Recent reviews by 2KI

At first I thought the game was just "something new to try", first playthrough wasn't that hard, second playthrough was definitely too easy and I was disappointed BUT... "rock hard" mode was now unlocked and oh boy that mode made it a very good game with its nice difficulty degree (plus willing girls, loads of money and general depravity)

Now, seriously, DON'T stop playing after your overkill-Diamond-trophy-second-run... "rock hard" mode changes everything, and you also get loads of parents-disappointing coins for that.

TLDR: this game gives you around 12h of fun, the price is fair, make sure you try the "rock hard" mode.

To be fair I already played this game for quite some time 10 or so years ago so I may have a nostalgic/unbiased opinion on this game.
Anyway the key elements of this game are unique and complex mechanics, combat fairness, strangely unique background music and Type-Moon characters/lore.

Game's graphics are old and cheap, even if well animated, but that's not why you're buying this game, since that would be mechanics.
The game is definitely not user friendly: there's no proper tutorial, the combat system is cryptic and because of its own complexity I cannot recommend this game to casual players (unless you're playing with friends, casual players too). On the other hand if you're willing to study and learn from external resources things like moon stances, bnb (bread'n'butter in fighting game slang) and general attack strings of all characters, frame times, etc you will enjoy the deepness of Melty Blood combat system and the game as a whole.

Melty Blood is one of the best fighting games (thinking eSport wise) of the past decade(s) and in my opinion should be on any fighting game enthusiast's library.

TL;DR: You're buying this game because of its great/complex combat system and because of Type-Moon, not really targeted to casual players (read above for further explanations).

I didn't like LIMBO and even if this time I'm going to leave a positive review I didn't like the same things in INSIDE too.

This time curiosity gave me a reason to "move", solve puzzles, etc, but in the end none of your questions are answered, you just get more and more questions and not a single answer, you can make some educated guess but in the end there are so many explanations (given the fact you don't know the rules of this distopian world) that each possible explanation won't leave you satisfied enough.

That said, everything else on this game is a piece of art, from graphics to music and (even more) sound effects, controls are just as simple as perfect for this game and mechanics are intriguing and sometimes a bit mind-blowing.

The setting is some kind of distopian world where I felt Orwell's Big Brother surveillance (1984) and Otomo's psychic/human experiments (Akira) as well as Nihei's megastructures and elusive creatures (BLAME!), in the darkest possible mix. As I said before I would have loved some explanation of this world (how did humanity get to this point, who are you as the player, why are they doing this, etc) because in my opinion that would have risen meaningful questions (instead of meaningless ones), questions on our world and how could our society become something like INSIDE's distopia.

All in all this journey was a positive experience, still I wouldn't recommend this game to many people because it is extremely dark, there's death in the worst meaning possible, and there's even worse than that, so, well, I guess people who liked the 3 works I identified as sources for this game (Orwell's "1984", Otomo's "Akira" and Nihei's "BLAME!") may enjoy the ride (aside from those unanswered questions...), while everyone else should steer away, nothing to gain for you playing this title.

A good Civilization game, evolved from Civilization V, with great mechanics on a bad implementation.

I liked a lot the addition of districts, cards and differentiation of social and science advancement trees. I also welcomed the new religious victory condition (even if it's kinda flawed, will write about it later).

On the other hand the new graphic style and the lack of “penalties” for large empires (the game actually forces you to rush creating new cities in your empire, will write about it later) dragged things a bit down for me.

So, in detail, the overall mechanics of this new Civilization game are very good, overall positively evolved from Civilization V, but since the game forces you to rush on city building you get a few very bad side effects:
Capturing cities feels like a joke, for example you may end up capturing 10 to 15 cities in just a few turns with no real side effect on your empire.
For the same reason (too many cities) religious victory condition is a mess, you will see 3~4 priests per city battling (yeah… that is lame) for religious supremacy which is beyond annoying.
Again for the same reason it's just easier to colonize to get certain resources rather than initiate trading with other empires or trying to acquire influence over state-cities.
To get you the idea, totally forget about Civilization V Enrico Dandolo play style, it's just impossible with the current state of the game.

Something I was worried about, because so many people pointed that out, was bad AI, but I have to say that in my 2 games AI was quite good, just a bit too aggressive, in everything (e.g. Teddy building a city in a tile between two of my cities, ending up with a oblong, space crippled city or Hojo declaring war just to move through my territory).
Finally I have to say that at the moment leaders offer you a little bit of variance only at the very start of the game, middle and ending phases of the game are more or less the same whichever leader you get to play: huge empires, fought at least two or more wars, fairly high in all compartments (science, culture, etc).

Would I recommend this game, yes, no doubt about it, but don't get it right now, wait till a few DLC are out (or even better a GOTY edition “final” pack) because there are both “flaws” and lack of diversity at the moment.

