Dying of dysentery is the least of your worries in Hard West 2. Ice Code Game’s sequel brings the weird west back to the turn-based tactics genre with a mix of zombies, witches, and the occult. It has its share of issues, but with some fun combat mechanics and an interesting world, Hard West 2 is more than just “another XCOM.”

Thankfully, you don’t have to play the original to keep up with what’s going on in Hard West 2. You join Gin Carter and his posse mid train robbery of the legendary Ghost Train. The ragtag outlaws discover the train is true to its name when they find the devil aboard. In a wager gone wrong, the posse loses their souls in a rigged game of poker. They soon set out to take them back the only way they know how, one bloody shootout at a time. Hats off to the beautifully animated cutscenes that play between major points in the game, which add to the dark moody atmosphere of the world.

Hard West 2’s combat can leave you feeling like a badass outlaw. Each character is given three action points to spend per turn, with attacks usually taking two points, and moving or using items taking one point. The real butter on this biscuit is the Bravado mechanic. Characters that kill an enemy, get their action points reset, effectively giving them an additional turn. This is super useful, considering you are almost always outnumbered by the enemy. Chaining together numerous Bravados can change the tide of battle and turn the odds in your favor.

Later encounters do bring spongier enemies, which in turn can lessen the likelihood of Bravado combos. These gun fights can turn defensive, with both sides digging in their heels and waiting out the enemy. The overwatch mechanic you’ve grown to expect in the genre is absent, which makes sense with the presence of Bravado, but this does make defensive games drag out a bit. Later encounters in the game are hard, but never unforgiving. You may reload an encounter here or there, but it never becomes a major reoccurrence.

Each of your characters also brings a unique ability to help break up the cycle of shoot, move, and repeat. One standout belongs to Lynn, with her ability to change spots with any enemy or ally in her range. This opens you up for so many combos. Charging forward with Lynn and then switching places with melee specialist, Laughing Deer, can result in multiple beatdowns in quick succession. Lynn’s ability can also plant Old Man Bill directly in an enemy nest to set off his bullet barrage ability with its large AoE.

Two other standout mechanics are the trick-shot and luck. Trick-shot allows you to bounce your bullets off elements around the map in an effort to hit enemies in cover. Luck increases hit chance following misses in previous turns. Trick-shot adds some variety to the combat and makes you rethink situations as you enter new areas. Luck you really don’t notice until you need more of it.

Like any turn-based tactics game you’re going to find yourself cursing at misses that “should have” hit. You’re also going to be hit by things that “shouldn’t have” hit. There were a few instances where I found myself getting creamed in what I thought was an excellent piece of cover. The maps are huge and there is plenty of cover. Sadly, there is no cosmetic damage to the environment.  Areas hit with TNT, look like they just got swept clean moments later.

Another downside to the map size is that you find yourself having to walk into fights, which can put you out of position for a fight. For example, in one mission I teleported Lynn into a sniper position, which revealed enemies across the street, out of range of the current fight. These enemies were then able to move into position while I still worked to clear out the current building. This only happened a few times, but when it did, it was an annoyance that lengthened out some fights.

Outside of combat, Hard West 2’s story is driven through an overworld map. Here you’ll find points of interest, shops, and set up campfires. This is where the RPG elements of the game shine. You’ll build relationships with members of your posse, revealing more of their backstory. All this plays out in text exchange, with some voice acting thrown in here and there. The voice acting is okay when it’s there, but it’s not saying much that you haven’t heard in other westerns.

Playing cards can be found around the map and used to buff your characters by building a poker hand. Just like actual poker, the best results come from the better poker hands. You can also find weapons for sale as well as other accessories. Finding the perfect mix of weapons, accessories, and playing cards, can make all the difference in combat. My personal favorite is a speedy Laughing Deer, equipped with TNT, just in case things get messy.

For those looking for a turn-based tactics fix, Hard West 2 offers up a great challenge. It’s carried by its weird western themes and its Bravado mechanic, and at 20+ hours to complete the main story, it’d be hard to turn your nose up to the $30 asking price. For a game featuring characters missing their souls, there’s a lot of soul to be had in Hard West 2.

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In 2017, Nintendo made a huge impact with Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Fans could not get enough and are salivating at the sequel. What if players could get a taste of something new while they awaited it? Look no further than XEL. With Zelda as the core blueprint and a few added-in thoughts and ideas of their own, developer Tiny Roar is giving it their all to impress. There is a lot to enjoy and only a few things that need attention to make XEL a great game.

XEL begins with a young girl who crashes into a planet which results in some memory loss. The girl is told what happened to her spacecraft by a robot named Chap and that she must locate something called XEL. She later encounters a guy named Desmond who leads her to the village of Needle Eye where she talks with the town elder after she wanders around, finds a blade, and runs across some of the less pleasant robotic natives. Players begin their long quest and begin to understand what XEL is.

If players overlook the grass, the scenery and characters are both beautifully rendered visually. But XEL really shines when it comes to audio. XEL features a ton of voice acting, and all of it is at least passable. Second, the background music is wonderfully done, and although players might quickly stop noticing it for a variety of reasons, the sound quality is actually quite good for both the music and sound effects. However, there were a few abrupt scene changes and instances where dialogue would skip forward, so those issues could probably be substantially resolved.

