Recent reviews by hugs for noob

Pretty damn addictive. I've never played an auto-battler or games with blind boxes before, and I enjoyed building my characters with ideal gear, as well as strategic things like team comp and starting positions in 2v2 and 3v3. While certain attributes stack very well compared to others (health), the game rewards demands more fine tuning of stats as you progress into higher levels. I liked that my best characters were commons.

I ended up succeeding with a Health/Attack tanky cat, a cat guy chasing KOs with high movement and fast action speed, and another cat dude with monstrous knockback. Wild.

Bought it because I loved Papers, Please. Was not disappointed! :)

Lucas Pope has made yet another immersive adventure, and Obra Dinn was hard to put down until I had solved every last fate of the crew. This world is both grim and tragic, and placing the identities and culprits behind every death is as puzzling as it is addictive.

For starters, if you play this before Mass Effect 2, you will thank yourself. This game includes squad mates that are in just about everyone's favorite ME character list, and the choices you make here will affect relationships in each of the sequels.

My favorite thing about the Mass Effect series is the freedom to choose squad mates among your team that suit your playstyle and form your own unique story. Since my own character was tech-focused, my team members could make up for my shortcomings with tankiness and raw power. Others may enjoy using squaddies that supplement you with crowd control or hacking abilities.

It's no secret that Mass Effect 2 had polished away game lengtheners and the micro-managing aspect of RPGs, but this will be the only time in the series you can gear up characters beyond the guns they use. The most interesting or strategic type of loot is the type of bullets your gun uses, so you may switch types to take advantage of enemy weaknesses.

Mass Effect is a lovely series, and I hope you make the time to enjoy it as much as I did.

I came for the trippy atmosphere and stayed to chase A-ratings on every stage.

My first exposure to NiGHTS was a cameo in Sonic Adventure where NiGHTS, the androgynous jester fairy, flies Sonic through a psychedelic dreamscape with trance music playing. The level was colorful, fun, and compelling in an enchanting way -- which brings me to this enhanced version and port of the 1996 game!

NiGHTS Into Dreams pulled me in with its warm setting and upbeat music as expected. Two outstanding tracks include the DnB tune "The Dragon Gave Out a Loud Scream" with a likewise, screaming saxaphone and the "Message from Nightopia" track used in Sonic Adventure. However, what engaged me most were the score-attack mechanics. Controls were simple once I understood what was going on, like driving a super-simplified car for the first time. Next comes racking up points. It feels so satisfying to nail a 25+ combo from flying through rings and orbs at a fast pace. After getting that far, I would feel an adrenaline rush to keep the current string going.

I had some frustrations when it came to boss battles, and it's not about the bosses themselves, but the clock and punishment. Each boss requires a different strategy to beat it, and some are less obvious than others. By the time I learned how to deal with said boss, time was too short to defeat it. When you lose to a boss, the entire stage is over, meaning you must start from the beginning. Not too bad, seeing as the courses prior to the boss take 8 minutes at most but it gives you a shot to get a higher score.

One other complaint is that any mode of movement that was not flying was not as fun, because it took more control of my character than I wanted it to. The worst was a rail platform that slams into NiGHTS and battled with my attempts to swing NiGHTS toward required orbs.

My complaints are however outweighed by enjoying the rest of the game and a fantastic soundtrack to boot. This one is highly recommended, especially since it goes for little over a US dollar during some sales.

A truly challenging game with good payoffs; however, I hesitate in recommending Volgarr the Viking due to how frustratingly hard it is. The challenge is mostly trial and error moments where the player must learn how enemies and obstacles operate. It begins to feel repetitive and unfair, but it makes the victory so much sweeter - the sixth world is the highest point, as understanding all of the game's enemies will likely make you feel like a badass.

In the process of making this Volgarr the Viking similar to classic, challenging platformers, I feel that some conventions are better left in the past. The jumping felt clunky - Volgarr can only change his direction in the air by double-jumping, and it will be the cause of several deaths. You may skip to worlds you have unlocked by walking left (better than completely starting over), but exiting the game means voiding all progress in that world, including that level that took half an hour to figure out.

Not for the faint of heart and not a casual game by any means. I am glad to receive the worst ending and put this behind me.

I typically do not like playing berserker characters in RPGs, yet I would recommend buying Krieg for his personality alone, backed by strong voice acting.

Get Krieg a high enough level, and he can mutate into a badass, make his buzz-axes explosive, and make the explosions chain through enemies after kill. A total power trip.

