Recent reviews by Endyo

Homeworld 3 isn’t a bad game. It’s just a bad Homeworld game. While it does check many of the boxes that make it as appealing as its predecessors, it has some significant flaws that make it fall short and lose much of the luster that made the franchise great. Yet, what’s certain is that it doesn’t at all justify the price it demanded at release.

When Homeworld 3 was first announced, despite there being almost no information about the game itself, I was over the moon with excitement. I had just finished replaying the game via the remaster and it seemed like fate that this would suddenly pop into existence. Yet, as the grandeur of the surprise faded, we started seeing the first signs that things weren’t going to be what we expected. The game that was being published by Gearbox and presumably fully funded was on Fig ready to take on micro-investors and backers with no set goal. It would just be taking money from excited fans desperate to dive back into a sequel to a game released more than 15 years prior.

In time though, that controversy faded. Fig had showed its hand by never being a profitable investment platform and ultimately shut down, and we only had to survive a couple of delays to see what Homeworld 3 had in store with the War Games demo. The game series that had once exemplified the highest tier of storytelling in the medium was making its debut with online multiplayer co-op for some reason. And with the issues it put on display, it garnered doubt rather than bolstering excitement. Many had trouble with the controls, unit pathing, and various technical problems. This led to another delay, but one where they fixed several of these issues, but it wasn’t enough.

When Homeworld 3 finally did reach our hands, it was preceded by some pretty positive reviews. Yet, when I played it, I struggled to find the same positivity in the experience. There were plenty of good aspects that were shining right at the forefront though. Visually, this is the peak of the franchise. While Homeworld games have always looked great for their eras, especially the remasters, this took everything to another level. The new environments added texture to the universe and when combined with an excellent lighting system taking advantage of cool volumetric cloud details, it immediately stands out from its predecessors. The sound design and music are also on par with the franchise staples and do a great job of entrenching the player in the mood and spirit of a game about fighting and surviving in hostile space.

However, the quality of the audio and visuals is offset by the inconsistency in the gameplay experience. Those new environments look fantastic, but they’re also inherently claustrophobic. In my return to previous Homeworld games, nearly every mission had distinct areas of play and “lanes” where most of the events take place, but it didn't feel as compact as the maps of Homeworld 3. These maps are designed to give players the ability to tactically move units in, around, and through the physical elements of hyperspace gates, asteroids, and sheets of ice. Yet, those mechanics are rarely necessary outside of missions that specifically demand it.

What is truly frustrating though, is that when you do try to interact with these physics, the ship pathing still seems to have problems navigating them. A lot of the ships seem to have a variety of issues with their AI and ability to engage properly. On many occasions, I would have ships just wander off or stop attacking a unit they were supposed to be fighting for seemingly no reason. Or I would use an activated ability and they wouldn’t follow up after it hit. There were also many situations where I’d notice a portion of my fleet would not be fighting in a scenario they needed to. Some of these were probably issues with the aggression system or simply a product of misusing the new UI and navigation system, but there are plenty of moments I’ve documented where units weren't doing what they were instructed to do or intuitively reacting the way I expected.

The biggest issue with Homeworld is that the story is fundamentally in opposition to the strength of the series. Previous Homeworld games put you in a desperate scenario, send you on a path of mystery and discovery full of perilous events, and rarely ever put single characters at the forefront. It’s always about a utilitarian goal for survival and victory. Homeworld 3, from the very start, centers around Imogen S’jet, a character directly in the familiar S’jet lineage, but one that is thrust into the position less willingly. Through fully 3D cutscenes with extraordinarily bad animations, she serves as a boring liaison of the story that takes place far too often in a strange “hyperspace dimension.”

It’s not clear why Blackbird Interactive abandoned the unique animatics that are emblematic of the series and have been precisely refined through numerous games. Yet, even if it did have those, the story itself would still be limited and predictable. The antagonist feels undercooked and functions like a caricature, and the one character that stands out, the Intelligence Officer, is relegated to the “you don’t know what you’re talking about” person. Even if all of the characters were good though, they’d still exist in a story that doesn’t fit the theme of the game. Historically, this isn’t a franchise of personal stories, it’s one built on the concepts of factions, races, diplomacy, and galactic turmoil in spans from years to millennia.

Homeworld 3 isn’t a bad game. I completed the campaign and enjoyed a fair bit of the War Games mode. I think with upcoming fixes, changes, and additions, that mode will be something that keeps people checking back in from time to time – even as they are slowly turned away by its limited scope. Yet, I don’t think any number of updates or fixes will resolve the biggest issues with the campaign, and the campaign is the core of every title in this universe. So, I doubt Homeworld 3 will ever be a good Homeworld game, and at $60, it doesn’t deliver the value necessary to justify the parts of it that are a decent experience. Perhaps with significant discounts and the necessary updates, it could be worth recommending, but at this point and with this price, it’s not.

Video Review: https://youtu.be/Ei0WMNtNRUc

If you'd like to see more of my reviews, check out my curator page here: Endyo's Indies, Abbreviated Reviews

My love affair with four-person PvE mission-based survival games has been going on for more than fifteen years – back to Left 4 Dead. We’ve come a long way since that release, but not every game has figured out the formula. Yet, there are some titles that not only figured it out, but evolved it into something bigger, better, and infinitely more fun. Deep Rock Galactic was one of the best, and now Helldivers 2 is joining that S-tier quality level that is almost impossible to put down.

For some reason, the original Helldivers never appeared on my radar. I think there was a time I was interested, but it was well after release and the player base was already minimal, so I didn’t bother picking it up. Even while being blissfully unaware that it was from the developers of one of my favorite classics, Magicka. One of the fundamental aspects of Magicka that both amplified the fun and forced players to second-guess every action was that friendly fire was a default mechanic and one that was explored thoroughly. In Helldivers 2, that beautifully frustrating game design choice is just as much a cornerstone of the experience.