EDIT: My review for this game is a bit dated and should be totally reviewed now that a few expansions came out, but as I wrote back then... now it's time to buy it and never regret it

A good XCOM game, probably not the best, somehow poorly optimized and a bit cryptic on its mechanics.

I'd like to start off with what I hate (exactly) of this game: stutter and loading times (on an SSD). First things first I'm playing this game on linux and since the game engine makes use of OpenGl and it's based on the old XCOM game (at least I heard that was it) I was expecting a few issues, but not at "medium" detail level on a GTX-1060 with 6GB of VRAM. About the loading times, I spend like a whole minute (or even more) staring at the loading screen before missions, that's a lot of idle time which gets added to already "long" cutscenes, etc. A lot of idle time.

Performance aside, as I wrote before this is a very nice XCOM game, but of course it's still an XCOM game, meaning that after a few successful perfect or excellent missions, after you manage to get decorated soldiers and after you feel everything is going great, you miss a point blank 90%+ shot, your whole team is killed and your hardcore game experience ends there.
The percentage system is really not my thing, point blank on a flanked enemy you shouldn't need to worry about anything, I don't care if you can get a lucky shot on a 30% enemy, as a tactician I don't even bother trying with percentages below 50.
In general the RNG component on this one is quite more present than in XCOM: Enemy Unknown and this often invalidates any possible tactic, they made an harder game by decreasing your chances of actually influencing the course of action.

The new introduced mechanics on the other hand are what makes this game worth the trouble. Even if a bit cryptic at first (it's quite more complicated than XCOM: Enemy Unknown on the non-combat phase of the game) every new mechanic fits perfectly and often mitigates the awful/typical XCOM games RNG percentage system. I won't spoil anything because I think part of the fun is to get a grasp on your tools and exploit them for the victory.

Last but not least there are several bugs, often gamebreaking (like enemies standing still without attacking or moving), encountered a few after just 10h of gameplay.

So in the end for me it's a good turn-based tactical combat games, a worthy successor of the previous XCOM: Enemy Unknown (and "Within"), but definitely not the best turn-based tactical combat game out there, check out "Invisible Inc." if you like the genre, you may enjoy it more than this one.
Still, recommended to any strategist/tactician out there, it's at least worth playing.

Simple game, simple mechanics and yet a very solid stealth experience.

The main reason why I enjoyed Gunpoint (aside from it being actually a good game) is because it's a game that knows its limits: there's a plot and there's irony on the plot inside the plot itself, mechanics are solid and for just 8000$ you'll trash them all to have some fun... they even made an item just to give some kind of sense to the title of the game.

Probably recommended to anyone who got interested after watching the trailer, but I actually think everyone may enjoy a good short game like this.

I don't know about this one... the game is not bad, style and puns are actually not bad either (even if just thrown there without underlying logic) but funky controls and a boring plot drag the whole thing down.

It's not a "worst game ever" review but for me the experience it's just not enough to be a positive one.
Probably recommended to top-down shooter enthusiasts with few years on their shoulders.

You may think this game could simply be an expensive DLC for Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- and you'd be wrong.
Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR- brings up new characters, new game mechanics, global lighting, a new lobby system, a new story arc and a lot more goodies (extended gallery, diorama figures, fishing...).

Dizzy, Johnny, Jam get back to Guilty Gear along with Crow Raven from Guilty Gear 2: Overture and 2 brand-new characters, no need to say that the amount of detail fits Xrd standards (anime like shadows and moves, now even with global lighting)
New mechanics are definitely not that new/exiting but they still add something to the gameplay, the new lobby system on the other hand is amazing: you get your customizable avatar moving around inside a room with actual cabinets (max 4 + 1 for training mode) and you challenge people in line on the room, amazing.
Story mode feels actually a lot better than Xrd -SIGN- one because the team focused more on "anime", with better photography and camera angles and the addition of global lighting.
Finally goodies section is so huge... a few honorable mentions are: voice actor bonus speech, diorama action figures, usable (during fights) music tracks from all over Guilty Gear history.

Of course everything from the paragraph above on top of Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, probably with a better netplay (lv.3 connections grant you a very good match, lv.4 connections allow totally safe reaction play throughout the game, very enjoyable).
Right now I cannot recommend any fighting game for PC better than this one and personally I think this is one of the greatest ones I ever played.

Strongly recommended for everyone, a must have for anime and/or fighting games enthusiasts.

Very nice CCG game.
Interesting original mechanichs, very good artworks, nice music. I'm 3h in and I'm enjoying it as much as I enjoyed Hearthstone back then.
Still on early access and already got single player campaigns, artworks, music, linux build...

If you ever liked Hearthstone, this game is a must try (and keep trying as hard as you can). Totally recommended.

From the hall of fame of adventure games, remastered.

One of the very best soundtracks ever made, recorded anew with an entire orchestra; one of the best plots (if not THE best plot) ever written for an adventure game, now with dynamic lighting and hi-res textures.

Get this game, you will remember puns, characters and music for ever.