Recent reviews by kestrel

troll and own your friends by permanently preventing them from seeing the bottom right corner of their screen

all i really want from a shooter is weapons that feel good and an engaging story. system shock strongly delivers in both but there's a few things that annoy me and prevent a complete recommendation

i generally avoid remakes because, not only is the market currently flooded with them, they're rarely ever given to games that genuinely need them. system shock is a rare exception, being so old and incapable of running on modern machines that a remake actually makes sense
without having played the original, i can't tell you how faithful the remake is, but i can say it definitely has the pedigree of an ancient 90's PC game. this is far enough back on the evolutionary ladder when waypoints didn't exist. this definitely isn't the type of shooter you can just boot up and start mindlessly clicking on enemy hitboxes until they fall over
some people hate not having a clear goal and direction at all times, others equate being given a direction to being punched in the mouth. i'm somewhere in the middle - i don't mind being forced to find my own way throughout a level, but there's a lot of cryptic bollocks i could do without. having to pick up some random guy's decapitated head off his corpse and stuff it into a retinal scanner is one such example
also tying the mining laser activation to a random terminal that you can activate before activating the station's shields is a joke that only works once. i frankly don't care that it's my fault, you can't do instant-failure ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ if the player hasn't been taught not to just spam E on every single interactive object. especially not in a shooter with heavy survival themes where you're constantly checking every container in sight for health, ammo and delicious carbonated soft drinks

asides from those nitpicks, the only thing i genuinely didn't like about the game were the cyberspace sections. an endless slog monotonous circle-strafing and holding M1 on coloured shapes which were depressingly common. my urge to keep playing dropped significantly whenever i encountered one of the cyberspace terminals. the bland level design, lack of feedback and sound effects, and one music track which plays throughout every single god-forsaken cyberspace level made the segments feel extremely unpolished. the gameplay felt so rudimentary, it looked like a fake game you'd see in a sitcom being played in the background or something

the final boss was also especially pathetic. i was already skeptical when i saw it was going to take place in cyberspace, but the actual experience was jarringly awful compared to the rest of the game. despite playing as a human there's no HUD, no resources, only a single ♥♥♥♥♥♥ weapon to spam-click M1 at the same enemies you were mowing down in the dozens in previous cyberspace levels. not scaled to human size btw, so they were all weirdly massive. with none of the movement available from regular cyberspace, the enemies tear you apart in seconds, but you just unceremoniously blip back into existence after a second without so much as a sound effect, like it's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ beta test or something. add on the multiple clipping problems (i fell through the floor twice) and extreme lack of agency, and it's probably one of the worst final bosses i've ever suffered through. a very sad end to what was otherwise an excellent experience

but yeah besides those annoyances the game is pretty great and surprisingly polished given its turbulent development. the guns are all powerful and satisfying (the ion rifle ended up being my favourite) and all of them remain useful throughout the entire campaign (except the starting pistol, i suppose)
i liked the inventory management more than i expected to. once i realised items persist between floors i ended up making a little hideout in the maintenance level, in the room with the recycle station and freight elevator, where i used multiple crates to store weapons and ammo and swap between them as i returned to the floor. doing so ensured i always had plenty of ammo to fight with. i recommend doing as such if you plan to get the game
the game was even genuinely a bit scary at times, which i wasn't expecting given the game's artstyle and lighting

you can definitely see what went on to inspire later titles like bioshock, even in this remake, which says a lot about nightdive's passion for this project. looking forward to when system shock 2 gets remade, which if the pace of development is anything to go by, should come out roughly around the time it actually takes place in the 2100's

If you hurt Peppino too much, you can go to hell!

i feel so blessed to be able to share my love for hylics 2 with others

don't cope and seethe
rock and stone instead

this game is cool because you get to beat up gianni matragrano

women are cool

steam really needs to get rid of the yes/no option and have a more complex rating system because i'm loathe to mark my review as negative - i enjoyed my time with below zero but it's grossly flawed in a number of areas which it really shouldn't be given that this is a follow up to the masterful original

first of all an increased presence on story was a bad idea, having it surround a bunch of humans is even worse. i wasn't around for the early access period but i can tell the final game's story was just cobbled together from what few assets people didn't hate of the original plot
the idea of having a support character talk in your ear the whole game is bad enough but i don't think people realise that the idea of having a character-focused narrative in a game like subnautica is flawed from the start. it's impossible for me to care about these dorky scientists when they're all dead and i have no way of meeting them, and the fact the game acts like i should just feels insulting.
they bring back maida from the first game who does nothing other than tell you to turn off a radio tower - once you do that for her and visit her greenhouse it's like the game just completely forgets about her. i'm willing to bet that was a result of scrapping the original plot, but if she's not going to be a worthwhile element in the story why even keep her?

