Recent reviews by blake++

Truly the superior way to experience the original Half Life. A must have for any Half Life fan. Xen is gorgeously redone and features some awesome reworks to specific fights and sections. The rest of the game has been given a complete visual overhaul, along with streamlining some segments or improving others. And don't worry; they ARE improvements. You can tell how much care and passion was put into this project.
I played on Hard, which wasn't actually THAT bad. Bosses are a bit tanky, but regular enemies are fine. Also, if you buy this near the time this review has come out, be sure to use the public beta, as it improves some sections. I only experienced crashing two times in Xen, and since the game has good saving mechanics, I didn't lose much progress (if any) each time.
Get it at full price, and DEFINITELY get it if it's on sale.

I am quite the newbie to rally driving, and I have only driven a manual once in my life. That being said, art of rally taught me more about how to properly use cars and the differences between them than Dirt Rally 2.0 did. It may look easy, but it is quite difficult in reality. I can't comment on how the physics are compared to real life, but every car has real weight to it, and it feels good to go around corners. While I'm no expert racer yet, I think art of rally is excellent for bridging that gap and helping you learn. The career mode is quite fun as it takes you through the years of rally, forcing you to drive different years of cars on various tracks. Free roam has collectibles, which allow you to explore the tracks you've been on in their full form and unlock new free roam tracks. There's a global leaderboard as well. All in all, I would recommend this game at full price, and if it goes on sale, there is little reason to not buy it if you are a rally fan, or someone trying to get into rally.

This is THE current AAA VR experience. It has great gunplay with some decent fighting, but is mainly centered around methodical exploration. It is a must to play Half Life 2 and EPs 1 and 2 before you play this. Awesome physics with plenty of cool set pieces, interesting puzzles, and high octane moments. Also a pretty good soundtrack. The main downside is that it isn't longer, but you have community made maps if you want more. All in all, if you play VR, you NEED to play this game.

This game was recommended to me by a friend who knows I like Hotline Miami 1 and 2. I have 100% both of those games, and consider them to be my favorite games of all time. When I initially played through the game, I loved its story and atmosphere. While lightweight in amount of gameplay (normal mode story took me 3.5 hours), it was a gripping tale with distinct characters and excellent storytelling. Your choices feel like they matter, and I found myself immersed in the swordsman's role.
It also has a pretty good soundtrack. I didn't find it anything to write home about, but it was pretty good and had some awesome tracks I'll definitely be listening to again in the future.
HOWEVER, I have quite a few problems with the gameplay.

* Normal mode is far too easy; with experience in fast-paced games like HM1, HM2, ULTRAKILL, etc, I found I had to limit myself by not using the time shift mechanic unless a part was too ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to avoid (eg machine gunner fires at you in a narrow hallway, you can spam click and get lucky or just use time shift). Turning down screenshake or hitpause doesn't make it much harder. (And no, I did not use it on a single boss)
* Rewind tapes showing you exactly what you did. You cannot turn this off until after unlocking speedrun mode. I can understand if someone wanted to view what they did in real time since they abused the timestop mechanic, but it's incredibly annoying for someone who doesn't use it. The "Skip Rewind" option never did anything for me. In fact, I don't know what that option even does.
* Left click to begin playing. Why is this a feature? Just show the title of the level and then let me play. It's super duper minor, but just a small annoyance.
* The game is really freaking short. Kinda weird. I took my time with the cutscenes. I could not imagine buying this at full price, especially when the story is not even over.
* Horrible obviously reused geometry (this resulted in intense frustration on hardmode)[i.imgur.com]
* You need to mash to get up. (I'm 99% sure this is a thing, I get up way faster when mashing). Why. The. EVERLIVING ♥♥♥♥. IS THIS A MECHANIC?
* Terrible key rebinding. I played this game with a keyboard and mouse. You cannot unbind roll from S + A/D, which results in constant misinputs if you use roll regularly on another key (like I did on E)
* Rolling picks up items (WHY?)
* Insane default controls (Is this supposed to be played with controller?)
* Inconsistent AI (cocking a shotgun would sometimes alert another enemy in another room, and other times would not)
* AI changing pathing randomly in normal mode (it doesn't line up with story; Chronos literally allows you to see how something will play out, enemies moving in random patterns does not make any ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sense)

I originally thought this game was quite good, but as I started a hard mode playthrough in search of some difficulty spike, these issues became quite pronounced. Levels were less about pure skill and were more about memorizing what inputs to do because of dumb mechanics as I explained above. I did not use time shift here either, and I actually found turning off hitpause and screenshake made the game easier.

Since I said I loved HM2, you're probably wondering why I love that game and not this game, since this game is much more well received than HM2. HM2's main issue is offscreen enemies and wide open spaces resulting in the game being unfair. However, I do not mind this unfairness as it doesn't relate to the things such as keybindings; the game is designed to be unfair. I do not mind trial and erroring my way through HM2, forcing to think on the fly if I stray from a plan or unexpected enemy pathing occurs. However, with Katana Zero's issues, most of the fault relies on the game having these issues rather than the player. It's not that I can't mash to get up, or can't deal with rolling being forcefully bound to S + A/D, or can't deal with rolling picking up items, it's just that I don't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ want to.
Because I feel this way, I cannot recommend this game.