Helldivers 2, like its predecessor, is a game derived from the spirit of Starship Troopers. The jingoistic mantra of an unending interplanetary war in a society bound to and led by the military serves a similar satirical purpose as it did in that classic movie. The players are thrown face-first into a universe where they submit freely to cloning and face off against the abject terror of monstrous bugs trying to rip them apart and terrifying metallic totally-not-terminators blasting them with a whole arsenal of brutal weapons. Yet, as daunting as that opposition is, you ultimately earn access to an arsenal many times what you’ll face that can virtually erase everything those forces throw at you.


Whether you’re facing off against the Terminids or the Automatons, your effort to defend your home planet will almost always have you striking out thousands of lightyears to take the fight to your enemy. On your journey to defend your home with a brutal scorched earth campaign of places nowhere near your home, you’ll take part in the most compelling aspect of Helldiver 2’s design, the Galactic War map. Here you’ll see a grid of all of the planets under the control of Super Earth as well as all of those in conflict with the other factions. You’ll be able to head to the front lines to attack or defend planets on either side of this conflict (and other sides that will be introduced later) where you’ll drop from your heavily armed super destroyer into mission-based campaigns of destruction.

These missions have a moderate level of variety and can vary from less than 10 minutes in length to more than 40. Sometimes you’ll simply have to take out a set amount of forces sweeping into your position in waves while most others will have you hiking across a map blasting away at bugs or bots to perform several objectives in sequence before you can ultimately get scooped up back to your orbiting death machine in the sky.

While a respectable amount of your firepower drops with you in your man-sized pod to the surface of these mostly rocky worlds, the biggest and best tools will rain from the sky specifically at the request of your stratagems. You’ll summon them by holding a button (control) and tapping a Dance Dance Revolution-style set of arrows represented on your WASD keys corresponding to the code. Then wherever you throw the beacon you just triggered, you’ll receive things like additional weapons, drones, shields, or massive bombardments from swooping aircraft or that mighty Super Destroyer that initially fired your pod to the ground. This whole experience quickly goes from a neat bonus that you can use in lower difficulties to help you finish missions to the foundation of your survival and potential success in higher-difficulty missions. All while being an incredibly satisfying way to dispatch those vicious creatures standing in the way of Democracy.


Helldivers 2 had some serious issues when it launched relating to its servers and general access to the game. So much so that I avoided it entirely as I have little patience for those kinds of problems. Many of them have since been resolved and I’ve been able to put dozens of enjoyable hours into the game. However, those hours haven’t been devoid of issues. There are still plenty of disconnects, crashes, and experience-tarnishing events that happen regularly. You might spend half an hour perfecting a mission completing every objective and clearing any trace of enemies only to flash to the desktop or suddenly appear in your Super Destroyer alone with no way to get back to the match you were just in.

Even with the ever-present threat of disappointing issues, it would probably take quite a bit more to rip me away from this game. There’s a reason that people stuck with it when it was much less accessible and stable. The moment-to-moment combat is engaging and challenging, the overall experience always manages to feel fresh, and the overarching Galactic War meta is probably the best use of a live service model on the market. Though it’s sad to think that one day, like every live service, it will be shut down and erased from existence.

Until that fateful day, Helldivers 2 will continue to grow as it has in the two short months it has been available. The steady flow of new weapons, armor, missions, and enemies has kept it feeling fresh even while the maps and layouts become more familiar and campaigns start feeling a little repetitive. Without the procedural craziness or biome diversity of a game like Deep Rock Galactic, that’s bound to happen. However, I don’t put 90 hours into a game that isn’t consistently fun, and Helldivers 2 is exactly that. Refined to an addictive concoction that I’ve been consistently excited to get back into practically every day since I picked it up.

Helldivers 2 vs Starship Troopers: Extermination vs Deep Rock Galactic: https://youtu.be/V2zt58Hq0JA

If you'd like to see more of my reviews, check out my curator page here: Endyo's Indies, Abbreviated Reviews

In most cases, I’m not really a fan of survival games. Horror games are even less appealing to me. From my initial observations, Pacific Drive seemed to be a combination of both of those things. However, after giving it a shot I realized that it doesn’t entirely fit into the archetype of either one. It delivers something familiar but provides a unique world full of mystery and surprises that lets you explore it in the coolest piece of junk I’ve ever been metaphysically bound to.

Abbreviated Review: https://youtu.be/vXBlHZZZepI

Pacific Drive takes place in the Pacific Northwest, specifically on the Olympic Peninsula. An elevated coastal area of the country that is densely forested and crisscrossed by a handful of winding roads navigating its mountainous tree-covered stretches. Within the game, this is represented extremely well with the atmosphere and general aesthetic of the area captured throughout the accelerated day-night and weather cycles. Yet, within its natural beauty lurks several dangers that will make you forget the views.

Taking a page from the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, the world in which you find yourself is filled with various types of anomalies that have manifested within and warped the partially radioactive environment. However, rather than wielding a machine gun and battling your way through them, you’re supposed to hop into your soul-bound station wagon and haul ass to a less dangerous location. A location that you will then meticulously search to find every possible useable piece of scrap and/or trash to schlep back to your hatchback and store in your trunk for later use. This is the cornerstone of the foundation that is Pacific Drive’s gameplay. Collecting items, avoiding anomalies that either want to inconvenience or kill you and keeping your rolling rust bucket of a vehicle going down the road.

While you don’t necessarily live inside of your garbage-collecting station wagon, it is your sole lifeline for your on-and-offroad adventure. Not only does it allow you to get where you need to go faster and allow you to move between the regions, but it also protects you from all of the radioactive, electrical, and physical elements trying to halt your progress. It’s the place where you can keep the spoils of each of your runs into the Exclusion Zone and provides a platform upon which you can build some interesting makeshift technological marvels that make you a little more productive in the process.

When you first warp back to your garage respite after a dramatic sky-beam portal escape, you’ll be able to deposit everything you’ve collected in boxes and cabinets scattered around the garage. You can use the raw materials to craft more parts for your vehicle including replacements for its missing body panels and bumpers. You’ll also gain access to a fabrication machine that lets you craft blueprints to learn how to build newer and better parts like lead-lined doors that protect you from radiation and larger fuel tanks to get you further without scavenging for gas.

