Recent reviews by Indigo

Magicka was couch co-op on PC before couch co-op on PC was a thing. Playing this is a blast. If you like Helldivers it's worth a look just to see the evolution of Arrowhead's design philosophy.

Fantastic top-down shooter made even better with friends. Still a great game to play to this day!

I'm very glad to hear that Sony has reversed course on the requirement for PSN account integration. I am changing my review to Positive.

Helldivers 2 is an excellent co-op game that manages to blend military-sim and arcade-style shooter action into an incredibly compelling package; the rapid-paced live service element that actually reacts to what players are doing and is driven by real humans writing the story as we play is the cherry on top.

Original outdated review below.
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I'm extremely disappointed by Helldivers 2's requirement to tie a PSN account to continued play of their game, after it has been demonstrated quite well after months of great service (launch period growing pains notwithstanding) that no such association is necessary. PSN geographic restrictions preventing folks who live outside of regions PSN serves means there will inevitably be folks who bought the game, played it for months, and will now be locked out due to an entirely arbitrary reason. In addition, PSN's multiple data breaches call into question the long-term security of the platform; I should not be expected to juggle hundreds upon hundreds of separate user accounts with separate passwords, and I should not be expected to spin up a new account just to play a single game which I had purchased from a different provider.

Helldivers 2 is an excellent co-op game that manages to blend military-sim and arcade-style shooter action into an incredibly compelling package; the rapid-paced live service element that actually reacts to what players are doing and is driven by real humans writing the story as we play is the cherry on top. I absolutely adore this game and honestly believe it to be a contender for 2024's game of the year, which is why it pains me so to leave a negative review... However, I hope that doing so illustrates to Sony that this decision is deeply unpopular among PC gamers and that Sony course-corrects in the coming weeks.

Incredibly deep, incredibly captivating, incredibly obtuse. You're gonna need a website open on your second monitor while you play. You will spend your first few hours bumbling around. You will endure some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ grind. You will discover a captivating game unlike anything else.

GOTY 2023 or We Riot

The best arena FPS on the market today

4-player co-op invasion FPS with tower defense elements, with a focus on light character building by way of purchasable or findable weapon attachments. Huge focus on exploration, unlocking new stuff through playing the game, and a fun and unique take on character customization (if a bit limited for my tastes). Very fun take on the "living toys" genre and the giant environments are lots of fun to take in and run around.

The mechanics are pretty simple but it all comes together in a quite fun way. As of right now the multiplayer, while not incredibly popular, is still active enough that you'll find other people without having to arrange games via Discord. There's also a single-player mode with or without bots, too. Game's receiving active development and a campaign is on the way. Don't sleep on this!

Tacticool neoconservative extrajudicial murder fantasy that somehow hit the correct spot on the "potential modern crisis" dartboard that people look at it now and say its somehow prescient.

Gameplay kinda sucks. Bog standard third person shooter with Tom Clancy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ technogadgets tacked onto it, mixed with equally ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ MMO mechanics where every ounce of visceral enjoyment you could possibly get is wicked away by the endless field of stats and level grind.

This game doesn't know whether it wants to be a single-player build-em-up experience, a co-op tactical game, or a massive living world. It tries to do all three of these things and, because it cannot commit to one of them, falls on its ass.

Sure is pretty though.

Short Review: They brought the kick back from Dark Messiah and it's better than ever.

Long Review: A game designer friend of mine once stated that video games are closer to theatre than film -- that is, the act of playing a game is more akin to playing a role in a stage production than a movie. Your first time through the game is shaky as you learn to get your footing and establish the limits; a table read. As you progress you become more confident in your role, and you begin to even thrive, excelling and attempting to capture the best possible performances. Mastery comes with it the pursuit of perfection: how often have you restarted a level or loaded a save not because you failed, but because you succeeded without the desired showmanship, without the panache you wanted to display?

No other game I've played comes as close to capturing this spirit of video-games-as-theatre than Deathloop. The four districts and time loop mechanic may feel restrictive or even repetitive, but it truly unlocks the ability to *try, try again*, to enter a role and play it to perfection, to see myself get stronger and more skilled, to restrict myself and see how easily I can break the game's limits.

Deathloop takes the Cold War Americana aesthetic of the 1960s and mashes it into a fun little immersive sim, the complex bits sanded down into streamlined edges and presented in a gorgeous package to look at, listen to, and play. Learning Deathloop's nooks and crannies, first as Colt then as rival invader Julianna, then again as Colt, felt so *right* as a video game that other, more linear video games that emulate the movie more closely just seem to fall flat in comparison.

There's a bit of a cheating problem with the multiplayer at the moment (though I personally haven't run into any cheaters), the enemies can feel a impotent sometimes, and the mission difficulty is a sliding scale that is determined by in-game performance and never outright shown to you. These issues, while frustrating, haven't really stopped me from tearing everything apart and having a blast doing so.

Beautiful Amiga-era pixel art mixed with rock, freestyle, and synthwave provides the candy coating to complement Huntdown's challenging, intensely rewarding, and incredibly satisfying gameplay -- the creamy caramel center.

But it's not enough for a video game to merely play well and also look and sound great, oh no. Huntdown, luckily elevates itself above the rest through its aesthetic -- a Verhoeven-esque cyberpunk world that pays homage to the juggernauts of vulgar cinema: Robocop, Escape From New York, Death Wish, and many others.

Huntdown's own cast of characters is expertly voice-acted and written, blessing the game with the hilarious and attention-grabbing feel of a punchy action schlock movie you got on VHS at the video rental store next to the pizzeria you stopped at for dinner. I no-♥♥♥♥ guffawed out loud at some of the lines, even the simple ones like Anna Conda's "burn, baby, burn!" after setting several creeps alight with a flamethrower. It's all delivered so well that even the corny stuff feels good. (There's an early boss fight that had me exclaim "Oh, my god!" in complete shock when I first heard him speak. I won't spoil it but anyone who's gotten this far will know what I'm talking about.)

Huntdown's platforming and gameplay feels so *right* in a way that can only be adequately attributed to extremely careful attention to its design. Streets of Rage-style weapon pickups along with a Castlevania-esque subweapon that can be changed out for tools like grenades or molotovs give your bounty hunters the edge they need to slaughter criminals wholesale and mop up the streets. Movement isn't quite as methodical or precarious as Castlevania, but your jumps and dashes have a momentum and weight to them that must be considered.

I cannot recommend this game enough if you're a fan of action games, action movies, action one-liners, action music, or if you still need their thirst for cyberpunk slaked after last year's debacle left them high and dry. Don't sleep on Huntdown.