Recent reviews by Liquid Mantis

This review is spoiler free.

Abiotic Factor is a game chimera of sorts. Immersive Sim, FPS, Survival Horror and of course Sandbox Survival. Enhanced by coop. It wears it's influences on it's sleeves but tries something very fresh. I'd argue it's a very strange beast indeed but in a very good way. It's early days but it's an incredibly promising game and most importantly grippingly fun.

You're probably thinking "Well, then which is it most of all?", i'd probably lean towards Sandbox Survival but so critical is your ability to assess a situation and determine your own path with your current playstyle. It's very immersive simlike. And while it's ways of skinning a metaphorical cat aren't as expansive as a traditional immersive sim, it lets your gameplay expression be reflected through your character itself. Are you a defence analyst? Primarily focused on combat but willing to take a few downsides in xp gain to gain an edge in a fight? Maybe you're focused more on survival? Stealth is a pretty solid option, especially when you're opting to enter a new unknown area. Or perhaps you're playing with friends? You want to be the team player, healing your friends or keeping them fed? You too can be just as much a chimera as abiotic factor is, your playstyle might evolve as your tools expand, you might find one weapon class better than another for you. It also defines how you can handle any given situation, environment or enemy. It's in this that i truly believe this game functions as a cooperative immersive sim experience.

The worldbuilding and story of Abiotic Factor is frankly the best part of it, it's up to you to navigate the maze of corridors. The secrets lying behind a keypad or a hidden vent. The game function primarily around a scientific facility amid complete anarchy and containment breach but it's also not afraid to step outside. The portal worlds as they are dubbed are smaller shorter adventures outside of your standard world progression, usually linear they are a welcome and pleasant trip even when short because of how sweet they are. Each setting is striking or unexpected and takes you by surprise, each presenting unique challenges to overcome. At first it doesn't come across as a Survival Horroresque experience until it's other inspirations start to reveal themselves. To which it will drive you into a unique form of paranoia that happens rarely in games like these. "Is this safe to mess with?" "Should i take a lower profile so i don't risk a death?" It's all mixed with a mystique when you find something strange and alien that you can potentially turn into a tool. "Woah what's this?" It makes you actively want to participate in the game and make you want to learn more about it's world, it's enemies, allies for any sort of advantage you can get to survive. "Wait? This log talked about a weird creature that i might come up against! Which one was that again?" You see what i mean? It's very well thought out.

The environments of Abiotic Factor are characters in of themselves, each with their own unique layouts to figure out intertwined with it's secrets and items to discover and research. It can be so very rich when you get into that loop, it keeps you on the search constantly for that next new item to take advantage of. Keeps you exploring.

The sandbox survival elements are a bit of a mixed bag at least to me and it drastically changes if you're playing in coop. The game really plays into a team dynamic and having more basecentric characters and more offensive characters working together to a goal, someone might be better as a crafter and keeps the base all tidy and maintains everything, filtering water, cooking food and planting crops that other players can take advantage of. You can ultimately play your character as a jack of all trades. You'll inevitably have to spec into a weapon of choice for sure if you want to stay alive.

It's also much much more challenging a game in solo. You just will not have the manpower to do basecentric stuff if you want to progress at a steady and not glacial pace. This might intrigue you if you're looking for a challenge or turn you off if you're not willing to deal with having to do the work of multiple people but you can change multiple gameplay mechanics with a custom setting as you start up your game. I played with default and i do not recommend it for people who want a lax time solo. It's early days so who knows what will change?

I've tried very hard to avoid spoiling anything on this game for a reason, i truly believe that there are many many surprises here that are best discovered yourself, including the inspirations that it wears proudly and all the charm this game has.

I recommend it, yes of course but there are a few problems that will likely be weaned out of early access. (As of 07/05/2024) Mostly to do with a few mechanical annoyances,weapon balance, some sections to do with the main story questline and very rarely a bug. It feels like a game that still has quite a road ahead and it'll be frustrating if you hit a certain point with a dead stop that you wouldn't get if the game was finished. If you don't like that and can't forgive that, then i'd wait until later in the year. This game will be released by the end of the year and you'll have a much more complete experience but if you can't wait, i understand. The game is excellent.

Sorry if you see a few typos, i'm writing out this review in a fairly tired state after completing the main content solo.

Yo sony can you unrestrict all those countries now you've supposedly walked back what a clownshow this was?

Lunacid is an old familiar painting with you the paint in this adventure through a bleak fantasy world. It's a RPG that gives you just enough to immerse yourself into it. An easy recommendation if your even lukewarm on the genre in general, it's a game with few barriers to entry mostly down to taste and it's 100% completion runtime doesn't even exceed 20+ hours but it's a very sweet 20 hours. It's pretty hard to genuinely come up with things to critique but i'll give it a shot.

