Recent reviews by Firewalk

Now this is how you do a remaster!

Everything ROTT packed into one game with tons of customization on top. The alternate character sprites are nice and add variety and you can even determine how common they are supposed to be (from never to 100% of the time). Some game balance changes also go a long way, so you can truly play this game the way you wish to. I used to have issues playing this game on modern monitors in the past as the low resolution got me motion sick real fast. Now in 1080p that's gone away!

If you are like me and you remember having enjoyed this game as a kid, then this is the perfect comeback. Just make sure to bring lots of lead and toast for your lunchbox... and turkey now, apparently.

I have played most of the Star Trek games that there are and going into this, the bar was set really low. It had to better than Star Trek: Legacy, the broken mess of a game that came out in 2005 as the last game to date that was in any way Classic Trek before the 2009 reboot disaster. And no, before you say it, Star Trek Online doesn't count. I'd also like to mention that out of 100s of games, this is the only (!) game I ever refunded because I flat-out am not enjoying it at all.

The art in the promotions looked promising, but the game just isn't for me. The entire thing is on rails because it's just one scenario. You can miss critical steps of the campaign by simply not having a character around anymore because they died or miss a piece of tech you need,so yeah that's pretty bad.

But even first impressions were bad. The tutorial is a joke. If you don't know Stelaris (like me) then you are lost. The UI doesn't look or feel Trek and feels utterly unintuitive. It's like throwing a first time swimmer into the ocean during a hurricane.

And that's really the word to use here: Unintuative. Nothing makes any sense to me. Mind you, I'm NOT expecting the game to spoon-feed me the do's and don'ts but some guidance would be nice.

The ship models are... ok. It's just too bad you never see them because you're too busy hopping around a million screens to keep up with the game that keeps chucking events at you every other minute. The ship choices are also a joke, with a handful of ships per faction when in reality they had a great deal more. Not sure how you are supposed to make a fleet with any kind of strategy behind it beyond it just being an all-devouring doom stack.

In the end I do not recommend this. Star Trek deserves a better effort than this and that's not even getting into the myriad of plotholes and inconsistencies I spotted. They claim to have been inspired by the likes of the Armada series... well newsflash for you: Those games were much better despite their simplicity. They were essentially Warcraft 3 clones, except well done for their time.

I wish this could have just been a clone of CIV 6 instead of Stelaris, but I suppose that's another dream game that will never come. If you are in the mood for a boring *and* confusing game, sure go ahead. But unless you are willing to spend hours learning the mere basics then I suggest to stay away.

It hurts my soul to write a negative review about a franchise that I love as much as this one. I can't believe I'm saying this, but even Star Trek: Legacy doesn't look that bad next to this.

Conrad Stevenson's Paranormal P.I. is a game I got be aware of courtesy of Youtuber Nuzzgard who ordinarily plays a lot of Phasmophobia. Indeed, this game may very well have been inspired by the trend that Phasmophobia kicked off: ghost investigation games. This one is still in early access, but I see massive potential in it.

This game is quite a bit different from rest of the crowd, however. It aims for more of a simulation approach, less running from killer ghosts and more about poking around and finding the ghosts to begin with. Ghosts come in various types and each ghost is unique to its location, so there's less RNG involved.

You use various tools from thermometers to EMF readers to detect paranormal activity and collect it as evidence. The ghosts cannot harm you, but that doesn't mean the game won't try to scare you with its rare, but impressive, ghost events.

In the end, whether this is for you really depends on what kind of player you are. Do prefer fast, in-your-face action from start to finish where death can come any second? Consider Remnant Records. Do you prefer some danger but prefer it to be atmospheric at the same time? Phasmophobia has you covered. But if you prefer a slow, at-your-own-pace kind of game where you can spend minutes waiting for activity to happen and like learning about the locations and the spirits you visit then this game has you covered.

Currently the closest thing to real life ghost hunting that you will find in a game.

Hey, first negative review ever and it's years late, but after I played through this on Fusion to get the achievement for it I can *seriously* only say this: I love Serious Sam. But by Mental this was tedious!

What's Serious Sam known for? Big guns? Lotsa enemies? Over the top action?
What do you find of that in here? Lotsa enemies, sure.

But the selection of enemies is poor. The DLC is for Second Encounter, so one would expect some stuff from there, right? NOPE. You get Zum'buls that's it. No other enemies, none of the SE weapons. Why is this for SE again? Plus it's Egypt... AGAIN. Seriously, can we stop going there? At this point Mental can have it if means I don't have to stroll through yet another tomb with ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ traps and enough Kleer skeletons to fill a dinosaur museum.

Also note the guns. You got revolvers, shottys, Thompson and the rocket launcher. That is *seriously* it.

No laser gun, no cannon (WTFBBQ?!), no Serious Bombs, no flamethrower and not even Sam's favorite, the minigun. Who greenlit this insult?!

I am honestly at a loss for words. The three maps in here feel like they were thrown together by the intern while the devs weren't looking. It is way too freaking hard and unfun even by Serious Sam standards unless fighting off Major Biomechs while going on a rodeo with a werebull stampede WITH ONLY THE FREAKING SHOTGUNS is your idea of fun. Oh and did I mention that there's virtually no checkpoints? You get freaking demolished for 30+ mins, trip up once and it's back half an hour for you. If you wanna do this, SAVE OFTEN!

What does it all that frustration amount to? A boss battle against the Kh'num. You know, the Baron of Hell knockoff from BFE? They gave it a necklace and god mode and called it a boss fight. To deal with it, you basically have to endure a less fun boss battle variant of First Encounter's final boss battle. Yawn!