My main gripe with Krieg is that his action skill, Buzz Axe Rampage, is perhaps the least versatile among the vault hunters. It is the life and blood of melee builds, but gun builds often do not use it. Second, it is a shame that his canon, past life is not truly explored, not even through ECHO recordings.

I recommend buying the GOTY edition to get Krieg with other DLC; otherwise, his price isn't that bad.

Providing 4 buttons to wade through bullets and blitz enemies, this minimalistic arcade dogfighter controls smoothly and simply. The progression of the game involves completing challenges specific to your plane configuration.

Definitely a good sale item -- otherwise, LUFTRAUSERS has low content for the money. This has less to do with minimalistic design and more to do with core gameplay. It depends on how much you enjoy arcade games, though this is a quality one.

Borderlands retains its value through intricate skill trees for the time of release, mounds of loot, and its crude, dark humor. We're talking psychotic bandit lords with spiked nipples.

In comparison, Borderlands 2 is more colorful, it has dedicated focus on a villain, and the skill trees have extra variety. However, the first game rewards useful weapons more often, bolstering the arcade experience. As for the setting, you might even find the desolateness of Borderlands to be more fitting for the vault hunters.

Grab the GOTY on sale, for the DLCs introduce more guns and class modifications, as well as environments with new enemies. Don't look for a memorable story, but instead enjoy the spirited action present in all Borderlands games.

Absolutely fun once I understood how the characters played. Card customization allows me to suit a champion for my playstyle or whatever the team is lacking. 5v5 matches call for tight team composition and they also make the games feel personal. As this game borrows much from TF2, one of my favorite games, champion roles are defined and fps skill is rewarded. I find the game surprisingly balanced for beta, though I have some complaints on gameplay and design.

These are several nuisances that I hope stay in beta and not the final product:
1. Huge hitboxes. Most noticable when playing Cassie the archer.

2. Projectile weapon handling. While Pip's grenade launcher feels smooth to use, other champions' weapons feel awkward to handle for some reason. Ex: Drogoz's rocket launcher feels completely different from TF2 Soldier's rockets, the projectile standard. Drogoz's rockets are slow and have a substantial damage penalty for missing directs.

3. Few maps, though they are well designed for the 4 classes to maneuver.

4. Gun range annoyances - we should not wait for more than 1 champion to be chosen (ours), and we should be able to switch characters while in the practice area.

5. General lack of character depth. Going in, we know little about these champions. As this game borrows MOBA elements, I would like there to be some personality or goal in mind. At the moment, most are archetypes we have seen before.

(6?). Personally, I find there to be a confusion between character graphics and their game design. Drogoz is a hulking fiery dragon with a jetpack. King Bomb is giant and metallic. So why do these two characters have the same health as a fox in a leather garment? In an optimal situation, Drogoz is close to enemies in order to accurately hit his rockets, so why is he squishy? At least King Bomb has the mobility to escape - a slow flying Drogoz is target practice for the enemy team. Perhaps this is to balance with his brutal direct rocket damage, or maybe he is intended to primarily focus on medium-long range explosions with fire spit; I am uncertain.

(7?). Something that cannot be fixed is the flux of awful players, natural to any free-to-play game. Matchmaking improvements to seperate pubstompers from beginners (even in casual) would be appreciated.

I hope that these problems will either be fixed or addressed before release, but at the moment, the game is entertaining enough for me to recommend. Here's to hoping this did not come across as a Drogoz rant. :)

FEZ is a short, cute, imaginative experience that is a must-play from the indie game catalogue.

Platforming and puzzles are made unique by the ability to rotate perspective. I found the puzzles to vary from "pretty clever" to "just Google it." My favorite puzzle type depended on moving blocks to create different shapes based on the perspective. Unfortunately, many of FEZ's puzzles are solved by inputting a code sequence based on the ingame alphabet, an overdone solution that started creatively and became monotonous.

The soundtrack succeeds in creating a relaxing setting. It varies between techno and DnB, though bits remind me of the happy soundtrack from Minecraft produced by C418. Most likely, the sound is intended to fit with the nostalgia factor, as there are several references to the Legend of Zelda.

Despite what you may think of Phil Fish, he polished this game past the typical standard of indie, retro titles. The platforming feels right, the music fits the pretty environments, and the unique mechanic of rotation sets it apart from not only platformers, but games that don't try anything new. The amount of work put into this is obvious.