The artistry is just completely on point, it's inspirations worn on it's sleeves if you've even touched a PS1. Doesn't surprise me it's this good with Kira's development track record. It borders frankly on being a horror game with it's raw atmosphere. Discomfort is the word i'd say. In certain areas like Catacombs, Dungeons or places of overt mystery, the sound and music does such a great job of depicting it in a way that makes you feel nearly always at a state of unease. Sometimes it's even the lack of music that suddenly catches you in this state. Not to say the game doesn't have moments of levity,humour or even wonder. It does a fantastic job even more so than it's precursor of making you feel like you're living in a world that's not just dead but trapped in eternal dream. It's inhabitants are very few and far between which makes meeting them a nice reprieve. It'll sound similar from anyone that's played a Fromsoft game in the last bajillion years. Enemy design is just so spot on amazing. SO SO many striking enemy designs and alarming sound effects, some of them could walk straight into Spooky's House of Jumpscares and fit right in. It's of kira's biggest strengths and Lunacid plays to it.

The story is a very similar case to above. It has a lot of meta narrative to the game itself outside of it's actual ingame lore, it leaves a significant amount to your own hands. To think and surmise yourself. I don't particularly want to get into specifics around it's story, it's really the mystery that drives you forward at certain points. It's not overt in the same way it's inspiration was but it's even less than what you might be expected to and you will have to connect a lot of dots together. If you don't like that, it's fine. You'll get enough out of the journey itself and be meeting new characters to get some good fun out of the story even if you don't really like digging. Try not to worry about if you'll get it or not.

The gameplay is primarily first person and combat is pretty simple and gets fairly easy with a few surprising difficulty spikes and that's my main problem with it's gameplay. Lunacid has a few milestone weapons that eventually become the best weapons to use and while that's not going to be a problem with someone who loves trying out every weapon they get their hands on and upgrading them. It feels really bad getting a weapon and upgrading it only for it to perform poorly later in the game or worse enjoying a weapon and it becoming weaker and weaker over time. The fact you cannot scale weapons upward in damage means that some fun options do become less relevant either through how stat distribution works past a certain point or just the weapon's stats in general.

Alchemy is really difficult to actually invest into without it feeling like a chore. There are a handful of recipes that actually do provide tangible use to you and unless you want to go out of your way to spoil yourself. You'll have to guess those recipes. It feels like a missed chance for MORE exploration. A lore book that has a recipe here or there that scratches even more of that dopamine itch you get from exploration. The items you need for those recipes can be fairly tedious to obtain in mass and rely on drop rates to actually obtain. Expect to be warping to refresh areas so you can do that.

That being said, the weapon and spell roster is just gigantic. There is always going to be some sort of neat toy for you to play with or some bizarre spell that you eventually find a use for way way way down the line. Some of them aren't quite as amazing but most of them are. Some of them are straight up callbacks to other pieces of pop culture or it's inspiration. It all works hand in hand perfectly with exploration. You're always searching for secrets because of these cool items. Which leads directly into one of my final points.

Dungeon Crawling. There is a lot of it in this game and there is a significant amount of secrets, most are very neat weapons and spells that i've mentioned above. Some of them are useful supplies or direct upgrades to your health and mana pools and sometimes.. sometimes there are some very very curious secrets that really mess with you. A little nitpick are that some of them are just insanely difficult to find without some outside knowledge, Axe of Harming and Corpse Transformation comes to mind. The game often is very obscure with some of it's secrets and while it can be an AH HA! moment when you finally get what something meant, most of the time that's not going to happen. You'll be forgiven if you look some of these secrets up.

Overall Lunacid is a no brainer purchase. It's dead cheap. Doesn't have much of a barrier to entry and it's a blast to play if you're into RPGs. It's not even as scary or creepy as kira's games has been in the past. So even the chickens amongst you can give this one a go. If you're really not big on the graphics, artstyle or even the genre. I get it.

While being a fairly short game and pretty middling, even mediocre on certain fronts and the price of admission is a fair bit higher than it ought to be for a majority of people. Alone in the Dark is filled with a ton of spirit and passion for the Survival Horror genre and the original game of the same name. It's definitely worth a trip as a survival horror fan but people who aren't as into the genre or setting are not going to find it worth the price point.

