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Recent reviews by gr8stalin's mustache!

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1 person found this review helpful
97.0 hrs on record
The torch is passed. After playing the prior Yakuza games, I can say it's no small feat to cook up a way to replace Kiryu: physically, he's a wall of dragonforce albums (please recognize the ancient meme) and RGG has to cook up someone equally as strong as him every time they need a bad guy. How on earth do you make someone that fits the same bill as Kiryu?

You don't make one person.

Y7 moves to turn-based RPG-like gameplay from the brawling we're used to in prior installments. Ichiban isn't as stoic as Kiryu and doesn't have the same fighter DAWG that Kiryu had in him; the spirit is there but there's no innate crazy strength. In order to stand toe to toe with the giants in his path, Ichiban is joined by a colorful entourage of misfits and outcasts just like himself, and with a little help from his friends Ichiban overcomes challenge after challenge. I like that the game captures this time and time again: Kiryu would have an even clash with an opponent while Ichiban has a punch or a kick absorbed or deflected by his unfazed opponent, but with some tag-team insanity, even the greatest giants kneel to Ichi.

I like Ichiban himself a lot. He's flawed in both obvious and subtle ways that make him seem human versus Kiryu: Ichi's hotheaded, sometimes lacking common sense, caring to a fault, stubborn, the list goes on. His growth as a character is a bit more relatable and direct versus Kiryu's more muted displays through his saga. What's nice is that Ichi doesn't have any shortage of heroic moments in comparison to Kiryu, and Ichi still has a good head on his shoulders filled with street smarts, so we're not just watching some loser get carried from being a yakuza castoff from a bygone generation.

The sidestories I naturally encountered were nice, though a scant few are kind of bland. They really help tie Ichiban to the Yakuzaverse and some of them are straight-up goofy, keeping in line with the wild charm of the series. The party chats and their sidestories also help everyone seem realistic and give the cast personality and credibility: I think some of my favorites were Adachi's Hobbies and the laundry day chat.

The game isn't without fault. I think the rpg-like combat is done a disservice by the free-roaming the cpus do in a given arena, so while it isn't game-destroying, it's annoying to see a strategy be lost to the sands of semi-rng because two enemies moved slightly farther apart as you were getting ready to send an AOE attack command. The ragdolling is also a little ridiculous because if your character trips or knocks an opponent too hard with some multi-hit attacks, they'll miss out on damage. This does go both ways so sometimes it works in your favor. I'm torn on whether or not it's more annoying or funny to watch your attack knock an enemy so far back you lose out on the effect of the move.

If you don't plan to play NG+, Romance Workshop loses value insanely fast for how much you have to put into it. A lot of the jobs suck and there's little motivation to deviate from each character's stock job unless you're really into Y7 and want to do job runs. Eri can become insanely overpowered just from leveling normally, which isn't a huge problem in and of itself. However, when you combine this with how annoying reistances are and how weapons with elemental effects fall off by the 2/3rds mark of the game, it's kind of stupid. A lot of mini-boss and boss fights in the game are DPS checks more than strategy (mixing jobs, items, elemental effects, etc.) checks: great examples are the fight against Kiryu and both fights against Ishioda. Then, you level up and acquire armor from the later-game fights to where the final fights feel almost trivial in comparison.

Regardless, Yakuza 7 has found its new hero and is an excellent addition to the series that you should play. In-game save says I have 67+ hours logged, so ignore the 90+ hours Steam recorded with me alt-tabbed, but know you'll get your money's worth.
Posted March 11.
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1 person found this review helpful
4.6 hrs on record
I got Call of Juarez Gunslinger for free as some sort of Steam promotion. I have to say that if you're looking to play a game that's pretty reminiscent of a wild west flick, Gunslinger's got your back. It's fun, is actually filled with funny dialog and interactions, has that satisfying old west renegade feel, and is easy to knock out in a weekend.

Only real problems I have with the game are:
  • Will dip in framerate even on modern systems when it's trying to load scenery and other entities
  • There's artificial gun inaccuracy: you can line up a shot and the bullet will just whiff completely with a visible trail. It's not a consistent enough issue that it'll get in the way of gameplay too much, but it'll happen enough that you'll notice it
  • Not easy to tell when you're being railroaded for a cinematic gameplay moment or real gameplay sometimes
  • Standoffs/Duels are annoying: the mechanics for draw speed aren't clear or intuitive and there's a lot of unnecessary reticle drift (artificial difficulty)

None of these reasons were enough to make me put down the game. It's an easy high quality steal during a sale, and there's still new game plus and some arcade content to do if you're interested.
Posted December 16, 2023. Last edited December 16, 2023.
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8 people found this review helpful
2.3 hrs on record
I initially played 20MTD and thought it was sick, a bite-sized Vampire Saviors clone I could pick up and put down with ease. It does the job of being a VS clone and it has a diverse cast of characters and weapons, but even with all the powerups, the weapons feel weak and most don't scale well if they don't have high base damage or projectile count potential. Think it's typical for VS and VS clones, but VS has more overall depth and a game that's this shallow in comparison needs something.

