Recent reviews by The Baddest Rat

I'm changing this to a positive review for now because I am hopeful where the game will go since it is only in early access and has been getting quite a bit of meaningful updates that tweak the game. I do enjoy a lot of what this game has to offer, but the negatives still bother me. If a lot of the negatives can get ironed out, then this would be an easy recommend for me, but for now, I would wait for a sale or just play the demo to see how you like it. You'll get most of what the game offers and will be able to tell if it's something for you or not.

I played the demo awhile back and quite liked what I had played. I was excited for what this would turn into once it released, but sadly it still features a lot of the same issues that I had back then. Don't get me wrong, it's a fun and entertaining game and I like a lot of what this game does. However, I absolutely cannot stand some other aspects of the game.

• The soundtrack is nice
  
• The gameplay is quite fun and rewarding
  
• The guns are neat and abilities are great (mostly)

• Way too many teleporting enemies
  
• The forgotten graveyard enemies are nonstop projectiles and deal much more damage. Too many fliers that are too tanky. The shotgun is near impossible to use against them and still do decent damage while avoiding damage.
  
• Many skills and upgrades relate to "healing abilities", but I haven't been able to find any meaningful healing abilities
  
• The enemies that throw big rocks will still hit you while under bridges or other cover. The AOE will display above and not on the ground where you are standing sometimes, which can take out 25% of your health and kill a good run.
  
• When most enemies also can dodge and teleport, it feels unpleasant to try and get/keep the buff of "not missing shots to deal more damage".
  
• Clipping on terrain while trying to dodge happens too often. You'll have only moved a few feet or so which opens you up to a lot of damage without having any way to get away from the other teleporting enemies or other hazards.

I really want to enjoy this game because of how interesting it all is. I just dislike how the concept of not missing shots seems to be made difficult by poor accuracy and mostly teleporting enemies. At the very least, I would like some form of difficulty slider to make the damage output of enemies be a bit less and not mega lethal or more healing items throughout a run. The damage you take is next to impossible to gain back, aside from the rare occurrance of healing totems, so the best way to beat the game is just avoiding all damage. I'm all in favor of having a difficult game, but it feels like the enemies and behavior directly conflict with what the gameplay wants the player to do and leads to a frustrating experience.

At launch, this game had many issues and bugs. Many were frustrating and felt bad to deal with. The capped skill points were upsetting, but I kept playing to see how things worked out and were balanced. There are still framerate issues here and there, but for the most part it's very consistent. Most of the bugs have been ironed out and the varying builds can be great and super fun. It's a bit different than Remnant 1, but it still has a very similar feel. For fans of the first game, it may be a bit tough to get used to some of the different enemies and mechanics, but overall it feels just as solid if not more solid than their first entry.

With the new Awakened King DLC that just dropped it introduced a few new rings/weapons/traits/and a class for status builds that feel fantastic to use. It's just super fun. I hope that this game continuously receives good updates with bug fixes and DLC because I thoroughly enjoy it. I'm not a fan of souls-like combat games, but something about this game just absolutely clicks for me.

In the 3 day early access that I have played this, I can safely say that it has the potential to be exactly what I have been wanting out of Payday for awhile. This feels like a modernized take on Payday: The Heist and everything works so well.

The new special enemies are tough, but mostly fair. One of my biggest issues with the special enemies is that cloakers will always target the player controlled characters and rush straight past the bot characters. The other issue is that sometimes the grenadier throws his toxic smoke blocking you into a room or tight space, but before the smoke goes away, he throws another, so it's just an endless cloud of toxic smoke that you can't see through and just have to start shooting.

Loud is loud. It was a bit confusing going from Payday 2 to this, however I think I like this system a lot better so far. Having armor be in chunks and the armor bag feels a lot better than having to sit in a corner and wait until you regenerate.

Stealth now feels absolutely phenomenal. Between being able to do so much more in casing mode, purposefully getting caught and escorted to lure an enemy out of an area, and the gadgets you get for stealth other than just ECM jammers makes it feel so fantastic. There is no concealment, which makes the player able to rock whatever weapons and armor that fits their playstyle the best. This is a fantastic change.

The heists are all completely solid, but this game is much better with friends. I have done all of them multiple times solo with AI and it's fun, but not as good as if I had been playing with other players. If you have other friends to play this with, then I would absolutely recommend this to people who loved Payday 2.