The story is best left hands off in this review, i will say that it is absolutely critical to the experience. It's a fun little horror story heavily invested into lovecraftian mythology. If you enjoy that sort of thing, it's definitely something you'll have a good time with. The voice acting is pretty solid across the board but rarely you'll find a few blemishes. The main duo of David Harbour as Detective Edward Carnby and Jodie Comer as Emily Hartwood are pretty solid. David in particular feels perfectly cast for a role like this.

However what really shines is the setting. Decerto is a really cool place to actually explore and take in the atmosphere, it really does a lot of the heavy lifting of the story at times. It sets itself apart pretty solidly from similar romps into the time period and really adds to the Film Noir sort of vibe it's going for. If you like a sorta Supernatural Horror LA Noir vibe, you'll enjoy it. The game isn't strictly stuck in Decerto and there are some cool places you get to explore that definitely add to a few elements i've talked about before. The music is great as well. I can't get into other specifics without spoiling certain story elements but the game does a really solid job of keeping a mystery going, it just needed the rest of it to be better.

This is where i gotta stop with the outstanding praise. I want to emphasis that i like this game, it's got a lot of heart but it doesn't redeem it's flaws.

Outside of blemishes that i will talk about shortly, the game is trying to leaning into it being a Survival Horror game of old as opposed to new. If that's intentional or not, i don't know. I played on Hard without Hints. You die really really fast and your weapon aiming isn't consistent, melee combat feels sluggish at times if you don't take care of yourself, at first i thought this was intentional similar to games like Silent Hill or Call of Cthulhu. This isn't the case. The game breaks pretty heavily with excessive use of the dodge button, the iframes you have on the dodge are just too many. Melee Combat at the start feels very desperate but you will barely use it by the end of the game because your arsenal expands to the point that you never truly run out of ammo like you do early on in the game. The game does a good job of at least giving you SOMETHING to work with if you really are swimming without a paddle but this runs counter to Survival Horror as a genre. Ammo should be valued and it is for the most part at the start but by the end, it's just too much. It makes everything much too easy. Alone in the Dark is a very easy game but in equal measures comfy. It's like sitting down in your bed and reading dracula but lacks that gameplay tension that it's inspiration draws from. The original Alone in the Dark was absolutely brutal in it's gameplay and wasn't afraid to kill you on the slightest mistake, it makes sense why it really did work back then. Puzzles. The game has a fair amount of them and without hints they do indeed sometimes lend a cerebral challenge or require investigating what clues you do have but there are just as many that are fairly brainless. Decerto itself feels like a place that gets more and more closed off as you continue on through it's halls, it feels less and less focused as you go on which is a pretty huge detriment. Finally, the playtime. You will all likelihood, beat this in under 9 hours on a first playthrough. There are secrets and story shift to encourage replays on both characters but it's just too little compared to games that do this much better.

It's a lack of consistency i have issue with. It doesn't feel consistently challenging the whole way through and gets easier as you go to the point that it completely deflates the tension the game is going for as a horror and then ramps back up with the climax almost to a jarring 0 to 60 in 30 seconds sort of way. It definitely has it's moments, it definitely has parts where it shines but ultimately it makes Alone in the Dark a very mediocre game with regularly glimpses of true promise.

I can't recommend this game for most people at this price point unless you're an absolutely diehard survival horror fan, love Alone in the Dark or really want a fun lovecraft story to play through. In that case, it's a recommendation. I wish i had a mixed recommendation option. However if this price was eventually discounted at say £20 to 25. I could absolutely recommend it for even lukewarm fans but the price point is just too damn high.

Sker Ritual is the first time that i've truly felt like an outside developer from the call of duty series has captured what made the COD Zombies formula successful. Tension in it's kiting/training. Point Economy and Map Knowledge. It's downright one of the most underrated of it's genre. I've seen nobody talk about this game, i've seen nobody discuss how true it is to that original formula. How it brings a fun aesthetic and wears it's inspirations on it's sleeve. It's a modest game at that as well, the budget and price acknowledges that. If you're not a big fan of the original, i think you're not gonna be won over but ultimately this feels very specifically aimed for people who want that formula. If you are, then this is an absolute recommendation!

The game keeps it simple. Your mission is to stop an evil ritual from spreading throughout the world by destroying cultic radio transmissions corrupting the same inhabitants of the island. There is lore but i best keep it there. It also takes a deeply unique take on it's horror, relying on celtic folklore. Welsh folklore at that. The game screams "made in wales", if you've ever been there. Seen it's sights, you'll know it's straight out of a fairytale or fantasy novel at points and it works perfectly for the horror cult tone the game is going for and also fits perfectly for a "Zombies" style game. The art style really really helps make this game look leagues ahead of others trying to ape the genre. It realised what it wanted to be but also wanted to stand on it's own feet aesthetically. This also is true mechanically.

