Sipho (Spore first stage gone wrong)

When I was playing Spore I liked the first part so much that I thought "Someone should really make a standalone game of this", unfortunaly the wish fell in the wrong hands and we got "Sipho".

 The "art" is horrible, an outright eyesore, and the gameplay is sooo wrong I can't even begin to describe it.

 Enemies with a million (unnecesary) parts, unbalanced parts, lack of progression or replayability content, the options to select a part makes it so you never actually know what you're picking... 

Death Road to Canada (Throw furniture then die to RNG simulator)

   

    I was enthusiastic about this game, because I felt like finally getting the zombie survival I was waiting for. Unfortunately the "goofiness", the attempt at comedy that the designers with little to no sense of humor manages to screw the game.

 I've never felt so little immersion in a game as I did with Death Road, throwing furniture at zombies and skimming through meme references. There was literally an event about having an itchy nose and sniffing some pepper, which by the way was an entire unit of "supplies"

 The whole furniture thing makes every other form of combat feel uneffective and lackluster, since killing just one zombie could take up to six hits with a melee weapon, and strength stat doesn't change damage because it's already being used for the furniture lifting mechanic (thing that like many others can only be figured out with the wiki open, since the game explains nothing).

 Ammunition is excessively scarce in a game that's flooded with zombies and most weapons don't deal consistent damage. It was entertaining for a couple hours but soon the RNG dependency and the stupidity that oozes through every crack of death road catches up to make any further attempt to reach Canada a chore.

The Unliving (They weren't kidding with the undead having no brains)

 

If the idea of having a large army like the one shown in the picture appeals to you it's because you're yet to play "the unliving"

 Good graphics, but that's the only good thing about "the unliving": the meta progression and most of all, the combat which is supposed to be a core part of the game are both dull and unclear.

 One can only use the base skill because the others are too mana consuming and difficult to effectively cast. The army of undead is underwhelming and plainly stupid, either jumping to unnecessary risks against your explicit command or outright standing in front of the enemy's staring blankly as they get gunned down. Maybe tear down the barricade instead of just standing in front of it, please?

Patch Quest (It's actually good? No way...)

Can't find a good pic

 
I've ignored this title because I thought that by "pet collector" it meant pokemon. I'm sick and tired of pokemon, and pokemon-like games, almost as tired as positively surprised by Patch Quest.

For starters, instead of the turn-based capture monsters and make them fight against each other that I'd expect from the pet collector tag, or the "chill" type of games where nothing happens like Stardew valley, I got a top down bullet hell where the monsters you capture serve as aid or mounts, so everything is more personal.

Unfortunatly my initial review of the game was a bit lacking so I cannot point at specific things the game has done right, I just know its mostly good.

 While it certainly needs a few more patches, more diversity and permanent upgrade slots, it's a very complete game that in moderation can keep one entertained for a good amount of time.

 I think that the major problem is that the runs are pretty similar amongst each other and that since there's an invisible difficulty cap you'll have to fight your way to the shortcuts. 7/10

Maiden and Spell ("Cute Anime boss rush bullet hell")

I don't know why did I even pick it up...

 Terrible. It's not cute, it lacks story, the characters and the background are two completly different art styles, there's only five enemies, the battles are either too easy or too hard and in either case, too long. 

The Twilight Saga, A.K.A "T-WHY-LIGHT" (Young adult supernatural romance novels, four volumes; twilight, new moon, eclipse, breaking dawn)

 21/12/23-09/1/24

I have read a lot of vampire content, I have seen them through media in a thousand different forms and I have never came across something that opposes so radically what a vampire is supposed to be: conspicuous, philanthropists, misunderstood victims, vegans... Well. Is better if I show you:

When Isabella Swan comes to the Forks, a small town where it's overcast most of the year, she comes across with Edward Cullen and his kindred, all of which are almost comically obvious vampires. Waxy pale skin in spite of all the "hicking" they do on sunny days (that's why we don't see them around), big black bags under color-shifting eyes, complete and utter disregard for food and uncanny out-of-place beauty. Luckily we learned from the back cover about their true nature, otherwise we'd never have guessed.

In spite of never getting a real description of how Isabella looks, other than being pale, we ought to assume she's a real beauty (disregarding her own words) since every male in town suddenly wants to date her.

