Your job is to close up a gas station in the middle of nowhere for seven nights. It's quiet. Too quiet. Before Exit: Gas Station is a cheap, weird, and addictive little gem that will have you questioning every shadow.

Kaiserpunk sold us the dream of a deep, alternate-history city builder. The reality is a frustrating, and bafflingly designed mess that feels more like an early prototype than a finished game, even now.

Seafarer: The Ship Sim has the soul of a brilliant maritime simulator trapped in the body of a janky, un-optimized mess. It makes my PC weep, but I still can't bring myself to abandon ship.

Thinking about buying ASKA? Be warned: this isn't the Viking adventure you're looking for. It's something much stranger, and maybe, just maybe, something better.

I came to Hollywood Animal to build a movie empire. I'm staying because I've discovered the joy of blackmailing my lead actor and asking the mafia to "clear the release schedule."

I've been waiting for a new Command & Conquer for what feels like an eternity. Red Chaos isn't it, but it's the closest I've gotten to that old-school RTS high in a long, long time.

I'm trapped in a rusty cell with a slot machine that wants me dead, and I can't stop pulling the lever. CloverPit is my new favorite addiction, and it might be yours too.

Macabre's pitch is incredible: Alien: Isolation with friends. The reality is a buggy mess with a monster that has the IQ of a stunned goldfish. But then the devs did something that gave me hope.

After years of waiting, a new mainline Silent Hill is here. It's a beautiful, harrowing, and essential experience for any horror lover... if you can survive its terrible combat.

I came to Deconstruction Simulator to smash things. I stayed for the broken economy, the infuriating bugs, and the zen of playing van Tetris. This is my full, exhaustive take on one of the year's most addictive messes.

After a two-year wait, Slime Rancher 2 has finally launched. It’s still one of the most charming games on the planet, but its new endgame is a soul-crushing grind. One question stands: Is the beauty worth the pain?

Is it a hardcore sim or a brain-dead arcade game? A relaxing escape or a frustrating grind? After spending some time in the world of Professional Fishing 2, I'm still not entirely sure, and that's the whole damn problem.

Superhero Simulator promised the fantasy of being a hero while juggling a day job. What I got was a thankless, anxiety-inducing chore with a side of AI voice acting. It has a brilliant idea and a mountain of problems, and you need to read about it.

I went to Mars to build a theme park and ended up running a human suffering-for-profit scheme. Mars Attracts is a theme park sim from a bygone era of weird PC games, and it's one of my biggest surprises of the year.

I was ready to hate another city builder. Instead, I looked up and it was 4 AM. Town to City is a cozy, grid-less masterpiece that might be my new obsession.

I wanted to love Candy Shop Simulator. It's cute. It's relaxing. It's also a hollow, unfinished shell of a game that was somehow released as a full product.

Seven years. That's how long we waited. Was it worth it? Short answer: yes. Long answer: my thumbs are still bleeding.

I am so tired of shop simulator games. So, so tired. But I have to admit, the one where you can race customers for their toy cars is actually pretty damn fun.

Vlad Circus is a pixelated nightmare that starts with your own execution. It's a grim, atmospheric adventure that's more about unsettling dread than cheap jump scares.

I’ve been searching for a good hotel sim for years. Hotel Architect is the closest I’ve come to finding it, and it has completely consumed my life with its charming, chaotic, and dangerously addictive gameplay.