Recent reviews by Mad Mav

This is a pretty tight and well done space fighter game, but it's got a real bad case of proper noun-itis and uses a front loader to tell the story when a scalpel would've done perfectly.

Some of the high points:
-The ship to ship combat is excellent! Fast paced, lots of game changer abilities, satisfying to get kills or pull off amazing dog fights, just really well put together
-The soundtrack is pretty good
-The graphics are nice, though sometimes camera wrestling is a pain

But this game has a real problem with all the nouns and the story in general. "The Circle", "The Faceless", "The Enclave", "The Elders", "The Seekers", and on and on and on. Along with all the whispering clarifications and motive explanations from Nara (the player)... It's hard to tell if the writers just thought their audience were idiots and wouldn't understand, or if they're just middling writers themselves. Or both. Really, the story could be trimmed down, A LOT, and be just fine.

At the same time, it would be nice if there was a little MORE space combat. Or maybe a free play mode after beating the game or something. I'd LOVE to go do some more crazy spaceship dog-fighting, but I really do NOT want to wade through all that blah-blah all over again.

Worth a look if you like space fighter games. Maybe not full price material though.

What a fun little game!

Start off as a poor fisherman just trying to make a living using inventory tetris and the ability to see where the fish are, and then wind up as a paranoid lunatic hauling up mutant horrors from the depths and unraveling a Cthulu-esque paranormal mystery.

All the base mechanics are really well put together too; moving around the map, the fishing/dredging minigames, the various puzzles you can find and complete as well as various characters to "help" or not, all feel great.

It seems a little on the short side for $25 USD though, but that'll be personal preference. I wound up playing for 16 hours and that was pretty completionist style (only missed a couple of aberration entries in the fish log).

If they'd have just called it something OTHER than Hawken...

...It MIGHT be tolerable. TOLERABLE, mind you, still not GOOD, by any stretch.

-Always online (in a SINGLE PLAYER GAME, by the way)
-No FoV options, no individual graphics options, no key rebinding
-The menus and UIs don't work smoothly with M&K OR controller
-Spammy, repetitive combat based on imaginary "pOwEr NuMbErS"
-Multiple currencies and micro(MACRO)transactions (in a SINGLE PLAYER GAME, by the way, again)
-Grind your fingers off OR pay to "sKiP tHe GriNd,, dur-hurr" business model (in a SINGLE PLAYER GAME, just in case you forgot)
-Muddy, indistinct graphics, both the scenery and the enemies, making it even harder to tell the two apart
-... (sigh)

Listen. There's a lot of ways that this garbage could be excused as a "let's wait and see what happens" scenario. Being called something OTHER THAN HAWKEN, for one thing. Having an upfront cost and NONE of this MACROtransaction BS in this SINGLEplayer game. Looking better, playing better, working better, etc, etc. but done like this?

No, no, and NO. This is an inexcusable pile of BS that someone somewhere kicked out the door to see if they could rake in some cash from some few poor saps with no garbage recognition skills.

Do NOT support this kind of shenanigannery. Not even with your time, and, most DEFINITELY, not with your money.

It's a fun ENOUGH little TD game, especially on sale.

BUT

It is very clearly still designed and paced as a mobile game that's meant to bait you into spending cash to shortcut the RIDICULOUS grind. Having to go back and replay prior levels upwards of TWENTY TIMES (not kidding) just to unlock enough tower/base upgrades to play the next level you're supposed to play is... OBSCENE.

I'm marking this as a "No", but with awareness of what you're getting and enough free time and tolerance for grind, then this is probably worthwhile.

I can see the appeal here, I just wasn't really getting into it.

-The visual style is actually pretty rough on the eyes
-The music is very basic and very repetitive (not really a big deal. It IS a rhythm game, after all)
-I'm very much OVER this "rogue-like" style of shooter. ESPECIALLY here, where it feels EXTRA random and EXTRA punishing to get screwed by RNG.
-Not a huge fan of the timed dodging element. I LIKED all the other timed elements, but the dodging and then getting splatted for messing it up felt more "Souls-like" than I generally enjoy.

But it IS a neat idea and COULD BE entertaining. Basically, take this as praise by exception; everything NOT mentioned here is pretty much fine.

A VERY solid horde survival game!

Probably the best thing about it (ESPECIALLY for an "Oily Excess" title) is that it's got a good solid base structure. Good bones, basically. You really get the impression that the developer actually understands how to do a game like this. The progression, both meta and in-run, are decent, if basic at the moment. The graphics, controls, sounds, UI and UX are all done well.

In short; if you enjoy horde survival games, AND you're sick of all these knock-offs that can't figure how to actually make it fun, then THIS is the game to try.

It's got some fun bits to it, and I AM probably going to go ahead and finish it, but $4.99 is definitely the right price for this.

-Good stuff up front: It looks nice, the lore and setting are nice to see being done well, there's always stuff to do, there ARE mouse & keyboard controls (more on that in the negatives), and the "Nemesis" mechanic can be pretty neat sometimes (more on THAT in the negatives).

