Mike Juray
Mike was first on the scene with a SNES and kept up-to-date on the hottest games thanks to his older brother’s shared love of all things video games. He loves staying in on rainy days with classic horror games like Silent Hill or Clocktower, but has experience across the the gamut of genres, from racing-sim to rhythm-action. He is always looking for new and different experiences, both in gaming and real life. His go-to genre is platforming, but he also enjoys a good FPS or puzzler. When he’s not holding a controller, he enjoys sushi, fluffy dogs, cold lemonades, and urbexing.
Stranger Things 3: The Game Review
Stranger Things 3: The Video Game is a lot like cereal from the ’80s. It’s old and stale and surpassed by more modern offerings. While it draws upon influences of games long past, it ultimately fails to incorporate more recent innovations in it’s genre.
Swag and Sorcery Review
A resource management game that’s easy to pick up and doesn’t take a lot of thought to play, but unfortunately lacks depth and becomes stale after a minimal amount of time spent with it.
Earthworms Review
Earthworms isn’t groundbreaking. There are better point-and-click games out there, but for what it’s worth, anyone who likes point-and-clicks owe it to themselves to give Earthworms a whirl. It’s easy to play, flows nicely, puzzles are just challenging enough, and the art and music work in beautiful harmony to create a living, breathing world. If you can forgive some poor translation errors, Earthworms is well worth the price and time spent playing it.
Monster Prom Review
Monster Prom is a dating sim that’s ready to scare away the competition with drop-dead gorgeous art, killer writing, and music that’s to die for.
Double Kick Heroes Early Access Review
Double Kick Heroes looks like a satanic crossover of Oregon Trail, Guitar Hero, and Left 4 Dead, and it plays like a champ. Fighting zombies while music inspired by legendary metal artists plays in the background is something that doesn’t get old.
Dead Maze Review
Dead Maze is worthwhile. The fact that it’s free makes up for the fact that it looks free. It’s hard to appreciate this game for its art, and while it does suffer from some pretty bad frame rate drops, it’s easy to forgive Dead Maze because it provides a fun, genuinely free-to-play experience that doesn’t require you to pay for in-game currency.
YUMENIKKI -DREAM DIARY- Review
Yume Nikki: Dream Diary is a visually faithful recreation of the original Yume Nikki, but beyond that, it falls short. A slew of game-breaking bugs and unintuitive gameplay creates a disappointing experience not worth the asking price.
Genital Jousting Review
Genital Jousting is a stylish, unique game that doesn’t have the cojones to warrant its current market price. Bringing this game home will leave you feeling cheated and unsatisfied after spending some time in bed with it — but that doesn’t mean it’s a completely lost cause.
DUSK Early Access Review
Dusk is a nifty little shooter from the dawn of the FPS era, and while it feels like a long-lost DOS game that time forgot, it brings a fresh twist to the FPS table while reminding us why we fell in love with shooters in the first place. Guns are cool, levels are fun, enemies put up a good fight — and with the game being in Early Access, there’s more yet to come from this gem. It's a promising title with a bright future.
Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back Review
With Sonic and Mario in the spotlight again, Bubsy takes another swipe at being a lovable mascot, but doesn’t succeed in capturing the same sentiment. Ultimately, Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back (Bubsy), the platforming game, arrives as the two-decades-too-late 5th entry in the series. Despite excellent controls, the title does not overcome some of its more pressing shortcomings, such as level design, resulting in a sub-par gaming experience.
Visual Novel Maker Review
A neat tool, VNMaker makes it easy to tell a story and share it with friends. It boasts a wide variety of features and several options for creating anything from a short romance in the classroom to a full-fledged RPG. The interface is intuitive and sleek, and the program itself is fun and easy to use.
Devil Dagger’s Die-Hard Devotees
Devil Daggers is created by Matt “m4ttbush” Bush, under the company Sorath. I’m greeted with screenshots that depict a hand engulfed in embers, firing countless daggers from its fingertips at hordes of lovecraftian enemies. The room is dark: there are no walls or ceilings, only a dark void. The faint illumination from the main character reveals ancient stone floors beneath. The entire color scheme seems to stick with three, maybe four colors at once — all dusty reds or luminescent yellows. They are hugging vertices that I have not seen since Quake, and they look brilliant combined.
Vaporum Review
Vaporum shows promise but still, has ways to go. The art style is finely tuned, but time spent polishing the look should’ve been invested in more various assets. I enjoyed playing it but still felt bored and uninterested at times, and it would’ve benefited from a larger variety of enemies and weapons. That being said, it’s not half bad, and one of the better games you’ll play this year; a sequel with some more attention to certain details would be an instant buy.
Suicide Guy Review
Suicide Guy caters to the underserved demographic of people who enjoy 3D puzzle platformers, except this serving is more of a home-cooked meal from Grandma’s house after she had gotten dementia. It’s made with love, and is good at certain parts, but in the end, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Graphics and level design can be clever at times, but are essentially ruined by the frustrating physics and collision, lack of any good music, repetitive sound effects, half-finished animations, and stale platforming. I want to love Suicide Guy, and I do, in a way -- I appreciate the effort that was made, but when I was done I felt unsatisfied and dead inside.