Recent reviews by Radstads

I can't remember the last time a game encapsulated me so much that I had to play it start to finish in one sitting.
The most satisfying 3d platformer movement since mario odyssey and the system to unlock new skills is incredibly cool too.

Buy this game, it might be the best $15 i've spent on steam

A cute game with a fun mechanic that I wish was used just a little bit better.

Had a blast with the story (as short as the first playthrough was) but felt the respawn mechanic could've been used for a bit more puzzle solving between lives. Still a great buy and absolutely worth it at a discounted price

Great party pack, zeeple bowl was very different but a total blast :)

Listen, you don't need the words or rants of some random user to know whether or not this game is worth buying.... so let me just skip the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and say it:

Yes. This game is as good as you've heard
Yes. it is incredibly challenging but rewarding to succeed
Yes. The music is phenomenal.
Yes. The sprite work is actually gorgeous and clearly had a lot of time put into it.
Yes. This is one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I've had in years.

And most importantly:

Yes, you should, without a doubt, buy cuphead. It's a true work of art I'm truly honored to have the opportunity to play.

Oh isaac, one of my favorite games ever, I have played countless hours of you and was looking forward to spending just as many in your DLC but I just feel so let down by the newest DLC. The new items are lack luster for the most part, the new enemies are often reskins or remakes of already present enemies, the new bosses are just annoying and uninspired, the new floor has no new art as its just a mess of rooms from prior floors, the new final boss is a retexture of prior bosses who teleports with no teleport animation, and shoots out bullet hell from a stationary jpeg. ANd lets not forget that the new ending doesn't even add to the lore of isaac, all it does it restate what we already know. And thats not even mentioning the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ "mimic chests" the constant crashes I've experienced, the unavoidable damage, and the portals that appear is damn near every room... Overall I'm still going to play isaac as much as usual... but I kinda wish I hadn't bought this dlc.

Edit: Many of my complaints were fixed, but the small player base is still a problem

Oh man writing a review for this game is honestly way too hard.... After watching a video of this game on youtube I was immediately interested and very quickly purchased and jumped into this game. The party aspect behind it is clever, the scoring is fair, the games fun, and the moving element unique enough to make it so you're always slightly distracted from the main goal of the current minigame as you need to keep moving and avoid jump spamming to keep yourself from exploding in a colorful splatter of paint on the board. As far as steam party games go, this is definitely a unique experience and definitely a fun game... but I still have a hard time recommending it, at least for its current price tag, as it is right now.

While the game itself is a total blast, it feels unpolished in many aspects that have turned me off a bit... for starters connectivity is a huge issue in this game. I myself can join CSGO and tf2 servers with next to no lag, but this game always seems to struggle to connect with the other players in online. Many times I'll be running through a stage only to have my opponents freeze momentarily or go into its "ice skating" glitch. When the game starts "ice skating" the minigame will begin and the characters themselves won't be shown to move. Behind the scenes however all the other players are doing their own thing in a sort of limbo where you can't see them but they're more than capable of interacting with you, making certain games like trickshot, chainsaw backstab, blowback, bomb tag, and hat chase virtually impossible to win, as you're disadvantaged by the fact that you have literally no idea where the rest of the players are, resulting in you blindly wandering the stages hoping for the best and praying you're not screwed over. (video of said ice skating glitch here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CoTxFBvoGQ )

Next, is the current state of the online game. Frequently I've looked online for a game only to have their be no servers up currently and no one to play with. Out of desperation I would then check the server list and see 8 open games, 3 of which were private lobbies and the other were random games with 2 other players. Often times you'll end up joining an open server only to be kicked by the host immediately as they're farming wins with a friend or the users were just unsure of how to set a password. Regardless you eventually join a game and the host doesn't kick you but then you wait a few more minutes as the host sits aimlessly unreadied either waiting for a 4th user, who may never come, or just being away from their screen. As you play through the game every 5 or so rounds maybe a user disconnects either due to a poor score, or poor connection, but then when you're finally within striking distance and 1 win away, the host can end the game, sending you back to the lobby, where you can both sit, without gaining any experience (as I've had this exact scenario happen around 4 times now)... With the game being new its understandable for their to be few players... however this is a huge problem when you consider all the current flaws of the game as it is now and the fact that the "bots" you can play with any time not only don't give experience, but struggle to even play through certain game modes as their intended (seriously I've never seen a bot survive more than 3 seconds in vertigo).

Next lets discuss a few of the minigames...

Jump shot- A great concept but flawed in its execution, due to the fact that it has only one stage with health pads everywhere, users often times just spam jump as the whole "move or die" aspect is totally irrelevant. Users often camp the top platform and time out

Color Craze- I like the concept and it definitely fits the game, but its easily my least favorite minigame. Strategies include running 3 blocks behind an opponent and wiping away all their progress or just getting the walls and ceilings and then trying to get the floor in the last minute.

Rocket Run- Very fun game type, teleporters allow for you to screw over your opponents. One of the funner game types Imo

Chainsaw Backstab- Once again not much to say here, it fits and its executed well.

Vertigo- Another really fun game type, the random spawning of platforms can often screw you and leave you in an inescapable place, and its impossible to play if you're ice skating, but I really enjoy this game type, very skill oriented.

