Nuclear Monster

  • Almost everybody seems to have liked Puyo Puyo Tetris on the Switch and PlayStation 4. Sega  combined the Puyo Puyo and Tetris puzzles games, but you can also just play either in a bunch of different modes. It came out early last year and it’s finally hitting Windows via Steam on February 27th.

    Caty McCarthy’s review of the Switch version for US Gamer:

    In Arcade Mode, both solo and multiplayer, there are six particular types of battling: Versus (choosing your poison before battle: Puyos or Tetriminos), Fusion (a combination of Tetris and Puyo Puyo in the same field), Party (where cleared items obstruct your nemesis in different ways, such as speeding up time), Challenge (a challenging six different modes in a row), Big Bang (where preset Tetrimino or Puyo patterns await you, and you clear them as fast as you can), and finally, my personal favorite mode, Swap. In Swap, the player musters through two games simultaneously: a Puyo Puyo match and a Tetris match. The maps shift back and forth between the other every 25 seconds, and as your maps build, the game grows increasingly tense with each swap. One slip-up, and it could spell the end.

    Not every mode in Puyo Puyo Tetris is a rousing success though. Some modes—like Fusion and Big Bang—feel tedious and not as frenetically quick-witted as the others. In Swap, I had to be agile and constantly be aware of my maps’ structures. In Fusion, the mixture of Puyos and Tetriminos operating in the same space just makes for a cluttered, frustrating experience. Big Bang, while fun for a match or two, only works on the pretense of its repetition. And once that’s been seen, it loses its fast-paced feverish joy, and becomes the most boring of all the modes.

    Puyo Puyo Tetris is up on Steam for Windows with a pre-order discount of 10%, but I’d hold off until reviews are out just in case this port doesn’t turn out so hot.

  • Monster Hunter checks so many boxes that make me never want to play it. Lets go over them:

    • Can’t pause the game to take care of my kid
    • I don’t like hunting
    • The monsters aren’t really bothering you, why hunt them?
    • Different weapons for different enemies. I hated this about The Witcher games, too.

    There you go, that’s my complete list of excuses for not playing Monster Hunter: World. If you love murdering dragons with your pals, your cat buddies, or alone, don’t let me stop you.

    Bob Mackey is my go-to Monster Hunter reviewer, here’s some of what he said about this one:

    If you’re new to the whole Monster Hunter thing, the appeal isn’t hard to explain: essentially, it’s a loot-focused RPG built around a series of boss fights against large (and fictional) dinosaur-type creatures. But the sheer amount of depth Capcom applies to this basic idea explains why it’s so easy to sink hundreds of hours into any single Monster Hunter game. Since you’ll be fighting the same creatures over and over again for the sake of building the best gear, battles involve more than mindlessly mashing buttons. Monsters each have their own specific behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses, and since you’ll be attacking them with unwieldy weapons, even an action as simple as, say, swinging a ten-foot sword requires some degree of planning. Mastering each weapon is akin to mastering a fighting game character: each weapon type features multiple combos and special moves that aren’t always apparent.  

    And “planning” is basically the name of the game in Monster Hunter. One of the reasons it’s such an addictive experience can be found in how well it rewards you for thinking ahead. You not only have to think about which weapon and armor will aid you best in a hunt—you also need to keep in mind which of the many, many items available may help you fight a specific monster. But it’s not just how you fight monsters; it’s also where. The diverse environments of Monster Hunter offer their own advantages and disadvantages, and the complexity doesn’t stop there. The area you attack on the monster in question—and the weapon you attack with—determines the loot you get, which gives you smaller objectives within the overarching one. Each (typically 5-to-30-minute) battle contains so many variables that even your third consecutive fight against the same monster can bring some new surprises

    Monster Hunter: World is $60 at least and out now on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Capcom has a version coming out on Windows this Fall.

  • Originally a game for the PICO-8 fantasy computer (that I wrote about here), Celeste is a hardcore platformer from the developers of TowerFall that has now become a complete thing and is universally loved for its beautiful aesthetic and challenge.

    Polygon’s Russ Frustick reviewed it:

    Celeste feels like a very capably made platformer, easily on par with other masocore greats. But where it really sets itself apart is in its incredible presentation values. The game is home to some of the best 2D pixel art I’ve seen. Inspired by the SNES era, the characters and environments in Celeste are vibrant and memorable, adding way more visual charm than the genre usually provides. The aforementioned resort level is filled with peeling wallpaper, rusted elevator cages and moonlit mountain views, while a later level set in a temple features spooky totems and spinning torches. These visuals are backed by a stellar score from Lena Raine, whose synthy chiptune beats harken back to the days of Donkey Kong Country. And the adventure is held together by a gorgeous low-poly 3D model of Celeste Mountain that helps to convey the scale and trajectory of the climb.

    Celeste is on so many platforms, and it’s $20. Steam for Windows, macOS, Linux. itch for Windows, macOS, Linux. The Nintendo Switch eShop. The PlayStation 4’s store. The Xbox One’s garbage web store that made me log-in just to browse to this game.

  • Fullbright’s Tacoma is a very thoughtful narrative-focused sci-fi adventure that I enjoyed and would like to share with you. You can enter to win a copy of the game on Steam for Windows, macOS, Linux here:

    Tacoma Giveaway

    The last day to enter this giveaway is on February 9th.

    This giveaway is not in collaboration with Fullbright at all, this is just an extra Steam code I already had. Here is a trailer for the game:

  • Shadow of the Colossus is one of my favorite games. It is from a unique moment in time before independent developers had found the ability to publish their novel ideas widely. Instead, we had this deep series of boss fights from Team Ico that turns out to work just as well today as it did in 2005. At least, once Bluepoint did some serious technical work to make the game presentable to a new and returning audience.

    Eurogamer’s Oli Welsh reviewing the new Shadow of the Colossus remake for the PlayStation 4 that comes out on February 6:

    So this PlayStation 4 remake is a risky undertaking. The developer, Bluepoint Games of Austin, Texas, is the undisputed master of remasters and has even been here before, having made the Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection for PlayStation 3 in 2011. But this isn’t a remaster. This is a remake, rebuilding the game from scratch using new technology and all-new, much more detailed art. Ueda wasn’t involved and everything he and his team made for the original game has been redrawn and embellished to satisfy our hunger for fidelity. In a literal sense, this is an artist’s game remade without the original artist and containing none of the original art. Could its spirit survive such a process?

    Yes. And how. Bluepoint has achieved an unprecedented feat in game preservation that creates the definitive version of Shadow of the Colossus and makes a generations-old game feel excitingly modern.