being black and white, I wanted to see more diversity in scenery. You can unlock passive abilities like hovering, double jump, wall run and climb, but these are rarely used and felt like afterthoughts. There are no puzzles in the game either. The only puzzle is technically tail-picking, which is a nice change from The Elder Scrolls style of lock-picking. This consists of pins and a maze-style lock. You have to push the pins while moving through the maze. Some are timed and some have hazards, while others have limited moves. The problem is that once you do a few, they are all the same with zero challenge. This compels you to skip optional safes and doors in order to progress.

That’s what you will do through most of Mouse. Moving forward just to get to the next thing. The story is mildly interesting, but poorly told. It feels very disjointed, and half of the time I don’t know what was going on. There are multiple cases going on at once, and a lot of them cross over. There are typical noir-type stereotypes in the game, and they just were not clever or interesting. The voice acting is good, and I like some of the mouse-related puns, like ‘fondue’ being alcohol and ‘cheese powder’ being drugs. The boss fights are probably more interesting, but the final boss fight is an absolute pain due to the cramped arena with not enough room to move around. Despite all of this, the game is fast-paced, and I did enjoy just shooting everything in sight. That feeling from Doom does come across in the game, but the only truly interesting area was the “hallucination” level in which you jump around a fantasy area and go to hell and find the chainsaw. Most of Mouse’s problem is that it takes itself way too seriously.

The rubber hose animations and art style are fantastic to look at, and the game feels good to play. The weapons are great to shoot, but the levels feel way too similar to each other, and many of the game types of areas repeat. There’s no deviation in design, and the same few enemies repeat forever. There are no puzzles, and tail-picking becomes easy way too quickly. Passive abilities aren’t used much, and the weapons are poorly balanced with both alt-fire modes and overall use against enemies. Many weapons serve the same function, causing you to stick to the same few throughout. That doesn’t make the game unenjoyable, just repetitive, and many players may quit early on. The story isn’t very interesting and the characters are dull, but it’s still a great shooter at its heart, and I kept blasting my way through the game, having fun despite how serious the game took itself.

Reviewed On

Quality Preset
5.1 Surround Sound

The Shore: Enhanced Edition

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 04/30/2026
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Xbox Series X|S. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Iphigames

Developer: Ares Dragonis

Release Date: 04/30/2026

Available On

There are not a lot of good Lovecraft-based games. It seems that there is a curse in the video game industry where Lovecraft-based games tend to excel in one aspect but fail in others. This trend extends from the point-and-click adventure titles for IBM PC compatibles all the way to today. Most of these games were only memorable for their visuals, monsters, or the challenges they faced during development. The games include Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, Call of Cthulhu (2018), and The Sinking City. These all had interesting elements to them but weren’t great games on their own, often suffering from issues such as poor gameplay mechanics, lacklustre storytelling, or technical problems that hindered the overall experience. The Shore is, sadly, no different, but it does have a striking art style with some fun and memorable moments.

The Shore was already dated on PC back in 2021. It felt like a walking simulator from 2012. It’s very slow, plodding, there’s not much dialogue, and it’s mostly about exploration and soaking up the atmosphere. The new updated version for consoles has improved visuals, combat, and a different opening sequence, making it more engaging and appealing to both new players and fans of the genre. The game starts out similar to other dreamy walking simulators that were a staple of the 2010s. Games like Dear Esther, The game draws inspiration from other dreamy walking simulators, including Among the Sleep, What Remains of Edith Finch, The Suicide of Rachel Foster, and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. These games defined that genre, and even before that, The Path from 2008 helped drive intriguing story concepts on a lower budget. The Shore has that look and type of voice acting. On an island with a lighthouse, you are a part of a shipwreck. You can wander around collecting items such as notes in bottles that tell what happened to the crew. You must also collect items to progress, which is where the genre’s tropes come in.