Just as important as crafting car parts, you can build out your garage base to give you handy tools like a repository that repairs broken parts while you’re on your next run or a deconstructor that lets you break down dysfunctional items into their core crafting components. You’ll even get a special machine that lets you apply various cosmetic features to your car like decorative steering wheels and hood ornaments. The mechanics around repairing and upgrading your perpetually breaking conveyance are just as much a part of the core gameplay as the exploration of the world you find yourself within.

While you never at any point directly encounter a living creature in Pacific Drive (unless you account for apparently sentient anomalies), you will always have three individuals buzzing in your ears about the tasks you need to complete. The story that they convey, despite being centered entirely around your actions, feels like a secondary element that you are only participating in. The voice actors do a great job and the fairly extensive text and audio lore you discover is well-made, but it was hard for me to feel much attachment to it when it makes up such a small percentage of the overall game. Most of my 25 hours were spent either scavenging for items or trying to maximize my car’s capabilities. Then, many of the moments they did actually feed me exposition, I wasn’t able to focus on listening since I was running for my life or hopping in and out of menus to try to make the most of my trash heap.

Though it does take a while for Pacific Drive’s story to come together in a somewhat disjointed way, it never really felt like a major detriment. Yet, there were some anomalies in the overall experience. The most obvious one is the repetition of going out, exploring similar areas, avoiding the same sorts of anomalies, and finding a lot of the same materials. It was compelling for about 10 or 15 hours, but as you cruise into 20+ hours, it starts feeling a bit “samey.” Even the fantastic radio soundtrack starts to get a little old. There’s also been some contentious thoughts on the save system that only saves runs when you enter a new map – which can easily stretch up to half an hour of progress that won’t be saved without moving on. I personally never had any issues with this system though and tried to block out enough time to do at least an entire run (which can stretch 90 minutes or more) each time I booted it up.

Quirks aside, even with the clunky “Quirk” system, Pacific Drive is well worth checking out. Though I wasn’t a fan of the scarier aspects, I never had that persistent tingly feeling of existential threats I typically get because most anomalies in the game are environmental. What it did create was a great connection with my vehicle as I made it more functional and capable while being tailored exactly to what I wanted. Swapping parts in and out was satisfying and keeping it all in one piece on the fly was an engaging part of the fun. When you combine that with navigating across the paved, dirt, and non-existent roads of the zone while trying to find everything you need, it culminates in a fantastic experience. Just one that I think I’ve had my fill of… for now… unless there’s some DLC…

If you'd like to see more of my reviews, check out my curator page here:Endyo's Indies, Abbreviated Reviews

Mixing genres almost always results in an interesting outcome, but every once in a while it creates something that feels distinct from everything in the recipe, and a game is crafted that is more than the sum of its parts. Go Mecha Ball is one of those results.

Abbreviated Review: https://youtu.be/6LOctI5wdZM

It doesn’t feel like there are a lot of heavy hitters in the top-down shooter world these days. Maybe because they’ve all become auto-shooting Vampire Survivors clones. However, Go Mecha Ball takes that straightforward realm of mowing down enemies with guns and adds a layer of movement and environmental challenges that make it a much more thrilling experience. In addition to being able to slowly plod around wielding a swappable duo of guns that can vary from longer-range single-shot snipers to wedge-blasting shotguns, you can tuck yourself into a rolling ball Samus style and take off rolling at a higher rate of speed.

This rolling mechanic allows you to move faster while also cruising up and down the vertical elements of three-dimensional levels via ramps, bounce pads, and even some glorified hamster tubes. These traversal features are both a convenient way to move around and dodge enemy attacks, but also a requirement to access some areas to attack enemies. Yet, the rolling mechanic has a much more aggressive component to it in that when you are going fast enough and hitting enemies, you will cause a significant amount of damage as well as disrupt many of their telegraphed attacks. In addition to that great offensive bonus, it’s also the only way you can generate ammo packs, which means it's just as much a requirement as a general benefit to you clearing the stage.

When you combine the boon of bashing enemies as a ball and the environment’s numerous ramps, bumpers, speed boosts, lifting fans, and bounce pads that give you acceleration, you get an experience that crosses the visuals and movement of pinball with the tactical dodging and attacking of a top-down shooter. The combination works so well, it almost feels familiar even when I’ve never played a game like it.

Much like pinball, part of the challenge of the game is created by the assault of light and sound the game bombards you with. Things can and often do move very quickly and there are numerous times even in the early stages where you can lose track of what’s going on because of the speed and explosive effects. The more abilities you unlock, the more likely this is going to happen, and the enemies are quick to contribute. The audio joins in with a somewhat eclectic soundtrack that fits the ‘glitchy’ styling of the interface and some enemies. It will also fade away as you take damage giving you a slightly better idea of when ♥♥♥♥ is hitting the fan, because in the confusion it can occasionally be hard to tell. Yet, it all works together to create an experience that is as challenging as it is fun.

Like a lot of roguelikes, the whole run can come down to having the right weapons or abilities, or the lack thereof, and will succeed or fail accordingly. Small mistakes can add up and if you get to a scenario where you don’t have health and the pre-boss stores aren’t selling it (or you don’t have enough for it) you might have a hard time making it to the end. I actually completed the game fairly early on and thought that it felt like a cakewalk, but when I bumped up to the first level of post-win difficulty, I lost like five consecutive runs up to and on the first boss. Then I went back to the base level of difficulty and lost five more. However, that seems like a fairly common experience for me in roguelikes.

What makes the big difference is my will to continue playing the game. Go Mecha Ball kept me coming back when I won or lost. Even as the only real reward is spending accumulated currency on little gacha machines to unlock new abilities, weapons, and upgrades you’ll collect between each level from a random trio of selections. If there’s one fault I could notice, it’s that once you unlock the four total varieties of ‘mecha balls’ that whole unlocking mechanic shuts down. I kind of assumed you'd be able to continue upgrading them via that system and investing in making these higher difficulty settings a little more accessible. Yet, even with that issue and a couple of moments of big framerate loss when things got exceptionally “explodey,” this is an excellent game with tons of polish and replayability. I hope the future brings more levels, bosses, and content in every form, but even if it doesn’t, it’s an easy recommendation.