...Aaaaand, now we're on in to all the crap-TACULAR things that this game does, all of which together make me utterly amazed that this game is viewed so positively:

-A whole heap of the M&K controls have multiple functions bound to the same key with no way to separate them
-The enemy spawning in this game is COMPLETELY PIG-MOLESTED! COUNTLESS times now I've had enemies spawn RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME while I'm already fighting a whole army of them, or clear an entire camp out -climb a tower IN THE CAMP- and look down to see the entire camp respawned already, or "Nemesis"s's's spawning right next to me while I'm already fighting MULTIPLE "Nemesis"'s's's's's's! It's ridiculous.
-The "Nemesis" system itself is a bit of a joke. It can be really neat when it pulls off things that YOU feel like YOU had a hand in (die and your killer gets a promotion, help one uruk over another and see them grow, fail to stop an event and they gain power, etc), but at the same time it is CONSTANTLY pulling crap out of thin air: all their strengths and weaknesses are random, they are CONSTANTLY spawning new "Nemesississss" so there's really no point in hunting them down or anything because you never make any ACTUAL progress against the never-ending stream of them, random goombahs get promoted because they shot you with an arrow after you had killed upwards of 60-70 uruks and 4 nem-tards... (sigh)... Suffice it to say: It's a bit of a mixed bag.
-The "combat" (hardy-harr) is a complete joke that requires zero brain-power and only slightly more player engagement. Here's the cliff notes for every combat encounter: spam attack, again, and again, and again, and again, counter, spam attack, again, and again, use a "special" power (doesn't really matter which), spam attack, counter, repeat. It's nuts. Combat boils down to 2 keys, TWO, and the occasional power attack, and that's IT. No brain cells. Nothing for the player to actually DO, except sit there and watch Talien dance around like a loon while you spam the attack key.
-Sidequests are throw-away rubbish straight out of "the Ubi game" (because they only MAKE one game) "find some herbs", "kill 5 uruks sneaky styles" etc, etc.
-.....

You know what? I'm done. You get the idea. There IS some fun to be had here, and it isn't probably as awful as my snark makes it sound. But to hear people crow about this game I was expecting the best thing since sliced animal parts, and it is NOT that. It is generic in every way imaginable, a lazy ass console control scheme port, full of meaningless busywork and un-engaging combat that will put you in a coma.

Like I said: Not bad for 5 bucks.
(Not great either, though)

Not entirely sure how to describe it...
...But this game... Makes me feel like a crotchedy old coot.

If I wanted to worry about headshots, I'd go play an FPS, NOT a top-down shooter. If I wanted active reloads... Well, I never would. Moving on. If I wanted to play a rogue-lite and get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ down by RNG there's a whole SLEW of games that do that AND feel more fun while they're at it. If I wanted all these RPG mechanics like leveling up and unlocking new stuff... I'd go play an ACTUAL RPG. If I wanted to learn each and every enemies attack cycle and behavior, I'd go play a souls-like.

The menus are a mess across the board, the GUI is flat out incomprehensible half the time, the game wobbles madly between pedantic tactical shooter and frenetic score attack bullet hell.... Sigh...

I can't tell if the developers took TOO MUCH meth, or if I should start TAKING METH, but this is nuts. It's like someone made a gumbo out of WWII field rations while hiding in an abandoned car factory and then a meteor landed outside and all the rabbits started screwing... -In light bulbs.

I'm sure there's a good game and a satisfying loop in here SOMEWHERE, but I definitely don't have the patience to dig it out of all the gloop.

Sort of a mixed bag here. So mixed that I'm rating it a "recommend"... But I kind of really DON'T.

The art style is GREAT! Really nails a far future cyber-punk sort of thing. Ditto the music; it's on-theme, it's wonderful.

The shooting is satisfying, if a little basic. It definitely gets old by the time the credits roll. There are lots of different ways to upgrade your killing as well, with a whole bevvy of different guns, grenades, abilities, and modifiers, you can really put together some kooky combos and go nuts.

The movement controls, however, are sliced ass! (for M&K, I should clarify. It's actually a LITTLE better with a controller) instead of every other isometric ARPG where you move with the mouse, HERE, you move with WASD. Always. And it will absolutely KILL your hand, to the point where I could only play this for an hour or so at a time because my hand would hurt so bad from CONSTANTLY spazzing around the movement keys.

You'll also spend a HUGE chunk of your playtime using that terrible movement scheme to get from one side of the GIANT map to the other for every... Single... MISSION. No joke, every mission you pick up wants you to go as far away as possible... And then turn around and go back. Yes, there is a "fast travel" (taxi) but it just takes you to a specific named location on the map, and that spot could still be 10-15 minutes away from where you need to go, even though it's IN THE SAME NAMED LOCATION. Madness.

Heaven help you if you're a completionist and you pick this up.

If you like ARPGs and/or cyberpunk setting, then this is probably worth a look, especially on sale. The things that are rough about it though, had me absolutely ANTICIPATING the end of the game by the time I was getting there. I just wanted it to be over.

It's a decently fun FPS with some rough edges here & there.

Gameplay/gunplay -wise: It's pretty much the same as "New Order" and "Old Blood"; dual-wielding, solid feel to the shooting, decent weapon variety, optional stealth, commander killing, perks based on kills/tactics done repeatedly, variety of maps to go through, etc. All similar. Though it doesn't have the ridiculous lock-picking mini-game BS from TNO (thank GOD!) and it doesn't really have a "branching story" depending on who you picked for a companion (Death's Head survivor), that person just... IS THERE, and ... DOES STUFF.

Mechanically, it's got some rough spots. Lots of points where you get snagged on world geometry, lots of spots where the stealth system breaks itself, lots of places where your mobility skills won't activate properly, some shoddy optimization, some GPU/memory leakage, some bugged out texture loading and lighting. Mostly minor stuff, really, but it detracts from the overall package.

YES, the cutscenes are mostly throw-away and told very ham-fisted-ly, but you can skip them if you want, so, (shrug). The story overall is pretty garbage, but the "story" in a Wolfenstein game probably isn't why most of us are here. (more shrugging).

Overall, it's probably worth a look, especially if you've enjoyed the prior reboot titles. I'd still opt for getting it on sale though. This is definitely the weakest of the three.