Games I Played in August

Games
Screenshot from God of War, showing two men in an ornate canoe: a young man in armor and an older man rowing.
Kratos and his son Atreus search for Tÿr in God of War: Ragnarök. | screenshot by me

The story of God of War: Ragnarok (Santa Monica Studio) continues to evolve in stunning ways (I honestly may love it more than the 2018 game). One of the things I love in this game — and that I’m realizing I love in general — is the way the game uses perspective shifts (by playing as eight Kratos or Atreus on their own) to emphasize story beats and build connections between our two main characters and the friends they meet along the way. It’s such an effective shift, and I love exploring the slightly different fighting styles and seeing the ways the characters interact with the world.

Things are looking pretty bleak in the story right now, and I don’t know how our characters are going to get out of this (or even if they’re going to, since Fate doesn’t seem to be on their side). But I’m so excited to see what happens.

Games I Played in December 2025

Games
Everything is oddly insectile in Cocoon (2023) | Source: Geometric Interactive

Cocoon (Geometric Interactive) is a puzzle platformer with some of the most satisfying and interesting puzzle mechanics I’ve ever seen. As a strange bug-like humanoid creature, the player is released from a cocoon and tasked with exploring and finding their way through alien worlds. The worlds are strangely biomechanical, making them feel unsettling and cohesive all at once, and the puzzles are fascinating and intuitive. In almost every instance, I could figure things out by bumbling around a bit, with the solutions being so satisfying I found myself getting emotional just through the sheer act of playing the game.

My only frustration came from the boss fights, since the gameplay felt disconnected from the beautiful wonder of the rest of the puzzles. Each boss fight just felt like an annoying obstacle holding me back from the delights of the rest of the game.