Recent reviews by spicygamethunder

My Sleeping Girlfriend is a first person horror game with a low polygon aesthetic comparable to many horror games you'll see on Steam, itch.io or Game Jolt. This game has you playing as the boyfriend of a young couple settling down in their new house in the countryside to start the next chapter of their lives. Shortly after moving in, your girlfriend reveals to you about her sleepwalking with a few strange rules to follow...

The gameplay is simple, especially if you've played your fair share of Unity Engine horror games. Go here, do thing, run there & scary stuff. It's fine for what it is.

I don't have much to share in a negative light other than having to press & hold L3 as being the default way to run, it creates unnecessary strain on your thumb when running around the house, at least on Steam Deck. You can map L3 to something like L2 through Steam Input but I would like to see an option to remap controls within the in game menus.

Also for some reason, Steam Deck defaults to the lowest resolution at 144 fps when checking the display options. The higher resolutions available are for 4:3 displays, it's a minor thing but a bit odd. Achievements/cloud saves would be a nice addition to see as well.

You can beat the game & see all the endings in about an hour. It also works well for Steam Deck at under 500MB & a generous checkpoint/level select system for playing in short bursts. At $4, My Sleeping Girlfriend is a pretty good experience for the price so check it out if you're interested.

FYI: If you're looking for more horror games like this, Helltown was the 1st one I was reminded of. Wretched Depths & Unsorted Horror are also 2 others to play, plus they're free.

This review is provided by the 𝓕𝓾𝓷𝓴𝔂 𝓙𝓪𝓵𝓪𝓹𝓮𝓷𝓸𝓼 (Curation Page | Steam Group) and the support of readers like you, thank you.

Thought you bought a game? Well think again as you need to help an employee of a research facility before the lethal digital virus spreads outside of containment! (Oh no, how sPoOky!...)

Generally I do enjoy these simulated hacking games where you're given just enough details to follow the breadcrumb trail, much like the hacking minigame in Enter the Matrix. However here in archimedes, you are forced to jam on random keys on your keyboard to progress with chat dialogue to the only character to converse with. It's tedious & the game doesn't account for you as the player for wanting to go off on your own. Some menus in this OS have no response until you palmsmack your keys frequently enough for the story to allow it. There's also no way to see previous chat history so good luck remembering anything if you step away for too long. Some ARG elements are thrown in but links have been broken in the past so use the Steam Guides as a workaround.

Unfortunately I did not find archimedes to be that enjoyable. There are design decisions that I really don't care for but the story does end with an interesting conclusion. If you're looking for something more in the horror genre, iamscared is a classic or try Hypnospace Outlaw for 90s WWW vibes.

This review is provided by the 𝓕𝓾𝓷𝓴𝔂 𝓙𝓪𝓵𝓪𝓹𝓮𝓷𝓸𝓼 (Curation Page | Steam Group) and the support of readers like you, thank you.

Exit 8 really is best going in blind if you can, I'm going to put the rest of this review as spoiler talk if you're looking for more information before jumping in. Here's the TLDR: If you like horror games, you should go play this.

Here's the premise: you are stuck in a looping Japanese subway station hallway & you have to have to watch for any anomalies before you reach the end. These anomalies are both obvious & subtle so take your time to look around. If you make it to the end & fail, you have to start all over and your goal is to reach exit 8 without messing up.

So it took me about 90 minutes to see all anomalies & escape, there were moments of frustration because there can be some VERY subtle changes, again take your time and take a break or two. Despite the simple premise, the atmosphere was pretty good. Sounds of train cars going by & the anomalies themselves lending a sense of something familiar and yet off.

There was a minor thing I noticed, there is a fair amount of ghosting when an NPC is walking by, but in this case it actually works to give an otherworldly impression. At $4, The Exit 8 it's an easy recommendation for horror fans if you have a couple of hours to kill.

This review is provided by the 𝓕𝓾𝓷𝓴𝔂 𝓙𝓪𝓵𝓪𝓹𝓮𝓷𝓸𝓼 (Curation Page | Steam Group) and the support of readers like you, thank you.

Not really a review but more of a FYI, this is a very limited time free-ish Warframe that you can get either by watching The Game Awards here or gathering 4 components in-game. You can find more information on those components here.

It's too early to tell if you can get around this by adding the license via SteamDB, but you can try it from this page here[steamdb.info].

This review is provided by the 𝓕𝓾𝓷𝓴𝔂 𝓙𝓪𝓵𝓪𝓹𝓮𝓷𝓸𝓼 (Curation Page | Steam Group) and the support of readers like you, thank you.

The Steam release of one of the my favorite Source mods is here with some nice additions like Achievements and Cloud Saves. In case you don't know, this is a horror mod heavily inspired by F.E.A.R. with good pacing and map variety. After just finishing it again, I can say it holds up well (except maybe the final boss battle) and is a fun ride down memory lane if you've been away from anything Source related for some time. To get all the achievements while finishing the campaign will probably take around 5-6 hours so it's great for a weekend palette cleanser. Relive the Nightmare and enter the House of Horrors, IF YOU DARE!