For decades now, there has never been a shortage of collectible card battle games. From their analog roots to their modern digital ubiquity, there’s always somewhere you can go to pick up (at least) a few hundred unique cards and a set of elaborate rules that immediately deter any casual onlooker. Marvel Snap is another one of these, but makes its mark not simply by adopting a popular franchise, but by having a game loop that makes it easy to get started and even easier to never stop.

Abbreviated Review: https://youtu.be/XkEClBgGZbs

The initial setup of Marvel Snap isn’t something that will surprise most people who have played such games. Cards have two noteworthy numbers, a power level, and a cost. They can also have distinct abilities in the text on their body that perform a wide variety of effects on themselves, other cards, and the board itself. Marvel Snap doesn’t have a “head” representing the player like Magic: The Gathering or Hearthstone, even though the lead developer of the latter left his creation at Blizzard to develop this game.

While the basic tenets here are fairly standard across the deckbuilding world, the differences lie in the way these cards exist and interact in the environment. Decks are small, only allowing an exact total of 12 cards in each one, but that’s all you need as every match is (typically) only six rounds. Each round you’ll gain one additional maximum energy allowing you to play more costly cards or several lower-cost cards every turn onto an ever-changing battlefield.

That battlefield is one of the most dynamic aspects of the experience. It’s split into three rows that are separate from one another in their interactions. To win, the total power on your side of at least two of the rows must be greater than the power level of your opponent’s facing row. These lanes aren’t static features though. On each of the first three turns, they reveal an effect that can dramatically change the entire flow of the match – potentially hamstringing your deck or turning it into a monstrosity. Every match you play, even with the same deck, can be an entirely new experience solely because of the nature of the lane effects. This is why there’s one aspect of each match that can significantly boost or mitigate the variance in these encounters.


]As the title indicated, a core mechanic in Marvel Snap is the Snap itself. Drawing its name, I presume, from Thanos’s universe-culling Infinity Gauntlet action, this feature can double your commitment of points toward victory. That doesn’t make much logical sense, but from the standpoint of the game, it is a great feature. In a normal match, you can win or lose two points, but if you Snap, both sides commit one more point for a total of four. And if both sides snap, eight points will change hands launching the winner a full level higher in the ranking system.

This brings not only a way to mitigate your losses by retreating before the end of the match – only losing one point or whatever has been committed through snaps – but it adds another strategic layer. It makes sense to Snap if you think you’re going to win, but it’s reasonable to Snap even if you aren’t sure as it may instill just a tiny bit of doubt in your opponent. Just like bluffing in poker, you may steal a victory when defeat is all but certain. It also feels immensely rewarding to win a double-Snapped match and see your rank fly up in the few minutes it takes to complete a single competition.

The ranks themselves are fairly straightforward. They are used in the matchmaking process but also reward you at every ten levels with a small incentive. Once you reach 100, you get ranked on the scale of everyone else who has achieved that and get to continue your competitive endeavor ascending or descending hundreds or thousands of positions with each match relative to the tens of thousands of other players.


As with every free-to-play game, there are plenty of microtransactions to keep the cash flowing. And as with far too many free-to-play games, these are a detriment to the experience. Your initial foray into the game has you bombarded with new cards through the “collection” system that ranks up as you upgrade cards with two of the many in-game currencies. You’re able to climb this ladder getting new cards and more resources at a satisfying pace. Yet, this, rather suddenly, drops off as you get into the game and you begin unlocking fewer and fewer cards through the mostly randomized process of “card pools” that are accessed with higher rank. The only way to get around this is to spend real money to obtain more in-game currencies and either buy cards directly or hit up that collection ladder again. There are a few other ways to obtain new cards, but they are even slower than the aforementioned.

The thing is, I believe Marvel Snap could be financially successful just by selling a battle pass and cosmetics – because the card back and variants are great collectible items and feature some incredible artwork. Of course, it does sell those things, just in addition to the part where you barely get new cards while facing off against cards you don’t have so you want to buy access to more. Like virtually all games that do this, people are vocal about how it is scummy, but probably a hundred times as many people silently spend the money and keep the company rolling in cash.

But if monetization was Marvel Snap’s only problem, it would probably still be a decent game given how far you can get for free. There’s a lot of great design in both the card functionality and the unique setup of the battlefield, enough that it makes this game pretty addictive. However, with only a passing run at balance, the cream rises to the top and the most powerful cards are ubiquitous in decks. You’ll ultimately see some of the same exact deck designs copied and pasted from match to match totaling maybe a dozen distinct experiences. If you choose to make something different, you might find some success, but at the end of the day, it feels like it depends more on the randomized lanes than you being able to outplay your opponent. The game often boils down to just whoever triggers their ridiculous power combo best, and when you’re limited in what cards you have access to, that makes that worse. When you combine this with an interface that’s somehow clunky both on mobile and PC and weird omissions like being able to see what cards have been discarded or destroyed for each player, it just stops being fun. I doubt any of this is going to change given how long the game has been out. I don’t recommend anyone follow in my footsteps only to hit a soft paywall and feel like you’ve wasted all of that time.

If you'd like to see more of my reviews, check out my curator page here:Endyo'sIndies, Abbreviated Reviews

I’m not sure a lot of people remember Cryptark. I barely did despite playing and reviewing it around the time it was released on the recommendation of Totalbiscuit. What I did remember, surprisingly, was Gunhead’s announcement trailer six years ago and my excitement to get into some vaguely Descent-like first-person shooting. Now, that has arrived and while it’s not quite Descent, it’s a good bit more than decent.