Play it for the achievement and never again, unless you are a masochist who believes in ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ levels of challenge. For the record, I played this on normal. Don't even bother to play above it because they barely give you enough ammo as it is.

Serious letdown, pun in-freaking-tended.

Ohhh boy...

If you know me, then you might have caught on to the fact that I am somewhat infatuated with the Life is Strange series, especially the prequel 'Before the Storm" by Deck9. I am writing this after having just finished the main game and the Wavelengths DLC.

I will admit, LIS 2 was a disaster to me. To label what obviously was a spinoff as a sequel was a mistake. It didn't help that the plot didn't draw me in at all. True Colors was announced and I was cautiously optimistic. I knew Deck9 could work some real magic but where would this go?

Well, I am happy to say that True Colors is a great game. It is quite different enough from its predecessors, with its own unique setting, great new characters and an intriguing new "super power" for our protagonist Alex. I thought Alex was a great main character and learning about her past was terrifying, yet interesting. Seeing Steph return was a welcome sight as she was such a fun character in BTS. Having her back was a delight.

The new empathy mechanic works extremely well and it is fun to use. It can impact conversations in similar ways to how Max's rewind powers used to in LIS 1 but I am happy to say they feel nothing like it and stand on their own. I love how creative the devs got with so many of the situations in the story (LARP anyone?).

The visuals and sound of this game are the best in the series, by far. I can only hope the remasters of the older titles can even come close to be honest, but that will be discussed in a future review for those. True Colors is marvelous to look at, with gorgeous scenery, great lighting and much improved expressions on the characters. They feel even more like real characters now. Major improvements over previous titles here.

I won't say much more because doing so would kinda spoil too much about the story. Although I suppose I could mention that the overall flow feels a bit more like LIS 1 and there are some plot parallels between the two. I am happy to say though that True Colors never feels like a ripoff and very much stands on its own feet.

I am glad that this was marketed as a spinoff instead of a straight-up sequel but I gotta say, it turned out very well! Much like the other games in the series, True Colors made me once again think about how we perceive our lives. In this case specifically, it made me realize how much impact our emotional state can have on others. While there may not be anybody out there with the kind of powers that Alex possesses, there are people who can feel the emotions of others and I can't think of a better example to visualize this than this game.

Good job, Deck9!

Phasmophobia is one of those games that came out of nowhere for me and completely demanded my attention after. You and up to three of your friends/ghost baits are tasked with determining what kind of supernatural inhabitants are haunting various locations in the game. To do so, you have a wide variety of both essential and optional equipment available. Once you believe you have enough to clues to narrow down the ghost type, you bug out and leave, assuming you are still alive.

Different ghosts behave in different ways and this means that each time you play you have to pay close attention to what is going on. Just because a ghost is moving objects a lot, doesn't necessarily mean it's a poltergeist, for example. Difficulties vary but ensure that you never feel like the game is unfair.

With the game still being in early access at the time of this writing, I am most impressed by what it has to offer and I get the impression there's many things left in the pipeline. I am very much excited to see what's yet to come. Some systems are very basic at this time, like player progression* and overall presentation, although the game has definitely made some strides in the latter as of late. My only gripe was the "training" mode, aka the tutorial. It teaches you the bare basics that you need to understand to win a game but teaches you little in terms of mechanics. And while having your instructions presented on a TV screen in the map is immersive, it is also somewhat tedious. Maybe a reworked tutorial** could be done in the
future.

You can play alone, but I highly recommend grabbing some friends and investigate together. It really builds teamwork and communication skills, which is a good thing.

Finally, is it scary? Yes, very much so for a variety of reasons. The atmosphere is thick and the graphics sufficiently gloomy. Also I can think of few games where not hearing your buddy on voice-chat anymore (because they got killed) can make you tremble!

Great game so far and one of the few early-access titles I recommend strongly!

Updates:

*Progression has been completely overhauled with new equipment tiers and unlocks.
**The tutorial has been completely replaced with a new segment. It is a big improvement!

Fun dungeon-crawler, but one needs to like the Minecraft asthetic. Visually, it looks like a more sophisticated version of its parent-game. You can bring up to 3 friends along for some co-op fun too.

I can't comment on how this compares to the likes of Diablo, but I think the game offers enough variety to keep you busy for a while. It's that "just one more level" feel. You do kinda need the DLC for long-term though as the base levels are shorter and not nearly as challenging as the expansions. The DLC also adds a lot of loot and enemy variety to modes like Ancient Hunt.

As far as F2P goes, this game is a ton of fun, albeit a bit flawed. Presentation-wise, the game is phenomenal with great ship models and water effects. The sound is also very immersive and makes you feel like you are on the deck of a giant ship when zoomed in. The scaling of the landscape is a bit weird, but you get used to that.

I won't mince words, you can spend oodles of money in this game, HOWEVER you are not required to do so. To do well in this game you have to learn its mechanics. Things like concealment mechanics, dispersions of projectiles and torpedo ranges are all important. It can look simple at first and it controls easy enough but it is a hard-to-master game despite its arcade feel.

I would love to see a greater emphasis on operations (essentially PVE co-op missions) but other than that, I am quite happy with this game.

Free Carpal Tunnel Syndrome-test. You get results in no time!

(In all seriousness, this is a fine game as far as free ones go.)

The most intrinsically complex and yet approachable city builder out there. When it came out, it put SimCity to shame and showed it how it's done. Add a massive workshop with a never-ending supply of custom assets and this game becomes a devourer of daylight hours... in a good way!