Recent reviews by The MacGovern

A practical demonstration of what it means to "go touch grass", Land of Screens is a short, sweet little romp through reality. The game is definitely more about the story than the puzzles - but at least the puzzles have a purpose within the story and aren't there merely because this is an adventure game, and the story is quite good.

My only complaint is how short it is. It took me about 1 hour and 20 minutes (80 minutes for the pedantic) to beat and do all the interactions. I mean, for 6 bucks USD as of the time of this review, it's still a great buy. I just felt like things were over too quickly.

The world is ending, the beings behind it seemingly have no interest in humanity, and you're stuck in the middle of it. How will you spend your final hours? How will you deal with the revelation of just how small and insignificant humanity really is? And what, if anything, can be done about it?

I love this little game. It's short, to the point, and offers you multiple perspectives on the end of the world by forces beyond our comprehension, all of which have their own, unique answers to the above questions.

10/10 this dev made a moving and emotional adventure game about climbing down a well. Would dare any other dev to replicate.

A fast-paced, bite-sized JRPG, Unsung Kingdom is about three mages from the future trying to stop their country's beloved king from dying a premature death. The English translation is good, the combat and gameplay, while stripped to their bare minimum, are quite enjoyable, and while there is minimal grinding, it's balanced out by the simplicity of combat.

Pick a gun and a perk. Use your gun to destroy enemies and rocket-jump and bullet-jump - no, that's not a typo - your way to secrets. Get stuff from their guts to help you destroy more enemies and find more secrets. Repeat until either you or they are dead.

Then start all over with new guns, new perks, new level segments, and new secrets. And, if you feel like this game needs an arbitrary story, you can enable that, too. (Possible genres include: customer flattery, developer commentary session, and old, married couple getting misled by old-fashioned GPS unit.)

Also, don't destroy the Claptrap-alikes. You'll die a lot less.

TL;DR: For $7.99, you get the most faithful and newb-friendly recreation of the Wipeout anti-gravity racing experience ever made, with extensive modding support for some impressive and, should you want it, surreal and exotic content.

So, what is an anti-gravity racing game? It's a game where the cars' minimum speed can be measured in hundred of kilometers an hour, using the handbrake in tandem with your regular steering is paramount for weaving in and out of any track's curves as well as your opponents, and, despite the high speeds, are quite durable - to the point where you can slam directly into an obstacle at about Mach 1.25 and drive away (albeit with heavy damage).

With that explanation out of the way, you're probably thinking, "How can anyone not a pro-league-tier gamer drive these things?" Very easily, actually, and the game's built-in singleplayer campaign and speed classes help get you used to the unique handling of an anti-gravity race car, ramping up as your experience with the various kinds of anti-gravity race cars and the events they can compete in.

You have your standard lap-based racing, either against opponents or the clock, with powerups to impede or eliminate the competition (or just net you a better time); you have your standard elimination lap racing, also with powerups; a standard firefight mode where it's between you and your opponents to dish out as much damage as possible before the damage threshold, your points, is reached; and you have some modes unique to the anti-gravity racing genre and BallisticNG itself: time trial, but your speed continually increases the longer you don't slam into walls at Mach speeds; and a hybrid of that mode with standard racing, with emphasis placed on strategically increasing speed as anytime you do so, you tear a hole in reality which does significant damage to anyone unfortunate enough to drive into your reality-hole.

Racing-wise, the track styles are wide and varied, trekking through peaceful valleys and coastlines, beach resorts, tall mountains, and other worlds entirely. There's tracks for everyone - from beginners learning the ropes all the way up to veterans wanting something a bit more exotic track style-wise...and by "exotic", I mean tracks with insane 180-degree turns, crazy jumps, and tracks with mind-bending loops and inversions.

Graphically, the game is very much a love-letter to the PS1 (the one the PlayStation Classic is based off), complete with the limited 16-bit colors, jittery polys, and low draw distance. Or, you can enhance the graphics with dynamic lighting, no jittery polys, 32-bit color, real-time reflections, bloom, tone-mapping, and motion blur. Either way, if you've played a PS1 game, especially one of the Wipeout games for that console, you'll be right at home.

As for multiplayer? There's local splitscreen along with either manual, IP-based hosting or Steam Matchmaking. It's basic, but it works insanely well.

And the mods...oh, the mods! While Steam Workshop is certainly the easiest way to get your fixings of new tracks, cars, sound effects, and more, the modding community mainly congregates on the game's official Discord server. There, you'll find the best...well, everything - not to mention a whole lot of strange and wonderful content. Want to take your anti-gravity skills into whole custom campaign dedicated to Gran Turismo tracks? And why leave out recreations of Mario Kart or Wipeout tracks? Or racing through someone's Minecraft server? Or racing through any of those tracks in a regular, non-anti-gravity car? Regardless of how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go, the modding community has you covered?

And if you want to make your own insane content? The ever-helpful community and the developers have you covered there too with official documentation and an official Discord channel dedicated just to modding and modding help. Just be prepared to use stuff like Blender and the actual Unity development kit.

TL;DR: If you love any game in The Incredible Machine series, you'll be obsessed with Contraption Maker.

Contraption Maker is the next-generation of 2D Rube Goldberg puzzlers from the people who created the template for PC in the first place. "What is a Rube Goldberg puzzle?" you're liking asking. Such a puzzle takes an ordinary task, such as "feed cheese to your mouse", and transforms it into a mind-boggling exercise in physics - albeit a very understandable one. Whether it be constructing a series of impromptu flight correctors to make sure rockets launching at the same time actually fly off the screen, making it so frustrating for a cat to eat a mouse that the cat gives up, or getting someone from one end of a snow-covered level to another Sonic the Hedgehod 3-style, the puzzles are as inventive as they are challenging.

