Recent reviews by Sinister Pixel

This game is pretty peak tbh

A spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio and Jet Set Radio Future, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is a love letter to the duology, taking what works from both and effortlessly combining them while fixing some of the issues present in JSR and JSRF

The Good:

* Tight controls with a low skill floor but a high skill ceiling. Mastering controls and doing long combos throughout the entire map feels super satisfying and I found myself repeatedly testing myself to see how long a combo I could get just while completing objectives.
* Multiple ways of skating, including the classic inline skates, skateboards, and bikes, all easy to pick up but with slight differences that let you play the game in a way you enjoy. I found myself gravitating towards the skates most of the game as a JSRF fan
* Great Graffiti tagging system which lets you play a tagging minigame like JSR with the snappiness of the instant tagging found in JSRF. You can combo however you want to pull up multiple tags, meaning you aren't stuck doing the same tags over and over again, nor do you have to menu to change your tags (and retroactively change the other tags you've put down). Paint over your existing tags as many times as you like to try different artwork.
* Killer soundtrack that had me bopping my head or just losing myself in the moment as I explored the world while the music played in the background
* A story that was both goofy but also kept me engaged. I was genuinely interested in Red's story and how it played out in the world. There is one story beat at the beginning of the game that goes sort of unexplained though. Especially by the end of the game where you learn something that completely contradicts how the game starts, but the rest of the story was good enough that I can overlook it

The Bad:

* Combat isn't this game's strong point, and this isn't helped by the fact that there's a point in each stage where cops will start spawning infinitely, and the more you tag/fight off, the more heat you build and the more threatening the units that spawn. You can get rid of the heat by dying, changing outfit at a cubicle, or returning to the hideout but there's no way to fight off the police, even temporarily. You are actively punished for trying to do so.
* Map system needs work. You can unlock a full map for the area but you often have to explore the area for a while before you find it, otherwise you get a map that is mostly unmarked. The full map lacks a lot of important information, and I wasn't able to find a clear method by which to expand the map beyond the small mini-map you can open in the corner of the screen. On the same note, it would have been useful if the game had more map UI elements like waypoints visible in the world.
* One of the late game boss fights was completely ambiguous in how I had to fight it. It turned out that by performing midair tricks you were able to reflect it's projectiles back at it. A mechanic which had never been used or even explained up until that point, or anytime after. I'm still not convinced the mechanic applies outside of that single boss fight.
* Fast travel system wound up being borderline useless if you didn't go out of your way for it, which is a shame since the world could have REALLY used a better form of fast travel

A pretty fun game with a lot of promise! The dialogue was a lot of fun although I did have a little trouble following the story at times. I'm pretty sure that ambiguity is meant to be deliberate but I did find it kind of strange that Lore (the protagonist) just blindly follows what people say when he's only just met them. Hoping those sorts of pacing issues will be tidied up in the final release.

Beyond that the only flaws I have with the game are mostly in the office section. I found that at certain points I found myself lacking direction and just kinda happened upon stuff by accident. I also wasn't a fan of the locked room puzzle at the start of that section, and ended up looking up the solution in order to get out.

I know the dev reads reviews, so I would say I'd recommend redoing the room so the hints don't require information not presented to you by the game. The hints for 9 and 3 require you to know about the game "Mighty No 9" and that 3 points in tennis is 40 love. While I know of both of these, in the moment, my brain wasn't considering anything else than the info presented to me in the game. The hints for 8 and 1 were well written. I'd switch them to little brainteasers like that.

Not sure why this is mixed. I know the game had problems early on but they're largely fixed now, which is wild since the game has been out a month at the time of reviewing. They've basically been dropping weekly patches to improve the game and I think it's not long till this game starts rivalling games like 100% OJ.

It's gacha but not P2W. You can easily unlock all of the characters using the in-game currency/gacha mechanics, and the currency you pay for is mainly used for cosmetics. Even then, the characters are pretty well balanced so even if you don't have them all, you can still win games pretty easily if you play skilfully.