This review is provided by the 𝓕𝓾𝓷𝓴𝔂 𝓙𝓪𝓵𝓪𝓹𝓮𝓷𝓸𝓼 (Curation Page | Steam Group) and the support of readers like you, thank you.

Jet Set Radio is one of the highlights of the Dreamcast but SEGA has announced that the Mega Drive & Dreamcast collections will be delisted on December 6th, you can find more information here.

This review is provided by the 𝓕𝓾𝓷𝓴𝔂 𝓙𝓪𝓵𝓪𝓹𝓮𝓷𝓸𝓼 (Curation Page | Steam Group) and the support of readers like you, thank you.

Originally known as Bloodborne Kart, this fan made Kart racer was originally made as a April Fool's joke during the creation of Bloodborne PSX. After being contacted by Sony, LWMedia had to make changes to the game as to make it legally distinct from Bloodborne & the result is what's now available on Steam. Despite a rocky road during development, Nightmare Kart is a surprisingly polished experience that screenshots don't quite convey.

After choosing your name & voice when starting the campaign, you're then guided through a brief tutorial of the controls & game mechanics before being thrown into a voiced cut-scene of vaguely familiar characters for souls-borne fans. Map/track design is really good with a high amount of detail containing branching paths with enemies & traps to avoid. Kart handling is responsive with each vehicle type feeling bespoke beyond just visual differences. Outside of standard races, a battle mode is included as well as some boss encounters. There is a free play mode with support for local multiplayer but no option for online play....yet(?). It seems there was plans at some point but no updates have been provided by the developers in some time.

Even without online multiplayer, Nightmare Kart is pretty fun with plenty to do for achievement hunters out there so check it out if you have some time to kill.

EDIT: Well I don't actually see any current plans for online multiplayer after looking around some more, just people repeatedly asking for it be added. There is Steam Remote Play Together enabled as an alternate route.

This review is provided by the 𝓕𝓾𝓷𝓴𝔂 𝓙𝓪𝓵𝓪𝓹𝓮𝓷𝓸𝓼 (Curation Page | Steam Group) and the support of readers like you, thank you.

This isn't really a review but more of an FYI, Age of Empires III is pretty good but it's been announced that the multiplayer servers are being shutdown on October 30th. You can find more information here, afterward your only option will be the Definitive Edition.

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So starting up the game, it doesn't detect resolutions above 1920x1200. Not clear if a multi-monitor setup has any influence on that. I was able to find where to go beyond 1200p by sifting through file directories until I stumbled across GameUserSettnigs.ini located in this file path: SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Why don't they laugh\Kensington_Hall\Saved\Config\Windows. From there you can set the resolution among any other setting that may not be shown in the main menu....or so I thought. Even after that change, the game will force override the resolution back to 1200p or 1080p. There is no controller support from the main menu or indication that there is controller support prior to starting the game, you also can't access the pause menu when using a controller. FPS cap only allows for 30 or 60, 120 should at least also be added in my opinion. There isn't any way to change the FOV either. Also the header & capsule images in the Steam client are misspelled to "Why don't they laught?", bit of a peculiar oversight. You can sort of see what I mean when checking the Steam Assets for the game on SteamGridDB. DLSS version is a bit out of date at 3.7.0.0 with the current version at 3.7.20.0 at the time of writing this review. Performance isn't great, all settings are set to Ultra with the frame-rate dipping often even at High settings. This isn't exactly Crysis or Cyberpunk 2077 so I'm not sure why this is going on even at 1080p.

More on the actual game portion of this title, you play as a home nurse on a new assignment to take care of a old guy named Mr. Kensington with a run down estate littered with rotting circus equipment. It's a little strange in the sense that the circus wagons are something you would expect in a 19th century attraction, not in a modern setting. The voice acting is strange, somehow disconnected from normal human conversation. Reminds me of old 90s games on the PC like Encarta or some old I-Spy hidden object game. Anyway, after Kensington greets you and invites you to stay in the guest room, you're encouraged to explore more of the house. The bathroom across the hall from him has some unique design choices like a urinal & an open shower that's sure to make a mess without a curtain or doors.

Moving on from this exciting exploration, you find your room next to his but you'll need to pick up the key on his dresser that he didn't mention. Opening the door, you can see his hospitality knows no bounds as your lodgings are in fact a storage room with a bed from something out of a medieval village. This is also where controller support ends as you cannot put your backpack down using the left trigger.

Leaving our things behind, we revisit Kensington to find that he is cooking bacon on the table in his room although cooking in this case is just fiddling with your hands out of sight. Naturally we seem to ask "What's an aroma?" rather than "What's that aroma?" as script reading is more of an art than a science here. After eating nothing but bacon, we are then prompted as the player to go through a few dialogue options. Note that while you can't move using K&M, you certainly can using the controller. Subtitles also have grammatical errors but we'll ignore that as Kensington talks about his grand estate covered in graffiti. I started to skip the optional dialogue choices as their conversation rapidly felt like I was trapped in a room with ChatGPT & Alexa.