Blow Back- Fun "fighting like" game where you try to knockback your opponents into the death tiles. Once again few complaints aside from many of the "safe spots" users will try to camp where a single blowback will never put them in harms way.

Ghost scare- The concept is fun and interesting but not executed as well as I'd hope, the teleporters allow for you to screw over opponents almost right at the start of the game, and the cooldown on the scream can ♥♥♥♥ you over as sometimes you get a kill and an opponent will slide in as you're scream leaves you in endlag for another easy kill. Furthermore, users often just camp at the top for an easy win in time out.

Fizzle Floor- Love this game type, no complaints, moving on.

Cleanup Crew- Another good one, very fair, no real advantage, just clean up as much as you can.

Bomb Tag- God do I want to love this minigame, but I really have a hard time doing so. While its fun and fitting with 4 players, as soon as you get to the 1 on 1, I've found that whoever the bomb spawns on ends up getting screwed. It's just much harder to chase someone than to be chased and I find myself just missing an opponent nearly every time it spawns on me in 1 on 1.

Sugar Rush- Yeah this one sucks. Sorry. You spawn in a random spot of a labrynth of confusing paths with teleporters that I still haven't figured out and candy spawners scattered throughout. The Game effectively picks a random spawner and then spawns pieces of candy, one less than there are players. The winner is often chosen by whomever is lucky enough to be closest to the spawner that's chosen... But since that apparently wasn't terrible enough, the candy moves all over the stage through walls, so many times after racing to the spawner you'll get there just in time to watch the piece you just missed phase through a wall and land exactly where you were 5 seconds ago, right into the hands of an opponent. It's like a sadistic version of musical chairs.

Speed Run- This is a great game type and it rewards skill.... but I feel like it's trying to be much more complex than it actually is. There are different paths that activate traps that can slow your opponents or make them backtrack but these traps are easily avoidable, and while the game seems to have "safer" shortcuts, i've found these to be completely pointless as you barely have enough time to complete the course if you try any route aside from the most obvious one and it often turns into a cluster of 4 users all in the same 30 pixel area trying to finish the stage a fraction of a second faster than one another.

Hat Chase- Great concept, poor execution. The hats initial spawn point is random, so in many cases whoever it spawns closest to wins just because of how hard it can be to navigate the map and how big an advantage having the hat uncontested for the first 3 seconds of the game can be. It should spawn in the very middle of all 4 characters, making it as fair as possible from the start.

Falling blocks- Great game time, no complaints, gradually gets tougher and rewards those who are willing to try to snake their way down to the lowest platform.

Stomp- I don't know if I've ever even played this one truthfully. I don't think it works online?
And one universal complaint for all minigames... wayy to few maps... like 1 maybe 2 for each so everything gets to be very repetitive very quickly...

I've put in quiet a decent amount of time into this game at this point and figured it was about time to write my own honest review of the game...
As a tl;dr for anyone not looking to read through this entire review before buying:
I give the game a 6/10, I'll give it a thumbs up because it's enjoyable enough, but I don't necessarily recommend it. The game itself isn't for anyone and if you're planning on buying it, wait until its $5 or less as the $10 price tag is too much for this game.

The game itself is exactly as it claims it is when it states that it's "a music reactive Platform Racing Game". The game itself is centered around competing against other players online (or against your own times) while avoiding obstacles that are Somewhat reactive to the music. But this "reactive" element is where part of the problem I have with this game arises. Depending on the song currently playing, certain elements of levels can be virtually impossible to complete. As songs get more and more upbeat obstacles seem more aggressive and unpredictable. Be it those strange "bass" obstacles that send you flying away from them, the pulsing buzz saws, or those obnoxious cannon like things, certain songs will make these obstacles about a million times more difficult. I myself would often find myself waiting for the brief moments of peace at the end of one song while another was preparing to start before trying to quickly rush through an obstacle I'd been stuck at for what seems like ages.

Next up, level design. While all the stages themselves are unique and different, there's a few major problems I've noticed in levels that just makes the game itself incredibly frustrating to play sometimes. On some levels you'll get a checkpoint nearly every 20 feet, so a death is meaningless and can cost you only a few seconds, while on other levels I felt like I'd spend a minute at a time avoiding obstacles only to die and be sent right back... And that without mentioning some horrible level layouts where I could miss a jump, fall down for about 15 seconds and land on a platform near the beginning of the level, forcing me to start almost the entire race over again.

Multiplayer itself seems to work well enough, however I haven't been able to play much online. Half the time I can't find a server with anyone to play against, and whenever I can, they'll often leave before we can even pick a level or make it any significant distance into a race. However racing against a friend while chatting over skype can be a blast.

Overall the game itself isn't bad... but I wouldn't by any means call it great or even necessarily good. It's a basic platformer, with controls that can be a little bit slippery, beautiful background images, and a diverse and enjoyable soundtrack. While I wouldn't necessarily recommend the game at full price unless you're really really itching to get your hands on it, I would recommend it if it drops to $5 or below. And at that point you may want to grab a 2-pack so you could send a copy to a friend if you ever wanna play a quick game to pass some time.