Recent reviews by Nate

New, unique, beautiful. We need more experiences like this.

The game’s objective is to reach goal within a time limit. The faster you reach the goal, the more medals will you get. The medals will be needed to unlock more stages. Each stage has 10 levels to it. So there’s a competitive aspect to it.

The game has a very smooth and simplistic artstyle and it looks superb. The game’s soundtrack is mostly ambient but increasingly energetic, getting you in the right mood for a time-attack styled racing.

The game’s difficulty level is definitely it’s downfall.
The first stage is very easy and relaxing, but by the second cranks up the difficulty so high, the game becomes very irritating and too discomfortable to enjoy.

The increasingly sweating feeling of soon-to-come failure drives you mad. Play same stages many times to just fail and restart again. And you’ll have to do it again. And again. To get more medals and unlock more stages.

I would really like to recommend this game, i really would. But ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥'s too hard.
Don’t even think about playing this game unless you really want to be challenged. Both physically and mentally.

Helltaker is an 2D rhythm-based dungeon crawler where your main mission is to solve puzzles by evading differents kind of obstacles. The game has a story but it’s not too significant to be noted. Just like ID software’s John Carmack said, ”Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It’s expected to be there, but it’s not that important.”

In Helltaker, the simplistic cartoon-like graphics and beautifully colored sceneries blend in together to create a gorgeous atmosphere.
The movement in Helltaker is turn-based and you have a limited amount of steps to use. If you’re out of steps, you’ll die and spawn again in the beginning of the current level.

Every level is filled with various obstacles. The main things blocking your progress are Hell’s Skeleton Guards, spikes and boulders. The Skeleton Guards will fall apart when kicked enough, and the boulders can be moved to create a safe passage. Each kick and move will count as one or two steps, and the energy spent in actions will be reduced from the step counter. Stepping on the spikes will reduce your step counter by 2, but i discovered that i could evade the spikes by using one move on a rock, and then walking over the area where the spikes drew back under the ground.

The objective of the game is to beat the puzzles and get to a demon girl located somewhere in the level. These demon girls will give you dialog options, and by choosing the right answer, you’ll get teleported to the next level. Choosing the wrong answer will get you killed and you’ll respawn in the beginning of the current level. The dialog screens will have a cartoon-styled drawing of the girl you’re currently speaking to. Your actions will make the girls react by different ways, and these reactions will be shown like in a visual novel, showing the character and the sentence spoken.

The game offers a simple and very casual experience.
You only need to carefully think and ponder over the moves you’re willing to take, as the moves are limited and there’s only one or two potential ways to complete the puzzle.

If you’re getting a feeling that you’re stuck, you can always restart the level by pressing R, or ask help from one of the demon girls by pressing L. The puzzles will not be spoiled entirely, but you’ll get an helpful advice from one of the girls. So after all, you’ll have to figure out the solution by yourself. I also noticed, that by pressing ESC, a menu will pop up where there’s an option to skip the current puzzle. This option will take you to the dialog section by the end of the level, so you can still screw up. The ”skip puzzle” –option is not available in all of the levels.

The main character of the game hasn’t been given very big of a persona, as the story itself is not too important.
Our hero dreams about a demon girl harem, and when he wokes up, he decides to get to Hell. Literally. There’s not really anything else to be said about the story.

Hellwalker uses simplistic and looping songs filled with electronic instruments. The musical soundtrack doesn’t have too many pieces in it but the catchy songs compensate the small size of the soundtrack. It was fun to notice as the on-screen characters, demon girls, the player and even the skeleton guards were jamming in the beat of the music. The game is very pleasant with it’s sound effects and music.

Helltaker is easy to learn but hard to master. It’s simplistic artstyle and riveting soundtrack will get you in a perfect mood for solving puzzles. The course of time can be easily forgotten by playing the game, as you can take minutes just by pondering over the possible solution for the puzzle.
I wouldn’t say the game has too much of a replay value, but it’s a very fun experience and it’s got some vibes that could make the game interesting to speedrun.
I’m positively surprised how as artistically and musically enjoyable game as this can be found on Steam by completely free.