Abbreviated Review: https://youtu.be/xI2F0AfiGAk

Strictly speaking, the role that you fill in Gunhead is more of a privateer than a pirate. You’re given orders to invade alien spaceships full of alien space creatures with biomechanical designs to salvage whatever it is that they create/contain from a mysterious “Client.” This is essentially all of the story you’re given, and all that you need, for the most part. You’re also joined by some awkwardly tall (or maybe you’re just short) crew members who idly stand around your ship as you control every aspect of the adventure.

You’ll first navigate through the familiar roguelike tree of missions that get progressively tougher with each jump. The locations involve a blocky collection of rooms that form a Borg Cube-like exterior, but a diverse interconnected web on the inside. Your job is to go in and clean them out – or at least clean out the parts that matter. Namely, a giant brain that sits in a cozy location and is protected by a shield generator system. It’s usually not too difficult to head in and lobotomize the vessel, but the biggest challenge typically comes in achieving the bonus objectives that reward additional cash.

The cash portion of the game is one aspect that seems to have changed a bit from Cryptark. In the previous game, you needed it to do virtually everything, and the campaign ended when you ran out of it. In Gunhead, a single death is the end of your run and you’ll be starting from scratch. This does fit a bit more in the roguelike category, but it strips away a good chunk of the money management experience. While you do still spend money to unlock weapons and new mechs, it seems like it’s possible to succeed even if you don’t. Most of the weapons and gadgets you discover are going to be from picking them up in the nooks and crannies of the ships you invade.

The slight shift away from managing money moves the needle a bit toward the other two core mechanics of Gunhead. The first is planning your attack. That may sound kind of boring, and it probably is if you came in expecting a raw action shooter where your only task is reacting to enemies. Yet, as you progress to more complex and dangerous levels, you’re going to need to take advantage of as much information as possible to succeed. Later levels will have multiple system modules in place that don’t just shield your target, but provide enhanced enemies, active hazards and traps, numerous locked doors, aggressive turrets, alarm systems that bring waves of units, and spawning factories that pump out a constant stream of enemies. There are even some that work as “backup” devices that take over for whichever was destroyed and others that actively repair modules over time. If you haphazardly attempt to defeat this mesh of defensive systems, you won’t succeed, no matter how capable you are at shooting.

Of course, planning and tactics alone aren’t going to win you the game. You also need to be competent at aiming, shooting, and moving your machine. Each mech that you unlock has a starting loadout with a handful of weapons you can use to achieve this. Most of those weapons, outside of some melee options and ‘stun’ weapons, have limited ammo. Ammo that you can’t obtain directly. This makes picking your shots much more important and spamming wasted ammo into the void isn’t going to result in much success. You will find weapons located throughout the levels that you can use to replace your current setup at any time and you’re also able to store them in your (seemingly unlimited) inventory to swap out when necessary. This almost feels like Breath of the Wild’s use of ‘breaking weapons’ which can be frustrating, but also serves the purpose of promoting the use of the pretty impressive variety of different offensive options.

This ever-changing approach to combat and the carryover between levels of your weapons, ammo, and health brings back a bit of the management experience, but in a different way. Your management is less in the money realm and more about how you approach combat at any given time. You may have a badass rail gun that pops enemies from afar with precision and high damage, but do you want to waste that ammo for something you may not find for the rest of the run? Or do you want to risk nipping away at health pools with a blaster to save the bigger guns for the bigger game? Maybe you’re ready to put it all on the line and get in there with melee weapons for solid damage, but a limited chance to avoid damage to your tiny health pool.

Despite transitioning many of the enemies directly from the 2D world of Cryptark to the 3D world of Gunhead, as well as all of the characters and premise – including your Jerma-voiced pirate cohort – Gunhead feels like a distinct game. Not just because of a well-crafted FPS experience that delivers all the action the average person would need, but because it uses the same ideas to build a different experience. You’re still going to need to plan things and use the map more than probably any FPS game ever has, but you’re also going to have to be good at doing the shooting itself.

I believe Gunhead will have a broader appeal than the twin-stick Cryptark. The 3D world does feel a bit lackluster compared to the crisp dark world of its predecessor and I have no idea why they didn’t bring over the incredibly useful marker system. However, I think the experience is more approachable and the difficulty curve is more granular. It’s still challenging, and you’ll still get blindsided leading to cascading failure, but it never feels like you don’t gain something from the experience. Even if that something is just a good time.

If you'd like to see more of my reviews, check out my curator page here: Endyo's Indies, Abbreviated Reviews

The spectrum of quality in first-person puzzle games is broad. The universally praised classics like Portal are easy to recommend, but others require a lot more skill and, more importantly, patience. It’s also a huge benefit when they offer some unique design and mechanics that develop with the progression of the game. Few games can meet those standards, let alone surpass them, but Viewfinder is unquestionably one of those few.
Abbreviated Review: https://youtu.be/gRa1tBhq8s0

Viewfinder drops you into its world immediately from the start of the game and doesn’t give you much explanation until you’re already waist-deep in the situation. It is a bit of an interesting reveal, so I won’t spoil it, but I will say that the fantastic world is not your reality. This dream-like world is full of worldly delights like fancy foods, grand views, and a somewhat ridiculous number of comfortable-looking places where you can sit down and chill. I didn’t spend a lot of my time doing that, but it was a nice touch to the overall aesthetic of the game. However, as appealing as it is, this environment is mostly there as a cosmetic backdrop for the actual mechanics of the game.

The core mechanic is that you can take a photograph, hold it up in front of your view, and place it – manifesting a new reality in the environment. This is used in numerous ways that expand as you progress through the game. At first, you’ll use it as a basic way to create solid platforms and infrastructure to bridge gaps and get where you need to go. Each level has a teleporter that you must ultimately reach to teleport to the next level and the path is usually the challenge. You’ll initially collect photos that you find in the environment and use them in fairly intentionally designed ways. Additionally, some hand-drawn paintings and sketches similarly present an opportunity for you to dive into these uniquely crafted environments. Ultimately though, you’ll unlock a camera that allows you to snap a photo of any aspect of the environment and use it for a whole new way to solve puzzles.

