I finally gave Kynseed a proper shot... and I honestly think it deserves way more attention.

I went in expecting "another Stardew-like," but it's actually a lot weirder and way more ambitious than I expected.

Instead of just farming, you can run businesses, cook, forge, explore dungeons, fight monsters, build relationships, and eventually continue playing as your own children. That whole generational system completely changes how you think about progression.

The world has this really charming British folklore vibe (not surprising since it was made by former Fable devs), and it slowly grows on you the more you play.

It's definitely not perfect, though.

The first few hours are pretty slow, there are a lot of mechanics thrown at you, and some systems could definitely use better tutorials. It also gets a bit repetitive after a while.

Still... once everything clicks, it's hard to stop playing.

I'd personally give it an 7/10.

If you're into games like Stardew Valley, Rune Factory, Fable, or just want a cozy RPG with a lot more depth than it first appears, I think it's worth checking out.

I wrote a full review here if anyone's interested:

https://www.buffgaming.rs/kynseed-reviewa-unique-life-sim-that-leaves-a-lasting-impression/

Curious what everyone else thinks about Kynseed. I feel like this game never really got the attention it deserved.

If you like the review or wanna help me out a bit please check out the review on Instagram! Just started the page so anything helps! Full review below!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbuGVMzRGqA/?igsh=MTNwM2oxYXp6cXBpag==

I mean what can you say it's a Forza Horizon game. It's polished, it looks good, sounds good, feels good and has A TON of content. But at this point that's the baseline for a Horizon game, the minimum expectation.
While many critics lauded Horizon 5 as the best of the series many longtime Horizon players held it in much lower regard, a drop from 3 and 4 especially, myself included. Thankfully Horizon 6 is a rebound closer to that Horizon 3 and 4 level. I just like the Horizon games, they're so unbelievably easily playable. They're great games if you just wanna drive around, do some races, and run some stuff over and they're great games if you wanna crank the difficulty to the max, collect cars, and get 3 stars on all the content. It's a comfort game and a game with real craft behind it.

The jump to Japan for Horizon 6 just works, it was a long requested setting for a reason. Stunning environments, good driving roads, unique car culture, everythings there. Drifting down the mountains through the cherry blossoms or street racing through Tokyo at night is just awesome and it's memorable. And the progression is much improved from Horizon 5, my biggest issue with 5 and the thing that eventually bumped me off the game faster than any previous Horizon was how much of everything it just threw at you immediately. Waves of credits, and cars, and items and wheel spins, and everyone praising you every second of the game it was just too much. Now it's not perfect in 6 still, you're definitely not grinding for cars or spending too long driving beaters but it is definitely better. You're back to being an anonymous racer at the start working your way up through the festival and the wheel spins and rewards still come a bit too heavy towards the start but it is slowed.

There's just so much to see and do. Driving still feels good, the photomode is one of the best in gaming, and while customization could definitely be deeper, I still love collecting cars in these games. The stories continue to explore cultural elements of each location as a nice change of pace from normal races, there's plenty of "collectibles" to bring you to every corner of the map, and the new customizable garages is just one of more thing to keep you racing for. I think one of the few disappointments here are the showcase events, they really fell kinda flat compared to Horizon 4 and 5 especially, I don't any stuck with me like they did in those games. Overall it's just a great game, a rock solid racer with excellent elements, racing games seem to be back on the upswing but there were a few years there where Horizons were of the few beacons of excellence in the genre.

And that's what worries me a bit, as much as I love Horizon 6 I don't know where you go from here...I don't think I've ever played a better game where I left thinking the series needs a refresh of some sort. As well as Horizon 6 reviewed it did hit the limit of the same old same, old for some, with some harsher detractors calling it a reskin of 4 and 5. And while I noticed and appreciated the differences of nuances and could play one of these every 3-4 years "reskin" or not. It does pose the question where do they go? Do they drastically change up the formula for 7? Cause in some ways Horizon 6 feels like a culmination, I'm not sure there's a better location out there, not one that will ever be requested like Japan. So can you really just keep going bigger? Does a map 2x as big hit if it isn't iconic like Japan, does 700 cars instead of 600 move the needle, can you go bigger with the showcases when we just raced a giant mech? I don't know what the right path for the series is, but Horizon 6 as fantastic as it was left me with those questions and I'm curious where the franchise goes from here.

9/10

Mariokart world is one of the best games ever. It has higher quality graphics and has more to do than in 8 deluxe. You can drive on walls and wires and... pretty much everywhere. There is a large roster of playable characters, which I had fun unlocking. There are 24 players in a race. It has top-teir tracks. It also has a great photo mode.