Then comes a long introduction of almost three hundred pages of Edward acting weird, Isabella being mean to everyone except Edward, lots of complains about the weather, until destiny provides Bella with the perfect opportunity to be a damsel (for the lack of a better word) in distress, Edward swoops in and with a Herculean demonstration of strength he shoulders a van, saving her from being "squished".

After that no amount of glaring or "tight" faces could prevent the obsessed teenager from finding out the elusive truth, although it wasn't really her merit since Jacob (the soon-to-be werewolf) told her everything under the poor pretense of a "scary story".

Then they start dating, Eddy plays hard to get but also confesses being a psycho that breaks into her house to watch her sleeping, and other romantic stuff like stalking her "to assure her safety". He also expresses in several occasions that it takes a great effort to not kill her and drink her blood, but none of this seems to trouble Isabella in the slightest.

Well, at some point we start to assume that Edward is genuinely in love with this girl he met last week who's conveniently immune to his magical powers, for some reason that's beyond our understanding. None of the other girls he met in the past hundred years were up to his standards, but small town edgy self-absorbed girl cuts it.

Towards the end of the book some evil vampire pops out of the blue and threatens to kill Isabella for the propostous reason of being "challenging", but to no one's surprise he fails miserably even with the advantage of Isabella walking into an obvious trap unarmed and alone. Bella gets an NDE that feels like being underwater but on fire at the same time, but Edward saves her again, everyone hugs and the incident is brushed under the rug.

Conveniently for the plot, even though Isabella's dad is the town sheriff, he never investigates anything nor does he feel preoccupied when his daughter comes with a dozen different injuries every time after seeing Edward.

In "New Moon" Edward makes dumping someone via text look lovely when he has a 180° turn in his attitude after seeing that his family of vampires behave like vampires, and after given her the cold shoulder for a few days while the rest of the family furtively leaves town, he takes Isabella to the middle of the forest, says something in the lines of "I never loved you, you stinking human. I'm sure you'll bounce back, bye!" and skips through the trees leaving the girl catatonic in the mud under the rain. Go team Edward!

This is the turn for Jacob and the rest of his racistly described native american family to save Bella. Then she spends the rest of book moping around, always reminding us that Edward is her true love, but giving Jacob the impression that he has a chance because he distracts her. Not that it matters, Jacob and Edward are basically the same character, stalky, obsessive, forceful, bossy.

She starts taking on suicidal tendencies since she "hears his voice" whenever her life is at danger, which hints us that all the "you're crazy, Bella" might not have been too far off the mark.

Then there's twenty references to Romeo and Juliet which pretty much spoils the little thrill the ending of the volume might had, when for some plot convenient reasons Edward thinks that his "midnight sun", the love of his life whom he can't live without (aka his summer gf) is dead so he ships himself to Italy in an overly dramatic effort to off himself. Since "walking into the sun" makes him glitter rather than exploding in flames, Stephany has to put some extras to kill him when he reveals his vampiric nature to the world. In that precise moment, not a second earlier.

In honest fairness the matter got so drag out that I'm pretty confident that Edward at no point actually intended to kill himself. Everyone hugs, I love you, I love you, more Romeo and Juliet plagiarism, some inexplicable Wuthering Heights references...

In my opinion so far this was a mediocre romance fantasy story nothing too bad, definitely below what one would expect from an English letters graduate, but from now on the plot takes a nosedive.

In Eclipse, Meyer promises the readers that Bella will finally be turned, but this does not happen. We get a dull, lackluster fight against same old adversaries and a complete destruction of Jake's character, who's now become a pitiful lap dog, threatening Bella to kill himself if she doesn't love him back, which since him and Edward are basically the same character makes me think that Edward dragging the whole "I'm going to kill myself for love, like Romeo" means that he never actually intended to die and that it was a bluff. Completely forgettable.

Finally, in Breaking Dawn, we still get some more dragging because there's the wedding (lame wedding BTW) Jake's embarrasses himself trying to oppose, and FINALLY it's time for Isabella to get turned! No wait. We have the honeymoon. The very horny honeymoon. And then Bella gets pregnant a few pages after Meyer decides to tell us the story of the "immortal kids" that were banned by the Volturi and wiped off the map, I wonder what's going to happen now.

Well, spoiler alert, Isabella has the baby almost dying in the attempt but Edward turns her, the Volturi finds about the baby and try to kill it but fail miserably, and happy ending. A vampire love story. With a happy ending. The ultimate sacrilege!

3/10