If you’re up for a short and casual experience and ready to challenge your problem solving skills, i can easily recommend you to play this game.

Introduction

Walking Zombie 2 is an linear zombie FPS with RPG elements, and it’s made by Czechish Alda Games.
The game was published in the year 2019.
The game is free to play but it does include micro transactions.
After taking a closer look at the game’s history, it apparently was ported on PC from a mobile game by the same studios, called by the same name.
So it’s a mobile game port.

Graphics and the Gameplay

The game’s appearance is peculiar and it does differ from the more usual graphical design. The game uses polygonal shapes and forms as the part of its textures. The shadings are on point and different in-game actions and events cause the showing up of the particle effects, which endorse the already artistic style of the game.
2 hours into the game i didn’t really notice any problems with the fps.
I think it’s partially because that the games system requirements are very low. Trust me, you don’t need a beefy computer to run this.

The use of polygonal shapes as textures requires less rendering from your PC, and this is why the problems with fps are minimal, almost unnoticeable. The game runs smooth as silk.
There’s a small tutorial in the beginning of the game, and this tutorial teaches you how the game works. Where to go and how to find the items and quests that are required for the story to go on.

The beginning of the game felt a bit like hand-holding, but gladly it didn’t last for too long. I didn’t feel like i was lost, allthough the controls were at first a bit wonky and something i wasn’t used to.

The game is linear, which means that allthough you are given the opportunities to explore different kinds of areas, mainly the game won’t be much of a free roam.
Personally the linearity of the game never mattered to me, as i more likely enjoy playing linear games, as they don’t feel like endless runs where you drown in side quests.

Game Mechanics

The game is a first person shooter that combines elements from role playing games. The game offers a very typical turn-based conversation between different characters. You can choose how you react to all kinds of things the NPCs have to say. They will remember all the things you’ve said though, so think of what you’ll say and how you’ll react. Walking Zombies 2 has an in-game mechanic called Karma.
Karma will count all the good and bad things you’ve said and done, and depending of the action it will rise.

Do good things, be polite and you’ll get positive Karma.
Be a bad guy and you’ll get negative Karma.
Depending of the state of your Karma, you’ll get access to varying kinds of missions and activities with different objectives and rewards.
To my understanding, gaining Karma also gives you more dialogical options, as well as the ”Random Encounters”. The ”Random Encounters” appear, as the name says, randomly between map locations. They’re like mini-missions, so to say. The availability of these game-changing options make the game more interesting.

The skill points make a return from your typical RPGs.
Performing missions will gain you experience points, which you can use to buy skill points. These points will gain access to all kinds of different skills, which you can use to increase the chances of your survival in the vast world overran by the overpopulation of zombies. For example, you can withstand more punishment from your enemies, or reload faster.
Absolutely my favorite skill is ”Animal Language” which gives you an ability to talk to animals. At the beginning of the game, i could go and talk to a chicken who gave me a mission to search for his missing husband.
This kind of feature elevates player’s interest towards the gameplay and creates pleasantly surprising situations.

The poorest attribute in the game is most definitely the fact that you need gasoline to move from location to location on map. You rarely get gasoline from any kinds of loot sources, and you can once in a hour reclaim a ”free gasoline canister” which will fill only a tenth from your gas tank.
”You’re having fun with our game? Sorry but you need to buy this upgrade to continue playing.”
After playing for 2 hours, i realized i couldn’t make any progress in game because i was out of gasoline and i didn’t want to pay real money to get some more.
I don’t understand why this feature had to be spared when porting from mobile to PC.

Characters and Story

The story is based on post-apocalyptic world where for unknown reason the living dead run wild.
These zombies represent the older, classic style of braindead creatures that walk too slow to be considered any bother. So slow i could almost imagine my grandma walking faster with her walker.
You can also see couple of the dogs that’ve been let out, as the song goes. Allthough they might also have been infested with mange and rabies. These mutts can’t do much harm as long as you finish them by shooting them somewhere around the head.
Later in the game you’ll see some kinds of megalomanic mutant chonkers, but the bigger the guy, the harder they fall.