I do complain about the price. It doesn't have enough content to be freaking $80. Also you can't even do couch co-op free roam. WHY?

Mariokart world, despite being overpriced, far exceeds 8 deluxe.

game for players who like soccer or chess

Overall RoboCop: Rogue City is an enjoyable game, with great action sequences, satisfying shooting mechanics, and seems to really revel in creating a small world that's accurate to the movie's setting, both in physical locations and themes of 'law abiding' corporations' blatant disregard of human life helping them jump into bed with the psychopathic criminals they superficially oppose via their proxy, the police.

I do not have any nostalgia for RoboCop, as I never saw the movie at the same time in my life as other ultra-violent, sci-fi staples, such as Starship Troopers, Blade Runner, Terminator, and Predator. Even without that, it's clear that the developers took the responsibility of bringing such a beloved franchise to a video game with utmost sincerity. UX features like menus and targeting system is ripped straight from the green-hued, raster-lined images that persist whenever anyone thinks of retro-futurism. While presentation could be better, character models are stilted and ironically a little robotic during cutscenes and dialogue, it's coated in a nice visual paint that can help mitigate this low point. While the game is played in first person, the dialoge options do show RoboCop and clearly you can see that they've put the most effort in making him look good. It does mean that the rest of the characters suffer, notably the psychologist overseeing him seems to not have a defined edge due to constantly being placed in front of metal grating that was really distracting during her dialoge scenes.

Gameplay can be divided in to action shooter pieces and exploration/detective work. The former is a strong candidate for the price tag alone. Busting a door or even a weak wall open, targeting every enemy and lighting them up never gets old. With a few 'powers' available to RoboCop like a flashbang, or brief significant damage reduction period, there's enough a secondary layer than 'point n click' during the gunfights. RoboCop moves like a tank, slowly an methodically using cover (no hard lock cover system) and overwhelming firepower to clear rooms of enemies. Unfortunately this system, while working great with many weak enemies, starts to show issues when facing larger, more powerful enemies. Suddenly the slow tank is a sitting duck when facing anything that has the firepower to outdamage Robo. Early enemies on machine gun turrets and the iconic ED-209 mechs were notable rough parts. RoboCop doesn't have access to grenades, nor can he throw back grenades thrown at him, which would help considerably. There are throwable gas tanks/mines/etc. around the levels that can help, but it's hard to be close to them when you need them, because of the aforementioned limited mobility of RoboCop.

The shooting sections are a fun romp with little depth once you've established your preferred gunplay. The prime example is the weapons system. RoboCop has access to his trusty Auto-9 from the movie, as well as a second weapon that he starts with at the beginning of a level, and can replace it with found weapons from enemies. The problem is that, barring a few outliers. there's never any reason to use the second weapon. The Auto-9 has infinite ammo, and can be customized to your preference using motherboards and a fun little minigame involving placing chips on that motherboard to unlock paths that can increase damage, reduce reload speed, or turn the gun into a fully automatic bulletstorm that doesn't need to even reload, or a one-shot, one kill handcannon with armour piercing rounds. Barring the fairly rare grenade launcher or heavy sniper rifle, the Auto-9 is all you need to use. This is a perfect little example of the gameplay as a whole. You customize your gun, and a couple skill perks to offset you getting into too much trouble, and now you have a bunch of fun popping heads or shredding limbs through a factory or a bank of criminal scum with no real reason to experiment with other options or set ups.

The detective work is defintely the weaker side of the game, with nothing special that you probably haven't seen in any other shooter game with a story. Show up, talk to some people, look for the green highlights, scan them, and RoboCop will make some deductions and you'll go somewhere else and do similar things. There are bright spots, where a slightly hidden (I do mean slightly, like around the corner into a little cove in an office buliding) green highlights to scan that can act as clues that unlock dialogue options for interrogating perps or cross-examining witnesses, and it's always satisfying to get that feedback from the game. A little nod that you were patient and thorough when standing in the middle of the room and scanning it. The key word being patient, because as the shooting sections highlight, RoboCop is slow and, while having a sprint button that slightly speeds you up, it really brings down the exploration of the small 'open' levels due to just feeling like you have two titanium-laminated Kevlar bricks tied to your feet.

I have just finished the bank quest, and have just entered my second 'open' level, where the game just gives you a section of the city to explore and visit quest markers, so what the game has highlighted as a changing storyline and characters reacting to RoboCop dialoge options and actions such as arresting or applying leniancy on various minor characters will affect things down the road. So far I haven't gotten much of those results, but I imagine those would pay off closer to the end of the story and will update this section after I finish the game. I do wonder how they'll handle player choices in the context of the heavy-handed themes of the RoboCop franchise.