There’s no map or any clues as to where to go for the first half of the game. You can come across some fantastic objects that are from another world. The game features a strange ritual pit, a weird reflective orb, several obelisks and monoliths, as well as various Old Gods, including Azathoth, Shub-Niggurath, Nyarlathotep, Dagon, and Cthulhu himself, among others. Some of these sightings are optional and require specific items or just wandering around thoroughly, such as collecting ancient artefacts or completing certain quests to unlock them. These emerging beasts are fantastic. The sheer size is daunting, and I was awestruck at how awesome they looked despite how dated the overall graphics are. As the game moves on, the visuals get weirder and more otherworldly. You end up wandering through intestines, cosmic walkways, and Giger-inspired caverns. The art style is fantastic, and you can see clear inspiration from Giger and his artwork. The biomechanical nature is subtly emerging in various architectural designs while remaining true to the Cthulhu mythos.

The inclusion of combat in this game is unusual, and it does not function effectively. I mean, it does what it needs to, but the game isn’t an FPS at all. You get a strange pyramid object that shoots a beam out that can stop various monsters in their path. There are a couple of chase scenes as well, but later levels are a bit labyrinthine and difficult to navigate, which took some of the fun out of the exploring and sightseeing. After you leave the island, the 2010s-inspired walking simulator vanishes, and you are in the depths of cosmic horror, solving simple puzzles and lasering Under Gods. The game is incredibly short, clocking in at less than 2 hours with a guide. This may not justify the cost of the game to many unless you are a hardcore Lovecraft fan or love weird indie adventure titles. Any fans of the above-mentioned games will have a good time.

In the end, that’s what The Shore is. The Shore offers a delightful experience with stunning monsters to admire. The first part of the game is a bit dry and dull, but thereafter, it picks up. The Old Gods, with their insane level of detail, are a captivating sight, and the constantly changing trippy visuals keep you engaged and push you forward. If you can endure the initial 30-45 minutes, the game gains momentum and becomes quite entertaining. I wish the game were longer. I wanted to see more of these Gods and insanely giant monsters. What’s here is worth a fun afternoon, but it would be difficult to convince those outside of the target audience.

*Review code provided by publisher

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5.1 Surround Sound

Doom Guy: Life in First Person

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 04/29/2026
Posted in: Book Reviews. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

For anyone who watches long-form YouTube documentaries about video game history and facts. This is for you. For anyone who just loves tech. This is not for you. For those who just love playing Doom. This also isn’t for you. I don’t read auto biographies very often, and in fact, I can’t remember the last one I even read. However, I do know that a lot of authors of auto biographies sometimes aren’t the best tellers of their own story. I am personally fascinated with game design and peeking behind the curtains about the lives of the developers, what made them want to do this, and what makes games tick. This book is an autopsy of Doom, Doom II, and Quake, and even Daikatana. There’s also a lot of backstory about how John Romero grew up poor and had an abusive, dysfunctional family.

Before the book even gets into the development of Doom, there’s a lot of backstory that most of us don’t know who don’t watch or read every single interview John has done. He mentions quite a bit about what’s never been said or talked about when it comes to his childhood. This gives us a great lead-up to what a lot of us are buying this book for. The turmoil that is any game that John Romero touches. I walked away from this book both respecting John as a technical mastermind of coding and game design and less so as an actual person. John had no business being in charge of teams, and it seems he never learned his lessons, and he even says so in hindsight, yet this story keeps repeating even today. While John made many 8-bit titles along with Commander Keen, his fame started with Doom. The story of him and John Carmack is one of camaraderie and friendship but also lets us see the capitalist vampire that the US has pushed into all of us. Going from a humble startup to a mega-corporation almost overnight and all the problems that come from that.

John clearly always bit off more than he could chew. Refusing to get help unless it was mandatory and doing 10 jobs at once (literally in some cases). There are many names thrown around the book without much context as to who these people are on a personal level. They feel like action figures standing in for John’s conversation with us. Tom this, Adrian that, and so on. We don’t get to know any of these other people outside of a conversational context. That’s exactly what Life in First Person is. A very long and in-depth interview. There’s a lot of talk about the technical side of computers, coding, and game design which will interest those who are and bore to death those who aren’t. John also likes to repeat himself quite often and just rephrase multiple events in different ways. Some chapters just dragged because he either wouldn’t get to the point or would go off track too many times just to loop back around many pages later.