ULTRAKILL. Devil May Quake. Need I say more?
...
Well, that would probably be a good idea.

ULTRAKILL is a hardcore super-fast FPS somewhat similar to Doom Eternal. It focuses on very fast gameplay, twitch shooting, good aim, weapon combos, etc. ULTRAKILL leans more into the combo system though, by literally including a DMC-esque combo meter, for doing specific tech and tricks.
It will feature 3 total acts, a prelude which is playable in the demo, and three ultra-difficult side bosses, and a infinite wave-based mode called Cybergrind. At the time of writing, the Prelude, Act 1, and one ultra-difficult boss is available. Getting a "Perfect" rank on all of these levels, as well as getting all secrets and doing all challenges took me 18 hours.

MOVEMENT
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Coming from a background of bunnyhop, I can say that I very much enjoyed this game's movement. You have a jump, 3 consecutive walljumps, three rechargeable dashes, explosion boost mechanics, ground pound, and tech for all of these moves that adds complexity to the gorgeous movement system.
And the best part? It's all intentional by the dev. Yes, hidden tech to exploit the movement system is encouraged by the dev (to a degree of course, he'll probably patch something that breaks the whole game).
There's a ton of nuance here, and it all feels so good to work with. I'd consider it better than Doom Eternal's movement system.

GUNPLAY
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All the guns and fists (no I will NOT explain) work together in harmony to encourage you to swap weapons all the time during combat to avoid waiting for cooldowns. It's similar to Doom Eternal (this review will feature a lot of Doom Eternal comparisons), but in this game you have unlimited ammo.
There are alternate weapons, alternate fire modes, alternate weapon modes, and they all manage to feel unique and purposeful while remaining simple, which is NOT an easy feat by any means.
I wish I had more to say, but they're just really good. My only complaint would be that the nailgun really just isn't as useful as the other weapons, but I still find myself using it quite a bit.

MAP DESIGN
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It's really solid. Lots of tight arenas encouraging you to soak up that sweet blood and absolutely eviscerate your enemies. Sometimes it opens up, other times it closes up. It's a varied combat experience, that along with the movement, allows for a lot of player experimentation and freedom. No complaints.

MUSIC
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Hakita (the developer) has some stellar taste in music. ULTRAKILL is populated by breakcore beats, blending together with a mix of heavy metal, classical, and noise music. I'm no music expert, so just look up the soundtrack and take a listen for yourself if you're smarter than me.
But needless to say, it sounds ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ amazing. It's really well done and varied without losing its cohesive style. It complements the combat perfectly.
My only complaint is that it's still not on Spotify. What the ♥♥♥♥ Hakita?

STORY
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Mankind? Dead.
Blood? Fuel.
Hell? Full.
For ULTRAKILL, that's all you really need to know. As you go along, there's more lore to uncover, mostly given through text-based terminals and scraps of dialogue from bosses. However, it takes a backseat to the actual game. No cutscenes at all here, unlike Doom Eternal. It's a "there if you want it" type thing, and I am all here for it.

MISC
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ULTRAKILL is packed with tons of easter eggs and secrets that make it a joy to play through, as well as secret missions which literally (extremely light spoiler talking about the nature of secret missions) are just missions that are genre-shifts. For example, one is a horror mission.

There are hidden extra bosses, jokes, secret goodies, etc. Exploring these tight arenas feels really rewarding.

There are plenty of settings to fine tune the game to your liking, including HUD customization, weapon position changing, PlayStation graphics sliders, etc.

CONCLUSION
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For an early access game, ULTRAKILL is jam-packed with so much amazing stuff that you'll be craving the next update by the time you're finished. Well worth the $20 already.
Play the demo. I won't need to tell you to buy the game, cuz you'll already do it after playing that demo.

This game is the very first game you should buy on Steam. Above all else. It is an orgasmic 2D RPG sandbox experience that looks great and plays great, with a great difficulty curve. For $10, I can promise you you will get more than your money's worth.

top-tier software for live wallpapers

Very solid game for people who love an adrenaline rush. Pretty solid soundtrack with a vague but gripping story. All the fights have their own gimmick and are incredibly awesome to play through. If you liked the Hotline Miami series, you'll love this.

A legitimately excellent game that only gets better every update. It is a decent singleplayer game, but is best played with friends. Lots of learning what items do what though, but it comes easily with time. Definitely a good pick up at $20, and if it's on sale, you should absolutely pick it up.

Great game, even greater community.

EDIT: The community really isn't that great in the circles I ran in. It was overall pretty toxic a lot of the time, but it was easier to stomach when your whole personality is edgy teenager.
What makes the game truly special is its ability to modify it. Community servers consisting of various gamemodes, some pioneering entire genres, is amazing. You definitely can meet awesome people through this game though, and make memories and friends that will last a lifetime.
It's definitely a must have. Get it dirt cheap on sale or something.