Recent reviews by Cream-of-Plenty

SUMMARY: Immortal Redneck is a Roguelite FPS that, for all intents and purposes, is not only better than I ever expected it to be--it's one of my favorite games of 2017. It boasts a wide (50+) variety of weapons, 9 player classes, and a random room-by-room level generation that emphasizes more verticality and frantic "old school" speed/shooting than any other Roguelite FPS I've played. Enemies have distinct behaviors, shooting them feels good, zipping around maps feels good...in general, this game just feels good and will likely appeal to anybody who enjoyed Ziggurat, Tower of Guns, Killing Room, Heavy Bullets, or STRAFE (despite being better than virtually all of them).

LONG REVIEW: You can REFER to PROS & CONS at bottom for the gist!

I have to admit: Even after watchlisting this game months before its release, I ended up getting cold feet when I finally got the opportunity to purchase it. At the top of my list of concerns was that the previews made the shooting look anemic and the enemies weightless--important factors when considering a first person shooter. These were the same complaints that haunted Ziggurat and STRAFE, so it was no surprise that another game in the genre would have the same problems.

It wasn't until I saw the developer's patch notes on improved gunplay that I finally bought it and found a diamond in the rough. Who would've thought that an unknown developer with "hits" like "Oh My Goat" and "Ridiculous Triathalon" could be capable of producing something this good?

The game is broken down into 3 pyramids (worlds), although only the first is initially accessible. Each pyramid is composed of 7 floors (with a boss in one of the rooms on Floor 3, and another boss on the final floor) that are procedurally generated by piecing together premade rooms--think Binding of Isaac, Ziggurat, or Enter the Gungeon. Where Immortal Redneck distinguishes itself is in the sheer verticality of many of these rooms: There is a huge emphasis on double- and triple-jumping, air control, speed, mantling, and Z-axis fighting.

True to many roguelites, if you die before defeating the boss on the final floor of a pyramid, you start all over at the game's central hub. However, once you unlock subsequent pyramids, you can begin your run from the first floor of whichever pyramid you choose; these pyramids are treated as separate dungeons, and do not connect to each other on a single run.

But whether you die or successfully escape a pyramid, you must spend whatever gold you've found on the merchant and skill tree between runs (anything extra will automatically be sacrified to the GODS on a new run). The merchant will be your primary means of equipping "medallions" that can significantly change the mechanic of a run. For example, the "Plague" medallion makes everything die in one hit--yourself included--while the "Cursed" medallion restricts you to a single weapon that randomly changes from room to room. The skill tree will be your way of unlocking additional classes and abilities, as well as improving characters stats globally and granularly.

In fact, the gradual growth of your skill tree is one of the only real forms of progression in the game. While you can find new weapons to swap out and scrolls to modify your character, these only exist for a single run. Additionally, while there is a huge arsenal (over 50 weapons), there's no obvious hierarchy. Sure, some weapons are better than others...but in general they're all quite evenly matched. Fortunately most of them are genuinely fun to use without feeling outclassed or redundant, whether they're bows, akimbo pistols, miniguns, magic staffs, or a box of angry bats. If you'll fault Immortal Redneck for anything, it won't be for its eclectic mix of weapons.

Similarly, while there are over 100 premade scroll effects, you don't get to choose which one you get and (by default) you can't refuse a scroll once you've read it. So maybe that scroll will buff all of the weapons of your chosen "god" (re: class) or give you a small COH to turn an enemy into a harmless chicken...or maybe that scroll will randomly swap out all of your weapons, or change all of the in-game text to unreadable hieroglyphics? There's a huge variety of creative effects that run that gamut from good to bad (and everything in-between) and create a real gamble whenever you examine a scroll. Some players may be annoyed to spoil a run with a strange negative effect, but I often found it weirdly refreshing, and prevented gameplay "ruts".

Along the way you will also unlock additional player classes, represented by gods with various strengths and weaknesses. While slower and unable to double-jump, the bull-headed Apis can carry a 4th weapon, starts with a veritable arsenal, and has an active that briefly renders him invulnerable. The elusive Amunet, by comparison, is relatively frail but can turn invisible while simultaneously dropping a decoy that enemies will fixate on. Each class starts with their own specific weapons, but you have the chance to find and use the weapons of other gods while exploring the pyramids.

Unfortunately, I didn't feel like the classes were as distinct as they could be: Compared to something like FTL, Binding of Isaac, or even Nuclear Throne, I found each character ultimately played very similar by the end of the pyramid...such that selecting your character was mostly a choice of what weapons you wanted to start with (and which active ability you wanted). That's not to say that the classes are unreasonably homogenous--the developers obviously put some effort into distinguishing them--it's simply that they didn't feel particularly unique either.

