Recent reviews by Sophie

I just booted up counter strike 2.

pros
-looks pretty

cons
-the audio, oh my god what did they do to the audio, I can't hear anything properly, someone can be taking steps next to me and I was just not able to hear them until they shot me.
-movement is.. fine I guess?
-seriously the audio
-it's so bad
-like what the ♥♥♥♥
-it did not need to be changed
-spraying is just not viable now
-the buy menu, why!!
-no more tdm, leads to less of a warm up, more of a cluster♥♥♥♥
- I didn't even finish my second deathmatch, it was not enjoyable.

After now having played 154 hours I cannot recommend this game, there's a reaaaally good game in here, somewhere, but it's not the game we have at the moment.

Firstly I want to say I obviously knew of halo but due to a lack of ownership of the games previously I had no experience, and I found my first few days being superbly enjoyable, heck, they even still are enjoyable.

The game in it's current state has issues such as desync (shots going right through people even though you've hit them), inconsistent melee which feels awful to use at times or has you launch across half of the map towards someone, maps which you can physically see through walls giving you the upper hand, bad performance and so on so forth.

To top it all off, a game released for mouse and keyboard does not have proper mouse input, raw input isn't really raw input and fine adjustments just become a blur, controller aim assist is far over-tuned to the point where playing with anything but a controller is a huge disadvantage and trying to fine tune your sensitivity is downright a CHORE. In order to fine tune your aim you have to, and I ♥♥♥♥ you not, set the sensitivity for each zoom level differently so that they all line up SOMEWHAT decently, and even then it has been proven to not be an exact 1:1 when scoped vs unscoped which makes getting unscopped even more jarring as your scope tends to go to the stratosphere if you are trying to track and suddenly get descoped.

These are sadly only a few of the issues that I have encountered with the game that have really brought an otherwise amazing core game to a downright infuriating experience. The movement in this game is so amazingly fun to experience, it's so nice and the gameplay loops are so detailed but the netcode, the unfair balancing and the aiming oddities make this a game I cannot recommend.

Beat Blast has some absolutely incredible things going for it, but it also has a lack of content at the moment of writting this review that makes it so I cannot in good faith recommend it at the present time, at least for its pricetag.

Firstly, the concept, being able to make a small loop which is inherently your firing pattern, is immensely fun! the game seems to adapt to whatever you make of it in really fun ways and the different sounds you unlock throughout your run can really change the feel of the loop it is playing, however, as some pointed, in order to be most effective you have to somewhat sacrifice your lyrical genius in order to be most efficient.

Secondly, the artstyle, it's simple, it's cute, and I've never felt visually overwhelmed, which, in a bullet hell like roguelike, is really appreciated.

Third, the different items are really pleasant and they shake up your playstyle nicely, at least the powershots and the tools, but I can't help but feel like having the powershot stuck to only one place in our little loop is somewhat limiting, why not allow us to move the powershot along the loop? or maybe even partition it into 4 different powershots according to one of the four notes, they'd be 1/4th as strong unless combined but it would give a much nicer depth and fun aspect to the game. Granted I unlocked only a fairly small amount of new items due to my small playtime, so maybe there's depth I'm absolutely missing, take it with a grain of salt.

Last but not least, the length of the runs themselves, sure, you can go endless, but presently only having 4 levels and charging a rather large sum (for an indie) of roughly 10€ seems like a bad idea, the Devs should have made the basegame itself cheaper, around say the 5€ mark, and then charge for level add-ons down the line so that a player can experience the base game, get hooked (especially given the lower entry cost) and then buy into more levels which diversify the gameplay more. At the time of writting, I can't say the game has enough content besides it's really nice idea, to be worth the asking price, discount or not, sadly.

To the Devs themselves, the game's concept is an absolute beauty and I'll gladly buy back into it once more time has passed and more has been added to the game, keep up the good work! I first played it a good few months ago, the demo version that is, and forgot about it after having fun for a good while until seeing a video by a youtuber who plays mostly new and upcoming roguelikes, I remembered how much fun my little trial with it was and wanted to give it another shot but given there wasn't that much more content than the version I had fully explored months prior, so at the moment, I can't recommend it but I'll gladly change this review down the line once more is added to it!

this game is absolutely phenomenal! i love it to bits. it's super well optimised tons of fun and you can just let creativity take over :D