couple all of that with the wet fart of the game's ending and it feels like i may as well have not paid attention to any of the plot if the payoff was so weak - robin basically just decides to go with alan to the architect world because she's basically got nothing better to do. you don't even need to cure the frozen leviathan because it just triggers a couple lines of dialogue about how robin is immediately over her sister's death, it's such a letdown

progressing through the game is hard to do because it's never clear what it wants. alan withholding the location of his body parts until you scan enough artifacts seems like a desperate attempt at padding rather than having a legitimate reason to withhold progress. subnautica never held you back for any reason except waiting for the aurora to explode, but that was the very beginning of the game and it's over in a number of days, plus you have more important stuff to be worrying about before boarding the ship. in below zero, it feels like you're behind held on a leash the whole time.

the world feels empty, and not in a good way. there's no sense of wonder or mystique, everything feels... i dunno, just lifeless and quiet. i'm not sure if it's because of the smaller map size, or the lack of fauna in most areas, but everything feels dull and depressing. it made me not want to bother exploring most of the time, especially given the map's lacking biome diversity

below zero's core gameplay loops are still fun of course, but that's just because it was fun in the first game. they're actually even weaker than in the first game because most of the really good tools/equipment is scrapped for no reason - no stasis rifle, no sonars, no repulsion cannon, no bleached water (so have fun scrambling for bladderfish every time you leave your base until you get the water filtration machine), no prawn suit grapple gun, and most of the key upgrades you really need to progress through the game (such as the electric defence and upgraded jump jets) the game just gives you for free

speaking of the prawn suit, holy ♥♥♥♥ is it busted, its air control is absolutely bonkers. hold a diagonal direction whilst throwing and it accelerates like a bloody ferrari or something, i have no idea how this slipped past QA especially when you consider they were trying to nerf it in this game. forget making that stupid hoverbike, just bring the prawn suit with you to the glacial basin and you can clear it out within like 10 minutes

most of the new gameplay mechanics introduced feel vestigial. hypothermia is a non issue until you explore the glacial basin, which even then can be ignored if you bring along a prawn suit. very few of them actually feel like original ideas, because a lot of biomes and creatures in the game are just recycled cut content from the original. i know for a fact the lilypad islands were scrapped content from subnautica, especially since they feel extremely out of place in what's supposed to be an arctic region of the planet

the above ground stuff feels awful, movement on land is incredibly stiff and fall damage is way more touchy than it feels to be. and you better get used to it because the last third of the game involves running around this completely empty arctic wasteland with nothing of value worth finding besides one of alan's body parts. the hoverbike vehicle they made for this section feels shockingly awful, it wobbles along the ground like it's magnetized to it or something and handles about as well as an overloaded shopping trolley with a missing wheel. all the time i spent gathering materials to make a land base and accompanying hoverbike pad was wasted when i realised i couldve just kept using the prawn suit to coast through the air, it's like the game's equivalent of the backwards long jump in mario 64

some stuff i did like; the air bladder got heavily buffed and is actually worth making now which is nice. most of the new creatures are pretty cool and i appreciate the attempt to diversify them more, given that a lot of creatures in the first game exhibited the same behaviours as one another. being able to pin recipes is very handy and saves a lot of trips to the wiki. the seatruck is a neat vehicle concept but i wish you weren't punished so harshly for bringing along multiple modules.

but really, if the best i can come up with to praise the game are some minor quality-of-life changes, something has gone wrong. i'm not going to praise it for its core gameplay loops when they've just been lifted from the first game verbatim. you've got to come up with something a little extra than a meaningless temperature mechanic which doesn't even come into play most of the game

in summary, below zero feels like a sequel made by people who didn't understand what made the first game so good. rather than use the original as an expansion point to build off, below zero just wallows in the same gameplay mechanics with a wholly forgettable story and severe lack of polish. the game crashed twice during my playthrough - one of them causing a blue screen - costing me hours of progress and eventually just leading me to use the console because i couldn't be bothered to suffer through its tedium again
if you liked the original, this is the sloppy seconds which is far less satisfying and leaves you with a sense of regret after finishing. i could only see myself recommending this to hardcore subnautica fans, with the caveat that it has none of the spark of the original.