Something I observed in myself was that upon completing a 20 minute session, there was a little jingle and I was asked if I wanted to try again, and I said "That's it?" out loud. It's a little strange because I expected very little for how barebones the game is, maybe some simple fanfare and some "lore" where [character] survived the night and vanquished the evil or something, but not even that. Winning felt very hollow.

The developer is already making a spinoff game that looks like it's fusing this game and Hero Siege together. I feel like I paid for a beta; the gameplay is there, the game is functional, the artstyle is good, but the game feels half-baked.

I could see myself playing a run every once in a blue moon since I don't really play VS or these VS clones that much. If you're like me, it's not the worst purchase you could make (you could do better), but I don't recommend this for people who want a more robust VS clone.
Posted December 16, 2023.
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2 people found this review helpful
7.8 hrs on record
I was going through my library of Steam games, continuing my eternal quest to clear my backlog to a degree I feel sufficient, and stumbled upon Shattered Horizon. It's a shame Shattered Horizon simply vanished though I understand why it did.

For a game made by a company that just does graphics benchmarks, they somehow hit on a pretty interesting multiplayer experience. In essence it's just another 6DOF game, but the setting came packed with some really interesting gameplay: your spacesuit had to be online to simulate audio in the vacuum of space, but you could make a tactical choice to disable your spacesuit in order to hide yourself from your opponent's radar.

The gameplay loop was sustained by release week/month hype, but outside of the community that I was a part of at the time of playing, 6DOF was too much for people to really handle AND you needed to have Windows Vista in order to play it at all. They tried releasing a weapon pack and bots to breathe some life and extend the depth of the game, but it was unfortunately all for naught.

More of a nostalgic review than anything else. I don't think I'd want Shattered Horizon to re-release in 2023 with all the crap that plagues online gaming in the 2020s, but I do miss the initial experience.
Posted December 12, 2023.
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3 people found this review helpful
7.3 hrs on record
I bought Heavy Bullets somewhere around 8 years prior to writing this review. I clocked most of my time during that time in 2015, then a little bit recently. I think I got my money's worth (sale + already cheap indie game) but I think my opinion on Heavy Bullets has remained the same: interesting idea, tedious in gameplay past the first two hours.

The only thing that's memorable about the game is its defining mechanic: if you shoot a bullet, it lands on the ground and you can pick it up again. The levels are just hallway mazes without changes in elevation and the challenge of the game relies on placing enemies at distance so it's harder to hit weakpoints and around corners as jumpscares. That would be fine if it was part of some bigger enemy pool and level design, but you essentially play the same encounter over and over again per run. There's some minute change in terms of enemy introduction if you're playing the game for the first time, but it's really insignificant.

The game is about 9 years old so I don't feel guilty spoiling the final boss: it's a monster that doesn't do anything in a narrow room of turrets and fodder enemies. You need to do a few runs to internalize the general pattern of the boss room because half the challenge is disabling the movement-hampering turrets so you can actually deal with everything else, then the other half is cleaning up the turrets. Again, you're essentially playing the same encounter over the course of each level.

Bad games are at least memorable because of the circus of errors that make up the game. Heavy Bullets is average and extremely forgettable; nothing about it is glaringly bad, but nothing about it is exceptional, unique, or interesting.
Posted December 12, 2023.
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2 people found this review helpful
118.6 hrs on record (118.6 hrs at review time)
The quintessential pc party game. Probably some of the best value I've ever gotten out of a game in my life.
Posted November 21, 2023.
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1 person found this review helpful
14.1 hrs on record (13.5 hrs at review time)
This is one of those rare games that caught me so off-guard in terms of quality. It's an incredibly enjoyable video game with a feel-good story and actually enjoyable humor. Some of the gameplay is annoying as someone who isn't musically savvy/talented and playing on a high difficulty setting, but it's very satisfying.

I feel like giving even a lightly detailed review would taint the experience of playing it for the first time. Please give Hi-Fi Rush a shot and try it in a blind playthrough. No youtube let's plays, no reading of guides or community posts, not even other more detailed reviews. Just try it out.
Posted September 12, 2023.
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1 person found this review helpful
6.1 hrs on record
FPS is quirky. Normally I consider quirky to be a bad thing because I associate that with "unfun jank that doesn't work". In this case, quirky is a good attribute. It plays like your average DOOM clone for the most part and there are a LOT of well-thought-out setpieces and levels (versus something like DUSK's later abysmally designed expansions).