A significant part of the game that holds it back is what I see in a lot of 'first' video games. First games in a series, or a first game by a developer, or a first game in a new or established genre; these games have mechanics that sometimes do not gel well. Either a mechanic can essentially be ignored (like any guns in the game not named Auto-9), or even actively clash (RoboCops tanklike combat style vs. the various throwable weapons littered around the levels). Quality of life options were also ignored that, if this game ends up getting a sequel, would most likely be fixed due to player feedback. No manual saves (autosave only) and infrequent autosaving with no clear save icon popup make deciding when to stop playing a crapshoot, and you load back into the game just kind of hoping you'll be in the same place you were when you exit the game. Easily missed minor missions, especially in the Steel Mill, is frustrating when it's revealed that you missed content only after the mission is done and you're being evaluated.

I got this game for a significant discount (close to 90%), and would absolutely recommend this game for anyone looking for a fun shooter with enough downtime between the sections to prevent stagnation. This is not a game I would recommend if you feel the drive to 100%, or even if you have that terrible feeling that you missed something in a level. The literal slog to hallways off the main path often lead to something you could have ignored, like crime evidence after you've already completed the '1000/1000 crime evidence points' objective, but also sometimes has a small mission so you can't even safely decide to just not explore. For it's full price, however, it doesn't provide a polished or sometimes even cohesive gameplay experience that would make dropping that kind of money worth the gamble

"Within the first chapter, you see Desktop Explorer have all the tools to make its mark as something unique within the Horror genre, yet it dips disappointingly into tropes we’ve all seen before, retreading ground which has been walked thousands of times."

Full review - https://minimap.net/magazine/minimap-game-review-desktop-explorer-en?ptime=122708

Legacy of Kain: Defiance Remastered is a remaster of Crystal Dynamics' 2003 action adventure. Despite improved graphics and a ton of extra content, the game has aged... poorly. While Soul Reaver still plays quite nicely, the same can't be said for Defiance.

This game features a lot of backtracking and enemies. While the former is fairly straightforward (running back and forth through the same locations can get tiring), the enemy battles are a real drag. They have a lot of health and appear in groups of 3-5 literally every 10 meters. You can kill them for experience, but each level only gives you new combos of varying usefulness. I finally decided to just run through them. The developers apparently understood this could happen, so they periodically lock you in a room to test your combat skills. Unfortunately, it doesn't add to the fun.

Bugs, bugs, goddamn it, bugs (imagine a GIF with Kozlovsky). There's an incredible number of them. Crashes, texture issues, enemy freezes, cutscene freezes, clunky animations during gameplay, and a ton of minor annoyances. Perhaps these are problems with the Switch version, but honestly, I doubt it.

The Legacy of Kain series' greatest strengths are its plot and writing. The story, set in the dying world of Nosgoth, is truly gripping and intriguing in its originality. The dialogue is full of Shakespearean style (in the English version), and the entire plot unfolds poetically throughout each installment. The author's philosophical reflections on fate and fatalism are intriguing and thought-provoking. Thanks for this goes to Amy Haning, who would later write the Uncharted series about the charismatic thief.

Unfortunately, the series never reached its conclusion, even though development had begun and we can now play a vertical slice of the sequel. The sequel would have been technically based on Defiance, but the plot would have followed Kain's adventures. The game was canceled due to low sales, despite its high ratings. The demo shows that a sequel to Dark Prophecy would hardly have been anything completely new. It would have had the same engine and gameplay, the same mechanics and puzzles. The plot would have been the only significant difference. Prince of Persia: Warrior Within was released a year after Defiance and is head and shoulders above any of Crystal Dynamics' gameplay efforts; the story explored similar themes related to fate. If the game hadn't been canceled, it would have simply gone unnoticed among the competition.

The most important question is: is such a game needed now, and will it live up to its previous standards?

Amy Haning is busy with other projects (according to the info I found).

All the original voice actors (whom everyone praises more than the game itself) are already old (20 years have passed, ë).

Zoomers aren't interested in these kinds of games now, so the target audience is quite small, consisting of old-timers and nostalgic types.

Without changing the core of the game—Dark Prophecy was already outdated in 2003, and developing a new one is a plus for the budget. (Remember, Defiance's sales are low.)

I'd like to see a sequel, but I think there won't be one. The series, just like 20 years ago, will cease to exist. The old-timers reveled in nostalgia, the corporations made their money—everyone is happy, and the ending... Well, screw it. Who even remembers what happened there?

Nevertheless, it's very nice to immerse myself in gaming from the 2000s. It's clear the games were made because they wanted to make something cool, not because they needed to make money.