Doom Guy feels like a lot of what most have already known publicly. This book felt a lot like someone who is getting up in age and wants to tell a publicly known story his way. It felt like a conscience-clearing conversation to help John feel better about going to be at night. After Daikatana in 2001 John never made another successful game outside of the mobile and Facebook game trend stuff that most of his audience hated in the late 00’s to mid 10’s. The disaster that was Ion Storm only had a single fruit, and that wasn’t even John’s game. It was Warren Spectre’s Deus Ex. The millions upon millions of dollars that John got his hands on throughout his career only bore fruit for three successful games. Doom, Doom II, and Quake. There’s not much talk about John’s later career, including his more unsuccessful bombs from his Romero Games company. Just recently, Microsoft cancelled John’s latest FPS that he talks about towards the end of his book. Most likely because he still can not manage a team.

Overall, Doom Guy is a great read for those who like Doom or Quake and love game design and behind-the-scenes stuff. Most others will find this book dry and dull. It feels and reads like an insanely long interview, and that’s not quite what I expected. I wanted to know more about John’s later years AFTER Ion Storm, as we don’t really know much about this. A house flood, meeting Brenda, remaking Doom maps, and an awful Kickstarter that couldn’t promise anything. My takeaway from this book is that John is a great person in some ways. He loves his family, his culture, and games. That can’t be denied. However, making the same mistakes over and over again without learning and not having a single successful new game in 25 years says something. John is the common denominator, not the people around him. This book is the Rise and Fall of John Romero as he’s never reached the same heights since.

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II – Enhanced

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 04/25/2026
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Xbox Series X|S. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Microsoft Corporation

Developer: Ninja Theory

Release Date: 08/12/2025

Available On

The first Hellblade was an interesting experiment by Ninja Theory. Using mental health as a storytelling element by manifesting them as gameplay and visual effects on screen. Senua is back in a game with a much larger budget and higher production values than even before. This is a fantastic-looking game, but does it have more than looks? Senua is a trapped prisoner on a Norse slave trade ship when it wrecks at sea by an unknown force. Senua fights off her slavers and meets the lead slaver. Without spoiling much, he becomes one of three other companions who accompany Senua on her new saga to fight her demons of her past and help those around her. Again, most of what Senua goes through are visual hallucinations, but she does have more control of her psychosis than before. The game gameplay loop from the previous game is present. Some combat, puzzles, and walking with storytelling dialog. Sadly, this is almost exactly the same without much improvement. The only things that set this game apart are the inclusion of new characters, a deeper narrative, and higher production values.

Combat is exactly the same as the previous game; in fact, it’s a bit more dumbed down. Gone are the kick buttons and the ability to run and attack. You can still do the heavy, light, and parry/block attacks, but Ninja Theory tried to make up for a lack of expansion by increasing the scripted feeling of the fights. The animations are better, and the combat feels more brutal. It looks cooler with Senua getting her sword stuck in enemies and blood spurting out everywhere, but at what cost? There are still no upgrades or new abilities learned. You get your focus mirror very early on, and this is used as a last-ditch effort right before you die to give you a leg up. I didn’t die a single time in this game; it’s so easy. In fact, even the dark rot feature is now gone. As you fight enemies, you will have other villagers run in between and interact with the fight; various animation loops play out, but by the end of the game, the excitement is gone, and it’s just a simple combat system. Thankfully, there is a lot less of it in this game, with maybe half a dozen combat arenas thrown in. The game mostly focuses on puzzles, which are still just as easy.