Lobbies tend to fill up pretty fast, and the game is pretty easy to pick up once you've played a handful of games and learned the mechanics. At this point the only thing I can really fault is that the English localisation is a little rough, but I've already seen them rewrite a few parts to be more understandable, so I'm thinking this will get even better with time.

Some stuff I'd like to see in the future:

- Larger variety of cards. Having cards that let me flee battle, diffuse traps, counter attack incoming attackers and so on I think would be cool additions
- More maps. We currently only have 3 maps, all of which are pretty basic. Two of them feel fairly similar I wouldn't mind some more interesting maps to add some gameplay variety
- Bigger soundtrack. There's basically only two songs you hear in gameplay right now. It would be great to have more songs added, especially as the map pool expands, perhaps with dynamic music which changes depending on the situation (e.g. if a boss is moving around the map, they could have their own theme song, or if someone has enough coins for the win condition, it could make a faster paced song play)
- More bosses. Gawu is the only boss that spawns right now. And she's pretty basic. Roams around the map and attacks whoever is currently in the lead. Perhaps there could be a boss that isn't as powerful as Gawu but can instead use cards, or a boss that can force two players to engage in a battle with one another.
- English VAs - The Japanese voices are fine but I wouldn't mind being able to understand what the characters are saying! I think the ability to be able to toggle between languages would be awesome

Looking forward to seeing what's next!

Really creative take on the portal formula which takes the mechanics of Portal 2 and expands them. There's a whole load of new in game interactions and objects to play around with (such as portal laser cubes), and if you're a portal fan, there's a lot of fun to be had here.

The overall story is a lot of fun, and can fit tidily between the events of Portal 1 and Portal 2 while keeping mostly true to the lore that the franchise has established. Having said that, there are a few pacing issues, especially towards the end, and the game ends VERY abruptly. I probably would have written the ending slightly different myself, because the ending we got was not hinted at much/at all throughout the story, but there's another ending they certainly could have made based on how one of the characters you meet late in the game speaks to you.

If you're not too fussed about rushed story, definitely give this a go. It's a great 6 hour time sink with puzzles which end up providing more of a challenge than base Portal 1/2.

I died, met a very friendly lamp, and watched a very dainty woman consume an entire chicken after dying several times.

10/10. It's like Final Destination but actually good.

I first tried the original Blaster Master on NES many years ago. Unfortunately, my experience with the original wasn't very positive. The game had not aged very well and I couldn't play it for very long without becoming frustrated with it.

Enter Blaster Master Zero. It takes the original NES title and expands it, improving the controls, gameplay elements, and visual/sound design, while still remaining faithful to the original. I'd argue this is without question the best way to experience the game.

If you're a fan of Metroidvania style games, or just platformers in general, I'd say this game has a LOT to offer. Satisfying gunplay and exploration make this an absolute joy to play, with plenty of replay value and additional modes. There are multiple endings here, so it's a great game to take your time with, while not overstaying it's welcome.

P.S. I streamed this game as part of an ongoing effort to clear out my backlog. If you are curious to see my experience, you can find the stream VODs here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLV4BcLGgEFZnyNfNP2tX_Ji6mdH2DT1c6

After the summer hype of Fall Guys I was a little apprehensive to get into this game, but I'm very glad I did.

While simple on the surface, Among Us gameplay can go extremely deep. It's a game all about being able to create a narrative and spot a false narrative which makes each and every game feel exhilarating. Unlike a lot of other games, the more you play, the better the gameplay experience becomes. Learning this game can both up the thrill of playing as the imposter and stealthily killing all the cremates, or give you that great "Aha!" feeling as a crewmate when you spot the imposter's lies and make the game winning call.

This game is also cross platform between PC and mobile, so you can play it with almost anyone.

