Recent reviews by The Machine

Meow

This is a lower quality version of Gas Station Simulator, only with a few more products to add. The game progresses extremely slowly and progression doesn't continue when you alt tab or click away, meaning this isn't even a particularly good podcast game.

I really like this game. It's a quality bit of what makes games like L4D and Deep Rock so much fun. Sadly, I'm going to have to keep this as a negative review until the PSN nonsense going on is resolved.

A fun enough little semi-idle game. The sound effects are cute, and figuring out the mechanics without a guide will extend your playtime and enjoyment considerably. If you know how to build and were dedicated instead of just playing it idly while you watch TV or play another game, you could finish this up in a handful of hours.

If there's a sale and you want something cute to play during your loading screens on something else, give it a shot and you will probably get some fun out of it. Can't recommend it at full price as I obtained it during a sale, but very much can recommend it at the discount I got it at.

I'm 9 hours in and this is an amazingly fun detective game. The inability to look up any guides is a wonderful boon that forces the player to actually use their own deduction. Combat is a little sloppy, but you're not getting this to beat up your neighbors. You're getting it to have a fun noir adventure.

It's certainmly worth full price, but this is a must-buy if it's on a reasonable sale.

I like to sneak

Edit: Came back in after several updates with the intent of getting 100% on this game by completing a Hardcore run. If you have played Thief Simulator or similar sorts of stealth games, I would highly recommend starting on hardcore difficulty. The challenge is considerably higher and the AI is substantially less exploitable. The whole game took me 47 hours total to complete twice over (once on normal, once on hardcore) with the content as of October 19, 2023.

For a one person dev team, very impressive work. Builds on many aspects of other games in the series with enjoyable efficiencies. I wish I hadn't waited as long as I did to progress in the main quest, though. I got sidetracked on sidequests and, had I been making use of the companion mechanic to handle almost all of the heavy lifting during a robbery, I would have saved probably a third of my total hours played.

That stated, those hours weren't wasted. The AI is imperfect and I personally had fun tricking it in weird, counter intuivite ways. It can't quite seem to grasp rooftops at the moment, so if you're able to launch yourself anywhere on the z axis that the bot isn't on, they're going to have a bad time.

All-in-all, glad I bought it and looking forward to seeing further updates. As it stands, this recommendation is based only on the ready feedback we've been seeing from the developer. This is a very well made theivery game, even if you'll likely only currently get 20-30 hours of gameplay out of it unless you get SUPER completionist.

This game is quite good.

This is a high quality wrestling game, very reminiscent of the games of the N64 and PS2 era. It has a few bugs as of the time of me writing this, but they do not make the game unplayable. I clipped into the crowd on occasion when brawling on the outside and and a few goofy hit detection moments, but it's a far sight better than 2K20.

It is VERY easy to pick up and play. My wife is a somewhat casual and cozy gamer who is fairly new to the genre and, once she realized that in training mode she could just beat up on Christian until she learned the game controls she was quite pleased and learned quickly.

The minigames are fun diversions and good ways to play the game in party mode when you get tired of exploding barbed wire death matches, and the story mode is very similar to a classic Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat experience with a little bit of management thrown in to allow you to choose different ways to organically advance the story down different pathways. From what I've seen after two play throughs, losing doesn't mean the story is over, you just go on to a different branching path of the storyline.

AEW: Fight Forever isn't the absurdly polished next gen photorealistic wrestling game WWE puts out, but does that really matter if they weren't aiming for that as the goal? They prioritized accessibility and arcade feel over realism, and it turns out creating something that's supposed to be fun rather than realistic makes for a pretty fun video game. The addition of the in-game currency is a bit odd as you'll likely buy out the store after 20 hours of play by my estimation, but it leaves me hopeful for additional free content down the road.

This would be a very nice add-on for $5. At $20, it's asking far too much. The original music in We Love Katamari is unfortunately extremely good and you're already able to cycle through that in the game.

That stated, I did buy this and did get use out of it. It's just not worth the price tag when the original music is as good as it is. If they release more content, especially in Royal Reverie mode, or if they drop the price on this, it's not a bad pick up, but I can't endorse it at the current price unless you're REALLY into Katamari.