Recent reviews by blake++

Trying to get back into this game after a long break is like trying to get your PhD but instead of starting with the basics you're thrown into a lab with concepts you know nothing about and are expected to just "figure it out". Back when this game released I could understand the operators, somewhat understand the maps, and I could have fun, but with the massive catalog of operators now, large amount of maps, and an unfriendly community, it's genuinely miserable. Study or leave, and at this point I'd rather just leave.
There's a good game at the core of this I think. Getting into it NOW feels like a herculean task.

Settings

• Played on a Dualshock Edge with Steam Input
  
• I played to 100% each level

• Dynamic soundtrack is fantastic
  
• If this was released in current_year, it would be called Gay and Communist because it is and it's based

• Levels are just SO LONG with no mid-game save button. It's to the point where I would tab
  
• The game does not innovate enough to keep you continually invested. New enemies are introduced but they don't shake up the gameplay enough. Later levels feel like a sludge since it's just More of the Same.
  
• Camera is not great
  
• Platforming is far too floaty and edgeless
  
• A lot of buildings you're supposed to get onto are JUST above the height you can jump, so you have to find some other janky way to get on top of them. Happens way too often
  
• The lock-on system for targeting is meh
  
• Cutscenes are VERY low res
  
• 100%ing levels is a pain since not everything is tracked by the compass, which can lead you to continually combing through a level over and over

If this game was half of the length and 1/4 the price tag I'd be happy, but since it isn't, I'm not. de Blob fails to innovate to keep experienced gamers interested. The mechanics are far too shallow for the length of the game. I highly recommend listening to the soundtrack and avoiding the game itself. It just doesn't hold up like I remember it did when I was a kid.

Notes
A bug with Steam Notes caused a lot of my initial thoughts on the game to be deleted.
I only played the campaign. Haven't felt like returning yet to try Arena.

• Gameplay loop is fun albeit simplistic at times. I wish there were more interesting dynamics for players to utilize to combo and deal with larger swarms. Sometimes it can feel like mashing M1, even on the hardest difficulty.
  
• Lot of style and charm
  
• Music is great

• AI teammates are incredibly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ useless and it's game-ruining. AI teammates don't autopickup new guns when the old ones are spent (????). They go down all the time and require constant revives. They waste bullets on enemies who can't be damaged by bullets. Also, you can switch between you and an AI partner on the fly to change what you're dealing with. However, in the endgame, the game throws the entire kitchen sink at you and your AI teammate just cannot deal with whatever you put it in. This is made worse by the fact that if your squad wipes, you have to restart the entire level. I've lost 20+ minutes of progress several times because my AI teammates would just continually screw up and there was nothing I could do. It is the critical issue that ruins the campaign for me.
  
• The hardest difficulty is locked behind completion even though the difficulty below it is so easy I was able to first try most levels.
  
• Controls feel a little bit weird for new players. Aiming is definitely something that takes getting used to, and even when you're used to it it's still not phenomenal. I think they made the best of a bad system though.
  
• A pair of bosses is recycled at LEAST 3 times.
  
• Cutscenes are amateurish; there is blatant clipping of models at times and the cutscenes themselves feel slow. I find myself having to manually advance the cutscene to make it feel more natural. Also, to save money and time on voice acting, they use generic voice lines that indicate emotion or tone. This is a fine system, but Christoff refuses to work with Hank in text, but Christoff says "Impressive" as he refuses. ?????
  
• One boss (The Sherriff) is so embarassingly easy; you can just keep wailing on him with punches and he can't fight back. The fight becomes trivial, which is bad for a boss fight that's been built up.

Madness: Project Nexus is actually a good game. I think in co-op with a competent buddy you would totally clean house and have fun doing it, but as a singleplayer campaign experience, issues with AI make this unfinishable. I really wanted to like this game, but in its current state, I cannot recommend it.

I saw it in the promotional material and dumbly looked past it because I had heard good things about Beat Hazard. A blatant mistake on my part.

AI image generation is soulless, corporate garbage that uses illegally obtained datasets to produce awful art. It steals from indie artists (aka people like our developer here), and it is incredibly harmful to our environment.
How do you feel about people who pirate your games, Steve from Cold Beam Games? Do you feel like people are stealing something you put effort and passion into? I bet it doesn't feel good, and it especially doesn't feel good for your wallet. So why are you okay with doing it to others?
I know why; at some point, you got lazy and cheap. You decided that instead of buying a 3D model from an asset store and throwing it into Blender or, god forbid, commissioning a small indie artist, you'd use AI. You figured it probably wouldn't affect your income.