The addition of the camera adds a layer to the experience that makes it feel like you have a lot more control over how puzzles are solved. It’s hard to say if that dynamic nature is truly the case, but when you can take a photo of absolutely anything and recreate it in the environment, it at least seems like that freedom is there. It allows you to duplicate more than just glorified platforms though, you can also make a copy of the goal teleporter itself and potentially give yourself a path straight to the end – and occasionally that’s the intention. This allows for puzzles that seem challenging up front, but once you’ve gotten a good grasp on the mechanics, that challenge is met with a satisfying resolution.

Part of the appeal of Viewfinder is that it also has a compelling story woven into the gameplay. The protagonist has an overarching goal and a mysterious third party reminding you of that through voiceover throughout the game, but you discover more within the world. There are recording devices throughout the levels that introduce characters and describe their interactions in this strange environment. Normally, this method of storytelling is easy to forget or ignore entirely, but with a solid performance and a laid-back ambiance, it was much easier to absorb. These recordings along with an odd talking cat that follows you through the levels come together to create a narrative that adds a lot of weight to the evolving landscape and how you interact with it.

With the lavish furniture can lounge on, the relaxing views, and the various tools and canvases adorned in artistic endeavors, you can tell a lot about the people that were there before you. As you move into areas that have a more experimental feel to them and start to abandon the warmth of the Mediterranean architecture, it continues expressing the evolving perspective of your predecessors. Each of the five chapters has individual stylings for each to go along with the changes in the design of the puzzles and the ways you solve them with the new tools you’re given.

The exploration of the story, environment, and the way the mechanics expand to keep the game so exciting, almost makes the relatively short run time feel even shorter. The five hours I spent in it flew by and, while they were entertaining, I only wanted more. The only aspect that seemed to be missing was more use of painted or drawn images and the unique options they presented. The addition of some of the ‘videogame’ photos was fun, but that too was a bit limited. For as thoroughly enjoyable as Viewfinder is, more of those elements would have only increased the fun. I was also a little thrown off by the collectible items in the game that I didn’t notice until I stumbled onto one halfway through the game. When there were so many random items scattered around, it wasn’t obvious I could pick any of them up. Yet, even with those barely-qualifying complaints, Viewfinder is an easy recommendation even with its somewhat inflated price. If you see it on sale, you officially have no excuse not to pick it up.

If you'd like to see more of my reviews, check out my curator page here: Endyo's Indies, Abbreviated Reviews

Bethesda has a long history of making games that aren’t initially “great,” but always manage to capture the hearts and minds of the people who play them and trigger imaginations to build mods that help carry them to that greatness. Starfield is no different, and while it adds some features and spawns a new universe, it has some of the same issues from previous games. Yet, even in its first month, people are improving the experience and making it an all-around better game.

Abbreviated Review: https://youtu.be/xbQt8R4dJ_s

Starfield is Bethesda’s first new IP in many years. The company that has been known for creating The Elder Scrolls and taking Fallout into the third dimension didn’t previously see much value in branching out. However, my appreciation of space games had me interested in this new franchise from the outset. What we ended up receiving though, isn’t a large deviation from their tried-and-true history. Starfield could easily be described as “The Elder Stars” or “Fallout in Space,” because much of the gameplay still involves wandering into bases full of hostiles, towns full of meandering NPCs, and quests that are just as much talking to people as gunning them down. That’s not even considering the crossover of a near-limitless number of quirky and sometimes frustrating bugs.

The parts of the game that deviate from the standard formula though are some of the less appealing aspects of the experience. You’ll have a spaceship that you can upgrade and completely redesign (as well as buy new ones) to suit your desired playstyle, but the interaction with it is limited at best. Most of the mechanics that include it are simplified to a fault. Space combat involves swapping around power meters and occasionally firing up to three weapons at enemies in a confined 3D space. Traveling between systems is a cutscene, and once you’ve made the trip the first time, that part is just a regular loading screen. In a game about navigating the stars, you do most of it instantaneously. Despite the name, Starfield is almost exclusively not about being among the stars.

Yet, with its mostly-grounded design, there’s no shortage of beautiful extraterrestrial views across alien landscapes. There isn’t as much variety as you would normally associate with the descriptor “alien,” but it’s pretty accurate to assume the vast majority of rocky surfaces in the galaxy are delivering atmosphere-free views of the sky and little else. At the opposite end of the spectrum from these grand views, the items you find in the world are also highly detailed. This makes it all the more confusing why the areas in between, such as the people and local environment, are so poorly crafted. There are moments in the best possible lighting that they can appear decent, but in the flat lighting that dominates the game, much of it looks barely better than Fallout 4 – which looked old eight years ago.

Where Starfield lacks the exploration that would befit its setting, it makes up for it significantly with a world that is rich in character and lore. While only a handful of the planets, moons, and space stations feature interactive characters and quest lines that span hours of gameplay, the ones that do still stretch the game to ridiculous lengths. In the 85 hours I’ve played – with an effort to avoid repeatable quests and extraneous tasks – I still haven’t finished every quest line. The ones that I have dove into included some of the best moments in the game though, with unique situations and new characters that weave into other parts of the story and additional quests I later discovered. It almost seems like a detriment that so many are optional. I almost avoided the United Colonies quest line because I thought it would be generic, but it ended up being one of my favorites.

These extravagant side quests, at the end of the day, are just as much about gaining XP as they are about telling stories. Leveling up is the foundation of most RPGs, however, Starfield made the process a little slower than I’d like. The large number of skills spread across five “trees” gives you a somewhat unique setup compared to previous Bethesda games – and the slow progress it introduces means you’re only going to be able to get a fraction of the total skills for much of your playthrough. This was new for me, and I ended up enjoying the outcome of a more focused character, but the journey was challenging and I spent a lot of time wishing I could dedicate more points to ‘less important’ skills. I only managed to put a handful of points in building or skills in the social category outside of Persuasion toward the end of my playthrough. I barely touched the tree with physical skills (beyond carrying a heavier load) because it was far more beneficial to invest in more useful skills like unlocking locks and doing more damage with weapons. It seems the goal here was to make the “New Game+” system more appealing since skills carry over. Yet, while I appreciate the feeling of specializing as a laser-wielding, lock picker that could build ♥♥♥♥, it might have been nice to not have a fraction of the tree unlocked after 85 hours.