But at the end of the day, Immortal Redneck strikes me as a game that came out of nowhere to usurp basically every other competitor in its subgenre. It's polished, fun to play, and has a ton of personality; it excels where similar games have stumbled time and time again. As a result, if you have a particular interest in FPS games and/or roguelites, Immortal Redneck is almost certainly a solid choice.


PROS:
+ Seems to be stable and well optimized: In 40+ hours I had only one CTD, and framerates were rock-solid.
+ Fantastic variety of enemies that look and behave differently, and encourage different strategies for disposing of them
+ Each boss has its own ruleset for defeating them
+ Room design injects some variety into the flow of each fight: Some rooms are simple and flat, some are covered with obstacles, some are extremely vertical, etc.
+ Over 50 weapons that are satisfying to use and span everything from revolvers to hand grenades, magic staffs, tranquilizer pistols, and electic flamethrowers.
+ Huge number of scroll effects that can radically alter the way a run plays (both positively and negatively)

CONS:
- Compared to many other Roguelites, it doesn't feel like there's a significant difference between how the 9 (currently) available classes play.
- A signifcant portion of player progression is in the long-term, granular investment of gold into the player skill tree, rather than a player getting increasingly powerful over a single run.
- For some players, a few of the aforementioned scroll effects may be considered instant "run enders"
- Despite a large selection of rooms per pyramid, you'll eventually see them all

QUICK NOTES:
CONARIUM is a horror game that draws directly from H.P. Lovecraft. Although the puzzle elements are simple, the areas are fairly linear, and the horror/monster aspects are (mostly) restrained, it would be somewhat disingenuous to label this a "walking simulator". Can be beaten in approx. 4-5 hours and has two endings. This game should primarily appeal to people who like Lovecraft and/or fans of "strange fiction"/cosmic horror games--but for average players, the game may feel too simple or short at regular price.

The developers had their work cut out for them when they took on Lovecraft's work: Confining his writings to paper leaves the imagination to fill in the blanks when it comes to all of these strange creatures and environments that are supposed to transcend understanding. It's a lot harder to maintain that impossible/unknowable "weight" in a game or movie when the place is a physical thing you're navigating like any other place, and the creature is standing in front you like any other creature would.

Yet the developers do an admirable job for the most part, and it's pretty clear that they're fans of Lovecraft and the greater "Cthulhu Mythos". While I believe the game is supposed to occur post-"At the Mounains of Madness", it is set in a handful of different locations to help with variety (so you won't be stuck in snow the entire time). I don't want to spoil too much, but for such a small project, they were still able to tell a story that spanned bits and pieces of arctic bases, subaquatic ruins, desert temples, and alien places. And although this game never looks particularly stunning, there are some pretty beautiful environments nonetheless. Aesthetically, they really nail aspects of mythos, like the grotesque statues and iconography too.

But to be clear, this is not a horror game in the vein of Outlast, Penumbra, Dead Space, or Alien Isolation. The game is devoid of almost anything resembling a jump scare and, true to Lovecraft, the "horror" elements are based more on the isolation and strangeness of the setting--the remote environments and the bizarre statues, the concepts of madness and of man probing the deepest recesses of cosmos and the mind alike. The game probably won't make you jump or your skin crawl. There is no combat, and while the player can die in a number of ways (including at the hands of an actual enemy), the gameplay chiefly consists of exploring a variety of areas in a roughly linear fashion, solving basic puzzles and collecting exposition in the form of audio, documents, and artifacts.

Puzzles aren't difficult, nor are they always intuitive. In one example, an alcove is furnished with a series of cubbies--about 15-20 of which have crystals in them and unique symbols beside them. If you inspect one of them at random, your character is likely to remark that he has no idea what to make of it. However, there is exactly ONE particular cubby that the character will recognize, and it is critical to progressing. I imagine a lot of players clicked on a few of them and, after eliciting the same "who knows?" response 4-5 times in a row, gave up and searched elsewhere for clues. Even after seeing the symbol he "remembered", I wasn't exactly clear on why that one in particular was important/memorable--it was part of a previous puzzle, but so were a bunch of other symbols.

In another example, you get a device to project a humongous symbol (that clearly corresponds to another puzzle) on a nearby wall--however, you can't progress until you physically walk up to the projection and reveal a contextual option to interact/examine it. It's like six feet wide, I can see it just fine from over here!

Additionally, dialogue is often awkward: I.E., a researcher observing "[a dead city]...with lots of mummified bodies" and another doctor excitedly noting in his journal "what insane discoveries we've made..." before remarking that they had to focus on "some mental disorders" of the crew. It's rarely egregious but it's frequently lame enough to make you question whether or not the speakers/writers are actually doctors/biologists/botanists. Lovecraft was known for using an antiquated vocabulary (even for his time) and while the efforts to ape his style are admirable, they don't even come close to imitating it. As a result, some of the text feels more like a writer trying to "dress up" their material with a thesaurus. Still, it's easy enough to handwave the writing as pulpy 1930's "strange fiction" and get on with a story that is interesting enough.

