Käyttäjän david_aeon viimeaikaiset arvostelut

• Roguelike co-op shooter
  
• Permadeath
  
• Iconic soundtrack
  
• Colorful
  
• Permanent unlockables to discover
  
• ...and get obliterated when you least expect it.

So, if you are still here... Let's get down to it:

Creedence Clearwater Revival lähetti viestin:

Long as I remember, the rain been coming down
Clouds of mystery Wisps pouring, confusion instant death on the ground
Good men through the ages, trying to find the sun steal legendaries
And I wonder, still I wonder
Who'll stop the rain tank another Shrine of The Mountain?

Following the premise that Hopoo could bring the magic of the original RoR to a 3D environment, which I heavily doubted, not only did they succeed but also expanded upon the foundations that made it unique among the so oversaturated genre of roguelikes. The main gimmick remains the same, explore to find loot while fighting continuously stronger enemies and ultimately fight a boss to gain access to a teleporter for the next stage, the twist being that the more time you spend looting between stages, the stronger the enemies get, with no true limit to how hard the game can get or how extremely overpowered you can be. Often times leading to very fun moments when you are clearing the whole stage in the blink of an eye and melting your GPU with thousands of active projectiles, and on the next, a single opponent does the same to your whole squad... And that's it, end of the run and back to stage 1 for you.
Risk of Rain 2 continues the loose narrative of the first game, following the hijinks of the survivors arriving at Petrichor V over a rescue signal from UES Contact Light (the ship that brought the survivors of the first game), upon arrival you find no trace of the survivors nor the ship, and quickly discover why. The place is full of dangerous lifeforms, both animal and sentient and all of them are interested in seeing you, inside out.
Permadeath and randomized loot make each playthrough different as you can't know what you will be going against, flying enemies with hit-scan attacks? Stationary enemies with poison or incendiary auras? Invisible enemies? You must always compromise something to have any chance of prevailing. For the beginners or what the veterans like to call "casuals" like myself, the game does offer ways to enjoy a more diluted lethality, besides the lower difficulty setting which gives you health regen and fewer enemy spawns, later you get access to items that change the rules of the game, one of them removing even the random aspect of items, making the experience enjoyable even if you are not into roguelikes.
With multiple characters that bring new flavors to the game and suit most gaming styles and items that can change a specific run experience completely from another, RoR2 is about finding synergy and balance between getting stronger and dealing with the ever-growing onslaught of enemies craving your blood. Surprising is that the expansions add truly useful content and lore to the base game, making it a nice addition, now that GearBox is leading the development of the game, long-time fans are cautiously optimistic even though their content drop has been outstanding so far.


TL-DR: This game made me have belly aches from laughing so much with my friends and also ripping out my hair at the very same session, and being able to still pull that off after hundreds of hours and still giving me new stuff to discover even now makes it more than worthy. If this does not sell you on it, there is nothing else I have to say.

• Adventure platformer
  
• Collectathon
  
• Iconic soundtrack
  
• Colorful
  
• Shiny rocks to hoard...
  
• ...and lose to a stingy bastard.

So, if you are still here... Let's get down to it:

Spyro himself lähetti viestin:

Destiny? Nah, I just wanna burn stuff up!

When they announced that there would be a Spyro trilogy remaster I was skeptical, being one of my most loved franchises of the first Playstation era, I knew how easy it would be to mess it up. Modified or even straight-up removed content is plaguing remasters left and right these days and I was not hopeful... But it seems like there are still people at Insomniac who know what makes these games stand out from the crowd.
Originally released between giants like Mario and Sonic during their 3D conversions, Spyro didn't try to reinvent the wheel, opting instead for a gameplay loop catering to older adventure games of prior generations, you have two basic attacks (running head bash and fire breath), you can also jump and glide but that is it. Later iterations give you additional moves like climbing and swimming but the objectives are the same, you use a hub world to travel to self-contained but different-themed worlds where you collect gems to hoard (because you are a dragon, duh) and items to unlock the traveling method to the next world. There are challenges like timed races and smaller secrets to collect but it never goes further than that, and this is its biggest strength: being engaging for a larger audience to be interested but not too complex to scare younger players who just want to see pretty characters running around.
As far as narrative goes, this trilogy is humble: You get acquainted with both Spyro and Sparks (his dragonfly companion who ingeniously serves as his health meter, talk about smart user interface...) while they try to reverse a petrifying curse on his elder dragon friends, which leads to a duel against two deranged and unprepared magic users... and at least one other magic user who definitely knows what they are doing. The story is light-hearted and full of funny pieces with a cast of creatures that help you along the way, the remaster does add some small cinematics that better portray the personality of some characters and it is a welcome addition.
In resume, this is a colorful if not a little bit easier way of experiencing this classic, the music still hits perfectly for the various visual themes, and boss fights aren't that hard so you can focus on exploring and finding every last dragon egg or shiny crystal to shove down Moneybag's throat, that dirty little b-
Anyway, I am glad that we still get games like this, it makes me hopeful for what others could be next.


