Recent reviews by Artix Fox

FixFox is a fun if disappointing game. It's a game with a pretty fun premise, an engaging gameplay loop, and characters that I rather enjoyed, but I was disappointed with where it took the premise, how much the game seemed scared of its own gameplay and did what it could to keep the player from having to do it, and how much the characters were kind of shoehorned into various forms of social commentary.
There's not really any side content, everything you can do off the main story is just half minute repair jobs that are randomly generated and exist just to convert materials into other materials.

I had a good time with FixFox and if you have a few days to kill and want to play as a pixelated fox going around exploring and fixing machinery, I recommend it. Just don't go into it expecting much out of the story or gameplay.

Bugsnax is a cute bug collect-a-thon where you hang out with a group of misfits on a mysterious island. Using a wide variety of traps and tools, your goals are to catch them all and use those caught Snax in order to complete quests and unlock more and more of the island and more people to hang out in your village.
Bugsnax is also a horror-lite. The creatures have the effect of transforming anyone that eats them, giving the game a light cover of body horror, and the further into the game you get, the more the horrifying truth of Snaktooth comes to light. Each person that lives in the village also has their own issues, from depression and anxiety, to not being able to bring back the old days, to feeling like they'll fail at everything they do, and the sidequests both touch on those topics and help put some resolution in them.
If you can handle a bit of body horror, unsettling truths, watching cute furry critters discussing heavy topics, and don't mind a gameplay loop that consists of figuring out what tools you need to use to catch the critters in this game, I highly recommend giving this game a try. At the time of writing this, I have caught every single Bugsnax, completed every sidequest, satisfied every request, unlocked every achievement, and even finished the Isle of Bigsnax free expansion.

Whether or not you should buy this game. A choice. A or B. And as with any choice, there are multiple decisions. A, buying the game, on the right, and B, not buying the game, on the left. It's simple logic. Just think in reverse. At the end of every decision, there's a viewport you can use to look back and decide if you made the right choice. Thus, starting from the right, you must ask yourself: Is the right decision the decision that will lead you to your satisfaction?

The answer is obviously...
Stanley.
Stanley, this review seems oddly familiar, have we been here before? Is this yet another shoveled out the door remake or rerelease of a popular game purely to give more money to the developers? It can't be, the developers of the Stanley Parable wouldn't do that. Would they?
No, no they wouldn't, I wouldn't let them. This is my story, if I say this remake should have twice the content of the original, then it has twice the content of the original. If I want to replace a game cameo with TWO new game cameos, if I want to add a bucket, then the Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe will have all the buckets and collectibles that I want it to have.
End of story.

Eastshade is a game about exploring a fantasy island full of anthropomorphic creatures, armed with nothing but a paintbrush and canvas. You explore, talk to people, learn about the land, and solve problems with a combination of resource management and painting pictures of things people want.
There's a lot of things to do, and the game is split up into three sections, with the map getting bigger and bigger with each section of the map you gain the ability to travel through. The game's not very hand holdy, there's a quest journal but no quest markers, the game doesn't start you off with a map, and the map you do find doesn't have your location marked on it.
The game has some minor survival elements, mostly resource gathering and crafting, and you freeze if you're out at night. There were evidently more planned during production, but they cut most of them out, and I agree with that change.
The game is not without flaws, however. The directionlessness can definitely make it hard to know what to do, but I only really had to consult a walkthrough twice. The painting generally works, but I've had one instance where I needed to paint something for a commission and, while I painted the correct thing, it didn't count because I didn't have enough of them in frame. The third part of the game feels the most unfinished, and the Tiffmor Ruin constantly causes me to crash if I look around.
I would highly recommend people check this game out if they like a slower paced exploration game and like being able to admire vistas and paint keepsakes.

It's like Groundhog Day, in space. You've got a spaceship, you can fly around to different planets, explore them on foot, collect information and read up on lore and worldbuilding, and ultimately you're trying to figure out why you're trapped in this time loop and how to escape it.
The characters are pretty lovable, the puzzles are a mix of really easy and really mind bending, there's a lot to see and a lot of loose ends to hunt down, and lots of achievements to go for.
I played this back when it was just a tech demo almost 8 years ago and it does not disappoint today.

A fantastic zeldalike with procedural generation and a very interesting story. If you like Zelda randomizers, this is absolutely worth playing. Especially if glitch-themed stories appeal to you.

Full disclosure: I've been waiting to play this since it first came out on Switch and Playstation. I've never played Dragon Quest Builders 1, but I've seen an entire playthrough of it, and I loved the concept of it. I was planning to buy Builders 2 whenever I got a Switch, and was completely blown away by the fact they were releasing a PC port. Fingers crossed they release the the first Builders game on here too.
I started playing the demo, was completely hooked, and bought it day one. If you like 3D creative block building games like Minecraft, and like townbuilding action games like Terraria, this might be right up your alley.
Just bear in mind that this is a primarily singleplayer game. There are multiplayer options for the main island and the ability to share screenshots and constructions, but you won't be going through the main storyline coop.

If you're on the fence about buying this game, try out the jumbo demo. It lasts until near the end of chapter one, and that is plenty of time to decide if you like this game or not.

Literally everything that made Just Cause 2 up a couple pegs. Retractable tethers, wingsuit, no money, destructables marked on the map...

Though if you're annoyed by one-liners, you're gonna hear them a lot.

It's a zelda-clone, and a damn good one. The game it most heavily reminds me of is Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, mostly because of the setting and usage of some of the items. It has it's flaws, the magic spells are a little too expensive for my tastes and gold suddenly becomes really common after about the halfway point, but besides that this is well worth purchasing.

Whether or not you should buy this game. A choice. A or B. And as with any choice, there are multiple decisions. A, buying the game, on the right, and B, not buying the game, on the left. It's simple logic. Just think in reverse. At the end of every decision, there's a viewport you can use to look back and decide if you made the right choice. Thus, starting from the right, you must ask yourself: Is the right decision the decision that will lead you to your satisfaction?

The answer is obviously "Yes", so clearly the correct answer to this question is A. Buy the game.
Another victory for logic.