Recent reviews by Neonetik

This is not a true review of the game, but a warning as to the quality of this particular re-release of it.

O.D.T itself is what I would call a sort of hidden gem of the early 3D PC/PS1(/N64) library, but this re-release is a travesty for the simple fact that the PC version within this re-release does not have any music. The music is a huge part of building the atmosphere of O.D.T, and how the publishers managed to ♥♥♥♥ this simple thing up so badly is abhorrent. Shame on you for this, Piko Interactive, and shame on you for ignoring all attempts at reasonable communication through your website and social media accounts, and making no effort whatsoever to play-test or fix your screw up.

Thankfully, the PSX version is also included, and that one DOES have music, but obviously that's a downgrade for numerous reasons. If you want to play O.D.T as it was on the PS1, this'll do ya, but that's no excuse for the screwed up PC version. You'd think they would have noticed something amiss, but what can you expect when dealing with publishers who don't care about games or customers?

If you can find another way to play O.D.T without supporting this publisher, I'd highly recommend doing so. To finally have this game on Steam after so many years, only to find it being so butchered, is nothing short of a slap to the face.

Avoid supporting publishers who treat you and games like trash, or die trying.

I must admit, I'm likely going to be a little biased when writing this review. I absolutely love the idea of deep sea horror, and Iron Lung captures this pretty well. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Iron Long, even if that time was a little under an hour. Yes, this is a short game, but thankfully, it doesn't really feel like there's all that much filler here. That being said, I do not think this game is perfect, and I have to admit I was a bit disappointed by the end of things. I will be sure to mention when I get into spoiler territory, but just know that if you've played some of David's previous works (not going to say which one until later), you might be able to guess why this title might be just a little disappointing. But hey, let's cover the good parts first.

For those who have not read the description of the game on the store page (why wouldn't you, it's right there?), you play as a convict welded shut in a submarine, send into the depths of a blood planet, to discover something that may help a doomed world. The premise is simple, and there's really not much story beyond that and a small letter, but thankfully, that's not the point of the experience. The point is the atmosphere and tension, and the game succeeds quite well in this regard.

You navigate the submarine using only 4 buttons, along with a map that has a basic outline of where you need to go. Using coordinates displayed in the submarine, along with your map, you have to determine where you are, and navigate the world through numbers. The planet is made of blood, so even if the submarine had windows, you wouldn't be able to see jack. You also have a camera at the back of the submarine that you can use to take pictures of what is directly in front of your submarine, but this isn't really helpful for navigation at all, as is primarily used to accomplish the objective of taking pictures of the key points on the map. I have absolutely 0 skills when it comes to navigation, and have an exceptionally hard time with directions of any sort, but even I, after just a few minutes, was able to grasp this system very quickly, and had 0 problems with it for the remainder of the game. Determining where you are is easy, and figuring out which way to travel was simple.

The game is visually and aurally quite excellent, at least considering what it's going for. I'm not saying it has some super advanced graphics or whatever, as they are reasonably basic, but the presentation is top notch. There are several moments in the game where audio is used to elicit an intense fear, and by golly, does it work wonders. There were several moments in the game where the only thing I could think was "I need to get out of here right ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ now.", so hey, massive props there. It's a hard thing to pull off, but the game did it. The limitation of visibility is also very effective at making you feel totally at the mercy of whatever is around you. Despite never actually being able to see anything outside of the submarine, the game is very good at making you feel like there is a whole world outside of the sub that you just can't see, and while using the camera isn't particularly helpful for navigation, it does wonders to reinforce this feeling.

There are problems, though. Mostly small ones, but problems nevertheless.

Firstly, the game allows you to switch to an FoV of 100. Given that the default is something like 65, I turned this up all the way immediately. Bad mistake. If you turn it up this high, there are several spots in the submarine where, if you turn in a certain way, parts of your view will clip into the submarine and look really weird on the sides of the screen. Kinda immersion ruining, I must say. If you could change it back in game, I wouldn't have too much of a problem with this, but you can't. You need to quit the game to do this, and that sucks, because that brings up another issue.

Throughout the game, various things will happen to the sub. To give a very small example, a pipe might rupture a little, and start giving off steam. It will remain this way for the whole game, as will other things that happen during the trip. Quitting the game and loading back in, however, completely removes all of the various things that have happened to the sub since the start of the game, essentially starting you off with a brand spanking new machine, largely invalidating the tension of feeling everything start breaking around you, including some of the more intense horror aspects of things that occur. If you play this game, you basically have to beat it in one sitting to get the full experience. Quitting mid-way and starting up later will really, really screw this up for you.

Bringing up the map as well is also a bit annoying. If you want to see where you go, you need to open the map, mouse over the right location, see the 3 separate 3 digit coordinates values, and then start moving you sub to get to them, but remembering 3 3-digit numbers at once, while also needing to figure out exactly where YOU are at that moment, which includes another 3 3-digit numbers, takes a moment, and sadly, each time the map is closed, the cursor moves back to the middle of the screen, meaning you need to mouse over back to the right spot, every single time you open the map. It doesn't sound like a huge deal, and it isn't, but it is irritating, and could have been made easier in several ways without impacting the game negatively.

But really, there's only one (what I would call) major issue the game has, and that's the ending. Spoilers ahead. You have been warned.

If you've played Squirrel Stapler, and felt disappointed by the ending in that little title, then you're probably going to be disappointed here. The last part of the game involves you getting to the last nav-point, going to take a picture, and then a giant fish/monster suddenly and loudly breaks through the submarine and the screen fades to black. It's a jump scare. That's literally it. You have just played for an hour, and experienced all that effective horror full of tension and distress, all for a jump scare.

What the hell.

The game then ends, and one last bit of story text pops up, and that's it. I tried pulling a trick at the end by loading my last save and then keeping my eyes to the front of the sub to push the button, but the developer thought of this and made it impossible to do so. Fair enough I suppose. That's also how I discovered that other issue of all submarine effects disappearing.

I have to say, I really did expect better. Squirrel Stapler I figured was only made the way it was due to a time constraint, but as it appears, no, that's just what David finds scary. A giant face popping out at you and making a loud noise and then a jump to black at the end of a game. I understand that this, in a way, is done to give all the previously effective tension a purpose, and to reach that last climax, but to me, it feels very lazy, and I felt like the limited story had the potential to pull a really cool and disturbing twist at the very end, which could have made the feeling of discomfort far longer lasting, but no. All there is, is a jumpscare.

I know many like this sort of thing, but I do not. As such, I consider this a pretty sad mark on what is otherwise an very well crafted experience.