TL-DR: I have wished for lots of remakes and remasters over the last decade but of all the good ones, Reignited Trilogy stands as a love letter to all players who grew up on PSX-era classics and still miss the feeling of just running and gliding around, breathing fire and collecting shiny stuff.

For someone who has crippling thalassophobia and hates water stages in games, I am amazed at how they managed to pull off a game made almost entirely of deep sea exploration levels... One that I hold dearly in my heart as something really special.
Goof job, MintRocket.

• Huge open-world
  
• Varied and satisfying combat
  
• Collectables galore
  
• Hit or miss graphics
  
• Amazing traversal movement
  
• Could use more super bosses (unconfirmed)

So, if you are still here... Let's get down to it:

The five dollar note dude lähetti viestin:

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.

First of all, let's get the dirt off the discussion table: Optimization is on par with past games such as Witcher 3 and Skyrim so if you see this as a dealbreaker you should wait for more updates and fixes. And about the media flaming and other unrelated critiques just check the forums, I am reviewing the game, not the drama. My interest in what would later become Forspoken started back in 2012 when Square-Enix released the tech demo called Agni's Philosophy, from there I have been somewhat far from their games as my main platform went PC so I missed everything after the PS2 era (still waiting for KH collection to land on Steam). So when this game got announced all I could see was a huge open world with a combat system comprised of magic attacks and focused on over-the-top high mobility. Being a huge fan of the likes of Prototype and modern Spider-Man games, this sent me over the moon... so yeah, I AM that biased to talk so I will focus on everything else for reviewing sake.
The presentation itself reminds me a lot of the 80's Dungeons & Dragons TV show and also The Neverending Story book, so quite highly considered inspirations, I just hope that this motif won't be forgotten down the line as up to this point (about a third in the main campaign) the protagonist is still struggling to find his own reason to fight other than merely surviving the otherworldly threats and finding her way back home. The magical companion has me more interested as their backstory is more mysterious and I am hoping for its identity to be an interesting revelation to the plot, otherwise would be another misstep. Aside from this, the exotic and unforgiving world is outstanding in its vastness to the point of scaring off some players looking for a better-contained playground, which is understandable given we are talking about a world lacking population and any other activity that is not treasure-hunting or killing monsters.
Gameplay wise I have but a few complaints, the fast-paced battles are flashy and some monsters are close if not faster than you, so one must make use of the abundant traversal skills not only to progress but to survive. Fighting is bombastic in the least and I can see some users wishing we had a particle intensity slider in the options, but I can't deny how satisfying it is to drop a nuke-sized rock on hundreds of enemies at once. Getting the game to run smoothly can be an obstacle in itself, but if you manage that and enjoy exploring every inch of a magical open world while zipping at lightning speed like myself, you are in for a treat.


TL-DR: There is an awful lot to improve, but what it does well, it does amazingly well.

Full review pending but until further notice, this game gets a "yos" rating from me.

• Open-world
  
• Glorious violence
  
• Collectables galore
  
• Metroidvania?
  
• Colorful
  
• Is there a game in this easter egg?

So, if you are still here... Let's get down to it:

The Black Dresses lähetti viestin:

I wanna put you in my mouth... I wanna crush you in my jaws... I wanna!

