It’s been a little bit since I wrote a Nancy Drew PC game review. I had a few of the Nancy Drew games in my Steam library, but I wasn’t in the mood to play them. The Nancy Drew games are fun to play, but can sometimes be a bit cumbersome with the puzzles and brain power it takes to finish the game. I took a break, and now that 2023 has started, I find myself going back to them. The latest Nancy Drew game I played was Nancy Drew: Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon

For those who are unfamiliar, in 2020, I set a goal to play every single Nancy Drew PC game. The Nancy Drew PC games are some of the most challenging games I have played. My husband jokes that he can tell that I’m playing them when he sees me near my laptop with a notepad in my hand. With the Nancy Drew puzzles, they are often so intricate that I have to write things down that might come up in the game later. While the Nancy Drew games might be aimed at a younger audience, I think they can be enjoyed by anyone at any age because of the difficult nature of the games.

Nancy Drew: Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon begins in a train car where Nancy is invited by the Hardy Boys to unravel the mystery of Jake Hurley, who stepped off the train and was never seen again. When Nancy is introduced to the other guests on the train, one of them disappears! Nancy must find the missing guest, along with collecting clues about Jake Hurley’s life and disappearance.

The setting in the Nancy Drew games is important because I think it serves as a gauge of how much I will like this particular game versus the other games I played. I liked how this game took place on the train. There was a lot to explore and several hidden items to collect. The train car felt antique, so in a lot of ways, it felt like Nancy was back in the early 1900s. Another component of the Nancy Drew games is the characters, or in most cases, the suspects. Sometimes it feels pretty clear who the culprit is, while other times it comes across as a surprise. There seemed to be something about each character that created a motive as to who would want to figure out what happened to Jake Hurley and what that notoriety would do for them. It helps create more suspense while playing the game.

The gameplay for the Nancy Drew games varies slightly. In some games, Nancy has a journal, and every time she encounters a puzzle, barrier, or other obstacles, she logs it in her journal as a task. Once the task is completed, the player can check off the task. Some Nancy Drew games have the journal, while others don’t. I love that Nancy Drew: Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon had Nancy’s journal. It’s so much easier to track what I have left to do, along with how much of the game I have left. I wish every Nancy Drew game had a journal because it makes the game much more enjoyable.

Nancy Drew: Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon was definitely one of the more fun Nancy Drew games I have played thus far. If you’re interested in playing the Nancy Drew games, you can find most, if not all of them, on Steam.

My brother always brings the most interesting games that I have never heard of to our family board game nights. Some of the games he brings may not be my cup of tea, but I still like them because they expose me to board games I wouldn’t have thought to play. One of the games that he brought was GoodCritters. GoodCritters is a game that I could see myself bringing to a friend’s board game night. It’s easy to learn, and it can be played with up to eight people, which is the exact size of our group.

The premise of GoodCritters is pretty simple. The object of the game is to collect the most money from the heist compared to other players. The characters are a variety of different animals, hence the name of the game, GoodCritters. One person plays the mob boss, who decides how to split the money from the heist. After the boss splits the money, the crew places a card that represents an action after the round. They can either approve of the boss, meaning they like how they split the money. They can reject the boss, meaning they don’t agree with how the money is split. There’s an action to skim, where a player can pull the next money card off the deck and add it to their pile. However, if one player skims before another player, the second player to reveal their skim card gets no money. Players can rob each other or be on guard to prevent being robbed. Once a certain card is revealed, the round ends, and players add up their money.

I think the fun of GoodCritters was figuring out what the strategy is. When I was the boss, I tried to split the money evenly while giving myself $100 more than everyone else. Additionally, I tried to skim when it was closer to my turn to reveal my card to increase the likelihood of a payout. I ended up guarding myself anytime someone tried to rob me to protect my money stash. In the end, I ended up winning by only a $100 difference.

