Reviews

Games both new and old, judged by the only question that matters:

do they deserve a place on the shelf?

  • Cities: Skylines — Zoning Laws and Existential Dread | WOTS Review

    Cities: Skylines turns city planning into a slow-burning obsession, where every road is a gamble, every zoning decision has consequences, and traffic is the final boss. What starts as a humble town quickly becomes a stress test of systems, patience, and civic hubris.

  • Disco Elysium – Dancing With Myself | WOTS Review

    A conversation-driven RPG where your own mind becomes the loudest character in the room. Disco Elysium is a haunting, hilarious, and deeply human detective story that interrogates failure, identity, and redemption—one internal argument at a time.

  • “I’ll Be On Tomorrow for My Dailies” – How Games Turned Play Into Obligation

    What started as free-to-play convenience has quietly reshaped how games are designed, sold, and played. From DLC and on-disc content to battle passes, daily logins, and monetized FOMO, this is a look at how modern games stopped rewarding play—and started punishing absence.

  • Neon White – Heaven’s Fastest Headache (In a Good Way) | WOTS Review

    Neon White is a contradiction in motion—an elegant, adrenaline-fueled speedrunning puzzle shooter wrapped in some of the most baffling dialogue this side of heaven. When it works, it absolutely sings.

  • A Golden Era for Gamers, a Brutal Era for Developers

    A golden era for players is proving to be a brutal era for developers. Six of 2024–2025’s biggest hits generated billions in revenue, yet publishers like Sony, Square Enix, and Microsoft cut thousands of jobs. Here’s how corporate greed is reshaping the industry behind the games we love.

  • Ethics in Video Game Consumption

    Video games are built on crunch, consolidation, and compromise. Is ethical consumption even possible—or is it just a question of how much you’re willing to ignore?

  • Monster Hunter Rise – If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It | WOTS Review

    Capcom’s Monster Hunter Rise + Sunbreak keeps the hunt thrilling with slick mobility, loyal Palamutes, and big-setpiece brawls. Not a revolution—just refined, addictive fun.

  • The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of 2025 – A WOTS Year in Review

    In WOTS’ first year back, we’ve seen indie bangers, expanded our Chillers playlist, watched the industry chew up its workers, and stared at a never-ending sea of 8/10 review scores. Here’s the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of 2025 from the Shelf’s point of view.

  • Animal Well – A New Standard for Indie Metroidvanias | WOTS Review

    Animal Well is more than another pixelated indie platformer. With eerie sound design, hidden layers of exploration, and surprising freedom, it’s one of the best indie games in years — and a new Top Shelf Game for WOTS.

  • Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls Beta – Ms. Marvel, Autocombos, and the Future of Marvel Fighters | WOTS Review

    Hands-on with the Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls beta as a Ms. Marvel main. I get zoned out, abuse jump throws, poke at assists and autocombos, and dig into what this ArcSys-built Marvel fighter might mean for the future of Marvel fighting games.