But all in all, I feel like Conarium achieves what it set out to, which was tell a cosmic horror story without getting lost up its own ass. I imagine that some players will find the game is too simple, or too short. Admittedly, I would have also been really interested to see what this developer could have done with a larger crew and budget. However, Conarium seems to be further proof that these types of games CAN work, and is certainly worth a look for anybody interested in exploring the genre.


PROS:
+ A pretty faithful embodiment of elements from H.P. Lovecraft's stories that will likely appeal to fans of the Cthulhu Mythos
+ Runs great performance-wise; won't win any beauty contests, but still looks good
+ Covers a decent range of environments in 4-5 hours of gameplay

CONS:
- Dialogue/Writing isn't always great
- Most will find the puzzles too easy
- The chase sequence is just tedious. The game just doesn't have the mechanics for this sort of gameplay: The AI is rudimentary and dumb, capable of magically homing in on you if you simply stand up (even out of sight) but is blind as a bat while you're crouched; the player is relatively slow and can't jump, lean, crawl, or climb; areas don't really have places to properly hide or evade, so you end up crouch-hugging a wall while enemies obliviously stomp around right next to you and you wait for their AI to randomly send them in the opposite direction long enough for you to progress.

SUMMARY: DESYNC is (currently) an average game..but only because it does certain things very well while thoroughly bungling other aspects. While I wouldn't recommend it to most people I know, I would still suggest this game to fans of score-based FPS games (particuarly because the developers seem intent on improving things with patches). I hope that, with time, I will be able to modify this review to "recommended".

This is one of those times where I wish Steam had a more graduated rating system than the binary "recommend / don't recommend." I feel like I'm either outright praising a game or completely condemning it--and in my opinion, DESYNC doesn't deserve either treatment.

At its core, DESYNC is a stylish arena-shooter with an arcade-style scoring system that rewards skill, finesse, and creativity. As you progress through the game--particularly in the beginning--you'll probably feel like you're constantly being updated with new combo types and unlockables. The camera zooms in on a corpse as it pirouettes in slow-motion; a prompt alerts you to the fact that you've found a new way to kill enemies as a score is quickly tallied. It's a great mechanic that constantly pushes you forward in search of new weapons, items, and obstacles to kill things with (and on).

In a lot of ways, DESYNC feels like a breath of fresh air in the genre. It eschews the hyperrealism of "kitchen sink" FPS games for a blunt and highly stylized aesthetic; it trades mission markers and NPC dialogue for the pursuit of the almighty high score and wordless combat. For these reasons, the game feels paradoxically simple in presentation yet complex in nature. Have other FPS games accomplished the same things? Sure. But more haven't, and for that, this game is worthy of commendation.

Yet there are many aspects of DESYNC--among them, subjective items that others will surely disagree with--that often spoil the things it does right, and left me with a sort of frustration that, unlike a Super Meat Boy or Dark Souls game, discouraged me from coming back:

PROS:

+ Great Soundtrack
+ TONS of combos attached to a fairly exhaustive scoring system that will keep perfectionists striving for higher scores
+ Weapons feel mechnically distinct and nuanced, with multiple firemodes, strengths, and weaknesses
+ While the AI of most enemies devolves into mobbing you at melee range, there's still a decent degree of personality and strategy in handling each opponent, whether it's the lumbering, shielded knight-like enemies, the diminutive "headcrab" monsters, or the acrobatic, shuriken-throwing ninjas.

CONS:
- Underwhelming weapon "feedback" and sound effects, which is particularly disappointing in a game built around shooting things

- Murky techno aesthetic makes it an all-too common occurence to bumble between arenas--everything looks too similar and dull. There was so much potential for varied and colorful areas, but it feels squandered with "samey" blue and purple locations.

- Some ambiguity isn't a bad thing, but Desync does an all-around poor job at communicating concepts and mechanics to the player. Am I trying to learn the language of a new puzzle-system in "The Witness" or am I playing an arcade-arena FPS? Worse, the mechanics aren't particularly complex once you figure them out--either through trial & error or message boards--so there's no reason why the game can't do a better job teaching you about them, and I'd argue that their vagueness adds nothing to the game.

- I'm not sure why the initial hub was designed the way it was: Access to mechanics like weapon customization, stats, sidearms, and modules are provided by interacting with in-game terminals that are spread around, yet look virtually identical and result in you frequently walking up to the wrong one until you've memorized all of their locations. Additionally, player customization and level selection "menus" are separated by an elevator that takes far too long to ferry you from one area to the other, and will inadvertantly whisk you back to the starting point if you don't disembark quickly enough. Why do we need to have an elevator in the first place?