I like that GoodCritters is an easy game to learn. As my brother explained the premise to us, I found it easy to pick up. I liked the bluffing aspect of the game. Whenever a player wants to rob another player, they take their animal token and place it near the player they want to rob. However, that doesn’t mean that the player has to rob. They can place it there to force the player to guard their stash, while the player ends up doing another action instead. I also liked how the rounds don’t take a long time. I don’t mind games that take several hours to complete, but sometimes I want a game that’s quick to play.

GoodCritters was a fun game that I would play again. I’m not sure if I would purchase my own copy since my brother has his. I think if you’re looking for a game to play with friends or a game to bring to a brewery, GoodCritters is a good option.

The Ravensburger Disney Villainous board games are top-tier. I have seen multiple people I follow on social media rave about the game. Several editions and add-ons have been released since the original game came out. One of those editions is a Star Wars Disney Villainous, which I received as a present from a friend after moving into our new home. I recently brought it to a game night to test it out. Star Wars Villainous was a lot of fun, and I hope to see more Star Wars expansions in the future.

For those unfamiliar with Disney’s Villainous games, each game has several villains to pick from. Each villain has a goal, and if that goal is accomplished first, they win the game. Each goal relates to each villain, depending on what the villain’s ultimate endgame goal was. For Star Wars, there were five villains to choose from: Darth Vader, Moff Gideon, General Grievous, Kylo Ren, and Asajj Ventress. There is an option to mess with other players by drawing out of their hero deck. This helps to throw a wrench in a plan to win the game.

As we opened the game, I immediately took Moff Gideon. Nothing is more evil to me than stealing Grogu. How rude. Moff’s end goal was to have an ally out, laboratory materials, and Grogu on the villain side of the board. I was so close to winning, but then my brother drew a card from my Hero Deck, which moved Grogu and killed my Death Troopers. I’m not going to lie, it set me back quite a bit. However, I was able to draw another set of Death Troopers from my villain’s deck, which helped me win the game in a few turns.

In the second game, I played Darth Vader. Darth Vader’s goal was to have Luke in the “conflicted” stage, meaning he is debating the Dark Side. Vader also has to have Emperor Palpatine out on the board as well. As I was playing through the game, I realized I wasn’t drawing Palpatine. I had to maneuver throughout the planets to draw cards. I ended up losing the game, and as I looked through the deck, Palpatine was at the bottom. Sometimes that’s how it goes. Both Moff and Darth Vader rely on drawing the correct cards, and if the cards are towards the bottom, that can slow down getting the win conditions together.

I would definitely replay Star Wars Villainous. There are still three characters I haven’t played yet. In my gaming group of four, it helped to see how the other characters were being played. I hope that there will be more expansions for Star Wars Villainous. I could see adding Count Dooku, Boba, or Jango Fett, or even a political opponent like General Hux or Snoke, could be an interesting addition to the game.

Playing video games will always be a hobby of mine. With that being said, I have been contemplating how I play video games today and where my priorities are with choosing the games I play. One of the bigger realizations I have come to recently is how I’m trying to be less of a completionist and more focused on the games that I play. I wanted to share a bit of what that means to me and how I got here.

For those unfamiliar, a completionist is a gamer who strives to collect every achievement or trophy in a video game. This can relate to PC gamers who may unlock achievements in Steam games as well. When I first started playing video games, I found myself motivated to unlock achievements. I liked seeing my gamerscore increase and felt a surge of energy if I unlocked as many achievements as I could in a particular game. In high school, I had the time to devote hours to a video game.

When I went off to college, I didn’t bring my Xbox with me. Therefore, if I wanted to play video games, it was playing with others on their consoles. I would come home from breaks and play Xbox occasionally. When I would play Xbox, it would be games I felt a lot of nostalgia for, such as Gears of War, BioShock, or the Batman Rocksteady games. After college and moving into my own space, I developed a pattern where I wouldn’t move on from a game unless I collected all the achievements and trophies in that game.