There are currently 4 maps in the game, which is pretty low as most games go but they are true "zombies" maps. The fun of the game is exploring them, piecing the main story easter egg together, solving puzzles that for the most part are fun to execute on! The map design isn't half bad either! The first one is a great opener but is easily the easiest of the lot, don't expect a soft ride if you're not a veteran. You will "not get" things but i encourage you to keep your eyes open! Each map as far as i can tell has it's own unique boss and even multiple specials which adds a lot of personality to the map!

Gunplay is really solid, it's not exceptional but for an indie developer of this size. It's incredibly impressive that someone has nailed the gunplay so well. Most do not manage to get it right!! You've got double barreled shotguns booming, hunting rifles popping heads off, more exotic weaponry have a definite flair to them. I also have to talk about other game mechanics, at least compared to what it's really inspired by. Grenades in the COD Zombies of past have ranged from being fairly useless mid game and relatively solid loadout options. Sker makes it relevant at all points of the game, this extends to the rest of the kit you would usually expect. Your knive can be upgraded, to the point that it can consistently reach midgame or even later as long as you give it the attention it desires meaning you can always seal an easy close range kill and extra points to boot. Not just in damage either, there are many modifiers you can add to your knife AND your grenades. Your "Ultimate" ability isn't the flashiest but it can be built to do so much as the game goes on. Through an ingame build system (think a bit more like roguelikes). It's like someone took bits and pieces of what they liked of each game and fitted them in to see what worked well for the vision they had for their own version of that particular system.

It means it's a lot more of a focused gameplay loop. Your arsenal is rarely invalidated at certain points and if you fall behind, it's because you made too many mistakes or you didnt exploit the point economy. Point Economy is sker is harsh, you use it to buy doors, perks, revives and self revives and weapons. It makes executing enemies with headshots and knives a bit more important than in the past, yes you can dispatch your enemies in easier and lazier ways but do that too much and you'll find yourself slugging along a lot slower than you might want with your upgrades as to which there are i think around 6 full weapon upgrades. All adding a new visual element to your gun model (think bioshock), a really nice touch that isn't just another animated camo fixed to your gun.

Sker is pretty accessible, if you've never even heard of what a cod zombies is then you'll have a really good starting point to deal with everything. Plenty of instructions to get the information you need to complete the maps. Plenty to understand the mechanics. There are multiple difficulty options, if you're a vet then go at least to hard. I found it just too easy on normal. If you're new then give normal a shot. You can tweak difficulty inside the map itself if you want to give yourself an easier time with the exception of the nightmare difficulty as far as i can tell. Which boosts the enemies to around what people would expect from around round 50 if you've played cod zombies in speed. If you die in Sker, you'll lose a life and need to get another revive token if you want to not game over the next time you die. This costs quite a pretty penny, so above all else emphasis staying alive. Don't get stuck in a corner, always be moving. Never ever stop moving.

Overall Sker Ritual is meant for a very specific type of player, the kind that time has forgotten. It invites newer players to try out the formula that was started all the way back with the Nazi Zombies mode back in COD: World at War. As we get the formula more and more diluted and the COD series forgets what made the originals so fun, i am glad that Wales Interactive took up the mantle to give it a shot, understood exactly what it wanted to be and executed with that understanding on all levels and didn't rest on it's laurels by giving it a unique take on the genre. I want to see more people do this, make people realise we never needed the AAA glitz and glamour to get back to that core fun.

So do i recommend this game for people who have zero idea what "a call of duty zombies" is?

If you're a fan of survival horror horde shooters with an emphasis on coop, i can see you having a good time with this and it's so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cheap for what it is! If you don't like wave survival period like the more distant relatives of Killing Floor then i can't recommend it for you, it is what it is. If you're a diehard easter egg destroying vet, you might blow through the content really quickly comparatively to other people but that's fine to me considering the incredibly modest price point, it's just a really great time if you're suited for it. It's an overwhelming recommendation for me, this game is a truly hidden gem!

Game has had free updates for like 5+ years, i'm gonna at least throw em a bone.

Palworld is the game that shouldn't have hit, hell it shouldn't have even pierced the several plaster walls that it did but it absolutely did it anyway. Everything you've heard is true. Pokemon meets Ark, meets Conan:Exiles, meets Elden Ring, meets Just Cause. Game Freak once said that if they listened to feedback they'd have a monstrosity of a game but ironically enough this philosophy has made current day pokemon stagnant and complacent in it''s success.

