Recent reviews by iTodd

The games industry is flooded with games that require little to no engagement and promote clicking through a series of dopamine hits until the novelty of the game and its systems have run its course or you run out of money. TikTok, youtube, live streaming content and so many games request that you turn your brain off and idle through the rest of your day until it's time for bed and for you to wake up and go to work again. Path of Exile 2 is not that game.

Eventually, Path of Exile 2 will reach a point where mindless, auto-aura builds come in to play and the game is "solved," but at it's current state of opening weekend for Early Access, that is not the case. The game shows an incredible amount of depth, forces you to engage in the content that is provided in order to overcome the challenges it creates and when you do, it feels rewarding to have accomplished something. Now, not everyone is into gaming for this feeling. Some people prefer to log in and immediately flex a power fantasy and that's awesome, too. That being said, Path of Exile 2 requires you to earn this through gameplay. The journey, as much as the end goal, is part of the game.

There are many features in the game that feel overtuned, but nothing has been impossible - as proven by the hundreds of thousands of people playing the game at launch. Over the course of development through Early Access and the feedback GGG receives from the community, the game will find an equilibrium that is likely to be far more accommodating to a broader group of players. If you're hesitant to engage in games that potentially feel too difficult than intended, or don't want to be a "tester that paid," then waiting for the full, Free to Play, release is likely your best bet.

I strongly recommend Path of Exile 2 for any ARPG player that is enthusiastic about a challenge and being in on the ground floor for what is continuing to define the potential for the genre.

Anyone who has a love for tabletop RPGs and cannot fit enough campaigns into their week will find a special place in their heart for this game. It has an immense amount of story, replay-ability, fantastic music and true-to-form rules (where it can manage) when compared to the ttrpg it is based off of. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous does about as good of a job as you can in importing a complex rules set (D&D 3.5/Pathfinder First Edition) into a CRPG. There are always going to be some compromises that you have to make when taking a game from a collaborative storytelling experience that is a true ttrpg and bringing it into a video game, but they are few and far between in this game.

Pathfinder has managed to make some of the most popular builds, esoteric builds and even custom builds you brew up on the fly viable and doable in this edition of the game. Core difficulty allows you to play with a ruleset that nearly mirrors "rules as written" (with some exceptions) and even if you find you prefer to tweak or improve or tone something down, you're able to by creating a custom rules set for your playthrough.

Finally, we have playable and "competitive" companions to travel with. Each companion you add to your party has a clear path forward in terms of how you can build them, plus unlimited options to build and optimize them however you wish beyond that. I genuinely enjoy the quests where I'm forced to take a specific companion along in order to complete them, because I have had a great time having each character in my party.

The long and short of it is: if you enjoy table top role playing games, you're missing out if you're not playing through this game. There is so much to discover, so much creativity to utilize and great art, animations and soundtrack to go along with it.

Among Us is as fun as the people you play it with. As a game that does not leverage graphical excellence or sound quality and instead relies on a consistent and stylized art design and game play, Among Us is a game that truly shines through the players themselves. Like a tabletop game or card game, often times the game is improved by the people you play it with and Among Us has that quality to it. Bring friends, lose track of time in this cleverly structured game filled with mini-game-esq tasks and panic inducing (but hilarious) paranoia.