The problem I quickly realized is that I don’t have time for that level of commitment. It ended up being more of a chore to play a game through multiple times than to feel satisfied that I finished the game and was ready to move on to something else. I found myself feeling frustrated, especially if an achievement was taking more time than I realized it would. It made me go back to the basics of why I play video games in the first place. I don’t want to spend hours collecting every item in a game. Part of the fun of leaving achievements or trophies unlocked is that I now have something to look forward to if I replay that game again in the future.

Since I have set aside my completionist ways, I have noticed that I’m motivated to play video games on the weekends. I have started playing through Resident Evil 2, and I don’t feel obligated to pull up a walkthrough of the game. I can play through the game on my own time and feel fully immersed in the story. I’m able to better balance my video game backlog because I don’t spend as much time on one game. I feel a lot more relaxed than I have been in a few years.

There’s still a part of me that finds joy in collecting achievements or trophies. I think that will always be fun for me, but now I’m able to play more video games since I’m not as strict about collecting everything right away. I’m looking forward to playing Resident Evil 2 in between rounds in Overwatch 2. I have had my eye on some new games coming out, including Pokémon Scarlet and Violet and Bayonetta 3. The way I play video games has changed, but my love for the hobby remains the same.

I have been a big fan of Supermassive Games since I played Until Dawn in 2019. Supermassive Games is known for creating interactive, immersive horror games that rely on significant decisions within each chapter. I like how the games are scary without being unplayable. There are certain horror games I cannot play because there are too many jump scares, and I find that any game Supermassive Games creates is the perfect line of scary without needing to cover my eyes all the time. The Quarry was a blast to play the week before Halloween.

The Quarry begins at Hackett’s Quarry, a summer camp in the woods. As the seven counselors are preparing to leave camp for the summer, Jacob (played by Zach Tinker) sabotages the truck so he can have another shot with Emma (played by Halston Sage). The counselors are warned by Chris Hackett (played by David Arquette) to stay indoors for the night. Of course, the teens ignore Chris’s advice and throw a bonfire to celebrate the end of the summer. Besides Jacob and Emma, there’s Abigail (played by Ariel Winter) and Nick (played by Evan Evagora), who have this “will they” or “won’t they” attraction to each other. The other three counselors: Dylan Lenivy (played by Miles Robbins), Kaitlyn Ka (played by Brenda Song), and Ryan Erzahler (Justice Smith) initiate a group of truth or dare, which helps progress the story by separating several of the camp counselors from each other. As the chapters progress, it’s clear there’s something hunting the group of counselors and something sinister is happening at Hackett’s Quarry.

I loved the setting of The Quarry. Nothing feels more like a slasher film than having it take place at a summer camp. The campgrounds were huge, and there were so many areas that were explored throughout the game. There’s a portion of the game where Emma is separated from the group, and she’s running on top of this water tower overlooking the island with the camp. There are several scenes where Abigail was in the woods by herself, and there were noises that could be heard no matter where she wandered. Horror video games rely on the setting to create the ultimate gaming experience, and The Quarry did just that.

As far as the characters, Abigail was my favorite. She was the artsy one of the group, and I liked her and Nick’s romance. Out of all the characters, they were the two that I was trying my best not to kill. I also enjoyed playing Ryan as he becomes important in the later chapters. He’s one of the characters who gets to the final showdown between the survivors and the killers. While I found a few favorite characters in The Quarry, it doesn’t really matter if the characters are likable or not. In any Supermassive game, if you like the characters, you’re more likely to want them to survive, but if you end up hating everyone, you end up having a fun time trying to find ways to kill them off. There’s something for everyone in this genre of games.

Another highlight of The Quarry is the replayability. Several trophies or achievements are unlocked based on character choices or how many characters survive in the end. There’s one trophy where all the characters are killed, and another where all the characters live. There’s a secret achievement where one female character survives, and the rest do not. In my first playthrough, I ended up having four of the counselors survive and killed three of them, which is actually pretty good for me. In Until Dawn, I killed everyone in my first playthrough. Oops. I could see myself replaying The Quarry next year, and trying to unlock a new trophy.