Our hero, the player is very stereotypical alpha male who doesn’t look at explosions. You aren’t any skinny wimp, but an ambassador of doom, chosen by the god of war himself. This man is like a vogue model and terminator in the same package.
What comes to the other characters, in your headquarters, you’ll meet an comprehensive group of them. For example, you’ll make a friend with an old hunter, who’s seen everything from dusk till dawn. And an friendly woman, who keeps the local clinic running. The character cavalcade will expand as you advance in the game.

You’ll be making a business with the local trader who sells everything you’ll be needing to survive. Guns, ammo, food, supplies. There’s even an bounty hunter who’ll give you some tasks to be completed for some pocket money.
The Karma i mentioned earlier will effect the dialog choices. Mainly the characters try to get along, but through Karma’s side effects, you can cause all kinds of events happening around you.

Sound, Ambience and Music

To make the soundscape enjoyable, the game has couple of tricks up to it’s sleeve.
The characters are voice acted, but distinctly these aren’t no Hollywood-stars. Mainly the Dubbers get their jobs done, apart from couple little things.
Couple of the character’s voices feel like they’ve been voice acted by a man who’s been dead inside for too long. A monotone and a boring voice, simply put.

Apart from voice acting, the music will be mostly ambient and silence highlighting the atmosphere.
You’ll really feel how you’re alone and there’s nothing but possible danger lurking around every corner.
The music is quiet but it will raise up goosebumps and lay around the perfect feeling for the end of the world scenario.

This all changes when you found a chainsaw from an abandoned cabin. The banging of drums and the shred of electric guitar will lift up your feeling, as you rip and tear through the gurgling mass of braindead fellas.
I felt like the owner of the world when i stood on the top of the pile of permanently dead ghouls.

Conclusion

Walking Zombie 2 is an well functioning, laid-back and fun adventure flavoured with pleasingly simplistic art style. Unfortunately the micro transactions left in intentionally will limit the enjoyability of the game.
Unless you’re ready to pay 9,99€, that is.

This micro transaction will enable unlimited gasoline, which lets you roam the locations and areas with no worries, problem-free.
The game’s offensive nature of forcing ads to purchase the 9,99€ upgrade will get on your nerves pretty quickly. That’s why i can hardly suggest anyone to play this game. Unless you’re okay with the ad-filled menu screens, and the restrictive nature of the game mechanics.

Not really much going on here.
Pretty much an low-effort game from indie developer.
These types of games have been freely playable on the internet for ages, not sure why you'd put one on Steam.
You draw a shapes and lines and try to get the balls to touch each other.
The balls follow gravity, so if you draw a slope, the ball rolls down the slope.
Drawing more than couple shapes of no particular size causes HORRIBLE lag.
I assume there's more than 80 playable levels, but i'm not gonna waste my time to find out.

Picked one up from a sale, paid about 8€ + 15€ from shipping. Took 8 days to arrive.

The controller is made of hard plastic, partly shiny and partly normal.
First thing i laid my eyes upon were the 2 circular touch pads. Both pads can be pushed down, making a clacking noise.
You can move your fingers on touch pad with ease, but they seem to make a tiny buzzing noise, and vibrate a little.
Controller's button layout seems very much like the one with Xbox, but instead having D-pad on the top, and left stick at the bottom. Steam's controller also differs from Xbox's so that it has X, Y, A & B -buttons at the bottom.
Steam's controller has no right stick built in it. This fact cripples gameplay and makes controlling the camera and aiming in games absolutely terrifying.

Camera-involved gameplay was tested in Nier:Automata. I learned how the camera and it's turning works in about 7 hours of gameplay. It's disgustingly hard and feels very sticky. Wouldn't recommend it at all.

