Nate Kiernan
- Pathologic 2
- Anodyne 2
- Wandersong
Nate Kiernan's Reviews
INK is brilliant and brutal paint flinging fun that flies by even as you struggle to catch your breath trying to keep up.
Tahira rehumanizes the tactics genre.
A lousy conclusion can't do much to make a dinosaur in space anything less than cool.
The first question with a sequel like Dimensions Evolved is not "what's changed" but "did they ruin it?"
Octodad is the sort of game that is going to sell itself on absurdity alone. But by reducing it to just a joke, we miss what makes it so special
Titan Souls is antagonistic and alienating, but if you are masochistic enough to put up with it, there's a smart and original game underneath.
Firewatch succeeds on the strengths of its narrative, but struggles to reconcile its storytelling with inconsistent world building and awkward mechanical conceits.
Absolute Drift may see drifting as an elevated form of racing, but there is a reason the sport has only ever garnered a niche audience.
Ronin spends more time convincing you of what it's not than it does showing you why you should care about what it is.
Traverser tries to differentiate itself from the swathes of steampunk media being released, but ultimately its problems lie mostly in an inability to do so.
Human Resource Machine's attempts at accessibility are lost as its aggressive cynicism refuses to offer any support.
Aaru's Awakening employs difficulty in ways unconsidered and illsuited to its design, leading to a game which does little but frustrate at every step.
Oceanhorn never escapes its identity as a Zelda impersonator, and an exceptionally dull and uninspired one at that.
Fran Bow sends you down a rabbit hole to nowhere.
Reigns posits a view of politics divorced from context or meaning, where the wants and needs of the public are both all that matters and entirely dismissible.
THOTH is neither bloated nor even comfortably full. It is an exercise in restraint in every possible way, from its visual design to its length of less than a movie, to its soundtrack which dips in and out as if just checking in on how you’re doing. What THOTH is not is hollow.
Pathologic 2 deconstructs the player/game dichotomy even as it celebrates how affecting that relationship can be. It is rich and dense and uncompromising. That it exists at all is an anomaly, but one I can only hope doesn’t stay that way.
Wandersong is a game of cosmic circumstances on a humble scale. It deals with questions of archetypes, destiny, an understanding of the self, and how our actions shape the world around us. It is a game that begs to be read as analogous to the hopeless pessimism that permeates modern life as well as a commentary on the tropes games so consistently employ, using our familiarity with both these elements to subvert the traditional hero’s journey.
Unravel may stumble on its way towards saying something meaningful, it never wavers on what it wants you to hear. That while the past is not a place to escape into, it is worth holding onto. Maybe only in bits and pieces, but held onto all the same.
Overcooked wants to show you the wacky fun of cooking with friends, but I should have guessed by the time it sent us to hell’s literal kitchen that we as a culture need to reassess exactly what that fun looks like.