The Quarry was the perfect game to play leading into Halloween. I ended up turning off all the lights in my downstairs living room and turned up the volume while playing through the game. I am still a big fan of Supermassive Games, and if anything, I feel more inspired to buy their other games and play through those as well. The Quarry may be the best game I played in 2022.

Halloween is over and done with. There’s so much build-up into Halloween that once it’s over, I feel a little sad afterward. While I didn’t have the biggest of Halloween plans, I still felt I had a decent spooky season. Two weeks ago, I went to visit my family for a family board game day. This was the same weekend when I played Hunt A Killer, which I wrote about a few posts ago. One other game I brought to play was Betrayal at House on the Hill. Betrayal is one of my favorite board games because it’s a scary game, it has elements of Dungeons & Dragons in it, and every time you play, there’s always a new scenario to experience. Speaking of which, I wanted to recap our game of Betrayal because it was unexpected, to say the least.

For those unfamiliar with Betrayal’s mechanics, Betrayal is a game where players start cooperatively as they explore this house. Tiles are laid down as players explore new rooms. Throughout the game, players gather items and omens. For every omen gathered, there’s a haunt roll. If players roll less than the number of omen cards out in play, the haunt begins. This is where the name Betrayal comes into play. Eventually, once the haunt happens, one or two players end up betraying everyone else, quickly turning it into a player-versus-player game.

In this game, my uncle was the betrayer, so it became three versus one. My uncle’s goal was to summon an Elder God, and our goal was to either kill my uncle’s character or take his summoning book to the chasm or fireplace to burn it. If our characters died or the ritual was completed, we lost the game. I thought we were going to lose for sure. My uncle’s stats were all increased, and when the haunt started, I didn’t have any items that were valuable during the haunt. As we played through the game, it was clear that the Elder God was going to get summoned. At that point, my uncle’s character died, and he got to control the Elder God.

As we were moving through the house, my brother ended up going in front of the Elder God to give me space to carry the book to the furnace. After the Elder God killed my brother’s character, this is when I knew there was one shot at winning. In Betrayal, there’s a mystic elevator that will take you to the upper floor, the ground floor, or the basement. A dice is rolled, and depending on what I roll, it determines where I go in the house. I needed to roll to allow my character to go to the basement because that’s where the chasm was. Thankfully, I rolled successfully, so the mystic elevator took me to the basement, and I tossed the book down the chasm to win the game. If I hadn’t rolled for the basement, I easily would have been killed by the Elder God. I should add that my character was an eight-year-old girl, and the fact that she defeated an Elder God is awesome.

My uncle clearly had a blast playing Betrayal, as it was his first time playing. For reference, the base game of Betrayal has fifty possible haunts. I think I have played Betrayal three or four times, so I know that I have so many haunts to experience. If I play Betrayal again in the future, I may write about the other haunt that I revealed. I might start making tabs of which haunts I haven’t played through, so eventually, I can reveal them all.

When my husband and I moved into our house, our friends gifted us board games as a housewarming present. One of the games that was gifted to us was a Hunt A Killer box. I had never heard of Hunt A Killer before receiving this as a present. Hunt A Killer are mystery games that center on a case that needs to be solved. Hunt A Killer can be purchased individually, or there’s a subscription box where a game is sent regularly. Our friend gave us the “Murder at the Motel” game. Hunt A Killer is an interesting premise that I would try to play again.

“Murder at the Motel” takes place unsurprisingly at a motel undergoing renovations. Julian Foard is found dead in one of the motel rooms in the mid-afternoon. Julian’s close confidante, Veronica Rodriguez, calls into a detective agency asking for assistance. The police think she had something to do with his death, but Veronica claims she’s innocent. Several guests are staying in the motel at the time of Julian’s death, including a family of three, a real estate agent, the motel owner, and a man who was seen frequently at the pool, intoxicated. The goal is to figure out three things: the means (how Julian was killed), the motive (who would have a reason for wanting Julian dead), and the timeline to figure out where everyone was when Julian was killed.

