Recent reviews by Dr. Crabs

1000xRESIST is a game with things to say. It has a lot on it's mind and it's going to lay it all out. The amazing writing, brought to life with a stellar voice cast, ensures that this is always a treat and never a chore. I found myself constantly taking screenshots of particular lines that jumped out at me. It feels like a game written for the world we're living in, the world we're creating for our children, and the world we left to us by our parents all at the same time.

You should make the time for this one.

This is the kind of game that makes the Steam rating system feel too restrictive. While I enjoyed this game I felt there were significant issues introduced that weren't there in the original.
I didn't have much faith in Bloober following the original announcement and felt that Silent Hill 2 was in many ways too obvious of a choice. The original game or Silent Hill 4 felt like more fertile ground for a remake, but this what Konami knew would be a hit.
For the first 8 hours or so I was thoroughly impressed with what was delivered. The remixed and revised soundtrack is a perfect companion to the original. The environment feels as oppressive and desolate as it always has. The improved combat makes the game more palatable to a modern audience. Most controversial may be the new performances for each of the main characters. Overall, I'm a fan of the new takes on each of these roles. While the more grounded takes sacrifice some of the otherworldliness of the original I felt James in particular was easier to connect to and better understand his fear and guilt.
After this the issues started to set in. The entire game is expanded by a factor of 2 or 3. Early on this is welcome as you get to soak in the town itself but later as you descend into dark tunnels and oppressive labyrinths you start to feel the padding in every location. This tends to drain the suspense and fear from the endless combat. My ending screen shows that I killed 382 enemies in my standard difficulty playthrough. Everything from the Prison through to the end of the game feels like a slog. Many people may feel a game needs to hit a minimum length to justify it's price but in this case less would have been more.
After all the endless combat the story starts to pick back up and the endings do manage to reach an emotional climax that gave me an overall positive feeling. I wish the original game was easily available to play on modern systems but sadly it isn't. For a first time player I'd fully recommend this but with the caveat that you'll need to fight through to the end. With editing that was a bit more aggressive this could have been a truly outstanding game on par with the original instead of merely a great one. I hope Bloober gets to take another trip to Silent Hill on their own terms next time with the lessons they learned here.

This feels like the sort of game we got all the time during the PS360 era. It's a solid shooter with some fun twists to keep things interesting. While the story isn't exactly groundbreaking it's presented well with a fairly lighthearted tone to the dialogue. The game looked nice and performed really well with a mostly solid 60fps on my 4070ti. Overall, it's worth a pickup and is reminder of the types of games we saw before live services and F2P microtransactions took over the gaming industry.

There's something kinda charming about this game but it's not for everyone. There's a high degree of challenge involved that can feel downright unfair sometimes. Checkpointing in the late game feels borderline abusive but not insurmountable. The voice acting has it's own particular goofiness as well knowingly recalling the PS2-era hamminess. The storyline of the events in the game is pretty simple and alludes to a bigger world and a deeper backstory for the main character than is presented in the playable portions. Some of the cutscenes and anime inserts bring a sense of style you don't typically see in games at this budget. If you're curious and patient with this game you'll probably have a pretty good time.

Saints Row has always been the GTA we have at home. This isn't a knock against the series. The lack of expectation allowed the games to find their own voice and embrace a slapstick goofiness that the GTA couldn't really match.

With no way of really topping the prior entry and no real narrative thread to pull on a reboot may have looked like the only way forward. While this game may not satisfy purists, there is a lot here to love. The characters and the banter between them finds a sweet goofiness that makes the mass-murder almost heartwarming.

The mission design and set pieces rarely achieve the heights of AAA games from larger studios but finds enough excitement to last it's 20 hour runtime. Likewise, the city of Santo Illeso never matches the scale of someplace like NIght City, or Los Santos but has it's own distinct vibe. It seems we rarely see games set in the South West and the game does a good job of representing a region with a unique beauty. I played it with HDR enabled and scenes set during sunrise or sunset against the burning red orange sky were actually some of my favorite gaming vistas in years.

In the end the rebooted Saints Row fits comfortably into that "perfect 7/10 rating". It's not going to please everyone but Volition made something to be proud of. It's a shame they don't have the chance to continue to build on it.

Enjoyable game that you can finish in an afternoon. The story is self-contained but does fell like a lead in to a larger narrative in the third act.
At its best it feels like the more exploratory bits of Half-Life 2. The shooting can be a little sluggish, particularly in the early going but manages to introduce enough varied enemies over it's run time that things didn't get stale. Overall, it's a promising start and worth the time if you enjoy indie and small-budget games.

If you've found your way to this page then you're probably already the target audience. If you've played Disco Elysium, Planescape:Torment, or Kentucky Route Zero, then you're primed for they type of experience this game is going to deliver. Waypoint Radio had an episode dedicated to an interview with the creator you can listed to here:
https://play.acast.com/s/vicegamingsnewpodcast/episode-475-interview-with-norco-developer-yuts

Additionally, it works great on Steam Deck. I completed majority of my playthrough there.

If you've been hesitant on this game because of the Avengers game do yourself a favor and play this one.

This remake is worth it for the Xen chapters by themselves. The years spent building this section from scratch paid off.