Long-time readers of my blog probably weren't expecting a review of a game like this. Monster trucks have never been my thing, and this is a game that I would never have touched on my own. But now I'm also a father of a young son, who absolutely loves monster trucks. When I saw that this game was discounted 40% for a holiday sale, I bought it for him as a Christmas present -- in 2024 ... and oh my god, it's already next Christmas! Where does the time go? Anyway, he's still too young to really understand how to play video games, but he at least enjoys driving the trucks around in circles, or watching his parents play the game for him. I'm sure he'll grow into it.

While playing the game for him in an attempt to unlock some extra playable trucks, I realized that the game is kind of like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, but with monster trucks. And I love the Tony Hawk games! So I went ahead and tried playing Monster Jam: Showdown, off and on, on my own account as well. While there is definitely fun to be had with Showdown, it is definitely not Tony Hawk!

Showdown has the potential to be "Tony Hawk, but with Monster Trucks"!

Moon physics

Tony Hawk, as a series of games, was a breakout hit, in large part, because it appealed to a wide variety of gamers, including many (like myself) who didn't give a shit about skateboarding. It accomplished this by having extremely tight, responsive controls and easily-understandable physics, that allowed players to enter a zen-like state in which we felt like unstoppable skateboarding gods -- even if we couldn't tell a kickflip from a manual.

This is not the case with Monster Jam: Showdown. The gameplay here is exceedingly arcadey. The trucks in the game just don't have the sense of weight and physicality that one might expect from the 6-ton motor behemoths that they are based on. These trucks often feel like they are on the moon, and the physics is horribly inconsistent, unpredictable, and prone to screwing the player over every chance it gets.

Incidental collisions with level geometry can
send the truck flying into the air.

Running over or clipping geometry in the arena could send the truck flying into the air. Taking a turn a little too hot and clipping the rocky wall of a racing circuit can launch the truck into a flip. Running over a football-sized rock on the side of the track can pop the truck off the road and flip it over. Stunts as simple as running over and smashing a line of cars can be frustratingly difficulty, as hitting the first car can send the truck flying 30 feet into the air, missing all the other cars, and landing on its back. Even at low speeds, it's almost impossible to tell if you'll run over the cars, or go flying into the sky, or roll over onto your side. It's also annoyingly easy to get stuck in flips, or in cycles of "break-dancing", in which the truck just keeps flipping around on the ground doing various "sidewall" spins on 2 tires.

This first expansion for Cities Skylines II is a year overdue. Personally, I was far more optimistic about it than most other players. Though that review was biased by the fact that I never got any of my cities up over 100 thousand population, and so wasn't running into many of the problems that other players experienced with the simulation breaking down in large cities. I think my largest city was somewhere around 70-74 thousand population at the point that I published my review.

The game launched in such a messy state that Colossal Order had to devote so much time and effort to fixing core problems that they had to keep delaying the expansion. They were in a really hard position, as publisher Paradox had sold the expansion with the deluxe editions of the game in pre-orders. This content was promised to players, and was sold to players prior to the game launching. It's not like Colossal Order could just not release it.

This stuff is exactly why pre-order and "Deluxe Edition" cultures in gaming need to die. With all games being available digitally (and most games being purchased digitally), there is no risk of a supply shortage, and so no reason to ever pre-order a game. Offering pre-orders and pre-order bonuses is just a cynical, anti-consumer trick of publishers to try to get more money out of gamers. Sell the product before it's actually for sale, and know that you're guaranteed to get at least that many sales, even if the game turns out bad.

Colossal Order did say that, due to the delays, they tried to fit as much water-based content as they could into this expansion. They also claimed to have put a lot of time into fleshing out systems and testing the new content to make sure it all worked. I had hoped that this supposedly more holistic approach to this expansion, and the extra time given to it, would alleviate many of the complaints that I had with the first game's expansions being so limited in scope. I'm sorry to say that it didn't quite work out that way.

Mmm, fish milk...

I'm also sorry to say that, while I was working on this review, Colossal Order and Paradox announced that Paradox has fired Colossal Order from its development duties on Cities: Skylines and Cities: Skylines II. After the end of this year, development of the game will shift to Paradox's in-house Iceflake Studios (the developer of Surviving The Aftermath). I had played Surviving the Aftermath. I thought it was fine, and largely had a good time with it, even though I never finished the campaign and never got around to reviewing it. So it's possible that Iceflake might handle Cities: Skylines II development just fine. But this situation sucks. Colossal Order created Cities: Skylines. It was their game (and series). For Paradox to yank it away from them in this blatant act of IP hoarding is just cruel, greedy, and evil.