As we opened the box, there were several pieces of evidence along with a locked box with a four-digit combination. My group loves to chit-chat, so I think one of the challenging things right away was getting us all to focus on one thing at the same time, versus reviewing all the pieces of evidence separately. I like that Hunt A Killer can be played solo, as I could see buying this and spending a Friday night playing through it. I love the attention to detail within the box. There’s a detailed police report, crime scene photo, several receipts, and other pieces of evidence, along with Julian’s journal. It felt immersive even though it was only a game.

While the game said it would take an hour, it took us at least three hours. The biggest challenge was figuring out who was lying about their alibi, along with figuring out the combination to the locked box. At first, we were sure we wouldn’t need to use a hint, but eventually, it came to a point where we were sinking several hours into this and not getting anywhere. To be fair, “Murder at the Motel” is listed at medium difficulty, but I’m not exactly sure how that’s scaled. We ended up using a small hint, and to our amusement, the answer to the combination was right in front of us.

The biggest gripe I have with “Murder at the Motel” was the solution. My group thought we had it all figured out. However, when we opened the envelope containing the solution, we were wrong about everything. I still find myself thinking through all the pieces of evidence, and I’m not finding a direct link between who the killer was and what we reviewed. Clearly, something was missed, but at the same time, if I’m still stuck putting the pieces together, I’m not sure how clearly outlined the evidence was. Instead of feeling satisfied at the reveal, I was left feeling annoyed. I think this is more specific to the “Murder at the Motel” story, so that’s why I would be open to trying another Hunt A Killer box.

Hunt A Killer is a perfect game for anyone who’s a big True Crime aficionado or someone who likes puzzles or escape rooms. As mentioned, I wasn’t a big fan of the reveal of “Murder at the Motel”, but I do think the concept of this is fun. I don’t think I would sign up for a subscription, but I would consider ordering another story. If you played Hunt A Killer, let me know in the comments which one you tried!

Overwatch 2 is finally out! It seems like there were several delays, which surprises me since I felt the first Overwatch game was immensely popular. As soon as the game was released, I downloaded it on my husband’s Xbox Series X. After playing a few games, I wanted to share what I think of the game, as it seems like there are some strong opinions about Overwatch 2.

To start off, I started playing Overwatch back in 2016 when my husband bought the game for me while we were in college. I played on and off throughout the years, picking up Overwatch again during the pandemic. I have always been drawn to D.Va, although I switched to Zarya in recent months, and now Zarya is my go-to character whenever I play. I have been looking forward to playing Overwatch 2 as I had high hopes for the game, along with seeing new maps and characters being added.

Playing Overwatch 2 doesn’t feel like that different of a game. I was surprised because when I logged into play, I noticed that there were several characters locked. I had to play a few rounds to unlock some of my favorite characters, and I’m not sure why that was needed. After some searching online, Blizzard locked some of the characters to help ease players into the game, without feeling overwhelmed. I was told by a friend of mine that this may be because my Blizzard account didn’t sync properly, so it’s having me start over by unlocking the characters. I’ll have to look into why that was the case to hopefully save me time. Overwatch does have a lot of characters to choose from, but I don’t see that as being an intimidating feature. I think it’s exposing players to various options and finding the character that best suits their play style.

As far as new characters, there were three new characters included upon release. I have only played Junker Queen so far, and I could see myself playing Junker Queen in future games. I guess I was picturing more new characters than just three on release.

In a general search of Overwatch 2, I’m seeing the common phrase “laziest sequel” being applied. I completely agree. For the length of time in releasing Overwatch 2, I’m surprised that it doesn’t feel any different from the first game. There was a lot of hype regarding Overwatch 2, and I can’t help but find myself let down, considering what my expectations were and the reality of what the game actually is. I will still play it because Overwatch is a comfort game for me, but I wish I had more.