Aiming-involved gameplay was tested in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. It's practically impossible to make quick and keen-aimed shots, because you'll have to constantly be wiping your right thumb on the pad, and hope that your enemy happens to stay in their place just so you can kill them.

I also tested this controller with Sonic: All-Stars Racing: Transformed. It's actually one of the games that feel playable and enjoyably during the use of Steam controller.

If there's any need for Steam controller, i think it should be used for only and only for racing games, as other genres seem to be frustrating to play due to awkward button layout and awful touch pad mechanics.
Otherwise it will just be gathering dust at the corner of your room, like mine is.

Developed by polish City Interactive and motored by Cryengine 3, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 wants to be your typical tactical shooter, but doesn't quite make it.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 takes place in Philippines, when a group of mercenaries, including you, have been hired to destroy an old radar post.
On your way you hear an enemy radio chatter about a spy working to the same team as you.
Mission quickly turns into a duty to safely capture your own man, who is being held captive.

Gameplay-wise Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 doesn't really shine. Practically every mission feels like same, without any kind of variation. You drop into place A, and then proceed to place B, all whilst taking out enemy soldiers.
Game offers you an option to pick a preferred gameplay style. You can swap between styles any time, and it doesn't affect the game story-wise. You can go in guns blazing or hide in the shadows and camouflage to your surroundings. They even added some stealth kill mechanics, so you can also act like your modern day assassin.

Wouldn't call plot of the story bad, just about mediocre. The game also is very short. I took 5 hours to complete story mode.
Sniper: Ghost warrior 2 is currently priced in steam at 9,99€. I'm not sure if you should even pay more for this game. The quality-price ratio seems fine. Simply said you get what you pay for.

It was really hard to choose if to recommend this game or not. As i really wanted to like it, i'm not too sure if i did.

But if you're interested in some sniper gameplay with stealth elements and mediocre story, go for it.

Despite of following its ancestors, Wolfenstein: The New Order is not all about shooting Nazis.

It's year 1946. Despite of Allies having advantage over Nazi-Germany, Nazis have turned the tables, thanks to mad scientist called Wilhelm "Deathshead" Strasse, and the war machines he invented.
Allies have decided to make the final attack against Strasse, and are going to invade his castle.
You, B.J. Blazkowicz, as one of the members of Allies, are going to help at the war front.

The characters are each one of their own kind, you can feel the ways they react, and how they interact with each other.
I absolutely love the fact how characters and story completely took me with them. The more i played, the more i grew respect to the characters, and their backstories, how they lived before war and what made them the people who they are today.
I love how i felt different feelings against different characters, hate, love, pity, sadness. I might have cried tiny manly tears at some point.

Nazis are corrupting the world and the people who live there, one of the best moments without doubt is to revenge with large variety of guns and weapon modifications, for example, automatic shotgun, and assault rifle.
The gameplay part is mostly about shooting, but all the stages contain lots of puzzles, but only few of them are needed to make progress in the game.

Wolfenstein: The New Order has lots of similarities with so-called "old-school games", and with this i mean that you have to collect your own Ammo, Health and Armor throughout the game.
You can stay stealthy in shadows and take out guards without getting detected, or just take over the guns and destroy every living thing on your way. Game does not choose for you, You choose for yourself. I like that.

As you process further, game makes itself harder by adding more enemies. Enemies in the end of the game have lots of armor, do significant amounts of damage, and patrol more actively. Some might say they grow brains.
Need to point out though, how i managed to kill a guard in front of another guard with throwing knife without the other one noticing.

About the replay value; there are lots of in-game collectibles like concept art, gold statues, character bios, upgrades, letters and Enigma codes, which unlock modes to game. For example, Permanent death mode (1 death is game over without continues).

I played through story in about 10 hours with 2nd difficulty. There are 4 difficulties to choose from.
About the bugs and/or glitches, there are some, but on my sessions none of them caused game crashes.

It's a good game and you can get it for fairly cheap for 19,99€ on Steam Store.
About the system requirements though, this might not play on a bit older computers.
I recommend for players who are excited of war-themed games with great story and variety of characters.
And of course, whacking Nazis.