XEL’s gameplay has a solid foundation. You can hack at adversaries, block with a shield, and find new weapons and equipment like a shock trap and the “not-a-hook shot” in the 3D isometric landscape players have to explore. There are many chests to find and plunder, as well as numerous interesting places to explore and puzzles to solve to get access to chests or other goods in the main regions for plot advancement. According to Breath of the Wild regulations, players have a stamina wheel that is slowly replenished and depleted as players roll or are hit while blocking. At campfires, players can also “make” food by turning it into stat- or life-improving goods that players can select from the menu as needed.

The majority of the time, combat is remarkably fluid. When necessary, players attack and defend while being mindful of stamina. If players are targeting an enemy, players can roll away from them and take steps to the side and back. Additionally, players have the option of equipping two tools, either useful items or potential weapons. Combat with common foes, including some of the bigger mini-boss foes, is generally quite effective. It can be a little annoying if players have a lot of melee and ranged units, but the difficulty is more related to the number of foes than to any fundamental gameplay flaws. On the other hand, some bosses can be more difficult than anticipated. Mainly due to the limitations and concepts of how players fight them.

The puzzle component makes the XEL experience more intriguing. The protagonist’s ability to teleport between the present and the past is most noteworthy. It is autobiographical to help players grasp the setting of the game and helps to create original cross-space puzzles that are uncommon in this genre.

XEL is currently beset by a few problems. All characters generally have problems with movement. Reid, for instance, might occasionally be moving around after various exchanges. My next thought is plunging into a pit halfway across the map. This also poses a similar issue because players could approach ledges to leap off of them while walking, miss, and fall, only to respawn mid-walk directly on the edge, forcing them to jump. This was especially noticeable during the final boss battle when players had to briefly cross some platforms. Another issue that becomes common is the game has some issues loading in assets. Occasionally textures and objects would take a long time to load in, sometimes not at all. Do not let this scare you off though. Tiny Roar is consistently working on getting updates out and fixing a lot of issues each time, so it is only a matter of time before these will be relics of the past

Although each sub-weapon is distinct and has a specific purpose, players learn relatively little about them. For instance, the sonic weapon must be deployed from at least a short to a medium distance away in order to be effective. The targeting for the web shot is also a little strange and requires some adjustment, but overall, it’s fine. The camera orientation only adds to how unpleasant this is. Sometimes it’s a little too far away, and by moving around, players can make the camera appear behind walls where nothing is actually there.There is generally enough enjoyment for players to have in XEL. Although not overly sophisticated, the crafting system is nonetheless a wonderful method to improve equipment and create things for stat bonuses and health regeneration. The puzzles and stages are all fairly entertaining and have various unique themes. The voice acting and music are excellent, and most of the time, the combat is surprisingly fluid. Picking up a copy is definitely recommended if you enjoy Zelda-like games; especially in light of the numerous updates the developer is making.

Every passing year brings new additions to my gaming library, many that are left untouched until I further dwindle my library of played games or my friends decide to also join me in my adventures, and I have someone I can share these moments with. Monster Hunter Rise has continued my love of the series and allow me to play at my speed whenever and quite frankly, however I want, with its build diversity. Developed and published by Capcom Co, Sunbreak continues the story established in Rise with the emergence of a new threat for us to hunt, skin and craft new armor and weapons from their bodies. What could be more enjoyable than that?

Let’s get down to business; what does Sunbreak give us that wasn’t in the base game? The major addition in my opinion is the addition of Master Rank. If you have played any Monster Hunter games you know that you start at Low Rank, move to High Rank and depending on the game you unlocked Master or G rank to fight the most powerful monsters around. Master rank monsters have more health, have rarer components and also are given more powerful moves to fight you with. Sunbreak also gives us the switch skill system and probably the most technical part of the DLC. This allows you to set two sets of skills for your loadout and swap them as you need during combat. Some players will use this, some wont, but it gives everyone a way to change their playstyle on the fly and that’s always welcome to be able to add variety to any game.

It also wouldn’t be a Monster Hunter game without the introduction of new Monsters and Sunbreak does that with the addition of 17 new monsters. The 17 is made up of 7 returning monsters from previous Monster Hunter games, six new subspecies and four new original monsters made just for Sunbreak. Anytime existing monsters from previous games are added to a newer game in the series it’s a fun bit of nostalgia to see if you remember their patterns and how to take them down. The new monsters are always interesting because it’s an eventful and surprising moment when they do something cool that is specific to them, and you have to learn their movements and patterns.

Sunbreak also gives us a change of scenery with a new hub with the Elgado Outpost. Personally, I prefer it over the base village as there is less walking to get to what you need in regard to shops like the smithy, quest hub and melding. The two new explorable venues are a jungle and an old castle in a typical swampy moor. The jungle area is pretty standard across the Monster Hunter series and one I was surprised I didn’t see in the base game. As always, locations like these seem to have the most terrain advantages for you as the player with how many ways there are to help you damage. Along with all the traps and creatures that you can utilize to your advantage, none are better than the new wirebugs introduced with the Gold and Ruby variations. The Ruby wirebug allows you to deal bonus damage to monster during a wyvern riding attack, the Gold wirebug is better for farming monster materials as it increases monster drop materials. Both are welcome additions that help in different ways.