- Difficulty can be frustrating at times, particularly since enemies will happily spawn on top of you. The result is that much of the "challenge" (certainly not all, but a considerable portion) is mitigated by trial-and-error memorization of spawn locations and composition...at least until you develop a sizable set of weapons, power-ups, and modules to choose from. There's nothing wrong with a game being built on difficulty, whether it's Dark Souls, Super Meat Boy, or FTL--in fact, it's vastly preferable to games you can sleepwalk through. And when DESYNC does difficulty well, it does it very well. However, all too often the game presents situations that are challenging in ways that are tedious and unfun, where the satisfaction of finishing isn't so much a sense of accomplishment as it is a sensation of "glad I don't have to do that again."

- I felt like the "Aberration" Levels took novel concepts (such as akimbo weapons or unusual rules) and turned them into something that is frequently unfun. In one instance, you are given dual railguns (cool) and pitted against enemies that can only be damaged while stunned AND at long range. Unfortunately, most enemies tend to move nearly as fast as you and want nothing more than to get up in your face; the result is an incredibly tedious act of kiting a group of enemies around as you attempt to increase the distance between the two of you so you can stun and kill them. Ammo (or lack thereof) frequently becomes an issue in these levels, as well, which brings the action to a screeching halt in the form of a prompt that literally tells you to restart from the last checkpoint--when you still had ammo. And because Aberration levels comprise nearly half of all available levels, it's not simply an argument of avoiding those levels. They're an integral part of the game.

SUMMARY: Shadow Warrior 2 is a game that really struck a chord with me--tons of guns, fast and frantic combat, and robust RPG-style mechanics--but it doesn't prevent the game from being flawed in more ways than one. Worth it on sale for anybody who loves brutally fast FPS games in solo or co-op.

If you're unfamiliar with the Shadow Warrior series, just know that the 1997 original was fundamentally identical to Duke Nukem 3D, and the 2013 reboot was an arena-style shooter reminiscent of Serious Sam (but without the grand scale).

Now you know why, when people say Shadow Warrior 2 reminds them of Borderlands and Diablo, it's a really weird thing to admit. And even stranger? It seems to work. For the most part, at least. Let's be honest though: This is a flawed game. A beautifully flawed game.

For all intents and purposes, the events of the previous game are immaterial to the sequel. Playing as mercenary Lo Wang, the player assumes a quest to get a voice out of his head (literally). Levels are procedurally generated by assembling blocks of hand-built areas into a single map (think XCOM). On one hand, this results in unique maps on most occasions; on the other hand, maps manifest as sprawls comprised of areas you will see multiple times in a single playthrough (for instance, I "found" the same secret area 3 times in a single playthrough and fought in the same cave 4 or 5 times because the game only has so many "blocks" to choose from). There's a good case to be made for the legacy of classic FPS games (of which 1997's Shadow Warrior is included) being firmly rooted in hand-built levels.

In the process, you'll employ a huge variety of weapons (approx. 70) to shoot, burn, poison, and maim a wide range of opponents. The game really shines when it comes to its arsenal, which includes chainsaws, chainguns, revolvers, demonic organic weapons, bows, swords, submachineguns, gauss rifles, and plasma guns. Seriously, there are so many guns in this game, it's staggering. '

Weapons are distinct enough that players can potentially develop preferences based on the personalities of specific weapons, rather than those that simply have the highest DPS. However, let's be clear on one thing: This is not the meticulously balanced system you'd expect from a competitive multiplayer game like Counterstrike or Diablo. Some weapons just generally suck; others are objectively superior. With so many ways to modify weapons, from the socketed gems that the game liberally throws at you to the forge that lets you further customize and infuse gems and weapons, there are numerous approaches to breaking this game, particularly on lower difficulties.

Collect upgrades to enhance aforementioned equipment, take on side quests from various NPCs in the (somewhat mundane) hub outside of each mission, and improve Lo Wang with new abilities and skills. Rinse and repeat. Along the way you'll encounter a huge cast of enemies, and while most are gorgeous meatbags to kill and maim, their AI typically involves the same thing: Mobbing you at melee range. Over 20 years ago, Doom II employed opponents in a variety of ways, so it's a bit disappointing to see that everything just wants to chase you around and hit you in the face.

The RPG-mechanics add an additional layer by randomly bestowing enemies with a quality (i.e. "Superior", "Elite") and other charactertistics like elemental auras, self-healing, swiftness, damage-type immunities and weaknesses, etc. This probably would have been a good way to help distinguish enemy-types from each other by making specific characteristics more common in certain enemies, but this doesn't appear to be the case. As a result, you end up with frosty-looking "Berserkers" that have a weakness to ice, hellhounds that are susceptible to fire, and otherwise-ordinary human beings made gargantuan because of their "elite" status. It all feels a little half-baked and leaves opponents even less distinct.