Well, here I am; the consequences of your decisions. I bought the entire trilogy, and now I'm refunding the entire trilogy. Maybe I would've fallen in love with BH3 or BH2. Maybe I would've followed your socials, looked forward to any other games you may produce. Instead, you've lost a customer.

Soundtrack is phenomenal, but it deserves to be lossless files, not lossy mp3s.

Every time I've tried to play this game, I will eventually enter a crash loop or a softlock. No matter my mod setup (with or without mods), no matter what bugfixes, the ♥♥♥♥ just crashes. It's a cool game while you're able to play it, but I've never been able to finish this game due to the bugginess.

I'm torn. On the one hand, I love the character designs. On the other, I hate haremshit. What to do...

I reset progress at 175hrs to go through the campaign again.

• Phenomenal skill ceiling with a controller; there is a very active "Ninja" scene that prides itself on completing extremely difficult custom tracks focused on throttle control and balance
  
• In-game custom track sharing and building
  
• The game itself pushes you to do great and become great
  
• Controls are extremely fluid and responsive
  
• Most of the bike options are excellent and add unique twists on gameplay
  
• Variety of cosmetics isn't bad
  
• You can earn the paid currency at a decent rate by playing tournaments weekly but you have to be on the tournament screen when they end which is really dumb. You have to schedule calendar events to boot up Trials. Paid currency only goes towards cosmetics though.

• Ubisoft requires you to be online to play
  
• Ubisoft requires you to login every time you want to play because it's a "Legacy Product" (??????)
  
• Ubisoft launcher sucks ♥♥♥♥ and is basically malware
  
• FMX system is awful
  
• The Awesome MAX DLC is really terrible and is super unfun
  
• Sound options aren't as granular as they should be; Hearing the throttle is incredibly important at a high level of play, but you can't only hear the throttle; you also have to hear all other track SFX.
  
• Menu design isn't bad but it could be better
  
• Some content just isn't available any more (there is a crossover with the mobile game Trials Frontier where you can earn a couple of cosmetics but Frontier was taken off the app stores so you can't play it)
  
• Way less female cosmetics than male

Trials Fusion is a phenomenal game, but Ubisoft's soul-sucking capitalist greed damages what could be a series that's still ongoing today. Instead, the series is basically on life support, and appears to be slowly dying. The Trials games were great, but Ubisoft was always in the way to make sure that these games didn't do as well as they could've. ♥♥♥♥ Ubisoft.

• Solid platformer; decent physics that manage to be floaty but tight
  
• Extensive options for a game of its time
  
• Interesting and deep characters
  
• Excellent story and premise
  
• Strong themes of mental health as well as growing up; the Asylum area is really good at dealing with intense trauma and mental illness
  
• Diverse cast of different nationalities, backgrounds, and stories
  
• Characters live outside of just your narrow view; they develop relationships and change with time
  
• Sidequests (however few they may be) are usually fun
  
• Semi-open world is really nice to explore and manages to have enough variety to feel fresh despite being all in the same location
  
• Dowsing rod minigame is sorta fun and encourages you to pay attention
  
• Varied bosses testing your abilities in interesting ways
  
• Plenty of variety in setting via different missions
  
• Great sense of humor (the city section is a good one)
  
• All abilities are really cool; the ball one is the best

• Bit too easy to use the dowsing rod and get a ton of money early game; plus the minigame is just mashing which sucks
  
• Getting all collectibles (especially figments) is absurdly obtuse and difficult
  
• Fish boss forced perspective is a bit annoying

Psychonauts is totally amazing. I used to play it back on the Original XBOX and I'm glad to say it still holds up today extremely well. If you love 3D platformers, you do NOT wanna miss out on this one!

You should download the community patch[audiosurf2.info] to restore a lot of the game's features and add more to it.
Also note I haven't played like half the modes.

• It's a procedurally generated music "rider" that allows you to play your music. There is nothing else like it (that actually seems decent), so yeah. It's a lot of fun and I get to play my niche music that isn't charted on any rhythm game otherwise.

• Songs played through YouTube still have a slight delay on the community patch
  
• Game still shows its age with simplistic options and graphics
  
• They really could've upped their visualizer game here but the skins and visuals are still kinda lacking
  
• Songs just sometimes aren't as well charted as they could be; climaxes in a song aren't given the weight they should. Perhaps better algorithms to generate tracks could solve this problem but it's unknown
  
• Audioshmup (as someone who hasn't played shmups) feels extremely unpredictable and unintuitive; projectiles move in almost random patterns

If you have recommendations for other titles that allow you to "play" your music that isn't Crypt of the Necrodancer or Beat Hazard, post them in the comments!!