The improvements over previous Bethesda games are obvious, but they don’t exist in a vacuum. The combat is far more exciting with a wide variety of weapons that finally feel weighty and look like they have some impact. Yet, this is tied to AI which is sometimes completely useless – getting stuck on obstacles or just standing around. The writing also seems to have improved in a lot of areas and with characters that have a bit of personality, it’s almost comparable to The Outer Worlds. Yet, the main quest feels like just a bunch of odd fetch quests with a few noteworthy moments and it just barely coalesces in the end. Then, through the use of procedural world-building, you have the (probably) most expansive overall game in Bethesda’s history, but the vast majority of it is empty, boring, and bland. You can explore and catalog some mildly interesting pieces of planets and moons, but there are rarely discoveries that have much substance and you’ll see repeated procedural designs much sooner than you’d imagine.

Starfield also took a page from Skyrim’s “Dragonborn” powers and made the very slight leap to “Starborn” powers. These almost feel like a last-minute addition though in how they’re mostly optional and, for the most part, don’t have a lot of impact on the story or actual gameplay. Other parts of the game similarly seem like late-stage changes like the way Outposts work and your ship’s fuel system. There’s essentially nothing outside of minor convenience that requires you to have anything but the bare minimum fuel, yet it also seems to have been the intention that the procedural outposts and your outpost building mechanics were meant to extend your ship’s range via a fuel system. So, it’s kind of fruitless to visit the backwoods locations with a half dozen blank slate NPCs or spend any time setting up a base outside of making some extra credits.

The things Starfield does best are the things that previous games did well, and it does many of them better than ever. The side quests with the stories and characters they contain are engrossing without dragging you through endless dialogue. Finding interesting items and loot is a classic RPG experience done just as well as ever here. Yet, best of all, there was rarely a point in my playthrough that felt like I didn’t have somewhere new to go or something waiting to be discovered. The hand-crafted parts, while as small as other Bethesda games, were packed with tiny bits of character and nuance. Then it was all wrapped up in yet another stellar soundtrack – which obviously didn’t need Jeremy Soule to succeed.

Some games combine many good qualities of other games but fail to achieve the same success in their overall design and reception. Atlas Fallen is a game that’s immediately familiar once you start playing it and dive into its open world with spectacle combat, grandiose enemies, and extensive ability growth. Yet that familiarity isn’t propped up with much originality – which makes it fade into the background of recent releases.

Abbreviated Review: https://youtu.be/dRoQk32IJ1k

The setting and environment that Atlas Fallen takes place within is both a core part of the story and a bit of the gameplay itself. Your nameless protagonist is part of a peasant class that struggles in a world being stripped of its resources and left as a barren wasteland of rolling dunes. Part of this process also creates magical monsters called wraiths that roam the deserts attacking anyone who wanders by. After a brief introduction to this situation, you wander out into the world and discover a magic gauntlet that gives you the power to summon powerful weapons as well as jump and dash with superhuman capabilities.

From there, after a bit of introduction to your basic skills, you’ll be set loose in a sandy open world where you can take advantage of yet another ability to ‘surf the sand,’ which is a pleasant way to move around. Sadly though, since not every surface is sand, any time you come across even the slightest bit of rock or any non-sand surface, you’re suddenly jogging again and have to re-engage the sprint/sand surf L3 click to regain some speed. However, the world you explore is still mostly sand and the variety of environments outside of that have few, if any, sand transitions. Both the dominant desert biome and the sparse forested, village, city, mountain, and swamp environments are well-crafted and when combined with a solid lighting system, it makes for some above-average visuals across the board.

The wraiths you encounter are also mostly impressive in their aesthetic, scale, and animations - though with the limited number you see, they obviously had plenty of time to perfect the ones that made the cut. Even the sky and its unique hovering overlord you come to learn is the antagonist of the game is appealing and, while the time of day oddly never changes, certain areas feel like isolated capsules of morning, afternoon, or evening simply from the ambient lighting, clouds, and sandstorms.

The solid visuals of Atlas Fallen’s relatively small open world are bolstered by the two things you’ll be doing for nearly all of your playthrough – fighting wraiths and platforming to collect items. The highlight of this whole endeavor is the combat. It evokes some of the feel of classic God of War, Darksiders, and other spectacle ARPGs. The enemies you face off against vary from shifty bear-sized creatures to screen-filling behemoths that have several independently damageable parts – and some of those parts are marked indicating they give you more resources if destroyed first – a mechanic drawn from Monster Hunter-style games.

Much of this game seemed familiar from the moment I started in it. Your three weapons – a chain whip, axe/hammer, and weaponized gauntlets – represent long, medium, and short-range options each with their combos that can be mixed and matched as you switch between the two you have equipped. These mirror some of the weapons you get in God of War in design, but also in function. However, this is built upon by the momentum system and the abilities tied to it.

Momentum is a bar that is filled as you do damage to enemies, parry their attacks (which can freeze them in a stun for extra damage) and avoid damage yourself. You’ll gain access to a ridiculous number of activated abilities you can slot three of into your momentum bar – which unlock at each of the three tiers you can achieve. The interesting part of the momentum system is that you gain damage and reach of your attacks as it increases, but you also become more susceptible to damage. You can also unleash it at any of those levels for a progressively more grand and deadly attack. That risk-reward setup adds a nice layer of depth to the gameplay.

Even with the addition of some cool checkpoint-chasing platforming gameplay and seemingly always finding a reward to leap to in secret locations, the good parts of Atlas Fallen start to fall off in the back half of the game. The voice acting, even at its best, is not great. Most annoyingly, the creature that lives in your gauntlet and talks to you constantly is one of the worst offenders. I don’t know what it is, but he somehow sounds familiar and annoying at the same time. When you tie that to a pretty predictable and subpar story, it makes it hard to appreciate the cutscenes and dialogue sprinkled throughout the game. That’s not the worst part though.

