PC games I've played in the last few years and my reviews on them...
Ooblets
It's similar to Animal Crossing. You come to a town where you get a tiny house that you get to upgrade as you go, you meet random people in the town, you accomplish tasks, you plant things in your yard and keep it up, etc. The most unique thing about it is that you get to have "Ooblets," these little creatures, that follow you around. You win them by having dance battles with them by choosing the moves your ooblets do that is supposed to trump the others. It gets redundant but there's this Pokémon feeling that you "have to catch them all." I played it in the testing stage, so they have added more to it since I played, but after a while I just ran out of stuff to do, my house couldn't hold any more furniture, and I'd pretty much collected all of the ooblets that existed. Still, I would recomend the game.
Firewatch
This had beautiful graphics and scenery. It has an open world feel, where there is a massive amount of the world you can roam freely in. It's story based though, so you follow instructions, have tasks, and follow a compass through the woods and on trails. The premise of the game is fascinating - you are at a fire watch tower for the summer, making sure to report any forest fires you see, or going out to tell people to stop making fireworks or camp fires. The only other person you interact with it someone on another tower through a walkie talkie. A mystery begins, and weird things start to happen. Overall I hated the ending, and I got lost a LOT. There's a lot of walking / hiking in the game, and I wish that you could just spawn at the place you'd last been if there wasn't something for you to do on the way.
Beneath a Steel Sky
The sequel to the the above came out in 2020! It had a lot more to do, it was a longer game, it obviously had way better graphics, and overall I really liked the game. Everything was very futuristic. Again there is mystery to it, and you have to figure out what is going on in the game and solve a mystery. I had to use walkthroughs again because I got stuck sometimes.
Life is Strange
A lot of times I'll watch someone on Youtube play the first 30 minutes of a game to see if I'd like it before I buy it so I don't waste my money. I did that with this game and was excited about it. You play a girl who finds out she can rewind time to change her choices. You're at a creative arts high school where you are studying photography. You talk to lots of people, the graphics are great, the conversations and people are engaging. And of course, there is a mystery to solve. You know up front that a girl is missing. But at some point things get really weird and dark, and it just keeps getting worse and worse. At one point I almost didn't finish the game because it was so bad, but I did finish the game. I wouldn't recommend the game to anybody. There was so much creativity in this game, but depth of the darkness in it ruined the whole thing for me.
Gone Home
This only takes about 2 hours to play so it's pretty short. A lot of people love this game but I didn't. You come home to an empty house after being out of the country for a year and don't know where your family is. It's stormy. You start exploring this mansion - which is your house - and think the whole time that they're going to be dead or missing or something tragic / scary, when in fact nothing scary is happening at all. It tells a story as you pick up things or collect things, and you find secret doors in the house.
Tell Me Why
This is by the same people who made Life is Strange. This was set in Alaska, so again, beautiful and creative scenery and towns and people. You switch back and forth between these two twins as adults, and then also as kids. They are trying to figure out what happened with their mom - she was murdered - and their memories aren't very good because they were traumatized. They are on the search for what really happened as they are also trying to sell their childhood home. The game focuses heavily on the brother who is transgender, and how people relate to him either positively or negatively. It's an overall very sad game without a good ending.
Sims 4
I started playing Sims 1 when I was 12 years old and loved it for the gameplay, and then didn't play it for years and years. Now, on Sims 4, I love it more for building houses, the decorations, and sometimes the gameplay still. People can create houses, stores, schools, amusement parks, disney castles, anything you can think of, and upload it for you to choose to download and play too, for free! Some people are so talented at it. I like watching people play the Sims on Youtube sometimes because they are funny or creative, with things like the 100 baby challenge, rags to riches where you have to start with no money and then slowly make money somehow without an official job, etc. There are always new additions coming out and new worlds, from the big city to a Japanese world covered in snow, to a college town, to a magical world. They have stayed big for over 20 years with no signs of stopping.
Unravel
You play as a little yarn person who has to travel through scenes by unraveling parts of himself to hook on things to swing, jump, push, and then pull the yarn back to him. If there isn't enough yarn to use then you did it wrong and have to find another way. Although it was an interesting idea, and they even had a second one, I didn't play this for very long. I got bored with it and didn't continue.
Fall Guys, Among Us, and Fortnight
I'm combining three that most people know about. Fall Guys - I was just really bad at it so I didn't enjoy it. Even practicing over and over again I couldn't get the hang of it. Plus there were several rounds that actually made me motion sick. Among Us - if I played with people I actually knew and could talk to them, that would be way more fun. But when I'm playing with strangers every round, it's annoying because you don't know if people are telling the truth, and everybody just jumps on one person to kick out for no reason. Or lots of people leave when the game starts because they didn't get imposter. I like watching people on Youtube play the game though because it's funny and they are creative with it, especially with different mods to make people different roles. Fornight - that's a big no for me. I can't aim and shoot at the same time already, much less build things!
I've played lots of Civilization games. I don't remember all of their names, and some of them are not called that either but have the same premise. I like a lot of them, but the problem is I can't stop playing them and I get addicted to them. You're constantly upgrading your town/city, your army, etc. and for no end in sight. Just bigger and better, always and always. Some of them that you play with other players where there's a chat has an amazing amount of drama and angry people! People make up rules for you like "You can't attack another clan" when the whole point of the game is to attack and gather resources.
Nancy Drew games
There are 33 Nancy Drew games - I started playing them at 12 years old and have played all of them. They are where my love of mystery, point and click, adventure, task driven, beautiful and creative scenery, and interesting dialogue games come from. They are much more PG in nature, and I wish there was more like them. The last one came out in December 2019 and it had a whole new engine that created it, new graphics, new people who created the games... and it wasn't that great sadly. But I loved most of the other 32! They are set all over the world in all kinds of places. Amusment parks, trains, Europe, a boarding school, a haunted mansion, Italy, and more. Even though they are PG, tons of adults play them, and I got stuck all of the time and had to use walkthroughs. They were hard! There were lots of puzzles, things to collect, people to talk to, etc.
Next I'll be reviewing some iphone games I've played over the past few years!
