theyellowbinge

[theyellowbinge]

Somerville was mostly just disappointing

My second completed game of the year was a title I was excited for after watching a trailer at E3 2021, but left me disappointed. I am sadly not recommending this title.

Positives

- Fun and beautiful artstyle

- Interesting in the beginning

- Some tough puzzles

Negatives

- Most areas are forgotten the moment you step into the next one

- Puzzles are all samey and you fall into a boring rhythm after a little while

- Story is too obscure and makes the player feel lost

- Movement is slow and sluggy

Hardest Achievement:

"First Contact" - Made some new friends

Complete it?

Although I wouldn't personally recommend the game to anyone, it is an easy enough story to follow and takes barely 5 hours of your time. If only to support a studio with potential, I say you should finish it.

Recommended for:

Those who like an obscure plot where you can speculate about what really happened and why, interesting artstyles and environments rarely seen elsewhere, games that feel vaguely like "INSIDE"

Started: 02.01.2024 / Finished 02.01.2024

Time spent: 4 hours 30 minutes / Completion average: 4-5 hours

Personal rating - 60 / 100

[theyellowbinge]

Subnautica for the win!!!!!

My first completed game of the year is already one of my favorites of all time. I implore everyone (who doesn't have a severe fear of the ocean) to give this game a go. Especially for all of you who love exploration and survival games.

Positives

- Beautiful environments, flora, and fauna

- Great sense of progress

- Exploration comes naturally

- Great passive storytelling in the environment and documents

- An almost secret "horror" game with a constant sense of dread and isolation

Negatives

- Some bugs last time I played it, but they seem to be fixed now

- You get hungry and thirsty incredibly fast

- Some materials are very hard to come by when you need them, and then spawn in abundance when you don't

Hardest Achievement:

"Go among the Stars" - Leave it all Behind

Complete it?

Absolutely, almost every achievement comes with the story. Those who don't merely want you to go a little out of your way to explore some extra

Recommended for:

Those who like great exploration and survival games, serene and horrifying underwater scenery, a possibility of either danger or prosperity wherever they go

Started: 04.12.2018 / Finished: 01.01.2024

Time spent: 115 hours / Completion average: 25-30 hours

Personal rating - 93 / 100

[theyellowbinge]

Went AFK for a while there, uups. As compensation here is a tier list ranking of all games played this year

[theyellowbinge]

I appreciated Lost in Random about as much as it tied loose ends

EA likes making hidden gems, but this is a clump of coal

Positives

Unique artstyle and characters

Enjoyable game

Towns are quite different in mood and setup

Combat is more so luck based than skill based, which is very fitting here

Negatives

Subtitles don’t match the voice acting

Conversations often feel forced and out of place

Characters have a lot to say, but rarely is ever useful or interesting

Human NPC’s look like dirt compared to others

Combat difficulty is not consistent

Final boss is ironically the easiest

The ending is incredibly dissatisfying

Hardest achievement: “Dice and Slice” Defeated 3 of the queen’s minions using the same Dice Slice

Complete it? Achievements are very easy to grab as you go, at minimum complete the story

Recommended for YOU: Like gambling with no consequences, underdog stories, quirky hit and miss humor

Started 15.04.2023 / Finished 30.09.2023

Time spent: 18 hours

Personal rating: 70 / 100

[theyellowbinge]

Jurassic Park works as both a book and movie, who knew?

Dinosaur fan reads a dinosaur book … how do you think it went? Of course I liked it.

Positives

Dinosaurs, a lot of them

Tim is such a good kid, he is my kid clearly

Hammond does not sugarcoat his intentions in this book, he is here for money and money alone

Nice detail to add some of the "computer screens" into the book

Dinosaurs ofc

Very entertaining to read Malcolm talking about his theories and being a smartass

Ellie has major "I'm a woman, what about it?" energy

Seeing the "iteration" evolve throughout the book is fascinating

Negatives

The predators feel more like killing machines and not animals

Lex is the most bratty child I have ever read

The ending makes it seem like everything is resolved when it really isn't

Raptors apparently have human like fingers and very long arms???

Raptors are described as super intelligent and smart whenever mentions, this became annoying quickly

Pages: 466

Perspective:  Third Person

Recommended for YOU: You liked the Jurassic world movie and still like it as an adult, you are a fan of monster-fied dinosaurs, you like to pull a “well actually …”

Started 11.08.2023 / Finished 20.08.2023

Released: 07.11.1990

Personal Rating: 4 / 5

More in depth review will be published soon on my second blog!

[theyellowbinge]

Slewfoot is in my top books

A book about the witch trials and women’s rage? Sign me up

Positives

Slewfoot is such monsterkisser material, I am crushing

The Wildfolk are so cool looking

Abitha is a queen and she deserves justice

Sublime atmosphere, dark and gritty

The art in this book is so gorgeous

Brom is in a dank cellar???

Negatives

Wallace ☹

Forest is such a brat, I couldn’t stand him

Booka tore me up ☹

Why do the puritans treat each other this way? Wouldn’t it be more of a sin to treat each other like that? I don’t get it

Pages: 431

Perspective:  Third person

Recommended for YOU: You like witches and witchery, dark and hopeless moods, you want to kiss a forest spirit on the mouth

Started 15.08.2023 / Finished 17.08.2023

Released: 21.09.2021

Personal rating: 5 / 5

More in depth review will be published tomorrow on my second blog

Here are some pics so that I can convince you to read it based on the art (logic has flown out of my brain)

[theyellowbinge]

Death March???

Who was gonna tell me that this is actually really really difficult?

I have died several times to wild dogs. Just wild dogs. Yes, I am past White Orchard. These dogs are actually the main villain of this game. Stacked. Literal beefcakes.

Anyways ... I have 4 achievements left to grab

Unless the dogs eat the achievements ....

[theyellowbinge]

The Evil Within 2

I am a Bethesda simp. Yes, this will be biased. Put me in jail.

Positives

Fun action

Polished aspects of the first game

Less stress, more fun

More ammo, more equipment, more more more

Tied a few loose ends from first game

Very open

Lots to do

More colorful

Love the design of the game overall

Negatives

Clunky movement

Clunky hitboxes on a lot of enemies

Glitches a lot

It crashed a lot

Added more loose ends

Story felt rushed in the last 6 chapters

Why is the gasmask section here? Forced First-Person? ewww

Camera feels way too zoomed in on Sebastian

Achievements had a tendency to not unlock after meeting requirements

Hardest achievement: “You asked for it … again”

Complete it? Complete the story, actually hunting achievements is just as hellish as STEM

Recommended for YOU: You liked the first Evil Within for the world, and you like a survival horror with abundant resources

Started 12.11.2017 / Finished 11.08.2023

Time spent: 70 hours

Personal rating: 85 / 100

More in-depth review being published later on the second blog.