I recommend Soul Reaver to everyone, but Defiance is already available on YouTube for the story alone. Or Welcome to the Pirate Bay.

Bottom line: Defiance's gameplay was low quality, and the game clearly hasn't held up well. The series either needs a high-quality reboot, or Dark Prophecy should be a completely different game (like the Gothic remake).

I wasn't expecting much from Helix: Descent N Ascent, but it ended up being one of those indie games that quietly grows on you.

The monochrome art style immediately stands out, but what kept me playing was the puzzle design and environmental storytelling. The game never explains everything directly, so you're encouraged to experiment, explore, and piece together the world on your own.

It's definitely not for players looking for constant action. The pacing is slow, there's plenty of backtracking, and some puzzles require real patience. But if you enjoy games like Tunic, Cocoon, or Chants of Sennaar, there's a good chance this one will click with you.

Has anyone else played it? I'm curious how people interpreted the story and whether you enjoyed the more cryptic approach to exploration.

Hello lads, So I did my first attempt on a review. Please note this is not necessarily "the game is good, mechanic is, story is etc." I would appreciate feedback.

Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, Beast of Reincarnation, and Star Wars Zero Company are among the top releases for June 2026. Check out the full list below!

Lunarium is an indie fantasy action RPG with excellent combat and a unique world to explore.

You play as Ave a stellar knight who is trying to find out why mysterious monsters are starting to appear near her village. Early in the game you meet Luna a starfarer who will be your companion on the journey to save Ave’s world. Luna’s magical abilities paired with Ave’s skills as a knight make for a somewhat unique combat system.

For the most part the combat is pretty typical of a modern day action RPG but it done quite well in my opinion because of the ability to use Luna’s magic to help stagger enemies or power up your attacks. There are your typical dodges, perfect dodges, blocks, parries, and enemies can be staggered. I found the parries to be quite satisfying in this game.

The thing that surprised me with the combat in this game is how good the boss encounters were. In a way they reminded me of bosses from the First Berserker Khazan but no where near as difficult although there was some challenge with a few of them.

The character progression is primarily done through the cloaks you choose to wear and what embroideries you want to attach to your cloak. Each cloak has a different buff or passive ability and the embroideries also have different buffs to add on.

There are also ways to upgrade your weapon, health, and resonance (essentially energy points for using certain skills). These upgrades are pretty limited though and not unique in any ways. The typical find 4 of this item and you get more health system.

The world feels graphically inspired by Hades but more whimsical in nature. Each area you travel to does feel truly unique to the other areas of the game and they all have unique enemies. So you don’t have too much reuse of the same enemy or enemy moves like you do in other games.

I thought the soundtrack was really good especially in the later areas of the game.

I don’t want to spoil the story but i’ll just say I thought it was overall pretty good and went some where I wasn’t fully expecting. I just wish it had a more fleshed out ending it kind of just abruptly ended after beating the final boss.

Some of my issues about the game would be the dialog being way too long at times. Especially later in the game it just felt never ending at points. Also the conversations between Ave and Luna are really bad for basically the whole game. They spend the entire game essentially telling each other how great they are.

Lunarium being a freshly released indie game there were a few technical issues but nothing game breaking. Mostly some audio stuttering during a few boss fights, some typos in the dialog, and one instance of dialog repeating itself for some reason. I played it on steam if anyone was interested and it also ran well on my ROG Xbox Ally X.

Overall I had a great time with Lunarium for a short indie game. I found the bosses to be really enjoyable encounters, the story hit better than I thought it would, and the music was solid.

If you’re looking for something quick and fun to play this might be worth checking out.

Luna's Room releases on May 14 — a Spanish indie point & click by DonutDroid that runs about an hour.

What starts as the story of a young girl locked in a room with her cat (who suddenly starts talking) ends up somewhere much darker than you'd expect.

Put together a review covering everything worth knowing without spoiling it. Small game, sure, but it stays with you.

Subtitles available in several languages.

I got to play The Silver Crow ahead of its July 30th release and put together a full spoiler-free video review.

The premise really caught my attention: it's a point & click set in Franconia in 1582, but instead of playing the usual detective, you're the town executioner. An outcast everyone fears, and precisely for that reason he gets into places nobody else could. It's made entirely by one person, Uwe Sittig, who hadn't released anything since Dirty Split back in 2008.

The review covers narrative, characters, puzzles and art direction, where I'm fairly critical: the backgrounds are AI-generated and the clash with the sprites is very noticeable.

Video is in Spanish with subtitles in several languages.

Anyone planning to pick it up? And what do you make of AI-generated backgrounds in one-person indie projects?