Velvet Crowe

Game Junkie - 1096 Game Ratings

Member Since: Jun 3, 2010

Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Age: 30

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83 86%

Pathologic (2005) - Feb 22, 2023 "Pathologic has a lot of gameplay issues such as weird ai pathfinding, awkward combat, and plodding pacing where you're just walking 90% of the time. But it's also one of the most engaging games on a thematic and presentation level. I've never played a game that feels so open yet claustrophobic, familiar yet otherworldly, where the horrid experience of playing the game lines up with the conceit of its setting. Everything about it is just so fascinating that it's hard to get away from it."

83 86%

Arknights (2019) - Feb 22, 2023 "Arknights is well-designed in that it has an interesting variety of units to utilize with a lot of cool map design gimmicks that are willing to push your shit in. The gacha structure is both a blessing and a curse, wherein it provides longevity to give the game a plethora of events and characters to experiment with the core but the grind also cripples experimentation and pacing. For what its worth, the game at least makes the grinding smooth and the narrative is amusing enough to not be boirng."

68 57%

WWE 2K22 (2022) - Feb 01, 2023 "Compared to previous iterations I think the game is a solid direction but suffers from a lot of pointless/half-baked features. The blocking system has no reason to exist when countering is a superior option, the GM Mode is half-assed, MyRise is very much quantity over quality, they took out features such as create an entrance, etc. But to give them props, at least the game looks really good visually and the general gameplay flow is solid, but it could definitely use more beef to its content."

72 63%

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous (2021) - Jan 08, 2023 "Aside from the obnoxious encounter design and shitty crusade mini-game, WotR is such a peculiar game which dabbles in a lot of unique and interesting narrative ideas but often takes a total 180 on them and goes nowhere with it or handles it in the most lackluster way possible. There are definitely solid plot beats that I was satisfied with at certain junctures, but the game creates a massive level of reactivity that it didn't satisfy on and it ends up leaving many things hollow."

80 79%

Stray (2022) - Jan 05, 2023 "Stray is funny in the sense of how it recontextualizes generic gaming tropes within the context of being a cat, but these tropes are still played straight which doesn't make the mechanics enthralling. Despite that, Stray is elevated by its visual design in such a way that its rather trite plot beats and theming end up hitting hard. The core narrative is mostly focused on its setting and the game manages to make this engaging by revealing a lot but being vague enough that there's some conjecture."

38 18%

WWE 2K20 (2019) - Jan 03, 2023 "On top of the fact the game just looks fucking ugly when it's not just recycling older stuff, it also just does not function at all. literally. I can't tell you how often I'd try to play a match and the game would just crash on me after the fact. Though that's only the surface of the many game breaking bugs and oddities this game is notorious for. Looking beyond that, the game doesn't add anything substantial or interesting and uses the same match mechanics which I was never fond of."

23 5%

Death to Spies (2007) - Nov 29, 2022 "The game has loads of bugs to the degree it often becomes flat out unplayable, but it's also just not good in general. For one, the maps are needlessly large and empty which causes a lot of uneventful running from one point to the other. The game also has incoherent objectives which often leave you confused as to what you're even expected to do and the tiered disguises system is awful in terms of just how one disguise is the most dominant even though enemy ai STILL sees through it somehow."

72 63%

Illbleed (2001) - Nov 29, 2022 "Playing this game is goddamn painful due to level layouts being designed to waste your time and a lot of the gimmicks just flat out being obnoxious. The combat is also really braindead due to how generous iframes are and most encounters end up being basically the same loop. Despite it all, the game has so many crazy novelties and does so many insane things with its game design that I can't help but love it! Any game that sets out to troll you like this game does deserves praise."

81 82%

Bloons TD 6 (2018) - Nov 26, 2022 "This game is wild in terms of the amount of complexity it has and the variety of interactions there are between various different unit types. It's way too much for me to have any desire for me to truly comprehend, but I think the game is damn good in terms of how much variety it has and the way utility is designed. Shit makes me go bananas!"

80 79%

Streets of Rage 4 (2020) - Nov 26, 2022 "SoR4 is really cool in terms of what it does with its combo system, character variety, and a neutral game that feels satisfying due to enemy interactions. On the other hand, I think the neutral is too reactive and discourages you from committing too hard which makes the combo game REALLY frustrating considering how easily enemies can break it. Maybe that's not a particularly large flaw in reality, but it feels at odds with its ranking system and just makes it overly restrictive."

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