The final addition with Sunbreak and my personal favorite due to my solo player style is the addition of Follower Quests which are solo adventures that you can take NPCs with you as your party. These NPCs are from the game such as the sisters from the village and are not pushovers in any way. They will attack monsters, ride them, stun them, heal you and the best part? If they get knocked out, they do not count towards your cart count so you can feel safe knowing that unless you faint, you won’t fail. With so many missions in the game already, it’s a nice addition to get something different to run, though unfortunately it is limited to only certain missions that you can do this new mechanic on. A good and welcome addition but one that could use a bit more padding.

To start the Sunbreak DLC you must progress through the Rise story far enough and you’ll have the opportunity to travel to the new Outpost where the story kicks off. I won’t go spoiling anything, but I will say that if you have been playing Rise for some time you can still expect a challenge from the continuing story and new players may want to hang back a bit in the base game until they are ready for the challenge. The game does not hold back and when you get hit in the DLC, you’ll notice it much more than fighting a monster from the base game as your health will drop down significantly more, everything is tougher, hits harder and much more aggressive.

The Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak DLC released on June 30^th, 2022 on PC and Steam.

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Sometimes all you need is a quick puzzle to fill in a few minutes, be it a crossword, sudoku, today’s Wordle, or Meet me at NooN. Pandaroo Interactive’s first puzzle game has all the trappings of brainy puzzle games that can make it a quick distraction or a total time suck, depending on how you want to approach it. Taking out some annoying mechanics of modern puzzle video games, Meet me at NooN makes a really strong case for itself with its simple but challenging gameplay loop, its low stakes puzzles, and its chill ambience.

Playing as two separate pieces of an hourglass, you must move both pieces to pick-up their corresponding time token at the same time in a predetermined number of moves. Each piece of the hourglass can only be moved during its represented time (day piece during the day and vice versa). All movements are tracked at the bottom of the screen making experimenting and troubleshooting that much easier when trying to find where you’ve gone wrong. You are also able to rewind back through your movements and start fresh from any moment in the timeline. One minor gripe is the inability to click the exact moment in the timeline you wish to return to. This especially stood out when getting into some of the longer timelines later in the game.

Both pieces of the hourglass have a subset of rules they follow when it is not their turn. At night, with each movement of the night piece, the day piece moves opposite of the move it made during the day. For example, if the last movement the day piece made was left, the day piece will move right after the night piece’s first move. Players can block or manipulate the day piece’s movement with the night piece, adding layers to each puzzle. These rules can be frustrating if you don’t understand them. The fact that the night piece follows a different subset of rules throws an even bigger wrench into the learning curve, but with some patience along with some trial and error, players will find fulfillment in solving one of the many puzzles.

Meet Me at NooN contains 120 levels across ten worlds. Each world comes with a new set of rules and mechanics to up the challenge. Sometimes old rules intertwine into a new world. It keeps things fresh and gives you new ways to look at levels. Some mechanics introduced later include disappearing platforms, broken up turns, and a time lapse, which doesn’t let your moves play out until you’ve decided them all.   The developer doesn’t throw you straight into the fire with the new mechanics though. The first few worlds of each level serve as a tutorial for whatever new mechanic is being introduced, slowly getting players acclimated to whatever new challenges come their way. Additionally, the game has a grid that can be turned off and on. I cannot recommend this grid enough. Just having the visual grid helps immensely with planning out moves.

Pandaroo Interactive made numerous design choices that resulted in a very player-friendly game. There is no time limit on levels. In a world full of speed runs and leaderboards, this is a welcomed decision. You are competing against no one but yourself and the puzzle, matching the experience of doing your daily sudoku or crosswords. There is no fail state, no game over screen, just trial and error until you find the puzzle’s solution.

Across the many levels, you can collect additional stars that unlock later worlds. Collectibles in these kinds of games usually read more as a distraction and less as adding more challenge to each level. I found myself getting the star on my initial attempt in most cases. If I missed it, I didn’t feel a need to go back and get it. The game is very forgiving in this aspect as well. The number of stars needed to unlock later worlds is not some astronomical number. In fact, I never found myself locked out of the next world, if I wanted to jump ahead.

The art of Meet me at NooN evokes its themes of space and time. The use of starscapes and its two colorful leads remind me a lot of the colorful worlds and characters of 2010’s Ilomilo, another chill puzzle game. The background swap from night to day is gorgeous, but I do wish there was a little more variety in the background, especially with the cleverly named puzzles hinting at what could be going on in the background. The music adds to the overall relaxing vibe, with loops that play on the time theme but don’t grow tiresome or repetitive.

If Meet me at NooN wasn’t already low stakes, the low price of $10 drops the stakes even lower. At that price, Meet me at NooN is a welcomed distraction from the world. It asks very little of players and in exchange gives so much satisfaction with each victorious solution to its challenging puzzles.