Recent reviews by Choco

If you enjoy rogue-like games, you have a vague understanding of poker hands, and you want to throw away a few hundred hours on a game to unlock all of its content, you'll probably enjoy Balatro. Made by a solo indie developer and showing the AAA industry that it's not about high-fidelity graphics, in-depth story, immersive gameplay, or battle passes and microtransactions. It's about making a game that people want to play in a genre that hasn't been properly re-explored in years.

This game is highly praised by its player base and rightly so. You're going to enjoy this game. 4x speed is recommended though after your first few hours of gameplay. You'll never go back.

Even if you're only just vaguely interested in the Harry Potter universe, this is a great game to play. I'm happy to have 100%-ed it :)

20 hours into this game and I've finished the main story line. There are still 3 DLCs and Spider-man shenanigans to complete in Manhattan to 100% the game. So this review is my experience playing only the main story line.

I played very relaxed and took my time. If you focused more on the story line but weren't speed running through the game, the main story alone would take someone anywhere from 10 - 15 hours to complete it. The story is engaging, emotional, exciting, and captivating. I loved every second of the main story line and I actively look forward to playing the DLC story lines. The combat takes time to get used to, but once you get into the swing of things it's extremely satisfying to do finishers, level up Spider-man to do more complex moves, and new enemy types introduced as the story progresses to keep you interested and on your toes at all times. Swinging around Manhattan is inexplicably satisfying, and the combos you can do are awesome. In my opinion, there is not a dry moment in the campaign. Every cutscene and every mission has a purpose.

On the contrary, there are some bugs! While the game is overall very well polished for a first launch, a couple cutscenes ran into audio issues. I missed sound in a smaller cutscene (while disappointing, it was less significant and did not affect my immersion) and a couple punches in the final battle (which was more upsetting, but not a cutscene so again not terrible). Your sound will occasionally be masked by a strange static resulting in not being able to hear anything going on. No dialogue, no environmental sounds, no music, nothing. However again, this happened infrequently and in smaller cutscenes/moments, and I'm certain this bug in particular can get fixed quickly. Additionally, I managed to somehow get myself stuck inside of a tent, and faught an enemy stuck inside of a building, but this happened only twice and both were easily solvable with the fast travel feature and suit abilities.

Insomniac has some bugs to squash, but my overall experience was not ruined by these issues and I look forward to completing more of the game. There is probably an additional 60 - 100+ hours of content left for me in this game to finish cleaning up the city, completing other timelines, exploring the "New Game+" feature, and trying different difficulties. In terms of content in this game, the developers went above and beyond and I am so very impressed. Every time I thought "There couldn't possibly be more than this", a new challenge type or POI showed up to prove me wrong and give me another 5+ hours, easily, of content I can explore.

Overall, I have genuinely enjoyed my experience with this game and if you are a Spider-man fan, you will love it too. I cannot recommend it enough, especially if you are like me and do not have a PS4/5 and are experiencing this game for the first time. If the audio bugs are a deal breaker, maybe give Insomniac a couple weeks to patch the bugs and you will not be disappointed with the quality of game they made. Very, very well done.

The best way to ruin friendships and have a great time while doing it.

I do, however, wish this game were updated more frequently. There is so much potential for new mini-games, maps, cosmetics, and items to screw with your friends, but I don't feel the developers are capitalising on this as much as they could be.

Nevertheless, a fun game that you will always enjoy playing with your friends. One or two games for a day once every week or something and you'll have a blast.

It's alright. I've put a few hours into it.