I'm generally slower at playing games, but I still believe there's a decent amount of material in Shadow Warrior 2. It's possible to blast through the game by fixating on only the main quests and skipping out on the side material and trials, yet there's a solid 12-15 hours per-run for completitionists, and plenty of replayability beyond that...especially with the co-op mode that allows up to 4 players to tackle the game.




PROS:
+ More than 70 weapons that are distinct, varied, and generally satisfying to use.
+ Wide variety of enemies with RPG-style qualities (i.e. increased fire resistance, faster moveset, etc.) provides some depth to combat.
+ Mechanics encourage fast & frantic maneuvering over slower cover systems by including moves like double-jump, dash, mantling, and midair control. At a certain point, the game plays faster than even DOOM (2016) and makes navigating large levels a breeze.
+ Dismemberment system plays out like the spiritual successor to "Soldier of Fortune" or "Chasm: The Rift". Chewing through a crowd with a slow-motion 360-degree sawblade whirl never gets old.
+ Well optimized: I only encountered sub-60 FPS drops when groups of enemies were getting mulched by explosives (and then only briefly).


SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN:
~ Procedurally generated maps mean no two levels are ever exactly the same...but it also means that levels don't really have a focused layout or flow.
~ It's nice to have a "Gem & Socket"-style modding system for improving gear, but even after several free DLC and mechanical updates, it's still too granular for its own good, and would benefit from fewer (but more distinct) upgrades.
~ DLC is almost entirely free, but will still leave something to be desired with many players.
~ Large number of enemies, but their general "strategy" involves simply mobbing you.


CONS:
- Semi-incoherent story and stilted dialogue: Instead of 2013's Hoji (arguably one of the best aspects of the original's plot) you have a boiletplate "acerbic relationship" with a woman in your head, and a dull supporting cast.
- Limited number of boss fights, and those that do exist are fairly uninspired. This is something that pales in comparison to the previous Shadow Warriors.
- Balance is questionable at times: You might roll certain enemies with an incredibly tough combination of buffs on one run, and then a group of considerably weaker enemies on a second attempt.

In Splasher, you play as a nimble hazmat agent who rushes through levels packed full of enemies and environmental hazards, rescuing fellow team members on the race to defeat a cigar-chomping scientist and his army of mutant potatoes. Aiding you are a handful of brightly-colored liquids: Water to wash surfaces clean (and blast most enemies), sticky goo to help you climb surfaces like a spider, and bouncy goo to propel you through the air like a lunatic. It's all very vibrant and charming. In this sense, the comparisons to Super Meat Boy and Splatoon are unsurprising.

Challenge-wise, however, Splasher never really approaches the balls-hard difficulty of Super Meat Boy. There are certainly situations where the average player may die 5 or 6 times attempting to navigate an area, but it doesn't remotely approach Super Meat Boy on the whole. That may disappoint players who have been sold on the idea that Splasher will scratch the same itch that Super Meat Boy does; there's simply no comparison when it comes to difficulty.

Similarly, at 22 levels, Splasher's packaged with a much smaller selection of levels than Super Meat Boy's 300+. That isn't to say that Splasher's an especially short game, or that it's lacking material--on the contrary, between the "normal" game and the various speedrun modes/medals to earn, there's a decent amount of replayability to the game. But again, it may disappoint players who expect for Splasher to boast multiple worlds, hidden levels, and various other secrets.

That being said, will you enjoy Splasher? If you like games such as Dust Force and Super Meat Boy for their mix of platforming, speed, and relative challenge, you'll most likely enjoy Splasher. If you like leaderboards and discovering ways to shave seconds off of your PR times, you'll probably like Splasher. But if you're looking for a game that's so hard it'll give you a nose bleed, you'll probably feel let down.


PROS:
+ A clean aesthetic that is generally very readable, which makes it perfect for speedrunning.
+ Overall, the "feel" of the controls and the way the player handles is well done.
+ Between the normal game, individual medal runs, and 3 different flavors of speedrun, there's plenty of replayability.

CONS:
- On a gamepad, the controls for movement and aiming are tied to the same analog stick, which can result in a lot of sloppy aiming and/or accidental movement; while this stems from compromises in the control scheme, it's still an incredibly frustrating problem that you will likely encounter at the worst (and most frantic) moments, such as rushing headlong into a trap while trying to aim at a critical target during a speedrun.
- A very minor con, but for a game that emphasizes speedrunning so much, it's annoying to have to sit through various animations and cutscenes every time you attempt a run. These don't count towards your overall time, and should be confined to the "normal" game.
- The level-select hub is a chaotic sprawl that doesn't improve the overall experience, and essentially makes choosing (or simply finding) specific levels more work than it should be.

OTHER NOTES:
* Not a huge fan of the art style--the general flatness and large spans of solid color remind me too much of a free flash game, which cheapens the experience for me. There are little touches that stand out, such as the bublous green mutations that give a sense of transparency and depth, but they almost feel out of place next to everything else.