Iron Lung is not a game for everyone, but I imagine that the vast majority of people who give it a shot will walk away pleased the took an hour out of their day to have the experience of playing it. I love deep sea horror, and hope to see more stuff like this in the future, and will certainly continue to support David's work. I just wish the potential in this title was realized just a little more than what it was.

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I've got a soft spot for PlayStation era titles, what with their low resolution chunky look, and lack of visual effects that clutter the screen with crappy filters and muted colors, along with the high contrast making colors really *pop* from the screen, so Hypnagogia was an easy buy for me, and I can safely say that it delivers, and it delivers hard.

From the very first moment of launching the game, you realize that you are in for something that has been made with genuine, honest to god passion for a very specific style of PS1 era type game, or rather, a style that feels more akin to the nostalgia we feel for days long past for those earlier consoles and titles, rather than the gameplay itself. For what it's worth, this nostalgia is captured incredibly well, and if that's enough for you, then this'll do you well.

There have been some comparisons made between this game to LSD: Dream Emulator. I can't say I don't get it, being a game with strong colors and PS1 era visuals, along with an apparent focus on exploration, but in reality, they are vastly different games, and if you plan on going into this with the same expectation, you're not going to get it. Hypnagogia is a much more concrete style of game. There's a clear story and clear progression of events, and a clear set of levels to follow. That's not to say exploration is completely non-existent, but I'd feel it'd be incorrect to say it's some huge factor of what is, at it's core, a linear, partially platforming focused experience. That being said, there is an exceptional chunk of hidden optional content, though these extra levels are also linear experiences at their core, somewhat like the hidden worlds in Mario games. Gotta say though, sodaraptor (the dev) must have some pretty big cojones to hide away as much as he did. Honestly I'd say it's a bit too much, as these are great areas of the game being hidden away in ways that the average player would never discover in a playthrough. The game does tell you these exist, but how well some of these are hidden (some being only unlockable AFTER getting to the very end of a normal level, and still easy to miss), feels like a bit much for me. These are areas which add a fair chunk of playtime to the overall length of the game. We're talking Dark Souls Ash Lake/Painted World levels of hiding away areas here. Areas which clearly had a boatload of effort put into em.

That's an important word here. Effort. This isn't some slapdash unity asset flip with a minor visual filter. This is a game that's been handcrafted by someone taking their time, and you can feel it. Going through some of the environments is a true joy, and just when you think you're about to get tired of something, the game pulls a trick, and changes everything within a world seamlessly, without you ever even seeing the strings being pulled. This is used to great effect within Hynagogia, especially when it comes to the (minor spoiler) horror focused areas of the game, as the world twists and morphs around you, into something nearly unrecognizable to what it was before. Horror can be difficult to do well, but my god, did sodaraptor know what he was doing here.

This game took me a bit under 6 hours to almost fully complete. This included me beating the game, and then going back to find several of the secret areas and worlds (with some help from online sources, admittedly). For the price, and considering the quality of each of the levels, this game is more than worth it. Each environment is relatively low on filler content, though obvious backtracking is required at some points in the game. Thankfully, what backtracking there is, is fairly minor, and is often used to highlight changes in the environment in some form. Not always, but usually.

The music of the game fits the theme and tone of each level about as well as you could hope. Again, clear effort was made, and it certainly helps immerse you into the experience. Visuals are gorgeous in terms of art direction, if not graphical fidelity (it's a PS1 inspired game, what the hell were you expecting?), and at some points, the effects used are damn near jaw-dropping (the water in the mist world blew my mind, especially).

They say variety is the spice of life, which this game embodies quite well. Every environment looks different from the other, and there's almost never a dull moment in the game. Almost every new level will have a surprising twist to the gameplay, either becoming a space level with no gravity, or a deep sea level, or a desert level where you run around on an chocobo style bird, there's a lot of cool stuff that you end up doing through a run through.

I can't say replayability is high, as once you've done everything... you've done everything. Repeat playthroughs of levels don't really change up all that much (which I had to do at some points to get to a few secret worlds I missed, bit of a chore to go through everything again just to reach a secret, but that's a very minor flaw all things considered here), so if you're looking for something to invest hundreds of hours into, look elsewhere, but if you're looking for a one and done game that puts its all into that one playthrough, you won't find much better than hypnagogia.

Hypnagogia is a game that keeps you interested, and keeps you going through the use of fun events, cute creatures, adorable interactions, a dive into horror as everything around you crumbles to dust and makes Silent Hill cry with pride for what it has inspired , beautiful environments, and fun. What little negatives I have to say about Hypnagogia are so vastly overshadowed by its positive qualities, and if you're the kind of person who's looking at the screenshots and reading the description for the game and thinking "this looks like something I'd be into!", I can very much assure you, it is.

It kind of saddens me that the game hasn't gotten all that much attention as of yet, with less than 100 reviews after a month of being on steam. I feel it deserves far more attention than what it's gotten so far. That said, titles like these are niche, and are made for a niche audience, and not the AAA crowd that care more for ray tracing than they do a truly beautiful work of art, so I suppose I can't be too surprised. I hope the developer understands just how good his work is, and that it is very, very much loved by those who have the joy of experiencing it.

Thank you sodaraptor, you've made something special. I look forward to your next project, whatever and whenever it may be.

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Warning: Full spoilers ahead. You have been warned.

It's times like these I wish Steam had another option outside of a positive/negative rating for games. I've beaten this game twice in an attempt to see if I've missed something, and found myself experiencing a range of feelings within the 10 minutes that it actually takes to beat the game, from intrigue, to excitement, to confusion, to frustration, to contentment, to disappointment. By the way, that "10 minutes" comment? Not an exaggeration. This is genuinely about 10 minutes of game for the price of $3 AUD. Now, I'm not one who generally chooses to damn a game based on price vs amount of gameplay, as I value quality far, FAR more than quantity, but sadly, this game falters on both accounts. It is funny though, that I have spent more time writing this review than what it took me to beat the game itself. Twice. Heck, even 3 or maybe 4 times, if I wanted to.

Now, let me make something clear here. This isn't awful. Far from it. While I wouldn't go so far as to say this is a good game, it's certainly not a terrible one, and it's very clear that the developer has some serious strengths when it comes to making an experience like this one. Perhaps I am a little biased in this regard, as I very much love deep sea horror, and atmospheric environments, and though the existence of such things is exceptionally limited within this title, these do exist, at least in some very minor, fleeting form, but they are there, and as such, I have to give props for the job well done on those aspects. If only the game played a little more to these strengths, it would've been enough to change my mind, but it almost seems as though the game intends to sabotage itself at every turn.