In a way Palworld is the kind of game that laughs in the face of this complacency. It's not the most focused game ever made, not the most professionally made, nor the tightest designed. Hell, it sometimes doesn't function the way you want it to sometimes. Most importantly it tries a bunch of fun ideas and sticks to them, even if they are aping other games. The greatest form of flattery is imitation. It's a "monstrosity" that actually works really well.

Palworld is primarily a survival game, if Ark,Rust or even Minecraft is your kryptonite then you will not enjoy this game. In addition, it's a slow burn of a game. It'll take you quite a long time solo to get through the world however it does project a sense of wonder. I advise going in as blind as you can (I'm going to omit a lot from this review on that note.), finding new islands and locations to explore is fun and they are pretty! The "Pals" or "Pokemon" as i keep failing to not call them are aping similar designs from Pokemon but honestly it's nothing too egregious that i would expect from say a Fan project or a game going for a similar vibe. You might feel different but i digress. Even weaker Pals are an asset later on, they all have great utility to you on base and off base. You can tame and ride a lot of these and it's a lot of fun to see what they bring to your progression. Even pals that are absolutely useless can be used as fodder to level another pal. The greatest weakness they have is the AI and sometimes awkward attack animations. You will get frustrated trying to micromanage them sometimes and it stunts your ability to make interesting bases at the moment. I expect it'll get better.

It's definitely not a perfect game, it's a meme game at times but most importantly it's really fun. If you like survival games, give this one a shot or if you're lukewarm on it and a few friends are nagging you then get it on gamepass. I'll expand this review eventually once it's out of early access for those who are skeptical.

Portal: Revolution understands the mechanics Portal 2 was founded on and expands greatly on them, they don't overstay their welcome and most importantly, it understands Portal's brevity in it's game design. No mechanic feels tired and it makes the game feel fresh. Even for those who have exhaustively played the previous 2 games.

P:R's story is much like it's core level design. It rehashes a lot of concepts you've known before. Aperture. The Personality Cores and the world at large. It doesn't explore newer fresher ideas for the most part and feels very safe. It's finale is slightly underwhelming but the overall journey is well worth it. The voice acting is quite frankly pretty great considering they are amateur.It's better than Entropy Zero 2 even. It knows to not go too goofy, it also knows that it's the heart and soul of the game. The paint upon which canvases the story. Again, not a satisfying conclusion but you'll enjoy interacting with the cores you do meet.

The Level Design and newer mechanics are really fun to play around and feel like an extension of mechanics that were in Portal 2. Most importantly i want to emphasis that it feels fresh. This won't be a series of levels with concepts you've been familiar a thousand times. Sometimes you'll have to think about previous things you've used in the past. It's paced really well. Often if a new concept is introduced, it'll be a fair bit lighter on you in terms of difficulty as you get used to them or let you have fun trying new ideas out.

Overall i give this one a solid recommend, it's short but sweet. Obviously play through Portal 1 first and then Portal 2 before going through this.

Deus Ex : Revision should be considered a modded remix of the original GOTY version. While it definitely changes up the environments and art, it's often a mixed bag. The high detail models clash pretty hard with the older ones. The level design can be a bit confusing as a returning player. However the massive amount of QOL changes and general improvements are great. The achievements are fun little challenges to go for if you're into that kind of thing.

I'd still recommend primarily playing through Deus Ex GOTY first with patches and then go for this though. Good fun.

RIPOUT while being relatively barebones has a great concept and is a pretty fun vertical slice as it stands. The current experience is still relatively mediocre even if i lean towards being nice to it. It's pretty fun in coop. I think RIPOUT nails enough of what a cooperative shooter should be to be worth recommending to people. However i put extra emphasis on this, it's very early in it's development process and Gunplay and General Gamefeel are a tad bit on the janky side at times.

The only exception being the "Pet Gun" which functions as not only a supportive game mechanic but your primary weapon. You can turn it into several weapon archetypes that change the gun drastically. Friendly Fire is on so just be careful. Not to say that your melee or secondaries are completely forgone, if anything the melee is an excellent option and surprisingly effective at times. And your two secondary options are decent alternatives to your Pet Gun. Ammo isn't as common as you might think especially in coop when it's split between multiple people.

The current level design is basic, we're talking early Warframe basic. Complete objectives in prefabbed tilesets. A basic power system that can aid you with light with the detriment that various traps are activated or power off and you actively have to use flashlights and cannot access any upgrade stations but you can fight without worrying about having to play around traps. The story is paper thin but the boss encounter at the end of it all is neat.

There really isn't too much to say outside of that, at least for the moment. I'm going to give a fairly light recommendation, i think most people should come back and check on this game later but if you're interested in what you see and are willing to forgive an earlier experience. You'll probably have a fun enough time.