You still have illusion puzzles that use the environment, but now this is advanced with magic balls you can focus on to make geometry appear and disappear. This means they need to be activated in a certain order, but this doesn’t really make anything more difficult. There’s less emphasis on finding symbols, and some ball-on-pedestal puzzles are tossed in. These won’t keep you very invested, sadly, but they are more spread out as well. Most of the game is scripted storytelling like you see in a lot of first-party PlayStation games. A couple of scenes have you running from cover to cover, avoiding ocean waves and volcano blasts. There’s a lot of visual effects tricking the player into scripted gameplay. A lot of climbing and animations that involve that. This game is well acted, and the story is entertaining, but anyone thinking this is more action-heavy will be disappointed. If you didn’t like the first game, you will like this one even less despite its higher production values.

Senua’s story makes a bit more sense here and is less poetic and metaphorical of her past. There are the same collectibles here, just fewer of them, and at least there’s some incentive to play again. There is a Dark Rot mode, which is the perma-death mode of the first game; developer commentary; and narration from the other three characters, which adds a new perspective to the story. Is the game worth playing four times or more? Probably not. I personally liked this series, and playing them back to back is an entertaining day of gaming, but I really wish there was more to this game. It could have been longer, as it feels the story is truncated. The three new characters are interesting, and I wanted to know more about them. They just show up to help Senua in the current circumstance, and we have no reason to care for them outside of Thorgestr, as he is the first companion from the very beginning. Norse mythology is pulled back a bit and focuses more on the giants but less on the realms.

Overall, Hellblade II is a great game for an entertaining afternoon. The story is good, the characters are fun, and the production values make this one of the best-looking games of this generation. On the PS5 Pro the visuals are great, and using Dolby Atmos on a 5.1 surround system is a treat. The thunderstorm and rain are heard all around and sound awesome. When you fight helmeted vikings their muffled voices are heard in the rear speakers, and villagers can be heard running around. It may not be the best game, but it’s a great piece of entertainment, especially if you have the correct setup.

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Quality Mode | PSSR

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 04/20/2026
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Switch, Xbox One. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Microsoft Corporation

Developer: Ninja Theory

Release Date: 08/12/25

Available On

The coverage of mental health in games is growing both in respect of the disease process and the way it affects everyday lives. This would have been laughed at 20 years ago (and still kind of is in a small sect of a specific gaming crowd), but seeing it take an art form is very interesting here. Hellblade was well known for depicting different forms of psychosis in a character and projecting that onto a game. Schizophrenia, visual and auditory hallucinations, multiple personality disorder, and many others. Hellblade takes Norse mythology and grounds it with real-world mental health issues. Senua is the main protagonist you play as. Her trauma manifests into these hallucinations, turning what you are seeing into visual symbols of her past. As you play along and solve puzzles, you can also find hidden faces and totems to learn about the Norse mythology by a man named Druth.

Hellblade is mostly a walking simulator mixed with some simple combat and geometry illusion puzzles. This sequence is the main gameplay loop. Solve puzzles, do some combat, walk a bunch, and listen to dialog. It’s a fine loop that many games do right, and Hellblade is no exception, but it’s the pacing of this loop that wears thin really fast. The combat is the weakest aspect of the game despite looking cool. Senua isn’t a strong character, but she is fast. You can kick, run, and do heavy and light attacks. You can also block and parry. Sadly, these are attached to an almost quick-time event-feeling game with canned animations. This is a challenge of timing rather than pure skill. Enemies repeat often with just a few types. Heavy hitters with two-handed axes and spears, some with shields, and lighter enemies with a single sword or axe. They will spawn in on you until the fight is over. Sometimes this can be overbearing with 5-6 enemies on top of you. Thankfully, you have a focus mirror that stores energy with every successful parry and attack. This slows down time and allows you to whack away at enemies.