Kensington then bids us goodnight and to go to bed, or to abruptly take a walk outside as the rain has stopped. However our objective tells us as the player to go to bed. So I decided to walk around the front to see if there was anything notable, there isn't at this point but the walking/running speed on K&M is much faster than using a controller.

Waking up the next day, we are in a conversation with Kensington standing behind us while we are forced to look at the ground which is how any normal conversation would go. He talks about circus stage names with a transition to his task of you finding relevant documents to facilitate the sale of the mansion while he goes into town.

Before we go further, I noticed the lip sync on the characters to be pretty good but their faces have no expression at all which is a little strange as the prior conversation with Kensington has a lot of arm gestures & movement. (.....this voice acting must be AI generated, there are segments in the dialogue that sound incredibly inhuman.)

Anyway, now it's time to play Slender: The Eight Pages, or at least I'd like to say that's the case. There's no external threat when exploring the manor for folders, it's a few tame jump scares with a lot of audio triggers leveraged to try and scare you. The manor design isn't good, a lot of wasted busy work and large stretches of just walking around for no reason. I can see what they're going for with this creepy circus atmosphere but this game really needs to be an early access title, a lot of work needs to be put into not only the horror elements but the environments as whole.

I can't recommend this game at this time but if you're looking for something similar in the horror genre, check out Kraven Manor. It's been made free on Steam some time ago and has a lot more scares to experience.

This review is provided by the 𝓕𝓾𝓷𝓴𝔂 𝓙𝓪𝓵𝓪𝓹𝓮𝓷𝓸𝓼 (Curation Page | Steam Group) and the support of readers like you, thank you.

Black Myth: Wukong wastes no time in throwing you into the action as you take control of Sun Wokung, the Monkey King rebelling against the celestial court. Here you get a small window into all the powers you'll eventually obtain throughout the game. After the duel with Erlang seems to conclude, the time of Sun Wukung ends and after ages pass, a nameless monkey rises to the task of re-obtaining the powers of the Monkey King to finish what he started.

As the nameless monkey (aka The Destined One), you start with nothing more than the martial prowess to hit things with a staff & the power to perpetually re-spawn at the last shrine you've visited. Granted you'll get a few new tricks early on but like any Souls-like, you're own familiarity with combat moves/timing of both you & your enemies will be a required skill throughout this journey. Dodging & to a lesser extent stamina use will also serve you well despite any new powers or combat stance you may want to try out. This may sound like a lot and it kind of is, but the game eases you in to each new power & you're encouraged to respec as it's free to do at any shrine so experiment as needed.

Enemy variety is a highlight in this game with each area showcasing threats that thematically match what's around you. In a creepy forest? Expect bug assassins waiting to drop from the treetops to attack. Near a volcano? Here's a few fire mages to rain fire from above. Typical From Software stuff but impressive to see with a new studio. Most bosses & sub-bosses are enjoyable to tackle with unique dialogue at times depending on your actions & some really cool bombastic attacks for even the more obscure encounters. Fights never feel truly unfair & can be overcome to some extent with some extra leveling.

Map/level design is fantastic, each area has a great sense of history & what's happened in the wake from the end of Sun Wukong's rebellion. Abandoned temples, crumbing kingdoms or ruins partially consumed by nature. References by enemies & various destruction in environments also lend to world-building. Each side path or side quest is all designed with purpose with an optional boss battle or secret area to be reached. Note that there is a significant amount of easily missable side content, and while there's new game+ available, I do recommend reading some kind of guide if you want to see everything. (I'm serious on that last sentence, there is literally content that would be nearly impossible to find on your own.)

Soundtrack is really good, it gives a sense of adventure, excitement, & grand scale if that makes sense. Sort of reminds me of something like Lord of the Rings. Voice acting (at least for English) was far better than I was expecting, there really was an effort made to match the dialogue to lip sync and the actors did a great job all around. I would imagine Chinese would also be very good with subtitles to add to the experience. Graphical fidelity also looks exceptional with a very high level of detail even with common enemies or random objects littered throughout the map.

Naturally all this comes with a performance price but the use of Unreal Engine here does allow for good scalability, you aren't really losing much even at the low preset. Although I can't say this will entirely eliminate any kind of UE stuttering during traversal. For those using NVIDIA GPUs, you will need to replace the DLSS DLL file as it's outdated which you can do fairly easily by downloading the newest version online or using DLSS Swapper. NVMe drive over a SATA SSD as the installation location is also something I recommended to ensure sufficient data streaming especially in the later chapters. Note that any NVIDIA driver update seems to also require a rebuild of the shader cache which takes a few minutes to wait for.

This game can easily be anyone's personal GOTY & may also be mine (we'll see with Silent Hill 2 out now). The fact that a new studio in China spent years accomplishing this AAA single player experience is incredible, especially when considering how focused most Chinese gaming companies are on the mobile market. If you're a fan of Souls-likes or character action games, you really owe it to yourself to play this.

This review is provided by the 𝓕𝓾𝓷𝓴𝔂 𝓙𝓪𝓵𝓪𝓹𝓮𝓷𝓸𝓼 (Curation Page | Steam Group) and the support of readers like you, thank you.