Starting off, the game is promising. Though voice acting is clearly not at a professional standard, it's nothing exceptionally distracting, and honestly, I don't mind it when developers have themselves or close friends as voice actors. That sort of thing can bring a nice bit of personal charm into the experience that you don't find in many AAA titles. That said, this game could have just as easily had no voice actor, and just simply had text, and it may have benefited from this in establishing a more immersive, serious mood. Visuals are clean enough, the hook is basic, but serviceable, and once the character actually gets into the water, it's made clear that the developer certainly known how to make a deep sea environment feel oppressive, even on such a limited scale. Ambience is suitable to the scene, and helps immerse you into the deep sea atmosphere. The first few moments following a basic instruction to go north are fine, and give room for tension to start building.

It's a shame that any tension that does get built up immediately gets dissolved when you get attacked by a shark within the first minute, whilst the game insists on blaring some completely mood-ruining grunge-rock type music, and you're forced into an exceptionally frustrating "combat" encounter, where you need to shoot 2 fast moving eyes of a shark, with an extremely slow to reload one-shot weapon, all within a very short time window.

Forgive my likely inaccurate description of the music. I'm not an expert in that field, sadly.

You know, it wouldn't have been so bad, if only the weapon fired where you aimed it. But no, that would have been too easy. Instead, you actually need to aim ABOVE the shark's eyes to actually stand a chance of landing the shots. That was about 4 failed attempts on my part until I looked on the discussion page and saw the very first post asking the same thing, with the answer from the same person who asked the question, being lucky enough to figure that out. Funny thing is, they blamed the "drop" on the gun, but you're literally shooting it not a meter away from your target. Not exactly much space for a projectile to "drop", but whatever.

Following this frustrating encounter, you complete a very small puzzle, and then you almost get eaten (in a cutscene) by a huge fish, not 30 seconds following the ridiculous musical shark encounter. You'll begin to notice that ill-fitting-music during fish sightings is kind of a common theme of this game, serving to eliminate any possible tension that could have been gained with some more reserved ambience/sound design.

The inside of the submarine itself is decent enough, with nice ambience and lightning, as well as a seemingly unconscious/dead submarine diver, and moving onto the "dream" section of the game had my hopes raised up high once more. Again, the developer has shown their skill at presenting an environment that can, and does, elicit a certain mood. The pool environment has a good level of detail, and the lighting makes it just a bit unnerving (in a good way!). The other rooms during this sequence were equally enjoyable, and moving around and observing them was, dare I say it, fun. Looking down and seeing a very stiff penis was at first a bit jarring, and seemed like it may have been for comical effect (further to destroy the slightly freaky mood of the locale), but this is played with in a way that I felt was a nice little twist of discomfort. The sudden severing of your member was certainly a bit of a shock, considering how things had been going so far, but it did elicit a response that certainly got me more interested in what was happening, even if it was reasonably obvious it was all a dream.

Sadly, things go back to being stupid when you engage in a crowbar-to-fist fight with the other diver, who attacks for seemingly no reason and has nothing to say, and has the fluidity of a rock em' sock em' robot, followed by a comical "make-the-big-enemy-eat-the-bomb" type puzzle-fight, whereupon the game ends, and you watch a cut-scene of your character seemingly escaping, only to get eaten by another fish, again, in a very comical form. Quite a bizarre juxtaposition against the self-genital-mutilation that came mere moments before, and I can't say that it worked all that well.

To the developer, it's clear you have a knack for making nice looking environments, and making them appropriately moody. I could refund this game, and honestly, I wouldn't blame anyone for doing so at the current price-tag, even with the already low price, but I don't want to. I can see potential here, and at least a bit of passion, and I want to support future products from you, but it's hard to not be disappointed with this game when you can see bits and pieces of something that could have been so much better, that seemingly chooses to shoot itself in the foot.

I hope you continue to create games in the future, and I hope you'll continue to improve your craft over time.

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It's no secret that I haven't been all too kind to some of the previous Dread X Collections (DXC). I've yet to play through and review 3, but I had many choice words to say about C1 and C2, specifically 2, which I ended up leaving a negative review on. Imagine my surprise when the publisher of these collections added me as a friend, looking for more feedback, and even gave me a key. What a nice surprise! How could I not immediately play through and give my viewpoints? TIME TO SLANDER!

No, but seriously. I'm giving this the same scrutiny and praise as I would for any other DXC, free key be damned (though I am thankful). DXC: The Hunt, is a more than noticeable improvement over the first 2 collections (again, haven't played the 3rd, but that one looks pretty good, so not sure if it's better than that one yet). I was pleased to see that the approach for this collection did something that I was hoping for, where more time was given on fewer games to really flesh out something more polished and refined. As a result, there is not even a single title in this specific collection that I could deem as a "total trash" game. Neat!

Much like C2/3, you start off in a hub-world, which is a game in and of itself. I'm not generally the biggest fan of this sort of thing, but it's done well enough here, and is fairly straightforward to navigate, with logical progression to events. In addition, you could always choose the "freeplay" mode if you wanna jump straight into the 7 main games within this collection, though you can easily access them all anyway shortly after starting the story. No need to collect keys or whatever to unlock them, as all are available to play in whatever order you see fit. I consider this an improvement, and like being able to pick and choose what looks like the most fun.

The games themselves, as mentioned, have had more time and effort put into them, and it shows. 6 out of 7 of the titles are 1st-person, and one is 3rd-person. However, it's important to note that, even though these are higher quality titles than what has come before (at least compared to SOME offered previously), these are still very clearly indie, and won't be fooling anyone into thinking they were made by a big team. I mean, they had 10-20 days. If you're expecting something crazy high-tier, that's on you.

As before, I'm going to leave a brief comment on each of the games in the collection, though I can't delve in deeply due to a tiny word limit on Steam reviews. To all the devs who put their hard work into this, I'm sorry if my words are upsetting. I know that you didn't have a huge amount of time/manpower to work with, and each of you clearly put in a hell of a lot of effort, which should be commended regardless. I'm not taking any of my words back though!

Rose of Meat was the first title I tried, and boy, what an introduction. Certainly the most ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up entry in the collection (which I am highly into), you're a poor fisher who has to escape an island filled with all manner of absurd looking beings, accomplishing tasks for a few of the curious inhabitants of the island. Body horror is a big theme here, and is used to great effect. The developer made the absolute most of the limited timeframe, and put something together where all the cut corners and concessions were far less noticeable than they would be otherwise. It's a fun experience that doesn't outstay its welcome. That said, I do fear that the game is perhaps just a bit too confusing in some ways, and more explanation on how certain mechanics worked wouldn't have been amiss, and some of the, let's say, encounters in the title, feel just a bit unfair, but that said, thankfully, this lack of explanation doesn't impact the game negatively in any extremely meaningful way. Great experience, this one.

