Recent reviews by Finestep

Cogmind takes a modern approach on the traditional roguelike archetype through pragmatic game- and UI design. It discards some staple problems like excessive bloat of unviable options and obscure instantly fatal encounters. An expert player will consistently win their runs of Cogmind.
There is no xp to speak of, your avatar is very tanky and there is an extensive background story to be discovered.
Yet Cogmind still manages to evoke the core of traditional roguelike gameplay - a seeming insurmountable, brutal challenge that you tackle by building up knowledge about the world, the enemies inhabiting it and the means to deal with them.

But even then, great care has been used to make the game accessible. The UI is extremely powerful and mouse is fully supported. The initial maps are largely designed to act as a long-term tutorial - to reliably clear Materials, you need to learn the basics of Cogmind's combat tactics. Even easier difficulty settings are available, if you simply don't have the time to invest to meet the game's high demands.

Combat happens mostly at range, placing great emphasis on your positioning to minimize incoming fire - you are often outnumbered, but hardly outgunnned. Until your guns get shot off, that is. Your avatar is little more than the sum of his parts, and the nature of attrition means combat is largely something that costs you parts, and in contrast with the more typical dynamic of rewarding you with good loot, your enemies are often poorly equipped. Coupled with the eventual hunger-analogue that kicks in, your goal on a level is often to get out as soon as possible. This makes stealth a very viable alternative to going guns-blazing through the hostile complex.

Later levels of the complex get increasingly brutal in difficulty, with end-game requiring careful preparation and decisionmaking to survive. But as the stakes get higher, so does the variety in gear and alternative branches of of the complex. Getting into Cogmind can certainly take a while, but once you do, there is so much to explore and discover - both in terms of gameplay and story. The clean audiovisuals complete the experience. So much effort has been put into the game, and it shows.

RTS as a genre has stagnated badly - the few games that get released stay complacent with ancient 90s UI and make their gameplay revolve around high APM tedium.

Zero-K picks up where Supreme Commander left the UI and comes up with a few major advancements of its own. Strategic, freeform zoom makes navigating and staying aware of the battlefield that much more manageable and the streaming economy model allows you to queue up investments ahead of time and makes macro gameplay quite intuitive - you simply should be spending everything you earn.
Basic unit AI such as auto-kiting frees up much attention for meaningful decisions over babysitting trivial cases, but like the extremely strong, non-cheating AI demonstrates, does not compromise the skill ceiling of the tactical aspect of the game.
Area commands and queue insertion make tasks like reclaiming or prioritizing a specific response much less of a chore, and after you try line move you will be ready to forgive the dated visual looks.

The gameplay is highly... designed. Units mostly fall into nice, clean RPS classes, whose dynamics are all achieved without the use of arbitrary damage modifiers. Unit diversity has been taken to a logical endpoint where each unit has some colourful feature or other, be it dealing slow damage at the very minimum.

If you aren't familiar with the Total Annihilation or Supreme Commander style of RTS, this game is a must-try.
If you are, the advanced, extremely powerful UI makes the game an absolute must-try.
Taxing 1v1 with an effective ranking system, large teamgames on countless maps, tower defense -esque survival mode and a massive campaign oriented around learning unit dynamics has to have something for everyone to sink their teeth in.

Don't let the ancient engine and volunteer assets stop you from discovering the most modern RTS game there is.

No plot, tutorials, checkpoints or cutscenes. Rip and tear.

A fast skill-based sidescroller that gives you a proper challenge. The gameplay is fast and cut-throat: you kill most enemies in a single hit, but they will very likely return the favour shortly. The simple mechanics and tight controls yield a solid experience, and mastering your aiming and dodging will be crucial to clearing the tougher difficulties.

The game isn't terribly long, but the difficulty settings are very distinct challenges, and there are many creative secrets to find. The basic gameplay is satisfying enough to keep the game fresh for a good while.

The unique graphical style is pleasant to watch and the soundtrack complements the atmosphere excellently. As opposed to most pseudo-pixel games on the market, BUTCHER actually runs in 320x280 which is then scaled up. Effects make the combat look and feel great, altough sometimes the screen does get quite cluttered.

It's hard to come up with a reason to not pick a this well polished game up. If you think you can handle it, that is.