tldr; same game but worse, story is bollocks, has very wonky progression and vehicles, not worth having unless on sale for very cheap
i give it two spy penglings out of five

cool game but i cant spell out swear words on ford's typewriter stupid ess jay dubyuhs

dusk is a perfect example of how rigidly sticking to tradition can both help and hurt a title, and while dusk is undeniably steeped in 90's shooter cliches the positives most always outweigh the negatives. even in its roughest moments, it never stops feeling like a project made with nothing but unending love.

dusk is a doom '93 clone right down to the very core; multiple weapons with a huge variety of enemies to test them on, gauntlet-style levels with tons of secrets where most of the enemies are actually optional, the occasional arena with a powerup to just stomp on every foe in sight, massive amounts of loot indicating an upcoming boss fight, limited lore mostly told in long text crawls between episodes, the works. if you were around for the period of vaguely 2-d shooters in the 90s, dusk will feel right at home. i was still a twinkle in the skies when those games were popular though, but even to a dumb zoomer like me, the game is still fun.

atmosphere and presentation in dusk are sterling, and that might sound strange in a game that's intentionally trying to look like retro shooters so much to the point that distant enemies start to resemble tetris blocks, but it's true. what starts as a gane set in dark and gothic wastelands with a southern country feel gradually dips into more bizarre territory, from running around grim military bases to eventually exploring the psychedelic and outright creepy alternate reality that is the nameless city. the sound design in particular is excellent. guns are loud and crunchy, it feels good to put rounds into whatever's standing between you and the level's exit. every enemy has unique audio to indicate their presence. one foe in particular starts off invisible until fired at, and you have to use his sound cues to locate him.

and on that topic, the enemies are definitely one of dusk's highlights. their designs are all unique and they all serve a different purpose and challenge to the player, even the more generic human foes. as with the levels, they gradually become more twisted and morbid the further you progress into the game. the bosses start out a little underwhelming but quickly get better as the second act starts (though in my opinion the final boss is beaten out by the penultimate boss - without wishing to spoil, the latter is a much better test of one's abilities.)

though of course, what would the enemies be without some guns to put holes in them with? dusk's weapon lineup doesn't win any points for outrageous innovation but more than makes up for it with cathartic, punchy action. there's your typical pistol/shotgun/machine gun/sniper affair but there's also a crossbow with infinite piercing, the "mortar" which fires bouncing grenades which excel at clearing hallways, the all-powerful "riveter" which is basically a rapid-fire rocket launcher and, obviously, a double-barrelled "super shotgun" because all 90s shooters are apparently mandated by law to have one of those. my personal favorite ended up being the hunting rifle, boasting excellent damage and range at the cost of low ammo and speed. a real godsend in the later game for taking out beefier foes at a distance. much like its roots the weapons are meant to be collected in a specific order, but it's possible to get them much earlier than intended through accessing secrets. rather brilliantly, early-game weapons such as the pistol and single-barrel shotgun can be duel-wielded if you find two of them, dramatically increasing their damage output and making them useful even towards the end of the game, unlike in most games where your starting weapons end up useless by the end.

for all of dusk's strengths however, it is weighed down by tradition and all the flaws present in older shooter titles. you can expect a lot of keycard hunting to access more of the critical path, so some backtracking is to be anticipated. i got lost a couple times because a key was hidden in an obscure location, which admittedly is mostly my fault, but it brings the game's pacing to a screeching halt whenever i'm frustratedly running around empty corridors looking for the one avenue i missed.

the game is divided episodically into three sections (again, much like doom) and the second episode is definitely the weakest. it takes place in the military base i mentioned earlier, and shows the strings of dusk's gameplay when %90 of the enemies you fight are just generic humans with guns. also a major pain in the arse is your weapons being taken away between each episode. it provides a good stopping point between sessions, but it's a real shame getting into firefights early into the chapters with half the guns you previously had.

dusk isn't a terribly long game - it only took me 5 hours to beat and while i haven't tried the multiplayer, steam charts says there's not often more than a hundred players online a day. in that time however, dusk never once loses its effect. for all the flaws it bears, i don't find myself getting as irritated as i would with other titles because of dusk's status. this is very clearly a passion project, a love letter to 90s shooters and above all else, a game someone genuinely wanted to make because they had a vision. dusk isn't for everyone and it's not gonna be the next game to topple the fort nights or miney craftas, but it's not trying to be. it exists to appeal to a very specific audience and in that way, i respect it more. i respect that things may not be to my liking because i'm not the target audience. even so, if a late-90s-born zoomer raised on ♥♥♥♥ like tf2 can enjoy it, it's a testament to the game's craftsmanship. i give dusk four crystals of madness out of five.

a