Uktena 64 is a fairly straightforward hunting experience (though with an expected Dread X twist). I felt this one was a bit rocky in some ways. It dragged on a bit too long in the middle for my liking, and had a somewhat strange ending that I wasn't quite fond of, but the actual last fight was fun enough, and the scares that did exist were decent enough in their own way.

The House of Unrest was a decent title with a neat twist at the end that left a smile on my face, though much like with most of this collection, it really wasn't particularly scary, which I kind of felt the developers were trying for, considering all things. Pacing was good though, even if the combat was lacking.

Axis Mundi is probably the only title that required any amount of typical FPS skill to beat, at least if you play on the hard mode. A ghost hunting game where your weapon is a camera (cough cough fatal frame cough). Again, pacing here was good, though a bit of jank soured the experience a bit, like one puzzle in particular near the end that... wasn't really a puzzle, since just interacting with everything solves the "puzzle". I also managed to have 3 hands at one point, 2 on a camera, and 1 on a lantern. That was the scariest thing I'd seen so far! Body horror man, it's legit.

Seraphixial is... well, I wasn't a big fan. I mean, again, don't get me wrong, lots of effort put into it, clearly. In terms of visuals and especially audio design, it's great stuff, at least in terms of being interesting. However, loud noises do not a scary enemy make, and the other scares it tries to pull off are admirable, but it doesn't quite have the budget to make it work (not the devs fault, but... yeah). Quite a lot of gunplay in this one, which is a shame, since weapons don't feel good to use with weak sounds and poor enemy AI. The final boss was especially garbage. Just a bullet sponge that follows you around and does one attack when it gets close. Strong in some ways, disappointing in others.

Black Relic is basically a poor man's Resident Evil 4. It's the only third-person title, and the enemy design and AI is really remarkably similar to RE4. Influence was clearly drawn here. Sadly, I also wasn't too thrilled here. The visuals are decent enough, but the game is damn dark, and the lantern is basically useless. It hardly lights anything up, and you basically need a crossbow out for most of the time you're playing. I know it's an aesthetic choice, but I felt the dev went a bit overboard here. Basic actions stop the player dead in their tracks for a slow animation to take place, which feels pretty annoying. I felt it would be better if there was no ammo limit to begin with (which there is, and is tiny), since reloading already takes ages, and ammo boxes are everywhere anyway, which just adds more wasted time. The healing system is also extremely forgiving. It kind of makes you wonder, what was even the point of a health system if death is basically an impossibility? Bosses were also just awful. Again, simple run-towards-player AI that simply soak up a few more shots than basic enemies.

The Fruit is a poor man's Amnesia, at least upon first glance. However, it does end up not being quite the same sort of thing after a few minutes. Out of all the games in the collection, this one is probably the most substantial in terms of content. In most ways, this is solid, though some sections could have used a bit more polish, like a certain section that suggests you "slip" off a slope, but if you don't do it precisely how the game expects you to, you just die, needing to redo a climb over again.

In short, I'd say that this collection is far more consistent in quality compared to the first 2 collections, which is great, and that quality as a whole is far higher, which is even better. No title ever infuriated me, and I can't say I regret the time spent on any one of these. DXC: The Hunt is a great addition to the Dread X series, and is well worth your time, if you're into this sort of thing.

Good job, DXC team. Good job.

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It's hard to know what sort of review I should write about Kreedz Climbing. After all, it's such a niche sort of game of interest which, in a way, expects you to already know all about it before you actually play it. If you DO know what you're getting into, you hardly need to read a review, so I suppose I'm writing this for those who have no idea what KZ even is.

Truth be told, even I didn't really know until I played this. Over the course of many years of playing various source games, I would occasionally join servers which I only knew of as "surf" servers, or "jumpmaps", or "deathtrap", and the like. And though my experience with them was limited, and extremely rocky, I absolutely loved them. To date, I can't think of any traditional title that even comes close to the feeling of surfing in a Source game. The sheer amount of freedom and skill required to excel, and the feeling provided while zooming through the air, only to land gracefully and keep that momentum up, has yet been replicated for me, with more "parkour" games having a totally different style that didn't feel nearly as free-form, and lacked the charm of the average source KZ map made in some dude's basement by a 14 year old. For years, I was hoping that something like this would be released, a collection of all these various maps and gamemodes and such, and with Kreedz Climbing, my hopes came to be reality.

To explain it simply, Kreedz Climbing is a collection of an absolute ♥♥♥♥-load of various maps (plus workshop support) that all follow one of the main KZ gameplay styles, which, to those who are uninformed, are basically skill-based movement-focused maps, that rely not on killing other players, but rather, making it from one place to another, via a number of obstacles that require very specific types of movement to get passed. Most of these movements involve exploiting some quirk from the Source engine. In a sense, KZ is built upon physics flaws, if you wanna make it sound awful, though the same could be said for strafe-running and bunny-hopping. In KZ, the maps that take advantage of these flaws include surf maps, which require you to glide along the sides of prisms and leap through the air to other prisms, climb maps, which require you to navigate environments filled with conveniently (and sometimes not so conveniently) placed blocks and edges, which also required knowing of air-strafing (changing direction mid-air, which is harder than it sounds), and jump maps, which require you to bunny-hop (rapid jumping) on a series of blocks without stopping, lest you get sent back to the start.

This may sound complicated, but thanks to one of the absolute best in-game tutorials I've ever seen for this playstyle, learning how to do this is possible without any prior knowledge of how these quirks work. The tutorial covers a bunch of different mechanics, and how they work, and slowly increases in difficulty until they player has mastered all the important stuff.

However, note, that I did not say that the tutorial was great. I said it was one of the BEST in-game tutorials I've seen for this playstyle, but that's mostly because every other in-game tutorial for this playstyle has been practically non-existent, so this one wins by default. In general, the tutorial is alright, but there are a few reasonably difficult sections that don't really get enough explanation to be easily understood. Even for myself, someone who DOES have experience with these playstyles (though not much), there were some sections that were fairly difficulty for me to get a hang of, and even caused frustration. I had absolutely no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ idea how air-strafes worked for the longest time, and though this tutorial did force me to figure it out, it was a somewhat painful process that could have been made a lot easier. I'm still not 100% on long-jumps, to be frank. Still, the fact that the tutorial is delivered through commentary nodes is a lot of fun, and the creator is pleasant to listen to, so that's neat.

