Welcome to This Is Not A Review. In these articles we discuss general impressions, ideas and thoughts on any given game, but as the title implies, it’s not a review. Instead, it’s an exercise in offering a quick recommendation (or dismissal) after spending enough time to grasp the ideas and gameplay of a thing without necessarily playing it from A to Z. The subject of this installment: Pathologic 3: Quarantine, developed by Ice-Pick Lodge and published by HypeTrain Digital.
HIGH Stepping into [redacted location] for the first time.
LOW A pretty obnoxious summoner boss in one of the sub-dungeons.
WTF Count Ymir’s whole deal.
HIGH Looks gorgeous, but at the cost of 60fps on console.
LOW A torturously unexciting puzzle gauntlet midway through the campaign.
WTF Key story beats presented like the holographic recordings from Tacoma.
Welcome to This Is Not A Review. In these articles we discuss general impressions, ideas and thoughts on any given game, but as the title implies, it’s not a review. Instead, it’s an exercise in offering a quick recommendation (or dismissal) after spending enough time to grasp the ideas and gameplay of a thing without necessarily playing it from A to Z. The subject of this installment: Dead Ink, developed and published by Offwidth Games.
HIGH When the highest location on the map is also a climactic story beat.
LOW Scarlet Rot, this game’s version of the “toxic” ailment.
WTF That thing under Stormveil Castle.
If Elden Ring were the size of a normal From Software game, I’d have finished it by now. I’m 30 hours in — longer than my entire first run of Bloodborne — yet I’d be surprised if I were more than a third of the way through.
2021 was a year that broke our brains just a little bit. You don’t need me to tell you that, and I’ve already spoken about this elsewhere anyway. I finished fewer games this year than any other year in recent memory. As a critic, I’ve generally believed that I should at least make a valiant effort to complete a game before judging it — the more of a work you’ve seen, the more informed your reaction to it will be.
If you’re a frequent and longtime reader of GameCritics, you may have noticed that my output has dried up significantly over the past year. Take a look outside and I don’t think you can blame me. While the hope for a better tomorrow was what kept me running (albeit mostly on fumes) in 2020, that better tomorrow never came, leading to a 2021 in which energy-sapping depression seeped into every aspect of my day-to-day life, right down to my gaming habits. Up became down, hot became cold, and I got way into an MMO for the first time in my life while stuff that would have grabbed me under normal circumstances failed to gain any traction.
HIGH The visuals.
LOW The visuals.
WTF The visuals.
HIGH Our accumulated skills coming together in the final level.
LOW It’s easy to forget to save.
WTF Copenhagen?