Recent reviews by The5hark

This one is for those who love a combination of hands-on fighting with clever tower maze building. Really, the true fun of this game is mastering the context switching which includes picking the right weapon at the right time. Many times you'll be switching from fighting to building within seconds so the game really pushes your brain to think fast. You might find yourself literally sweating as you play this game on the higher difficultly levels. As you progress in the game, you can then earn credits to spend on an upgrade tree for more powerful weapons and towers -- and you'll need these upgrade because the enemies become more difficult including the bosses. The game designers do a nice job of forcing you to vary your tactics through the game keeping things interesting. The other selling points are destructible environment and a good story line but they are secondary to the fun game play. Highly recommend!

This is a solid tower defense game that makes the mistake of starting off very easy and then ramping the difficulty up a little more quickly than you would anticipate. Or that is the way it seems until you realize, on your own, that you need to either upgrade your equipment or use alternative equipment that is more strategic for the current mission. This lack of hand holding can turn some people off while charming others, so you should only play this game if you enjoy the process of experimenting with little guidance. The game includes a 5-star rating system for every mission. The more stars you earn, the higher your reputation increases which helps with unlocking upgrades. As there is no maze building, which takes away some of the typical tower defense intrigue, this game doesn't have the depth I was hoping for but is still enjoyable. Overall, I rate this game about a 7/10.

The game is simple: cleverly utilize your environment to open a safe. This is achieved through designing a trail of gunpowder to trigger, ignite, or blow up surrounding items which often leads to a chain reaction. You get a higher score if you use less gunpowder and solve the puzzle as fast as you can. Coming up with a top notch solution on some maps requires you to optimize and/or think outside the box. With 150 levels, you easily get more than you paid for. Although the game does become a little repetive at times, with each chapter the game introduces new environmental items and variants to keep the puzzles interesting. If you are looking for a puzzle game that rewards both wits and excellent mouse speed/coordination, this is a great option.

Soccer/Football with cars -- so what is the big deal? Whatever the formula for gaming fun is, it seems like Psyonix has figured it out. This is an extremely well polished game with excellent balance and game play. For starters, the matches last about five minutes so you can jump in for a quick one if you have family or other commitments. Matching is mostly based on skill level so you often are paired against fair competition. The game includes training modes and allows you to play computer opponents so you aren't thrown in the fire right away. The most significant charm of the game is the craziness. You have cars ramming each other and balls taking lucky bounces. You have small mistakes causing a teammate to miss an easy goal. Or a teammate accidentally knocking a ball into your own goal. In other words, this game is easy to learn but challenging to master all the nuances and strategies in the game just like real soccer.

BlazeRush is an arcade style race-battle game designed to keep everyone in the race as much as possible. The balance is just right to reward skill but to also allow a little luck to pop in now and then. The game supports both single-player and mutli-player. And it does not short change the single-player mode as it contains many maps/levels and includes a final boss battle.

The controls are slick and the motion could be described as having exaggerated physics. Note that some people in the reviews here have complained about the controls as the car moves in the direction you point your controller which is not standard in overhead race games. It took me a few races to get used to it and then it felt quite natural. Another popular complaint from reviewers is that when your car falls too far behind or goes off the track, the game advances your car to the end of the pack. Some do not like this "catch up" feature but I find this feature keeps the race exciting.

There are three race modes -- normal, leader of the pack, and out run the grinder. Leader of the pack requires a racer to be in the front for a total of 50 seconds. Out running the grinder is my favorite as it involves a giant grinding machine chasing the racers. This mode will keep you on the edge of your seat as an unstoppable monster nips at your bumper. All three race modes have random power-ups that fall onto the track such as weapons and speed boosts. The speeds boosts though only fall to the car not in first place thus once again causing exciting lead changes in this game.

Get this game if you enjoy the fun of back-and-forth battle-oriented races. It's a little gem!