Upon finishing the tutorial, the player can choose from a HUGE selection of maps, and go on to whatever game-type they want. However, this brings up another flaw of the game, in that there's practically no guidance whatsoever as to what maps are like. Sure, SOME titles (though not all) will have something like "surf" or "bhop" or whatever in it, but it doesn't offer any information as to aspects like difficulty of the map (some are ♥♥♥♥ hard), average time to beat, or anything. Something like this would have been extremely helpful for newcomers, but it's just not there. Also upsetting is the lack of info for the settings before launching a map, which include changing how the movement works a bit depending on what you're looking for as a player, with a CS:GO mode that works differently from the normal movement system. Again, credit where it is due, the fact that these settings exist is great, and if you don't want to have a slowdown effect upon every single landing, this stuff is fantastic, but the fact that these options aren't elaborated on really blows, as a person could play this for a long time and be really frustrated about certain things, only to realize they could have been easily fixed, if they had that prior knowledge.

What's also a fair bit upsetting is that, by default, the maps available to the player aren't really varied. The vast majority of them are climbing maps, which is all well and good, but as a result, there are far fewer bunny-hop and surf maps, and beyond that, an extremely small number of the other advertised game-modes. Hell, I think there's literally only 1 true deathtrap map out of the whole selection. This in particular was quite upsetting to me, since I was most looking forward to that in particular. Don't get me wrong, I know that death-run MP maps were generally the more popular option, but I would have liked to have a greater variety in the collection, as well as perhaps some other classic "fun" maps, like mazes, and stuff of the sort. I am curious as to why this selection was chosen specifically, as I would imagine many more people would have agreed to have their maps placed into a collection like this, and I would have liked to see this be a sort of extreme ultimate collection of basically everything possible in regards to classic course based fun, but perhaps I've got the wrong idea of the creator's intentions. There is a workshop, but of course, you can't rely on all the quality content being available on there, and the majority of maps for all the various game-modes are NOT on there, so, yeah, you'd still need to play through their respective source engine game to experience them. Shame, that.

Of course, I say this with no disrespect to the developer (or perhaps, more appropriately, compiler) of Kreedz Climbing. They are very helpful on the discussion boards, and clearly have a strong passion towards KZ, and this shows. It's just that I feel that Kreedz Climbing could have been so much more, and I'm not really certain why it wasn't, though perhaps the simple answer is that it would have just taken far too much effort to make it as the product I'm envisioning. I'm not sure, but whatever the reason is, I doubt it would have been anything that would reflect poorly on the creator of Kreedz Climbing. Of course, it still has the potential to become this, but it seems like there's no further development to be had on Kreedz Climbing, which makes me sad.

Kreedz Climbing is something I've wanted for a very, very long time. And though the end product, as it stands, without considering the workshop content (which isn't perfect either), is somewhat restricted compared to what it could have been, the reality is, for what it is, Kreedz Climbing is pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good, and with a rock solid price of IT'S ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ FREE, you can't really complain all that much.

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It's been a few days since I beat Project Warlock, and it's not as fresh in my mind as it was, but I felt I had to give it a few days to really sit in my mind to reach a conclusion of how I felt about it, and I think I've figured it out. I also want to stress that I have only beaten this game on the easiest difficulty. I usually play all games on the Normal difficulty first, and with first person shooters, usually higher difficulties immediately after, but the only difference in this game between easy and normal was that normal had a limited number of lives, after which, you would lose the game, and have to restart from the beginning of the episode, which could mean a bunch of levels worth of progress being lost. I wasn't into that, so I stuck it on easy. After beating the game, I realized I would have had more than enough lives to comfortable beat the game on normal, but again, considering that was the only actual difference, and that my experience would have been identical no matter what I chose, I don't feel bad about this at all.

To put it into short terms, I'd describe Project Warlock as a game that excels in making the act of killing feel enjoyable, and manages to keep it so for a very long time, but also suffers from a large amount of faults that don't allow it to rise to the same level as other games of its type. In many important ways, Project Warlock is quite excellent, but in other important ways, its weakness comes through the most.

The art style is enjoyable enough, and though primitive, it does look reasonably appealing. Everything is suitably low-res, and the fluidity of the animations really helps bring things to life. There was clearly a lot of effort put into this aspect, and the same could be said for the sound design. Enemies make fairly recognizable noises, and the music, though nothing too memorable, suits the environments well enough.

The true strength in Project Warlock, as I mentioned, is the killing itself. Note, I'm not specifically using the word "killing" in an attempt to sound like some edgelord. I'm using it to differentiate it from the act of "combat", which is an important distinction to make here. The weapons in Project Warlock aren't anything all too unique, but each of them feels absolutely fantastic to use due to strong sound effects from them. Everything feels extremely punchy, which is one of the most important things to get right in a shooter. If all you want to do is shoot things and see them die, the catharsis in this title will do you well.

However, if you're looking for anything more than that, well, you're kind of ♥♥♥♥ out of luck.

See, here's the thing. Project Warlock is simple. Really simple. There's a reasonable amount of weapons, a good variety in terms of enemies you'll see from world to world, and even a progression system where you can upgrade your weapons, stats, and even gain magical abilities. You'd think this'd allow for some unique and in-depth combat potential, but you'd be wrong, because the vast majority of the time is just non-stop shooting, where the only time any thinking is required is when you consider "which of these 2 absurdly powerful upgrades would I prefer to take for my weapon?" in the upgrades workshop, and the only reason you even consider that is because once you pick one, you're permanently locked out of the other one until you start a whole new game. So yeah, that kind of sucks. Ammo, health, and mana is thrown around damn near everywhere, so recovery from a bad situation is usually fairly simple, and ammo management is never really an issue, especially if you invest into the capacity skill, like I did.

Speaking of weapon upgrades, as I said, "absurdly powerful" is not an exaggeration. Weapons not only feel punchy, but the actual power behind them backs it up. It's hard to imagine how this could feel without playing the game, but the game actually makes you feel as though almost every weapon you use, once upgraded, is overpowered. You kind of NEED that power, but everything just dies so unbelievably quickly in this game, which is compensated for not by giving enemies engaging movesets, but rather, just by having an absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of enemies on screen at once. It's not quite "Zombie/Alien Shooter" in first person, but I'll be damned if it doesn't feel close at times. Of course, it's not like interesting movesets would be that easy to do, considering almost everything in the game takes place on what feels like a purely horizontal plane. Verticality isn't really something to consider, like, ever, in this game, which, again, feels like a lot of missed potential.

