The Best PC Game of All Time

My weekend has been filled with violence courtesy of my little niece who firmly believes that beating up her uncle is the greatest thing in the world. Man, five-year-old little girls can seriously do some damage. Jeez. This week I chucked out my review for Close to the Sun, an intriguing game set in an alternate timeline where Nikola Tesla has become the richest man in the world. With all that wealth he constructed a huge ship called the Helios and then packed it with the greatest minds in the world. Of course, things go wrong, people die and we get to explore the ship in order to find out what went wrong. All said and done I really enjoyed Close to the Sun, but the ending left me feeling entirely unsatisfied and the tension that was so well concocted early on fizzled out. Go check out my review for the rest of my thoughts. I also put out another Patch Notes, this time talking about Randy Pitchford having a small meltdown and Valve’s brand new VR headset. So I’ve been putting some...

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is as pure a throwback Metroidvania game as you can get. After all, Symphony of the Night direct Koji Igarashi was at the helm. Besides a great double-jump and strong adherence to the Castlevania form, Bloodstained also has some tricky bosses. Turns out that Igarashi had a few rules in place for ensuring they were tough but fair. In an interview with Gamasutra’s Kris Graft, Igarashi opened up about some of the design philosophies that helped guide the development of Bloodstained. Some are straightforward; there was to be a focus on exploration, as well as a concerted effort to make fans of the Metroidvania style have a sense of immediate familiarity when playing Bloodstained. In addition to exploration, Igarashi and the team wanted a game that had replayability. That meant a twisty, turny castle to explore with plenty of weapons to use and different magical spells to collect. The team also had a specific rule involving the creation of bosses. “I wouldn...