Recent reviews by Joe

It's rare to see a retro-style FPS that takes Blood as it's inspiration, rather than Doom or Duke or Quake (or, hell, even Heretic/Hexen). But Cultic does, and it does so excellently.

I bounced off of this hard and fast. Worth saying I was in singleplayer.

The tutorial system basically throws you into a small combat level with no explanation.While you're there you're constantly seeing weapons which are basically +1 damage, -1 range, etc. There's no sense of meaningful comparison, no sense of why these weapons are here or what the world is, no environmental storytelling and no sense of place. You get through that and suddenly then it all makes sense, as a series of video tutorials shoved on you all at once start to explain 'the card system'.

The card system is basically a process by which you get loads of cards and pointless, awful cosmetic items and then you have to stack them up to constantly rejuggle and adapt your player.

I can see that being fun in a competitive environment or for high skilled players. But if you're looking for something in the vein of Left4Dead or as a shooter you can quickly pick up to play a few rounds solo? Then it's useless, distracting fluff.

And, unfortunately, that fluff seems to be where most of the game design is gone. Stat comparisons, card comparisons, etc., are rammed at you constantly. It left such a bad taste in my mouth I just decided to go back to Left4Dead instead.

It's already coming along very nicely, capturing the feel and content of the old game books but with a nice tactical combat system to keep it interesting. Simple enough to be instantly replayable and pick-upable. Complex enough to stop you getting complacent. Deep enough to always have something interesting around the next corner.

Early access version includes one starter area and one higher-level area, so there's a steep power curve at the moment as you have to essentially jump from Level 1 to Level 5, but it's doable. In the final release that'll be a much gentler curve and the world will be all the richer too.

Worth picking up. I'm probably going to get it on tablet too.

Phenomenal. Endlessly replayable.

I was really looking forward to it because the premise is basically a factory for short stories, which is why the SCP project (which Control is heavily based on) is always so fun to read. Even if the game was bad, I figured there'd be loads of interesting short stories packed in. But as it turns out they don't develop the stories in Control at all and it feels like there's only three or four anomalies in the whole place.

And, of the stories there are, most amount to "It's an old-fashioned safe, right, but it gives The Director the ability to create SHIELDS."

Which...OK? So, it's just a power-up? Where's the cool story about how there may an incredibly extra-planar demon inside it and the safe is it's automated prison? Or how it killed twenty people when it was discovered because it used their bodies to make the shield and they were held in place until the starved to death? Or how the safe was built by an incredibly shy locksmith who was paranoid?

No, it's just a safe. And Control is just a disappointment. As the playtime indicates, I tried to force myself through despite these challenges -- focusing mainly on the Alan Wake DLC because I like that character -- but...no. The gameplay wasn't interesting enough to maintain it and the action quickly devolved into repetitive arena fights, timed missions, loot chaff and fetch quests between the same oft-revisited areas.

Avoid.

Fun game. Great style, interesting ideas, good story.

It's a bit too long and repetitive, and there's a lack of variety in most of the weapons and playstyles available. But it is a good way to spend some time. My suggestion would be to stick it on Easy and play it that way -- anything else and the minor flaws will start to become BIG issues.

A masterpiece of UI, UX and system design.

It's OK. The combat is pretty good, the story is very much inspired by and indulgent in the same was as Hotline Miami. The major mistake it makes in my opinion is trying to fuse a Gunpoint-esque conversational system into it on top. However, where Gunpoint used dialogue as a way to personalise your character, develop flavour and tell jokes, Katana ZERO does none of these. Dialogue choices all lead in the same direction, make little impact, always involve railroading you in one direction and don't add any meaningful interaction. The almost 50/50 weighting of story to combat then makes these story sequences feel like a real slog and they stand in poor contrast to the rapid and too-brief combat portions.

Combat is great. The game feels great, even though it's less expressive than other games in this mould. Story drags it all to a screeching halt.

Personally, I preferred Ronin and Mark of the Ninja as too games which strike far better balances with similar systems.

Amazing, sprawling and moving. The closest thing to Baldur's Gate 2 since Baldur's Gate 2.

Works for me on Windows 10 with no issues. Great, little game that's faster than Eastwood's draw and twice as slick.