Level design is... eh. A large part of the game takes place in somewhat cramped corridors, but thankfully, this gets expanded on later to a lot more open areas. However, again, I'd hesitate to call these open areas all that interesting either. There's a lot of areas which are just a large space with tons of enemies, and little more. There are also secret areas with goodies in em. It's nothing offensively bad, and is usually alright, and there are some more enjoyable locations where fights take place, but again, could have been better. Most fights within these areas end up being a case of "strafe around in one direction holding M1" or "move left and right to dodge projectiles whilst holding M1". Jumping around and weaving between enemies? Ain't a thing here.

Aside from the weapon upgrade system that lets you choose one (and ONLY one) upgrade out of 2 possible choices for any weapon using upgrade points you collect while playing, you can also purchase magical abilities that you can cast with mana. 90% of these aren't even worth bothering with, and those that are are only found near the end of the game, and frankly, even then aren't necessary/all that exciting. Stat investment is a bit more important, but again, doesn't add to complexity, as it's all basic numbers stuff. Want higher HP, higher capacity, higher mana, ect ect ect. Add in a few perks you can choose from, and there's your lot. It's not bad, but again, doesn't really add much. And again, all choices are locked, so no real experimentation can take place, at least not on a one full run of the game, which takes about 6 hours or so.

Bosses are much the same as the rest of the combat. Blindly firing huge amounts of ammo into big targets until they die. Again, for what the game is, this is mostly fine.

One thing I have to commend the game on is the weapon balance. Basically every weapon is useful in some way, and stay relevant until the end, with the POSSIBLE exception of the SMG's, which are pretty much just outclassed by the minigun, at least if you get the minigun upgrade to not have a delay before firing and do extra damage. Even still, they are very powerful, like everything is. This is a hard thing to get right, and props to the developer, they got this right.

In the end, I can't really call Project Warlock a "bad" games, since it does excel at providing a certain form of enjoyment that will be enough for many people. However, the fact that it calls itself a game "that fans of Doom, Hexen and Wolfenstein cannot miss", is something I feel gives it too much credit. It doesn't require nearly the same level of more careful planning and decision making that something like Doom does, and even that didn't require too much begin with. I was hesitant at the start, and nearly stopped playing at a point, but Project Warlock managed to hold my interest, and keep me going until the end, which thankfully, didn't take too long to reach.

It's got flaws-a-plenty, but the core experience is enjoyable enough to keep a person engaged if they're the sort who can have enough fun with weapons that simply feel good to shoot, if not all that mentally engaging to use.

If that's enough for you, then you'll do well with Project Warlock.

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Much like in my review for the first collection, I'm going to be totally upfront with you, and say that I have not fully beaten every game in this collection. In fact, it was worse with this collection in particular, and is perhaps just a bit unfair. The reason for this will be expanded on just a tad in this review. Stick with me, if you can accept this. Otherwise, let's begin the review.

Well, this is disappointing.

The Dread X collection, as a concept, is something I admire very much. The first collection showed some great potential with what could be done through an experimental release like this, and though much of the content within that collection was quite poor, there were at least a few interesting standouts that made the asking price worth it, IF you bought it on a good sale.

Sadly, I can't say I feel the same way for the second entry in the Dread X collection, which lacks the quality titles evident in the first collection, and doubles down on the ♥♥♥♥.

Firstly, the collection does do something interesting where, instead of a menu where you select what game to play, you have a hub world that you can explore, solve puzzles in, and unlock games one by one. I actually quite like this idea, aside from the "unlocking games 1 by 1" part, though I'd be lying if I were to say that every puzzle within this hub world was a winner. Some are clever, but some rely on somewhat cultural knowledge to progress, like one musical puzzle whose only clue to solving is the term "two bits". If you know what it's referring to, great! If you don't, get ♥♥♥♥♥♥, basically. There's a story element to the hub world, but it's nothing special, and feels like simple filler.

Of course, the main strength of the collection is not the hub world, but the games themselves, which is a shame, since they mostly kinda suck. I'm going to leave a brief comment on every game available, and specify if I did not beat the title in question, and for what reasons. In addition, almost all these titles feel quite cheap in most aspects, so keep that in mind.

Finally, before I say what I'm about to say, I don't mean any ill-will towards the developers of each individual title (except for maybe one of them), and I know I'm being rather negative here. I know you didn't have all that much time to work with, and I didn't go into this expecting a high quality product. Forgive me.

Another Late Night is 15 minutes of jack and ♥♥♥♥. You look at an imitation of a desktop where some spoooooooky messages come up a few times, and click a few buttons, and the game ends.

Arcadletra is a bit better, but is still a reasonably boring walking simulator where you walk around a very limited environment, and experience some very basic shock scares. Short, and also quite boring.

Charlotte's Exile is a game I barely played. That being said, it felt like a decent amount of effort went into it, and I get the feeling if like enjoy solving puzzle boxes, you'd have some fun with this one. Shame I'm not a big fan of games that force you to stand in a single place and offer no free movement.

Solipsis is one of the better titles, with some fun visuals (the helmet "puzzles" in particular are a highlight), but in the end, it's just another walking simulator for the majority of the experience, that ends in a rather boring way. I feel like a higher focus on the helmet puzzles would have been an improvement, but honestly, the core of the experience wasn't particularly fun. Not an awful experience, but nothing special, really.

Squirrel Stapler starts off strong, with a good hook, and reasonably engaging idea and mechanics, but falls apart due to annoying and difficult to avoid near-insta-killing enemies, an unbelievably stupid ending, and the fact that the forest you hunt squirrels in is SO ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ BIG THAT YOU CAN LITERALLY WALK/RUN AROUND FOR 20 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ MINUTES WITHOUT EVEN SO MUCH AS HEARING A SINGLE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ SQUIRREL BECAUSE THERE'S SO ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ FEW OF THEM AND YOU NEED TO COLLECT SEVERAL PER LEVEL ♥♥♥♥ THIS GAME FOR THE TIME IT TOOK FOR ME TO FINISH IT!

Sucker For Love isn't bad for what it is, but what it is a short and comical dating simulator where you read some text, perform some very basic interaction with your environment, and get an ending depending on your choices. It's well made, but again, we're talking about a 15 minute dating simulator type experience, so it's really not that fun, and certainly has no replay value beyond quickly seeing the alternative ending. Doesn't outstay its welcome though, which is a nice change of pace.