Growing up with Spyro, Crypto-137 and Mario helped me mold my gaming taste for adventure games, and it all depends on a sensible balance between exploration, item gathering, and combat. Very few games have reached the sweet spot nowadays (Supraland comes to mind) and I am in constant search for the next one... but honestly, if it weren't for Humble Choice this would have gone under my radar completely. You know, I am not a fan of the sea and the setting screamed "uninspired design" from a mile away, so I am glad that this dropped on my library and I gave it a chance because I was in for a surprise.
On the surface ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) you get an adventure game set in a colorful segmented open-world akin to a classic Monster Hunter game, with a leveling system and skill-sets to help you in combat or to reach new areas just like in Symphony of The Night; but as soon as you paddle through the initial over-the-top story section, the only hand you hold is Scaly Pete's in your jaws. ManEater has no shame for being cheesy and in fact, it is what drives most of the game, with an unexpected stellar narration by Chris Parnell and so many nods for geek culture all around, there is something to put a smile on pretty much anyone.
The gameplay loop is simple, you eat smaller animals to recover health and get components to get stronger for bigger prey, complete challenges and missions to advance in the story unlocking equipment (shark armor sets?), and new areas of the map. Among the oversaturated and a bit too dark for my taste city of Port Clovis, you will find a plethora of collectibles, ranging from resource caches and vista points (which are not climbable towers, thank god!)... and 8 out of 10 of these will give you a bucketful of geek references, a third of which even I was clueless about. There is a wanted system for hunting humans and you will come across the average boss fight with both fellow sea predators and battle-ready humans. After the campaign, you can extend your journey with the Truth Quest DLC bringing a new map section, a new type of collectible for every region, 9 new bosses (5 humans and 4 predators), and a new armor set (and almost overstay its welcome with somewhat repetitive missions).
For the price tag and the 15-ish hour-long campaign, this game made me lose track of time as I searched for every collectible on each region while hunting to get stronger and leveling up in pure glee, the loop is so smooth that you won't bother with the story until it is the last thing left to do, unless you don't care for collectibles. The humor is there for those who dig it and the violence pops as you bite and trash victims so wildly that their members scatter around... If you enjoyed the friendly collect-a-ton games of yore and ever wondered what an adult take on this genre would look like, ManEater got you.


TL-DR: A shameless adventure that is not afraid to bite the lower parts and dive into violence.

• First Person Shooter
  
• Fast
  
• Great soundtrack
  
• Destructable Enviroments
  
• Workshop integrated level editor
  
• No, really... it goes FAST.

So, if you are still here... Let's get down to it:

Ian Fraser Kilmister lähetti viestin:

Playing for the high one, dancing with the devil, going with the flow, it's all a game to me!

The first thought this game gave me was from my golden era playing F.E.A.R. in online deathmatch when I could run as fast as the bullets, sliding and kicking my way into a bloody trance of killing spree. It has it all, multiple weapons for diverse approaches, cool melee for close-quarters combat, quick switching weapons, swift movement, and lightning-fast combat sequences blended with glorious bullet-time mechanics... Heck, even the feature where the enemies shout real-time contextual orders to each other is the same! I know, it may sound like a total copy/paste, but in times where big games fail trying to reinvent their genres, I don't mind having a revival of a great FPS recipe, certainly don't mind if it is such a good one.
You play as the homonymous protagonist Steel, who wakes up in a trash compactor missing her left hand. The game guides you through a quick tutorial of its mechanics and bam! It is you against a horde of baddies from all directions till the last second of its somewhat short campaign, which is positive by my book as I would rather have a good game that never overstays its welcome than a great one that doesn't know when to shut itself.
The loop here is simple, there are no health or ammo pickups, so every weapon is disposable and you must keep track of superior weapons to swap when your magazine is empty; you can slide and kick to open doors and damage enemies up close as a last resort or just to keep your momentum going (which is important) and you have a rather generous amount of bullet-time powers ready at any given moment to help nail those sweet insane aerial headshot takedowns. You can wall run and dive through windows seamlessly which takes the run-and-gun motto to an insane level, as you leave not a trail, but a widespread picture of destruction mixed between enemy giblets and dynamic destructive environments, which you will exploit a lot using a spoiler weapon ( an arm-cannon that you acquire later ). If you take too long to grasp your tactics, death comes even faster, but respawning is quick and you won't mind restarting a section to try a different attack method.
Severed Steel can be summarized like this: Here is a gun, you go there and shoot their faces in the face, real quick... but you can also kick if that's your style. It is short, elegant, and INTENSE.

TL-DR: It doesn't try to reinvent the wheel, but it uses its mechanics to the fullest and delivers a solid, adrenaline-fueled experience.

• Third-person Hack and slash
  
• Short
  
• Great atmosphere
  
• Inventive combat mechanics
  
• Easy to learn, room for skilled-play

So, if you are still here... Let's get down to it:

Chris Martin lähetti viestin:

Nobody said it was easy, it's such a shame for us to part...