The game also does a fantastic job of teaching players new to the 2D Rube Goldberg puzzler genre how all the parts work, introduces common uses for those parts, then lets you loose, often forcing you to find some uncommon uses for those parts. There are a few rare spikes in difficulty, but since all puzzles and parts are available from the beginning, this is more of a nuisance for those wanting to 100% the game.

New in Contraption Maker are Scenarios, which are like the game's regular puzzles, but with far less restrictions on how to achieve a given goal. You can make the most elaborate contraption to win, or just build the most streamlined device. Both are rewarded and up to the player. I'm not into them, but for those looking for less-structured puzzles without wanting to make their own, I can see these being fun.

What's that you just read? Yes, you can make your own outrageous puzzles for yourself and others to play, even being able to upload them directly to the Steam Workshop! The way the puzzle builder works is extremely-similar to how you solve puzzles, so once you've gotten your head around the game's mechanics, you're free to build, test, and publish your own puzzles.

As an added bonus, the game exposes its in-game logic for extensive modding capabilites - the results of which can also be directly published to the Steam Workshop. Platformers, pinball machines, and puzzles with custom rules or mechanics are all within your grasp - if you don't mind programming.

DISCLAIMER: Received this game as part of a PCGamingWiki assignment.

As someone who's never really heard of Monster Jam, has never owned any kind of racing wheel setup, and only breaks out the controller for racing games which need them, I simultaneously love and hate Monster Jam Steel Titans. I love it because it has the same kind of semi-arcade, semi-realistic handling from Rainbow Studio's MX vs. ATV series, making the trucks fun to drive around and do insane stunts. The trucks also leave actual tracks in the ground, making multi-lap, multi-truck events trickier as your tires struggle to grip the track.

You also get to (eventually) drive around all the outdoor racetracks in a kind of open-world-style format. You get to practice at your own pace, and you get to discover the usual surreal, hidden Rainbow Studios easter eggs.

I hate the game because it feels like the game is hamstrung by the Monster Jam license. Given how easily the trucks flip off pretty much anything (not a negative - the trucks somehow still feel like heavy hunks of metal), I was expecting to have many and interesting stunt opportunities. Instead, it's stuck to what is, supposedly, part of the standard Monster Jam repiortare, so front/back flips, forwards, backwards, and sideways wheelies, etc. No corkscrews or other stuff you could only safely pull off in a video game.

The game clearly puts the campaign difficulty low so video game newcomers can stand a chance. For me, a veteran gamer and arcade-style driver, this is very off-putting as the content is mainly locked behind this. Furthermore, there is no "event number out of whatever" when in a campaign series or a per-event restart, giving the false impression they're meant to be played in one go.

All in all, if you don't mind a cut-down MX vs. ATV game with low campaign difficulty and only arcade-ish monster trucks, then check it out. Otherwise, this is not a racing game you'll enjoy.

BalanCity literally turns the classic SimCity formula vertical, then forces you to build and manage your vertical cities on the equivalent of a poorly-built Jenga tower. It starts out simple, giving you some handy tutorial missions to show and unlock the basics, then goes crazy with fun, one-level gimmicks like altered gravity, a bizarre metaphor for bridging the gap between the rich and the poor, and playing as Godzilla a Giant Fire-Breathing Reptile Thing. It's mind-bending, strategic, and just plain fun gaming in short bursts.

Are you a human being? Do you like explosions? As in "Michael Bay"-level of explosions? Do you love action movies where the heros shoot first and ask questions later because they're that badass? Do you love games where you can literally shoot your way through anything - and I do mean anything?! Do you love over-the-top American badassery? Then join the Broforce and become a legion of 80's and 90's action-heroes who've been lovingly renamed with "bro" somewhere in the title. Gender, genre, and age are no object here - if your favorite action hero is in the Brofore, they're a bro.

Ranging from the serious, like The Brofessional (Professional) with his mostly one-hit kills and the hard-hitting, resurrecting Brodock Saints (Boondock Saints), to the over-the-top, like Rambro and his classic run-and-gunning and Bro Lee with his insane, time-defying punches, it's all here, and they all play completely differently!

The maps are all destructible - everything which isn't required for sane gameplay, like checkpoints, can be destroyed with enough firepower. This creates some cool solutions to normally-problematic enemy placement. Can't face off against that horde of mechs head-on with your current bro? Just tunnel your way behind them! Got some heavy-hitting foes you don't want to get up close with? Send some explosive barrels falling on their heads!

Furthermore, the campaign, which lovingly rips on America's former "preemtive strike" attitude, ramps up the enemies and bosses you encounter, with special, one-life challenge maps unlocking powerups upon completion.

The challenge maps deserve a special mention, as they either highlight the abilities of a specific bro, or they teach you about the powerup you're about to unlock (sometimes both). These force you into a variety of playstyles, like "speedrunner" or "stealth explosive takedowns" (stealth being silent in this game? U mad, bro?).

While you can play through the complete campaign without the story mode via "Arcade" mode, you won't be able to unlock powerups, some of which are quintessential to the experience.

If it sounds like I'm in love with this game, I am. This is the most metal video game I've ever played - and this is just from the single-player experience! I'd love to play this with my friends and share the over-the-top Americaness with them.