The biggest issue that I have with this game is the progression and leveling system. After 14 hours of playtime and heists, I have only hit level 39. The leveling system is now based on completing challenges. These range from completing a heist in a special way, getting kills in various ways with all the weapons, killing special enemies, using gadgets and equipment, etc. It feels so slow to level up, which is only a problem for me because a lot of things you unlock are very high level.

This game is fantastic and everything I wanted from the next installment of Payday.

This was not a fun time in the slightest. There are different difficulties and "Normal" is the lowest. Many of the "Normal" difficulty maps are horrendously overblown with traps and obstacles. I had a decent time during the first few maps because they were neat little challenges, but then every other map I encountered was nothing but kill boxes. Just traps, traps, and traps. I understand the point is to kill players raiding, but when that's the goal, then what's the incentive to be creative? The game is so grindy that most people, especially the higher level players, are just making kill boxes, so they don't have to play the game as much and can farm resources that way. What a goofy ahh system.

These kill boxes are what a lot of newer players will encounter as well because the game gives incentive to design kill boxes because the person who made the map gets money per player death trying to complete the map. They can even overclock their map to give them more money per player death, but lose money upon successes. Which is even more incentive for kill boxes. Newer players will also have a horrible time because there are 20+ traps in these kill boxes, but the player will have a sword and a weapon with 2 total shots to take it all out. That's it. Keep in mind, this is the start of the game, the lowest difficulty, and the first things a new player will see. There is also no way to report a map at all, so if you come across a map that is unbeatable, then too bad. All you're able to do is give 2 out of 4 different commendations. Just leave and try another. Oh, it's another kill box. Yippee.

New players will have 3 traps to use and the only tweak is to hide until the crystal is picked up. Spikes, Bolts, and a red corrosive block that kills the player if they stay in it too long. Within the first 3 maps I had played, I had encountered a kill box that had many, many traps in a single room. Also, the difficulty is decided on the complexity of the pathway to the crystal that you have to grab is, not based on the rooms themselves. People just build tight corridors with traps outlining the walls and obstruct them being visible by putting the corrosive thick red blocks in front, so you have no idea what killed you or where it came from. People will also build a giant open area that has traps all over that just kill the player over and over again because they don't have the ammo or resources to deal with it all as a new player. The game's "difficulty" of maps means next to nothing and don't let that fool you in to thinking that the normal difficulty maps will be easier than other maps. It's awful and there is no real sense of difficulty in the game. No difficulty is harder than other difficulty because it just depends on who made the map and how they made it. It's just that the easiest difficulty will still stump a lot of players because of how riddled the rooms can be. A level 80+ player makes a killbox on "Normal" difficulty to farm rewards and can easily do it because they simply have access to more traps and better options for killing players and designing rooms. I understand the mechanic, but it's done so poorly that it just kills all/any fun.

I have had an eye on this title since launch and was expecting a fun time with creative maps, some poorly designed maps, and a bit of difficulty, but I got an awful experience and more disappointment than Cyberpunk's launch. I'm glad they're letting people try this for free because I now have easily decided to never pick up this monstrosity.

I love baseball games and it's one of the few sports sub-genres I thoroughly enjoy. This is a complete abomination to the genre. I understand it's meant for kids, but it is so incredibly frustrating in the way that nothing seems to work right.

There are quick-time events that make you time something correctly, hit a sequence of buttons, hit multiple buttons at the same time, or even mash a button. Hitting a sequence of buttons works fine, the timing works fine, but the hitting multiple buttons can be absurd and the mashing doesn't always work. For example, the game could want you to hit Y and A at the same time. Good luck doing that in a timely manner without hitting X and/or B during it. The mashing buttons has worked once for me out of the 5+ times I had to do it. I'd get to the 50% mark of mashing, then the game just refused to accept any for of input while I was still mashing, so I automatically failed.

The AI is the biggest abomination though. There's no question about it. The ball will be hit between shortstop and 2nd base, but the AI will just walk towards the outfield instead of towards the ball or predicting the ball's movement. Out of a 7 inning game, the AI opponents hit every single ball pitched except for 2 which were strikes. Each pitch uses a timing meter, but I have no idea what the point of it is because even if you perfect the timing, they still hit it every single time. It just becomes tedious and boring at a point.

Controlling your teammates is abysmal. You can't forward a runner until they hit the plate, and even then there's a 1-2 second delay before they even start moving to the next plate. In the field, if you try to take over a character while the AI is moving, then the character just sits there for a second or two before accepting the input you're using. Even worse, once you put any input in, the AI stops attempting to go for the ball. If you mess up it doesn't matter. The opposing AI will automatically stop on the bases and let you have your time to continue the play.