My personal recommendation is to play this game with friends or join group for the game on Discord rather than playing public lobbies though. This game is infinitely better with voice chat, and you will get a lot of players who disconnect from public lobbies when they don't get to play imposter.

The developers seem very enthusiastic about supporting this game, so much so that they axed the sequel to continue improving this version, so go ahead and show them some support!

Hat in Time is one of those rare gems that comes out of nowhere, and is a great example of what crowdfunded games can be when the developers really care about the product. This game spent a grueling 5 years in development, and the undying passion throughout those 5 years from the Gears For Breakfast team really shows. Every chapter a with it's own unique personality, and no two acts feel the same despite the fact that you're usually playing on the same map.

This game is a love letter to 3D platforming from the N64/Gamecube era, right down to having Gamecube controller support (seriously, the number of different controllers I can run on this game without configuration is nutty). In many ways I could imagine being a kid and playing this on an oldschool Nintendo system. The controls are really tight and everything feels great. You start off with a whole bunch of movement options and abilities right off the bat. Wall jumps, double jumps, slides, so I don't see repeat playthroughs being frustrating.

Speaking of gameplay mechanics and options, I'd like to give special attention to how much tech there is in this game's movement. The fact that the devs left in an achievement for sequence breaking should tell you everything you need to know. Whenever I wanted to move fast and freely but needed a certain hat for something, I found myself chaining slides to keep my speed up and the levels, although having linier objectives, are designed in such a way where you're rewarded for finding unique ways around them and exploring. You have one primary objective per act but there are loads of small side objectives you can do, such as finding collectables, secrets, or just fun little easter eggs.

Personality wise, this game oozes with it. The dialogue is always spot on and the voice acting is insanely good. I found myself sitting and listening to all the voice acting, even if it meant slowing down the gameplay to enjoy it. The atmosphere in the levels is always perfect, with the music dynamically changing through a lot of the different environments (oh, by the way the soundtrack to this game is phenominal) to just the game generally creating the atmosphere through the gameplay.

A few downsides I will mention, just because I find myself wanting to look at this game critically so it can be improved upon in later patches. First off, I'm two timepieces away from finishing the game. The current build of the game only has 40 timepieces. By the time I finish the game (which unless something supernatural happens will be tomorrow), I will have only gotten four days worth of gameplay out of it. That's not to say that there isn't more I can do. I have the option of grinding out for the rest of the cosmetic items and remixes, and possibly trying the game again with One Hit Hero mode enabled, but for now, that's it. The devs did say they're planning on adding two bonus chapters later down the line in a free update which should hopefully bring our timepiece total to a cool 60 or so, but for now, this is what we have.

There are quite a few bugs left over in this game. Most of them are minor bugs such as small visual glitches, caused as a result of sequence breaking, or just minor things that got overlooked, but there were a couple of times I got stunlocked, or took several consecutive hits from an enemy all within the same few frames, and one time where I straight up got softlocked. Having said that, since the devs have already promised continued development for this game for a little longer, I expect many of these issues will be patched.

All in all though, I will make a couple of bold claims about this game:

1) It's easily in my top 10 favourite games of all time
2) This game is hands down one of the best single player gaming experiences available on Steam, if not one of the best games on Steam period.

I was a slacker backer for this game and do not regret it for a second. You've red the novel which is this review. If you've been invested this far, you may as well give it a try for yourself.

I'm a smalltime YouTuber that's been using this software for what must be a year now. Overall I can't recommend it enough. The main debate between YouTubers is this vs Adobe Premiere, but honestly this pretty much meets all your needs without needing to break the bank with monthly payments.

There are plenty of render options and is pretty easy to get into if you've used any sort of video editor before. You can add and remove as many video and audio channels as you could possibly need, custom create transitions, tween objects, colour correct footage, chroma key and much more.

Your first few attempts with this editor will most likely be clunky as you try to work out all the bells and whistles, but as you go on, you'll start discovering more and more. I cannot recommend SMS enough.