Once the annoying GFWL piece was removed, I purchased this game on sale. I enjoy challenging games so I wasn't afraid of the rumors I heard about Dark Souls' difficulty. Having never played Demon Souls, the spiritual predecessor, I was completely new to this series. What I quickly learned is that the game is overwhelming to new people and seriously lacks adequate in-game tutorials. Questions many people start off with is "What character should I be?", "Which weapons should I use?", and "Which skills should I spend souls on?" The makers of the Dark Souls seemingly want you to experiment in the game to figure this out and some say this is part of the charm.

Since the game can easily take at least 40 hours to complete, I wasn't in the mood to play a difficult game AND not know what the heck is going on. So what I did instead was to read a few beginner, spoiler-free guides to Dark Souls, and I really feel this helped the game be quite enjoyable.

As for game play, there isn't much more for me to say that hasn't already been said 100x over. I definitely recommend the game for those who enjoy challenging RPGs with emphasis on action fighting. The large amount of big boss battles will give plenty of satisfaction. The story and sense of adventure will also make you incredibly curious with each new area you enter. When you start this game, it will engross you to the point that when you aren't playing, you'll be thinking about what is next and/or how to defeat a boss who has already killed you 10+ times. This is one of those games you'll never forget.

For a good stretch, this game was the highest rated game on Steam given a minimum number of qualifying reviews. Although it isn't my personal favorite game on Steam, it is definitely an amazingly FUN game. You only use the left and right mouse button to fight -- you don't even move the mouse. (So really this should be named Two Finger Death Punch.) This is simple to learn but difficult to master due to a few challenges: timing the button presses, varying enemy behavior, and the speed of the game (which increases as your progress). The game also has different mini-games and intense achievements giving you both variety and fun challenges. If that is not enough, the soundtrack is very enjoyable as is the in-game sense of humor. You should get this game if the trailers look appealing and you enjoy fast paced games. Without question this game will give you a mental workout.

Yes, this is a port of a mobile game but don't roll your eyes just yet. The authors tweaked this game to require less grind, got rid of microtransactions, and made this version more generous (e.g., red gems are included from the start). And the controlls are actually better on the PC for this case since you get more precision in moving your snake with a keyboard.

This game is a new twist on the old classic "Snake" but instead of a snake, you are a conga line made up of different heroes. Heroes will randomly appear, and you simply touch them to add them to your conga line. You die if you run into walls/monsters or if the health of your lead hero reaches zero. The most exciting part of this game is trying to grow you line and finding the random power-ups. You can be near death or overwhelmed and then suddenly a power-up saves the day.

If you sometimes just want a quick game to jump into, this game is perfect for a 15 minute session. Also, there is an arena mode to this game where you can join a top guild to earn more gold.

This game taught me not to turn my nose up to mobile ports. Fun is fun regardless of where the concept was first presented, especially if the controlls and price are fair. 8/10

This is an semi-rhythm, auto-scrolling platformer where you time your actions to avoid death. Your basic actions are jump, kick, block, and duck -- and combinations of those. Pretty simple stuff, but the challenging part is to do this quickly without too much error. This is really a test of hand-eye coordination and memory (due to the levels being the same each time). Rhythm and music are a key part of this game, but the game also relies on non-rhythmic actions as well. As for any negatives, I have read some complaints about levels not having check points. The lack of level check points is actually part of the appeal! But do consider that the levels take no more than three minutes to complete so it's not as if you are losing a lot of invested time here when you die. And speaking of dying, you will die a lot but in a fun and challenging way. In the end, this is one of those games that doesn't look all that fun until you actually play it. I've fallen in love with this game, and indeed, it is highly addictive!

Fortix 2 is an upgrade in my opinion to classic Qix. Why? It has a storyline and more variance. The game's concept is simple: you mark off pieces of land for capture. However, when you are in the process of marking your captured land, you are vulnerable. The top thrill in this game is deciding if/when to take calculated risks. There are times where you'll be on the edge of your seat wondering if a cannon is going to fire just before you finish your newly captured area. Of course there are subtle strategies here that you'll eventually figure out to make you a pro. If you have never played Qix, pick this up as you should experience this style of game. If you have played Qix, this game is an improvement. Also, you don't need Fortix 1 as this game included Fortix 2 in its "classic" mode.