Batting is bad, but not as bad as the other mechanics in the game. If you manage to hit a homerun, great job! The problem is that even a homerun doesn't feel satisfying. It shows your character swinging the bat on replay and then transitions to the next batter. No ball cam, no excitement, no emoting player, just a bad replay system and that's it. This game a snooze-fest and is almost entirely nothing but hitting singles over and over again from either side.

Also controller isn't required, but it's absolutely recommended. In order to move your fielders on Keyboard+Mouse, you have to constantly drag the mouse in the direction you want them to run. I just don't understand who thought it was a good control scheme.

This thing is horrible and honestly just stick with the Super Mega Baseball franchise. It's not the best out there, but it's pretty good, equally kid-friendly, and a nice placeholder until hopefully MLB The Show or at least some other worthwhile competitor is added to PC at some point. One can hope at least.

This was a super short game. It took me only 90 minutes to beat it and it honestly was a pretty good time. However for only 90 minutes, I'm not sure if the $5 price tag justifies it. If you can find it for much cheaper, then I'd 100% recommend, but maybe not for $5. It's not bad, it's not good, but it is fun. If you're looking for a short, generic, and buggy WWII shooter, then you've come to the right place.

This is a nightmare.
Pros:

• The game is in a lane of it's own with menu options such as "Feature Unavailable" and also "Feature Unavailable".

Cons:

• It runs off of Quicktime and most of the time I had to force-close the game through task manager in order to get it to stop.
  
• Enemies are bullet sponges and they can do anywhere from 1-150 damage per hit.
  
• You have 1000 health, but the damage is so inconsistent that you can instantly die or take shots for 10-15 seconds with no real worry.
  
• Most of the time you'll respawn without your weapons and have to die to an enemy to force the restart screen to appear.
• The enemies are wearing red, but the area is so saturated with huge bushes and trees that you can barely see them while they ping you from over 50m away without even being able to see them.
  
• Takes about the same amount of bullets to kill an enemy as them refilling your ammo, so you're running out easily.
  
• The controls is default and says things like "handbrake" and other driving controls and almost no other controls that it lists elsewhere.

Ain't worth my time, ain't worth your time. Simple as that.

This is a decent game that has a few clunky mechanics that make it frustrating instead of hard.

Pros:

• Animations on the weapons are nice
  
• The sound design is decent
  
• The fish are pretty cute
  
• When it's simple platforming and shooting enemies, the game feels great and really fun
  
• Music is decent, but a short loop at times

Cons:

• The wall-running is super clunky and barely seems to work most of the time
  
• The grappling hook is not good at times and needs to have the option to end the grapple early to fling yourself or stop swinging
  
• The last 3-4 levels or so are horrendous because of the grappling hook and wall running being too goofy and these levels fully use these mechanics to the extreme
  
• Enemies can sometimes shoot through platforms or obstacles, so you'll be hit by objects flying through the walls
  
• The sniper enemies shooting at the same time causes their sound effect to compound and be the sound of a jet engine if too many are firing at the same

Overall, I'd recommend this. The price is the biggest reason why I don't mind the issues too much that the game has. It's a fun and neat little experience that only wears out its welcome in the latter sections due to bugs and clunky behavior. I had a fantastic time with a majority of it though.

I had quite a bit of fun with the ones that I did enjoy and could easily recommend this. There are a few stinkers in the pack, but at least half of them were pretty good and enjoyable and I could easily recommend this to somebody who enjoys HOGs and/or puzzles. There's nothing here that reinvents the wheel and most of them are pretty dated, but it's still an enjoyable time nonetheless.

My biggest issue is that two games broke and I would've had to redo an hour or more on each to get my progress back. Also, one or two of them were just boring, too dragged out, or had too many blurry background items to where the fun was gone quick. Not each of the games in this pack are straight bangers, but there are some really enjoyable stories throughout.

The biggest issue that somebody may have with this pack is the repetitiveness. Most of these titles are nearly the same with different coats of paint on them. You'll be doing match-3s, get "x" object out of blockade, and click "X" to get points over and over again throughout all of them. However, the varying stories and hidden object scenes make each one feel different enough to where it didn't bother me.

The weakest ones were Bonnie & Clyde and FBI Paranormal 2.

Half of the black platforms were invisible to me and were just shadows that I had to guess where the obstacles and platforms were. Decent game, but it makes it extremely frustrating and not very fun.