Shutshimi is a sidescrolling shoot-em-up presented as an endless series of 10-second rounds. What that means is that you are given 10 seconds to shoot and outmaneuver enemies, then another 10 seconds to choose from 1 of 3 randomly selected items.

Some of the items have positive effects, some do not; some last a single round, while others remain until you take damage, or swap them out. Why would you choose an item with a negative effect? Probably because it's the least terrible of three unfavorable items...or maybe on accident, when you're in a rush to beat the clock. There are also items that give the player a randomly chosen hat (from a pool of ~45)--some of these hats are purely cosmetic, while others provide a unique ability that helps inject a little variety into the game, mechanically-speaking.

The game bounces back and forth between these two phases--10 seconds of combat and 10 seconds of shopping--endlessly. Every 5th combat round is a boss fight; fail to defeat the boss in the allotted 10 seconds and you'll have to finish the job the next time around (fortunately with whatever health the boss had at the end of the previous fight).

There are a few different game types (primarily a "normal" mode, a harder mode with limited lives, and a Boss Rush mode) but Shutshimi is otherwise a simple and streamlined game. That may be a problem for anybody looking for a layered meta-game, or a significant variety to levels, enemies, and items. Feasibly, you'll be able to see everything there is to see within an hour or two, and those who stick around for longer will probably do so to run a Boss Rush faster or reach a higher score on the leaderboards.

In SUM: Shutshimi is an extremely simple but quirky sidescrolling shoot-em-up that will likely appeal to fans of the genre, but is probably a tougher sell at full price to anyone else. If you can find it on a decent sale, it should provide a few hours of enjoyment--but don't purchase expecting a complex shoot-em-up or dozens of hours of entertainment.

PROS:
+ "10-second rounds" approach makes this a very easy game to pick up and put down.
+ Decent variety of items

CONS:
- It can be unusually difficult to see enemy projectiles, particularly on later (busier) rounds
- At the end of the the day, there isn't a whole lot to see--doesn't take long for things to feel redundant
- Could use more enemy variety

BUTCHER is a lovesong to the type of game that concerned moms and the media imagined when the ESRB was just a twinkle in Senator Joe Lieberman's eye. You are an emotionless Terminator-style robot sent to eradicate the last vestiges of humanity in an assortment of bleak environments like foundries and cyberpunk cities. Your victims gasp and gurgle as they bleed out, or get eaten by mutant wildlife, or crushed by machinery; oppressive electronica thrums in the background of each level.

You get the idea.

But the game wouldn't be nearly as fun if you were unopposed in your conquest of mankind. Fortunately, BUTCHER prides itself on being tough as nails (its motto is "The Easiest Mode is HARD"). As your opponents shift from civilians and soldiers to towering cyborgs and assault vehicles, you'll discover the BUTCHER's uncharacteristic frailty--especially at higher difficulties, where the game strips you of your maximum effective health and your ability to replenish hitpoints and armor mid-mission.

Truth be told, the game isn't a power fantasy like HATRED or Postal, which might be easy to misinterpret from the previews. It's about using everything at your disposal--chainsaws and railguns, blade traps and crushers, speed and level exploits--to crush an enemy that's quite adept at crushing you.

The difficulty and aesthetics are an obvious nod to the 90's, but the movement exploits are perhaps just as important: Using your chainsaw in unexpected ways to launch yourself across the map or bunnyhop to otherwise unreachable locations; rocket-jumping with the grenade launcher; blazing past enemies as you attempt to crush speedrun records and collect hidden skulls that are often in obscure or time-sensitive locations. It should all feel distinctly nostaligic to anybody familiar with the murky brown hues of nonsensical industrial sprawls and lava pits.

At 21 levels and a speedrun goal of 45 minutes (though the average player will likely spend 2-3 hours on their first run), BUTCHER never overstays its welcome, although it encourages you to revisit levels to uncover secrets, improve speedrun times, and even reattempt runs at higher difficulties. There's a small assortment of weapons, a decent mix of enemies (ranging from noncombatants to cyberdemon-like cyborgs and mutant wildcats), and some great sound effects.

TL;DR: BUTCHER is a short but challenging game that will likely appeal to anybody who was raised on games like Quake, Contra, and Crusader (or anybody who might think those games are the bees' knees).

PROS:
+ Perfect length for a game, but lots of replayability for those craving more
+ Weapons are distinct and useful; enemies are diverse and challenging
+ Great sound effects and an OST that fits perfectly

CONS;
- Even with the small (6) selection of weapons, switching weapons can be frantic and awkward on a controller because you have to scroll up/down through everything until you find what you're looking for.
- A few of the hidden skulls are in areas that require pretty bullshitty techniques (that you may otherwise never use) to reach
- Aesthetically solid, but perhaps a little too far on the "tiny" side of things. It would have been nice for the art style to accomodate a LITTLE more detail in characters and weapons.
- The sole boss fight is alright, but the game could have definitely used 1 or 2 more unique boss fights to mix things up.