Thanks for reading, hopefully this helped.
Constructive critissism would be appreciated!

-Nate

Darksiders is an 3rd person single-player RPG, which contains about 15 hours of gameplay.
Many people tend to compare this to God of War, because both games have a bunch of similarities.

You play as War, one of the horsemen of the Apocalypse. You are being accused of breaking the truce between Heaven and Hell, and thus bringing doom to all humanity. Your mission is simply put; to find the real culprits.

As War, you find yourself travelling through marvelous landscapes, fighting against tougher enemies, exploring dungeons and solving puzzles. These puzzles are designed for older audiences, and in fact, i find that rather amusing. It takes time to figure out what to do, and when to do. You will often be rewarded with souls, mana or health points.
Souls can be used to upgrade weapons, learn new combos and to upgrade them as well.

Combat is slow-paced, combos aren't hard to master, and enemies are forgiving.
You start by only using your sword, Chaoseater, but you gain more weapons and gear throughout the game.
Good examples are large scythe called The Harvester, and revolver called Mercy.

Art style is maybe the thing i liked the most - it's cartoon-like, uses lots of color, has all these little details like ash floating mid-air, and spider webs hanging out of windows. The artist team sure knew what they did, environment changes from fires of hell to desolate lands, gothic-style manors and terrains crowded with grass and waterfalls.

Game sometimes has little frame problems, but those can be simply fixed by changing angle of view.
I also had some glitches throughout the game, none of them caused game crashes or anything bad.

Overall it's a good game. It looks good and plays good, you're going to enjoy every minute of it.
When it ends, you wish it would have not, not so soon. It's so much fun.

+ It's available for only 19,99€ on Store, and that, is a bargain.

Thanks for reading, hopefully this helped.
Constructive criticism appreciated!

-Nate

OH MY GOD.
The game sure did not get 94/100 from Metacritic for no proper reason.

It's full of things to do, Main quest, Lots of side missions, Things to collect like weapon upgrades, Skill upgrades and Passive abilities, and of course, Easter Eggs to look for.

The scenery you see in game is just amazing. Totally mind-blowing if you ask from me. It ranges from Rainy Seashore to up the skies in the Floating City, and all the way down to deep bottom of the Ocean. And the best part, you don't need very powerful computer for this game to funtion properly. I played with the 2nd lowest graphics, had my fps constant, and still was stunned by the beautiful views.

Apart from landscape, the gameplay part is absolutely well-made.
The gameplay contains mainly shooting and puzzles.

The weapon models look really nice, and there are no bugs at all with animations.
Some of the guns barrels even turn shining red from heat caused by constant shooting.

You can blow your enemies up with RPG, shoot them as full of holes as Swiss Cheese,
Abilities that you can use to turn your enemies into piles of ash, or to skyrocket them million miles away.
Of course you don't need to always kill everyone. The game let's you choose most of the time whether to shoot or to stay in stealthy mode, looking out for threats and staying in shadows.

The characters are easy to identify with.
You just want to sit and keep playing, because the story is so entertaining and addictive.
You want to see what's next, what is behind the next corner, what kind of enemies will you face.

And, to be honest, there are merely no games without any bugs nowadays.
I am talking about visual bugs, possible glitches and getting out of bounds.
The bugs i got never killed me or prevented me to continue my adventure.
For example, sometimes NPCs walked on places where they shouldn't have walked, Like on walls.

But if you're into that kind of stuff, like i am, you're gonna find yourself going to places you were not supposed to go, and trying to find your way inside buildings, or outside areas, where you never was meant to be at.

When i realized the credits were about to roll, i was a bit disappointed about the length of the game.
It took me 14 hours to complete all the side missions, and main quest.

It's not a long game, but it's very enjoyable. There's a lot of replay value too. Personally, that was one of the best Singleplayer shooters i've ever played. Totally recommended.

Thanks for reading, hopefully this helped.

-Nate