The Diving Bell is another title I stopped played after, like, half an hour or so. The game wasn't really my sort of thing, and clearly didn't respect the player's time, with several airlocks that force you to stop any wait whilst moving around the ship, constantly. Maybe this one gets better, but this one just didn't hook me with anything special.

The Thing In The Lake is another I stopped playing quickly, mainly because the movement speed was just slow as hell, and it didn't seem like a particular interesting title, with primitive (and annoying) sound effects, a boring visual style, and some design choices I wasn't big on. At least it did have some interesting qualities to it, like how some sound effects and stuff were used to shock/scare, but I didn't feel it was enough to make me continue.

The Toy Shop has you play as a character who moves as slow as ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ molasses, and accomplish boring goals with cardboard cutout NPCs and enemies. I accomplished a fair few goals, but eventually, it just got so mind-numbingly slow, I had to stop.

The End Of Days is a garbage-tier shooter title with awful feeling weapons and sound effects, braindead enemies who just stand there shooting at you/run straight at you and melee you, and honestly feels like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ gameguru asset flip or something. At least there was some effort put into expanding the story and environments a bit, but in the end, a shooter where shooting things isn't fun is just, well, not much, really.

Touched By An Outer God starts off interestingly, with a neat little hook. You're supposed to go from arena to arena, fighting enemies, and upgrading yourself. This one may have actually been fun... except the game doesn't really make things clear, and allows you to simply leave each arena without having to fight anything. I made it through in about 10 minutes by literally just... walking passed all the enemies to the door, and... yeah. That was it. Didn't even upgrade myself at all, since I wasn't even aware that was a feature until after I won, and did some reading online. So... yeah, kind of a waste. Maybe my fault a bit, but come on. Couldn't that have been made a bit more clear?

Undiscovered is interesting, at least at first. You take the role of an explorer and their camera partner, and make your way through some old ruins. There's a neat hook, and the environments are decent, but otherwise, it kinda sucks. Movement isn't reliable and feels awful, with your character being somewhat unresponsive and moving in a weird way, the camera doesn't always point to where you want it to, the characters don't behave like humans at all in the story, the visuals, though unique, were clearly done in the way they were because it was an easy filter to apply for the theme, not because it actually looks good, sound design is near-non-existent, and frankly, the stupidity of the ending surpasses even Squirrel Stapler. It saddens me to say that I consider this one of the better titles in this collection, because it's still not all that good.

I've reached the word count already, so let me just wrap things up here. The 2nd Dread X Collection is a noticeable step down from the first, and frankly, is a major disappointment. I hope the team continues to make these collections, but with higher quality standards.

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I'm going to be totally upfront with you, and say that I have not fully beaten every game in this collection. The reason for this will be expanded on just a tad in this review. Stick with me, if you can accept this.

The Dread X collection is something I admire far more for the idea behind it, rather than the execution. Packaging a collection of indie titles together at a more than affordable price, whilst supporting small-time content creators with their unique visions, also being available as a product you can own on Steam and install whenever you wish with minimal fuss? The idea is great, and though there are many titles which are equivalent in terms of quality for the price of... well, nothing, having them put into a collection like this has its merit (though, it is not without downsides either).

It is a sad truth then, that a more than sizable chunk of the titles within this collection, are frankly quite poor, and are the sort off thing you that would download, play for a few minutes, and then immediately delete upon realizing what you were dealing with.

To a degree, I am giving this collection a positive rating to support the idea of this, and bring it more attention, but in addition, there were at least a few stand-out titles here that did give me that push towards leaving a positive rating, rather than a negative one. These titles include Hand of Doom, The Pony Factory, and Shatter. Amongst all the games on display, these 3 first-person titles are by far the most solid and refined titles.

Hand of Doom is a fantasy adventure with a retro dungeon crawler style. Though fairly primitive in terms of movement and control, it all suits the theme well enough, and has some fun ideas. That being said, it can be a bit annoying to play, as it restricts movement and actions in ways that, frankly, could have been loosened a bit for a more fluid and enjoyable experience.

The Pony Factory is a horror-themed FPS with a healthy chunk of levels, and genuinely good scares. Though the gun-play itself isn't anything special, it is at least a bit more intensive than other titles, and does require some skill.

Shatter is an atmospheric PS1-aesthetic exploration trip. This is a stand-out amongst stand-outs, and the unique interactions and design of the world leave an impression to be sure, though the movement speed is a bit too slow if you ask me, and diagonal-strafe-running is highly recommended.

Each of these titles are what justify the asking price, and frankly, stand on their own as solid, if extremely limited titles. Each of them is fairly short, but what is offered on display is engaging enough to keep your attention, and the effort is clear.

Following these, you have the rest of the titles, which range from mediocre (for free games, let alone paid ones), to just downright trash. Most of these feel exceptionally cheap. This is expected, and I'm not necessarily blaming the developers for this, I know that time was a factor, and that these were supposed to just be small little experiments, really, but it still makes playing them really feel far less satisfying.

Summer Night is decently made for what it is, but what it is is an extremely primitive LCD game that lasts too long for its own good, with an expected twist at the end that is fun, but nothing special.

The Pay Is Nice is a short and somewhat amateurish-feeling product, with static animations in an environment where they really needed to be more convincing, a lack of emotion due to no voice-acting, and overall fairly boring experience that ends right when something interesting could begin to happen.

Carthanc is a game that I only played for a few minutes, and had a gameplay style I wasn't too into. I can't comment much on this.

Mr. Bucket Told Me To is a "survival" game where you manage some health/food/ect meters, which also likes to waste your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time by making you run long distances to places that, frankly, could have been placed much closer. I finished this, and again, just found it boring. The "twist" is repeated several times, and isn't particularly interesting even the first time.

Outsiders had a fair bit more meat to it, though I'll admit, this is exactly the sort of game I dislike for all of its design choices. I can see some people liking this, collecting the required resources, located the right places to use them, ect, but it ain't for me.

Don't Go Out is another title that I barely played, mostly because I dislike RNG-based card/grid-based games in general. If you like that sort of thing, what I played was, I suppose, acceptable, but I despise it heavily.

Rotgut was especially garbage. It's a glitchy mess that literally just asks you to walk down a tunnel for 10 minutes, reach a dead end, walk all the way back, maybe spotting a few seconds of a creepy ghost or something, and then having the game just... stop. There's some interesting graffiti in the tunnel, but otherwise, that's seriously it. Apparently there are a few different endings, but from what I looked up, the base experience is mostly the same. Frankly, this feels like an insult to the rest of the collection, as though the inclusion of the game is saying "Look guys! I'm in the collection too! We're all equally worthy to charge money for us!"