IN A NUTSHELL:
Super Mutant Alien Assault is a frantic roguelite with a huge selection of weapons and items, all wrapped up in a beautiful pixel art package and made even better by the addition of couch co-op.



I'm told that Super Mutant Alien Assault is a lot like Super Crate Box, but since I haven't played SCB (and maybe you haven't either), I'll give you a quick rundown on the idea of Super Mutant Alien Assault:

The game is broken down into 3 zones (each comprised of 3 regular levels followed by a boss fight). Every level randomly presents you with one of a handful objectives ranging from surviving until a timer runs out, to shutting off devices before they catastrophically overheat, to retrieving fuel rods from one part of the map and depositing them in another location. Along the way, you're beset by a variety of enemies (the titular aliens) and, true to form, "game over" is a single death away.

Fortunately, you'll have access to a generous array of unlockable weapons and items scattered throughout the game--and this, in my opinion, is where the game shines. The sheer variety of weapons and items may be impressive, but the fact that they're generally well-balanced is shocking--particularly when you consider how diverse they are. There's the shotgun with its typical buckshot spread, the sniper rifle that pierces multiple targets, a laser that becomes more powerful as it fires, and...an electric pogo stick?

Yet you'll discover combinations and quirks that aren't immediately obvious. Orbs ordinarily prevent you from firing your weapons while you carry them, but if you're using that electric pogo stick, you're still able to kill enemies...because the pogo works by dropping down on their heads (plus it lets you move faster!) The explosive boomerang will injure you if it's still armed when it returns...but if you're nimble, you can kite it around indefinitely, letting it chew up enemies as you run around with your sidearm. The "Mega Chakra" is a sloppy and temperamental thing, yet even after being abandoned for another weapon, it'll violently react to enemy contact.

And that's to say nothing of all the sidearms, explosives, defensive items, special abilities, and perks the game has to offer. Hacking modules, a transforming blaster for a sidearm, remote satchel charges, a radioactive unit that passively accumulates the resource used for special abilities, teleporters, forcefields, etc. The point is that there's a great variety of tools at your disposal, and many complement each other in unexpected ways. Since each player can hold a primary weapon, sidearm, explosive, special ability, defensive ability, and perk at any given time, the combinations and strategies are surprisingly vast. Perhaps not quite "Binding of Isaac" levels, but great nonetheless.

There's a commendable ecology of enemies, as well, bolstered by the game's mutation mechanic: Smaller, weaker alien variations will grow into monstrous versions if exposed to too much radiation (the result of leaving them alive for too long while radioactive beacons are spilling green light everywhere) or if they pick up the green radiation pellets that drop as ammo for special abilities. In other words, if an enemy beats the player to the pellet, not only do they begin mutating into a more powerful version of themselves, but the player is denied a valuable resource. It's a refreshing dynamic and forces a balance between hoovering up pellets despite your tank being full, and leaving them until you need them (but risking the chance that they benefit an enemy instead).

At the lowest difficulty, the game is appropriately easy; on the hardest, the average player won't be able to sleepwalk through a run (sleeprun?). And despite getting killed a lot at higher difficulties, I can't recall any moments where I felt like the game cheated me.

Of course, if you're still having trouble, the couch co-op allows two players to tackle all 12 levels together on one screen. Combined with the aforementioned abundance of strange and novel items, this feature makes for some intense and hilarious moments that really amplify the game's crazier side.


PROS
+ Fantastic diversity and balance among weapons, items, and enemies
+ Mechanically solid: Easy to pick up, but harder to master.
+ Solid pixel-art style
+ Couch co-op
+ Very responsive developer

CONS
- Strange technical issues in conjunction with Nvidia Optimus
- Limited assortment of game modes
- Level design and aesthetics can get too "samey" after a while

(A lot of this review will be identical to the original UBERMOSH because the two games are VERY similar).

Just like the original UBERMOSH, Vol.3 is comparable to a top-down Devil Daggers: You appear in an arena and are tasked with surviving 90 seconds of relentless onslaught. 90 seconds isn't much, right? And all of the enemies die in a single hit--how hard could this possibly be?

As it turns out, hard as ♥♥♥♥ing nails. Set to a thrumming metal and techno soundtrack (which is still easily one of the best things about the UBERMOSH series), you will die again and again and again. Fortunately the game subscribes to Edmund McMillen's "Super Meat Boy" model, wherein dying happens quickly and restarts are virtually instantaneous. This game doesn't want to waste your time--it just wants 90 seconds.

Depending on your class*, you may begin with a sword; use it to relieve an opponent of one of a handful of different firearms. Some of these weapons are great. Some aren't so great. Fortunately (as I previously mentioned) enemies die as quickly as you. Therefore the best weapons are those that allow you to spread death around fastest. Within 30 seconds of a single game, you'll have access to every available weapon--pick the one that works best for you.