Sadly, the combat crescendos into much more whack-a-mole by the end. Some combat sequences throwing two dozen enemies at you. It gets tiring as there’s no change to it. No leveling up, no new moves learned, no nothing. It would have been nice to spread these out more, but with the short play time, it wears things pretty fast. The puzzles are the only things breaking up that monotony of combat. You will get blocked by a door and have to find symbols hidden in the environment. This requires you to see highlighted objects at a certain angle and line them up by climbing or moving around to a new area. These are mostly fun but rarely offer any type of challenge. Some players may actually get bored with how simple the game can be, especially on easier difficulties. There’s one caveat to the entire game, and that’s the fact that Senua has a darkness climbing up her arm. Every time you do, it gets closer to her face. If you die too many times, it’s game over, and you have to start the game over again. I don’t quite understand why this is here. The game is already easy enough, and the game’s not short enough for this to not be a problem. This is easily a 4-6 hour game. You have to repeat many scripted events and dialog, and anyone who does die will easily just throw the towel in and move on.

With that out of the way, the game’s main attraction is the story and the visual effects. This was one of the best-looking games of the previous generation, and with new graphical enhancements that have been added over time, such as ray tracing, it looks fantastic. The production values are very high here, and you can see some of Ninja Theory’s other projects influencing the game here. The animations are fantastic, and the voice acting is superb. Sadly, many gamers will mistake this game for a God of War-style game, not realizing it’s mostly an adventure game with light combat and easy puzzles. Thankfully, the environments are varied and change all the time, with some great-looking vistas and monuments. I had this game installed on my PC for years and never got around to actually getting very far into the game. You need to be in the right mindset to play this game. It’s very dark and heavy emotionally and can be a lot to take in but can be finished in a single sitting.

Hellblade’s new graphical features are worth the price of entry on PS5 Pro and PC alone. This game is very unique, and there’s nothing else quite like it. There may be other games that do what Helblade does better when it’s broken down to its core, but don’t let that steer you away from this game. Go in not expecting much outside of a good story and entertaining production values and you won’t be disappointed.

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Enriched Visuals | PSSR On
5.1 Surround

A Twisted Place

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 04/15/2026
Posted in: PC Reviews, Steam Deck Unknown, Steam Deck Verification. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Wraithen Studio

Developer: Wraithen Studio

Release Date: 09/11/2025



Available Exclusively On

I’m still on the search for a horror game that will truly scare me, and I mean a new horror game. Something that’s not mainstream with a large budget. A Twisted Place came pretty close. If it wasn’t for the janky controls, annoying stealth, and lack of puzzles, I think this game was really on to something. You play as a generic bald dude holding a lantern, only your glowing eyes really showing in the dark. You walk around a strange and haunted house, going into weird rooms and solving simple puzzles. Most of the puzzles are object hunting that have you clicking on things to open them and find keys. The few puzzles feel like guessing games, as there are no hints around to figure them out. Most of the game consists of walking from either left to right and occasionally into the screen to navigate maze-like hallways and avoid monsters.

The ambience is the best part of A Twisted Place. The game grows into a more surreal Eldritch like horror. Going from a quiet house to a desolate basement, an abandoned hospital, and eventually some sort of cosmic desert and ancient city. There’s no voice acting or much to read, really. You move along somber hallways listening to the groans of the dead muddle by only to get caught and have to start at the nearest checkpoint. Thankfully, any progress you made is remembered. There is a specific maze of hallways towards the end that requires four hidden switches to be flipped, but getting around the monsters in a specific pattern is incredibly frustrating. While the levels themselves look great, the design is pretty poor for gameplay.

There are some rooms you can enter that put you in a first-person view. These are really neat and ratchet up the tension to skin-crawling levels as you click on items and open cabinets, hoping nothing jumps out at you. The scares are really well done here with a lot of moments and scenes that are impossible to fully digest during the brief moment you encounter them. These new levels are what kept me going. The haunting ambient noises. There’s no real soundtrack here, just sounds of the dead and unknown stirring quietly in the background, waiting to be discovered or forgotten.

The game doesn’t overstay its welcome. Only a couple of hours long, but the later maze-like levels may frustrate players into a refund. Unless you love the aesthetic and gore that the game provides, there isn’t anything else worth looking into. With that said, the game also deals with suicide and mental illness in some interesting ways. This isn’t the game I’m looking for, but it’s kind of close. For the small entry fee you’re looking at an entertaining afternoon.

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