I hope that Colossal Order survives, that they are able to retain most (if not all) of their staff through this, and that they come back swinging in a few years with a new city-building game that will rival Skylines. Maybe, in the long-term, competition between Paradox and Colossal Order will lead to a renaissance in modern city-building games, as each tries to out-do the other. But in the meantime, it's likely going to be a rough few years for Colossal Order, and I wish them all the best.

Repeating the first game's mistakes

The feature previews for the Bridges & Ports expansion sure seemed promising. New modular ports, bridges, drawbridges, proper quays and piers, a fishing industry, offshore oil drilling, waterfront zones, and a bunch of new parks and landmarks. It sure seemed like a fairly comprehensive and holistic feature suite, on paper.

But then I actually got to playing it, and almost immediately started to notice that there were things that I had hoped or expected to be included, which simply weren't. Despite the supposedly-holistic approach to water infrastructure, this expansion is still missing 2 key pieces of water recreation infrastructure that I've been asking for since the original Cities: Skylines over a decade ago. There are no public beaches, and no marinas. Yes, you can technically build a makeshift, superficial marina using the quays, piers, and a couple of boat props, along with any other Detailers' props or decorations. The piers do seem to provide some passive beautification, but nobody ever actually uses these structures that I might spend hours putting together. People don't walk the decks of the piers, or actually sail the prop boats out into the water. Would it really have been too much to ask to be able to create a simple seaway and "pleasure cruise area" for a marina, similar to the way that fishing areas are designated?

You can make makeshift marinas with quays, piers, and boat props, but nobody uses them.

The lack of public beaches really hurts the aesthetic of any coastal city. There are some props that can be placed on sandy beach areas to give some appearance of a beach. Maybe some tents here and there, some lawn chairs, and a few other such objects. But there are no beach towels, surf boards, sand castles, lifeguard towers, or things of that nature. Most importantly, just like with the makeshift marinas, nobody will ever actually go to that beach. People don't walk along the beach, swim in the water, sit in the lawn chairs, or play in the sand. The beaches are just completely lifeless.

I'm on the record as having said that I think From Software would've been a good candidate to develop a Silent Hill game (or a pure horror game in general). But I also said that I would not want such a game to be a "Souls-like". Instead, I think FromSoft is well suited to the Silent Hill IP because they make games that are rich in oppressive atmosphere, are good at developing rich mythologies, and which share many common themes with Silent Hill (such as corrupt religious authorities). Also, FromSoft makes games other than Souls-likes. They made Déraciné, which I loved! And which might actually be there 3rd or 4th best game.

Well, I didn't get a FromSoft Silent Hill game, but I did apparently get the "Silent Hill Souls-like" that I very explicitly did not want. Thankfully, it did not turn out as bad as I feared it would be.

Poorly-labeled difficulty options

Do yourself a favor, and do not try starting this game on the "Hard" difficulty! It's a shame that the developers chose to label the difficulty levels like they did: "Story" and "Hard". There's no "Normal" or "Medium" difficulty option. Typically, when I see a "Story" difficulty option, I assume that it's a mode that is stripped of all challenge and friction such as to allow the player to basically just walk through the game un-molested.

Don't get me wrong! I approve of games having accessible difficulty settings, even if I choose not to use them. Such stripped-down "Story Modes" are perfectly fine to include in an action or adventure game -- especially one that is narrative driven, like Silent Hill f is.

I gave up on the Hard mode after the first major boss.

This "Story" difficulty doesn't quite go to that extreme, but it is pretty easy (outside of a handful of tougher setpieces), and it renders many of the game's advanced mechanics moot. For example, you don't really have to manage Sanity or Focus at all in this difficulty level, as Sanity is automatically refilled at every save point. Stamina is still meaningful, but one-on-one encounters can almost always be defeated without depleting the sanity bar.

Almost all the consumable pick-ups, thus, can be safely ignored or sold at save points in exchange for permanent buffs (which just make the combat even easier!), since you'll rarely (if ever) need to use consumables on the Story difficulty. This has many knock-on effects for the rest of the game, such as making exploration largely pointless. Going out of your way to explore, only to find a reward of an extra item or 2 that recovers or buffs your Sanity simply has little-to-no value. Truly valuable rewards, such as inventory upgrades or a useful omamori, are few and far between. In fact, I often had to run back to a nearby save point to sell consumeables because my inventory would be too full to pick up any new ones.