*There are several unlockable classes that are fundamentally different takes on the same thing: One can only use a sword, one starts with the best weapon, etc. And each has a different number of allotted respawns. They impact the game, but not in a radical way.

This time around, there is also a "Brainclap" mechanic to compensate for a complete lack of cover. The way it works, each character class automatically produces a "Brainclap" (an explosive attack that can clear most enemies from the screen) after a certain number of kills; some of the weaker classes have lower thresholds for triggering one of these explosions, making them more common. In general, it helps provide a risk-reward mechanic for some of the weaker classes since the Brainclaps are most common (and effective) in large groups of opponents.

The game is stripped of all but the barest essentials--there's nary a plot, an economy, or an exposition. Like UBERMOSH, Vol.3 doesn't have time for those sorts of formalities. And because of that, the game's a great shot of adrenaline whenever you've got more than a couple of minutes to stop and play it.

Who might like this game? Anybody who wants a no-frills top-down shooter that's hard as hell. People who love a soundtrack that makes you want to kill, crush, and destroy. For those who played Devil Daggers and thought, "You know, I wish this game was remade as a twin-stick shooter." For $1.99 this game is a solid deal; for $0.99--the price of a candy bar--you'd still be a fool to skip out on this game.

PROS
+ Great Soundtrack
+ Super accessible drop-in/drop-out model
+ Very challenging
+ Additional "Brainclap" mechanic is a solid addition

NEUTRAL
~ EXTREMELY similar to UBERMOSH--to the point that you could almost argue Vol.3 should have been a game mode in a previous game. Still, you can get both games for a combined $1.49 on sale, so it's not a big deal in this case.

CONS
- No Steam Cards (even the previous Ubermosh had them)
- Weapons and enemies could still use a little more variety

I am not very good at this game.

If I were to describe Gungeon, I'd probably use the same comparison that a million other people have already used: It's like something between Binding of Isaac and Nuclear Throne. There's some of the frantic, gun-centric combat of Nuclear Throne. There's the laundry list of unlockables and room-by-room random level generation of Isaac. And there are enough bullets on the screen to be officially classified as a "Bullet Hell" by some sort of internet authority.

The objective is to descend into the chambers of the Gungeon to find a gun that can kill your past. It fires a special bullet, whose components just so happen to be scattered throughout the Gungeon. You can collect those pieces, or you can just blast through the levels and kill whatever's waiting for you on the other end. The Gungeon cares not.

What the Gungeon DOES care about is alternatively rewarding you with an endless series of guns and items, and killing you through various traps and enemies. There's a solid variety to the monsters: Gun greaseballs that split into increasingly smaller pieces, conjurers that summon Gundead, shamans that obnoxiously buff other enemies, etc. It's a colorful blend of D&D and Guns & Ammo.

Fortunately there's a lot of things to kill them with, too: In addition to straightforward weapons like shotguns and submachineguns, there are a ton of nods to pop culture weapons (MiB's "Noisy Cricket", MGS' Ocelot's revolver, Judge Dredd's Lawgiver, the Proton Pack from Ghostbusters, etc.). Even Turok's "Cerebral Bore" is available! I mean, come on. That's to say nothing of increasingly bizarre weapons, like a cursed M16/Lightsaber combo, a barrel that fires fish, Cupid's Bow, or a mutant tumor. With such a huge selection, it's inevitable that some of these weapons are great while others are crap--but, on the whole, the weapons are useful and the variety of functions that were fit into a 2D game's arsenal is legitimately impressive.

Beyond that, you have fairly typical roguelite mechanics: Permadeath, a hub world populated by NPCs that offer miniquests, services, and items to unlock, random in-dungeon mini-games and vendors, etc. Gungeon won't throw very many mechanical surprises at you, but what it does do, it does well.


PROS:
+ Tons of unique NPCs, weapons, and items to unlock
+ Enough secret areas, levels, and alternate endings to mix things up
+ Beautiful and consistent art direction
+ Tight controls that work well for KB&M and Gamepads

NEUTRAL:
~ Pacing is faster than Binding of Isaac, but (generally) slower than Nuclear Throne
~ One of the more difficult popular roguelites I've played in recent memory--some people will definitely have trouble with it
~ Currently 4 (+2 unlockable) characters, but the variety may feel somewhat limited compared to similar games

CONS:
- Even with the most recent patch, I still have runs where ammo is virtually nowhere to be found for multiple levels, resulting in an overdependency on a character's starting weapon
- In co-op mode, Player 2 has to use a special (arguably inferior) character that is only available in that mode
- Some of the challenges can be a little bullshitty (in particular, one of the character unlocks depends on having a rare scenario occur five times).