Blood Spear is often called a student project... hence why it is so short and free, but make no mistake, winning first prize at ISART Digital Montreal 2021 is no small feat, and calling this a student project is a grave understatement. Picking obvious queues from the likes of Dark Souls, Soul Reaver and more, you get a third-person hack and slash campaign that won't overstay its welcome, with an easy to learn throwing mechanic (charge and quick-fire) backed up with two inventive skills that add strategy and healing abilities, this compact package leaves you wanting more.
You are a nameless evil sealed for what seems like an eternity on a cursed weapon, feeding on the blood of your victims you gather enough strength to manipulate the corpses of your wannabe wielders to your will, which involves a face to face encounter with another entity seemingly needed to ensure recovery to your former glory.
With regular movement and only four commands you get a quick or charged throw shot, a dash or sprint, a devour (healing with the blood of your enemies) and a shatter skill to inflict bonus damage on anyone crazy enough to survive a single attack. Aside from that, you go from a dark fantasy location to the next chasing this "fateful encounter" while pinning enemies to walls along the way, which feels way more satisfying than it should. Some areas have shielded enemies and sometimes you have to consider if it is safer to shoot weaker quick shot instead of leaving an opening for attacks with a charge shot, and you would not want to miss because this is no automatic rifle, no sir.
Making extensive use of the Shatter command and devour, one can make quick work of most enemies here, which serves as training for the final boss battle which is engaging and with just enough difficulty to make you wonder what might come next if this could turn into a full-fledged game.

TL-DR: If you wanna try a game for free with potential to become an actual great paid title, this one can chew an hour of your time easily, and leave you regretting nothing.

• FPS
  
• Open-world
  
• Metroidvania
  
• Secrets and collectibles galore
  
• Freedom to explore and solve puzzles your way

So, if you are still here... Let's get down to it:

Orangeburg Shopkeeper lähetti viestin:

You sure don't act all that NPC-like, do you?

For someone who played and completed the base game with a smile on my face the whole time, I kept a skeptical approach to this DLC campaign as I had huge doubts if the dev would be able to pull the same unique tricks a second time without missing the target and luckily I was wrong...
What can be perceived in the first minutes here is that Sir Münnich experimented with new perspectives to his tried and true combination of exploration, puzzle-solving and combat. Steering further from verticality and more towards the boundaries of the skills available to the player. This can be off-putting at first when you realize you won't be triple jumping this time (the Translocator is still here, at least), the game invites you to actually understand your tools and make the most of them, be it opening a gate or getting some frigging red coin just out of reach, this campaign will test your skill really hard.
Story-wise, you can expect the average tale of "main character stranded and upon trying to get back to his kingdom, gets involved in the shenanigans of a foreign tribe", the memes are still there and secrets lurk on every hard-to-reach corner, but with a 10-15 hour long gameplay, the combat will never be your biggest concern. Now that I look back at it, it really amazes me how they created such an experience without resorting to time-travel or portal-like mechanics, never trying to reinvent the wheel but instead focusing on making it feel authentic and leaving a proper footprint on the consumer.
That said, I can safely state that I am excited for the next thing coming from this dev and that I will have a harder time finding anything that ever comes close to this weird mix of passion, sheer creativity, and humor. If you ever read this: PLEASE keep doing it just like you want, we are in dire need of your style.

TL-DR: Still the best Metroidvania of 2019 on the indie side of the galaxy, back for round two.

• Exploration
  
• Colorful
  
• Relaxing
  
• Great landscapes
  
• Screenshot motherlode
  
• Grass physics
  

So, if you are still here... Let's get down to it:

Pink Floyd lähetti viestin:

...do you think you can tell, heaven from hell, blue skies from pain... can you tell a green field, form a cold steel rail... do you think you tell?

For anyone who played any title from Thatgamecompany this should not be a surprise, even though I should feel a bit ashamed for playing this for the first time just now, I believe it was for the best. I mean, I know the controls were dumbed down from the PS motion scheme but visually, oh boy, this one is a sight to behold!
In this fearless take on the old school Snake Game mechanic, with a thick layer of colorful and natural backgrounds, the way the experience unfolds is almost meditative. Not as the game implies (was I the only one who thought that) you won't play as a stationary plant, but rather as a part of it, a petal... and your objective is to guide this petal through the wind, gathering as many petals as possible along the way in order to not only color a desaturated and bleak world, but also to bring forth Spring itself.
Levels are varied and even if you take your time it won't overstay its welcome, so you get day and night-time settings and some chase sections... although it does not have any kind of combat, the narrative imagery makes it feel like you are battling a faceless enemy in the guise of progress. And that is where this game worked so well for me, inducing a state of consciousness over how one may stay tuned to nature even though our lives require that we stay logical, its simplicity is elegant, the creators had no doubt what they were achieving and the aftertaste of each level is as satisfactory as a walk in a quiet beach during sunrise.
If the floaty controls (like, you are the wind, and the controls are floaty, see?) don't put you off, you might be in for a treat along these grassy fields, blessed with graceful soundtrack and Thatgamecompany's trademark style. Open your windows and bask in the sun, because Spring is coming!

TL-DR: Life might get dark sometimes, but beauty is always out there, if you are willing to find it