If you remember the South Park "metrosexual" episode, this game kind of captures that vibe. It's all about stopping bad fashion sense with fashion & textile inspired weaponry; all the drab fashion victims are put into nice duds by your firearms. It's another fps without death, which I think is nicely done and doesn't feel lame or forced.

Don't be too disgusted if you hear stuff you'd consider meme slang, it's tongue-in-cheek for the most part. The story is actually pleasant vs a fps where the story gets in the way of mechanics and gameplay, and there's a lot of callbacks to older traditional arcade shooters.

I personally think this is the only fps game to ever get boss fights in a fps game to feel enjoyable and challenging for what they are. Rise of the Triad you just circlestrafed around, DUSK's final boss was kind of good, but all of the bosses in FPS felt really well planned.

FPS is a really good experience; it captures that indie spark that wants to try something different without that smug "heh, we're doing something DIFFERENT" feeling you get from the dialog of other indie games/shooters. Maybe not exactly worth $20, but you could do way worse for the pricetag.

The only sour spot is that one of the challenge levels sucks ass because the game is made with Unity and I have yet to play a fps made in Unity that doesn't have ♥♥♥♥♥♥ air movement vs a game made with Source or idtech. It also interferes with one of the more prevalent mechanics in the game but it's serviceable.
Posted August 2, 2023. Last edited August 2, 2023.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
14.2 hrs on record
Early Access Review
It's good, I guess.

As a "boomer shooter"/old-school fps guy I like how it feels when I hold shift because it feels like a proper old-school shooter but with that Immortal Redneck flare. I left a really favorable review of Immortal Redneck when I first got it since I "acquired" it before buying it and was really impressed.

Several years later, all I can see is how repetitive this type of gameplay is once the appeal of the initial few runs wears off. Roboquest is going to see a similar fate: it'll get more content for release, get some post-release content, and that'll be that.

There are some weird design choices like having "press shift to run" when running should be the default speed, and there are remnants of GO FAST ability (if you hit a horizontal jump pad that takes you out of a corruption room, you can almost start strafejumping) that are overridden by how default movement works the instant you get a taste.

The arenas are good if somewhat low in layout variety, and enemy rosters per arena become somewhat predictable the more you play, but the damage output and sheer volume of enemies combined with the combat ability you're given as a player has given me enough enjoyable challenge. The weapons are really cool and feel pretty good to shoot which I think is important; the animations could have more power but it's not a dealbreaker.

The enemy types are cool and you can tell the devs took notes from stuff like OG DOOM and Quake, but as much as I like the gigabot that we play as, I'm not a fan of how generic the opposition robots are. I'm not sure how I feel about the soundtrack either: on one hand I think it's great that it doesn't really get in the way of gameplay and is more ambient than anything, but on the other I'm not exactly raving about how fitting the soundtrack is.

I don't think it's a bad game, but I don't think it's an exceptional game. I think overall Roboquest will be better than Immortal Redneck gameplay-wise when it releases. It's good and if you want something fun that you can pick up once in a while for a quick run, it'll be there. I'm not sure people are going to think it's worth something in the $25-ish range, though.
Posted March 2, 2023.
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1 person found this review helpful
7.9 hrs on record
Very solid game. I definitely recommend it for people wanting to play more traditional/old-school/"boomer" shooters, but it would not be my first choice.

Episode 1 is honestly incredible. I can tell a lot of thought was put into the map geometry and design, because moving around each level outside of one was a real treat. Room to go fast, dodge, good spread of jump pads, etc.

Episode 2 starts off great but nosedives as David (the developer) & New Blood Interactive shift into "BOO HAHA AREN'T YOU LE SPOOKED YET" design mode, and the later levels in Episode 2 lean really hard into atmospheric design. There are still some amazing levels in Episode 2 but there's an extremely strong reliance on hampering the player's visibility so they can be pushed through narrow corridors so the player gets a "jump startle" through some enemy bursting out of the darkness. The player kills the spook-enemy and that's it; it's a cheap suspense rush where I went "oh..." after experiencing it. It wouldn't be a big deal if it was a once-off thing but it's extremely overused once you meet the Wendigo for the first time

Episode 2 has a really cool level that I won't spoil the name of because it does extremely interesting things with limited space.

Episode 3 has a lot of the same problems as Episode 2, doubling-down on the issues I mentioned above. There's one level in Episode 3 that captures the old-school shooter vibe, and the rest is just atmosphere the whole way down. The levels got far less interesting and much more frustrating as I played through the rest of Episode 3, and E3M9 is probably the laziest and least satisfying FPS level I've ever played in my life.

I still recommend it if only to have people play Episode 1, but it was really depressing to have the level design quality drop as the episodes went on. It may not be apparent if you haven't played a lot of FPS games before, so it may not apply to you, but just be aware if you feel that something's off the further you get into Episodes 2 and 3.
Posted December 10, 2022. Last edited December 10, 2022.
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Showing 1-10 of 74 entries