The biggest issue I had in my playthrough was enemies moving or just leaping out of the range of the encounter which caused them to reset back in the middle of the combat area with full health. It was doubly frustrating because you don’t regain anything in this process and most of the time, your best bet was just to run away and try again after you refilled your healing charges. This wouldn’t happen for boss fights that were ringed in an impassable barrier, but open-world fights had this invisible line that would cause a reset and I hit that at least five or six times – sometimes in quite challenging fights against new enemies.

Sadly, there weren’t a lot of “new enemies” because the enemy roster is a fairly sparse. It’s not ridiculously bad, but when such a significant part of the game is fighting, it was strange to see the same enemies pop up from region to region for much of the experience. “Not ridiculously bad” is the mantra for this game. It’s not notably good or exceptionally bad in any single area. It’s just a supremely average game. However, average games with mediocre production value shouldn’t be $50. The retail price right now on Steam for God of War is $50. This is a game comparable to that in much of the design and perhaps duration, but in no way comparable in overall value. That’s the tipping point to make this “not recommended,” but if you can get it for $10-$20 or in a bundle, it’s worth trying. Especially if they fix the enemy resetting issue.

If you'd like to see more of my reviews, check out my curator page here: Endyo's Indies, Abbreviated Reviews

Dave the Diver is a relentlessly enjoyable experience. When I played the demo months ago, I could tell that it was something unique and fun, but I had no idea that the final product would be packed with so much content while also remaining cohesive and endearing throughout. Then, to top it all off, it has some of the most hilarious and well-made pixel art cutscenes I have ever encountered. You can stop here and just play it, but if you need more convincing, continue below.

Abbreviated Review: https://youtu.be/ZG2NFrIa_w8

The innocuous beginning of Dave the Diver makes it seem like you’re in for a run-of-the-mill management sim and side-scrolling ‘shooter’ of some sort. Your protagonist Dave is a seemingly mild-mannered and friendly guy who takes on any task presented to him with a smile. So, in addition to be-ing the sole diver hunting fish in the occasionally hostile environment of an island-encompassed blue hole, you’ll also be managing the menu, financials, décor, and being the primary server in the restaurant. The only thing you won’t be doing (mostly) is crafting the sushi itself – which is left to your mysterious hardnosed Chef Bancho.

Bancho, like many of the noteworthy characters in the game, has a small story that you get to explore within the gameplay. Character exploration is part of the larger narrative in what ultimately becomes a fairly expansive story with a lot of mysteries and discoveries within it. Like the blue hole itself, the adventure seems basic on the surface but is actually deep and full of secrets. While initially your goals are only stocking and running a restaurant, various characters will wander out to meet you on the dive platform of your small boat to request your assistance in several unique and iterative quest chains. Some of these chains weave into the core of the story while others are just extra tasks that can provide rewards and keep the game rich.

The money that you earn as a reward from some of these quests adds to your primary source of income – the restaurant. This money can be used for many tasks and resources including augmenting the restaurant as well as upgrading your gear to dive deeper, longer, and with better tools to keep you alive. The deeper you go, the more threats you’ll face, but you’ll also encounter rarer sea creatures that can be diced into more profitable dishes at the restaurant. However, that’s only a small portion of what you’ll find in the depths.

One interesting aspect of the journey through Dave the Diver is the process of unlocking the things you need to make it into new environments. You’ll, of course, need more air available as it’s not only for breathing but also functions as your health bar. Any time you’re stung by a jellyfish or snapped at by a shark, you’ll lose air – while also steadily losing it as you breathe. You can find barrels of that life-retaining substance randomly on the sea floor along with chests full of one-time-use resources like underwater scooters and temporary oxygen boosts. You’ll also find chests with new spear tips, guns, and melee weapons you’ll need to fend off and take down larger predators and prey.

Part of the unique challenge any time you dive into the ocean is that you have a sort of roguelike experience where you need to obtain stronger spears and weapons and the environment is slightly different. The undersea environment isn’t procedurally generated, so you will see the same map over several dives, but there are at least a handful of maps to navigate that change with the time of day. However, with the random nature of the items you obtain each time and the progressively more challenging creatures that appear as the story moves forward, it feels a lot more diverse than it is.

The chapter-based campaign is blocked out by the main quest line that uses key items to limit your overall progression. While you can upgrade your oxygen and suit to go deeper as well as your harpoon and weapons to fish more efficiently, even your first steps into deeper water require you to complete a quest for a headlamp. You can sit around avoiding the main quest to fish endlessly and run the restaurant, but the game is built around the excellent pacing that has you balancing that aspect with exploration and mystery quite well. Of the 25 hours it took me to finish the main part of the game, I made only a handful of dives that weren’t connected in some way toward progression.



Dave the Diver’s pacing works so well because it always gives you something new to do. The number of minigames and evolving mechanics is astounding. From the simplest tasks like having a different minigame for reeling in a big fish using each different spear tip to an immersive rhythm-based music challenge you can revisit at any time, you will never be complacent. It was almost overwhelming at times with how any given moment you could be using a mechanic you have never seen before to accomplish your next task. There are entire moments crafted in the game using controls and functionality that happen a single time, which almost seems wasteful if it wasn’t also fun as hell.

Between the minigames, boss fights, ever-expanding roles of spearfishing and restaurant management, and the hilarious cutscenes sprinkled throughout the game, I was blown away by everything presented. For a mere $20, this game provided one of the best experiences I’ve had in an indie game in a long time, and I am hoping that this isn’t the end of the adventure for Dave. The ongoing nature of serving new dishes in the restaurant and the potential to unlock more secret caves or deeper adventures leaves plenty of room for more content. However, even if somehow the developers don’t seize that opportunity, this game is well worth picking up and diving into.

If you'd like to see more of my reviews, check out my curator page here: Endyo's Indies, Abbreviated Reviews