Every now and then, a very odd or unique game catches my eye. I knew nothing about Cosmogenesis when I bought it. It looked like a borderline "edu-tainment" product, with its theme about the creation of solar systems and origins of life. And I had success with previous edu-tainment games. Photosynthesis was a surprise smash hit, and turned out to be one of the most popular games in my collection. So maybe Cosmogenesis would capture that same lightning-in-a-bottle?

But solo designer Yves Touringny and publisher Ludonova are not Blue Orange Games. Cosmogenesis plays solidly enough, but it just lacks the sheer "table presence" of something like Photosynthesis.

Star child

Cosmogenesis plays like a tableau-building card game, but without any cards. Instead, each player has a cardboard player board with circular slots along one side, in which circular cardboard planet discs can be slotted. Other cardboard asteroids, comets, and planets can be placed on the board, on the same row as a slotted planet, to act as moons. And small, gray plastic discs (that looks like an Advil tablet) are used to track the development of life on a track on eligible planets (or moons).

The only player interaction is resource-denial, which is rare.

Each player is kind of playing your own little game with almost no interaction with the other players. This can be good for players who can be more sensitive to being "attacked" by other players, or for players who prefer to focus on what they are doing instead of having to try to consider how other players might interfere with their strategy. The only player-interaction that ever really happens would be resource-denial, in cases in which one player specifically claims a token or objective that another player wanted.

But even that seems rare. The way that the game is structured, players are always acquiring new objectives every game round. You always have your own objectives to accomplish, even late in the game. So most players are going to be claiming tokens that actually accomplish their own objectives or improve their own score, rather than wasting a valuable turn by claiming a token specifically to keep it away from another player. If you do claim a token that another player wanted, it's likely because it's also something that benefits you.

This high focus comes from the fact that every game round the players acquire new short-to-medium-term goals to work towards. Even in the last round of the game, you will still be acquiring a new objective (whether you'll be able to accomplish it or not). These goals always feel viable to attain. I've never seen a situation in which its outright impossible for a given player to compete for at least one of the goals that's available, if they work to try to achieve it. I'm sure it's possible, but I haven't seen it happen yet.

Acquiring new objectives throughout the game
keeps play focused and goal-oriented.

Each player is also given a secret goal during game setup. In most games, this would likely be an end-game goal that could make or break your strategy. But in Cosmogenesis, this initial goal is the same kind of short-to-medium-term goal as all the other objective cards in the game. This initial goal will likely influence your game-long strategy, but it isn't the end-all-be-all. Instead, it just gives every player something to work towards right from the start of the game, in order to keep everyone's play laser-focused. From turn 1 all the way through round 6 (the final round of the game), every player has goals to work towards.

My partner and I have been planning on buying rooftop solar panels for our home for years. We had been saving up for it for a while. We were hoping to save up more, so as not to have to finance the project very much (if at all). But when Donald Trump was sworn in as president again in January of 2025, and promptly began to disassemble the federal government and replace it with a single-party, authoritarian police state, we figured that home solar and electric vehicle tax rebates would not last much longer. We moved quickly to spend what we had to get the ball rolling on solar panel installation before the administration would inevitably terminate federal tax credits for solar installations, which they did in August.

We tried moving as fast as we could, but there were delays in the installation due to defects with the house's roofing tiles. We just hoped that projects that were initiated before the announcement of the tax credit repeal would be grandfathered-in. Thankfully, Republicans were "kind" enough to keep them going through the end of the year.

In any case, we finally got the project completed at the end of August, and now have functioning solar panels on the roof of the house!

We also now have a couple months of lower energy bills due to the panels. Unfortunately, we did not get the panels installed early enough to take advantage of all the summer sun this year, but now that we are in the autumn, and the air conditioner isn't running as often, we should start seeing credits on our power bill for the electricity we are exporting back to the grid. By the time next summer rolls along, the expectation is that we will have banked enough credits that our energy bill will be down to little more than just the baseline connection fee (which I think is currently $18.50). We should still be able to qualify for the 30% tax rebate next year, which should put another nice chunk of cash back in our pockets.

We now have functioning solar panels and have taken the largest step to reduce our carbon footprint.

At the end of the day, though, we didn't do this for financial reasons. We did it because it's the right thing to do. Even if I knew for a fact that I would never get a return on investment from installing solar, I would still have wanted to do it in order to reduce my personal contribution to the carbon emissions that are contributing to climate change. The fact that it will provide a financial return on investment within a few years is just icing on the cake.