I paid $20 Australian for the first 3 Dread X collections, or around $10-$15 American. Considering that's close to a fiver for this first collection, I'd say it was worth it for the quality titles present in this particular collection, though I wouldn't necessarily say the same thing for future collections. If I had picked this up for the full asking price, I would have been rather disappointed.

I do hope Dread X continues with this idea, as it is a fun and interesting one, but I also hope they put just a bit more effort into ensuring some level of quality control going into the creation of these titles, with at least a bit more play-testing than the near-non-existent amount going on right now.

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The vaporwave aesthetic is one that has been attempted in a few games, but nowhere has it been more successfully implemented than in Broken Reality. The dedication to creating the world within the game is admirable, and it's clear that this product had at least a fair amount of passion placed into it, which makes it such a shame that the product turned out to be kind of a chore to play, and the overall experience would have benefited a fair bit more if just a bit of that passion was instead invested into making meaningful game design choices, in regards to which the game sadly falters to a heavy degree.

Broken Reality is a sort of explorative collect-a-thon, to put it in as few words as I can. You move from environment to environment, completing certain objectives that are mostly done through exploration and minor interactions, and when possible, you move onto the next area, and repeat. Primarily, you do actions that collect "likes", which are the primarily collectable in the game, and are required to access further areas. Content wise, there's at least a good 6-7 hours here, and a fair few unique and interesting locations to see.

Entering the world of Broken Reality is a dream. Of course, you'd hope it'd be, considering that's the main draw the game seems to offer. Visually, the game is a feast, at least for most of the time. If you like the vaporwave aesthetic, and want to experience existing within that space, I can think of few better alternatives than what has been created here. The graphics and overall visual style is very polished, and captures what it's going for reasonably well in most situations, though at some points, things can feel a bit too messy, in particular, when searching for certain semi-hidden objects and items, which shouldn't be nearly as difficult as it is at times. Not every environment is a winner, with the final parts of the game being decidedly less colorful and fun. The decision was intentional, and pulled off well enough, but isn't as enjoyable as what came before.

Audio-wise, the music and effects aren't anything all too special, but are absolutely fine for the feelings they are trying to invoke. Everything fits well enough, and doesn't get grating.

Environments themselves are, as a whole, excellent, and going through them and seeing the colorful and friendly faces is fun, but this takes a serious nose-dive at times, particularly in Geocity, which can be a frustrating mess to navigate through at some points, with a lot of branching paths that all look identical, a messy environment that hides important items of interaction, and a lack of clarity in direction.

When it comes to moment to moment gameplay, you have a set of tools that you unlock reasonably quickly throughout the first third of the game. These tools include a liker, a sword, a credit card, a cursor, a camera, and a stopwatch. Each of these tools have their own specific uses, and all of which get a fair bit of attention. However, this is where the game really falters.

Firstly, navigating through these tools, and even using them, can be quite irritating, which absolutely sucks, considering that you're doing this for most of the game. The game asks you to switch through tools using Q and E, though as any experienced FPS player would do, switching through the tools with the 1-6 keys would seem like a clearly better choice, but the game doesn't let you do this half the time, and for no good reason (this extends beyond tool use and into menus, which I'll expand upon later). Eventually, if you keep pressing a key, the tool will be selected, but by no means is it a guarantee. I am unsure as to why this is, but it is certainly annoying. In addition, your tools aren't too responsive, as in, it takes more time than you'd like to switch between them, and actually use them. None of them are all to fun to use either, though a large part of this is because of the game's design choices regarding how the world expects you to use these tools. Sadly, it's a huge case of wasted potential, and even worse, wasted time.

Imagine this. In the game, there are hundreds of advertisements/ATMs, which you are expected to use your liker+credit card tool on to get a like (as a collectable). How many times would you imagine you'd have to click on the ad? Once? Try anywhere between 3-10 times, one like for each time. Same applies to shops. And when I say 10 clicks, I don't really mean 10 clicks. I mean 10 slow, spaced out clicks, because the game forces you to wait about 0.25 seconds before you can click again. Doesn't sound like a big deal, but this adds up, quickly.

The camera tool is especially annoying. You are expected to take pictures near everywhere you go to get more likes, but you can only see which areas will give you likes by having the camera out, so, naturally, anyone actually trying to get likes will have their camera out near 24/7, and every single time you take a picture, you NEED to do a small zoom in. You can't just click, you have to do this extra, time-consuming step. The stopwatch is a teleporter, where left clicking saves your place AND also teleports you to a saved location (which is already annoying), whilst right clicking deletes the saved location. Once you teleport back to a location, you need to save it AGAIN, because it doesn't stick. This is more annoying than you'd think it would be, and causes annoying screw ups if you're not being especially mindful.

The sword, much like the liker and credit card, is also wasted. You use it to cut up viruses, which are represented via an error message. These don't do damage or attack you in any way, but do impede your progress. Usually, there are several of them placed in a single spot that you need to get through, meaning that, like with the liker and credit card, you are expected to stand there and press mouse 1, over and over and over again. There's no skill involved here, it's literally just a time waste, much like the vast majority of the interactions. The cursor acts as a hook-shot, but there are very clear objects of interaction where it is possible to use it, and this isn't a free-form thing at all, which, in the end, makes it pretty boring, as you're just going through the motions using it in the way the game wants, not how you want to.

Compounding all this is another issue. The walk speed is just too damn slow, and sprinting/jumping isn't an option. Backtracking isn't uncommon in this game, and being able to move around faster would be nice, but the best you're going to get is strafe running whilst holding 2 keys and looking diagonally, which helps, but sucks that it's the best available option.

The game is also janky. Half the time, menu options refuse to work, particularly when trying to quit the game, and sometimes, menu options will stick on the screen after leaving a menu. It's a bit ♥♥♥♥, really. I think it's also worth mentioning that softlocks are also a real possibility according to many other reviews, though I was lucky in that I avoided these.

I know I'm being quite critical, but that's because this game could have been so much better if it had just focused more on the exploration, and had possibly switched up the gameplay to something a bit more free-form. However, as it is, though the environments are a pleasure to exist in for the most part, the act of progressing through them can feel like more of a chore than a joy.

I have to shorten this review, since I've reached the word limit, but I'm still going to recommend this title, as I don't regret my time spent with it, and, again, the clear passion put into it and unique qualities go a long way in making the moment-to-moment gameplay more tolerable, and there are quality moments of enjoyment to be had, but I have to strongly suggest waiting for a heavy discount, as I did, otherwise, you may end up regretting it.

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