Recent reviews by sharktemplar

neat lil' indie gem

Due to the nature of the game receiving so many free content updates, the balance is a tad out of wack in terms of making builds for your dwarves. Some builds are hilarious garbage that can only withstand mid-tier difficulties or specific, uncommon situations, while other builds can absolutely dominate any difficulty, period. One such build that I have discovered to be the game's absolute meta with no other build of no other class being able to adequately match is Gunner's Plasma Burster Missiles 11112 and Coilgun 22222. Should the devs ever actually tally up the pros of this build, they'll almost certainly recognize it as stupid-OP and nerf something about it, but frankly many other builds need huge buffs instead.

The gameplay loop is quite strong, though it does get same-y after long enough, which trying out different builds or dipping your toes into crazy chaotic modded servers can usually remedy pretty well. Anyone who plays for more than a few hundred hours will recognize they are doing the same thing over and over, meaning the fun comes from doing it in different ways, hence the value of trying new builds or game mods.

The monetization is the most generous and pro-consumer I have seen in a long time. The only paid content is strictly cosmetic, and releases as a single, self-contained package. All gameplay content and the overwhelming majority of cosmetic content is free with the base game, you need only unlock it by playing, and there is no "pay to unlock stuff sooner" functions of any kind.

One of the best co-op horde-shooters out there. Devs are talented, humble, dedicated, and I haven't sniffed a hint of the woke mind virus from anything in the game or from Ghost Ship Games directly, which is more than can be said for Helldivers 2.

Exponentially better current-day Monkey Ball than any of the current Monkey Balls from Sega. Recaptures original Monkey Ball 1 and 2 with consistent, responsive, and comfortable controls, wildly creative levels with thorough difficulty diversity, and addictive gamemodes that put those levels to their best possible uses.
Only thing it's missing is fun nifty minigames like the old, not-trash Monkey Ball games had. If this gets a sequel, hope we see paper airplane toss for a Monkey Target style glider minigame and some racetracks that let you garner crazy amounts of speed that feel good to maintain.

Edit: After playing for enough hours, here's some more in-depth critique:

Presentation: The game dropped the paperball on this in a few VERY minor areas.
1) If you game over, the voice line for Coco where she asks if she made it too difficult is way too quiet and hard to hear over the game over music. There are other examples of voice lines being far too difficult to hear for where they are used, but that one is the most noticeable I think. The devs didn't quite seem to realize that it was actually a design decision and not a thematic one that the original Monkey Ball announcer was loud and shout-y and had effects put on his voice that somewhat sounded like he was talking to a stadium through a speaker. It ensured he was audible no matter what music was playing or sound effects were going off.

2) The intro cutscene has inconsistent VA quality. The dog teacher and laughing raccoons sound... off, the dog teacher in particular sounding like he's just some guy in his earlier twenties throwing his hat into the ring of voice acting for funsies. Not to knock the VA or anything but just in terms of objective performance quality, he sounded like he was putting on a deeper voice than he normally had and it was painfully obvious, whereas Coco herself sounds fantastic and cute and charming and pleasant and airy and everything she needs to sound like for her art depiction and role as stage announcer.

3) If your paperball gets stuck between two objects, it just clips through them and gets spat out wherever it is able to, which makes sense. It's a Unity game, the physics probably cannot guarantee zero clipping in such circumstances. However, I thought it'd be a neat quick-fix to have a sort of 'ball-smooshing' animation whenever the ball is crushed by something. It IS a paper ball, after all, so perhaps when it gets smooshed between two objects, an animation on the ball can play that flattens it according to where the two points of contact occurred, and it would be strictly visual so it would not impact paperball handling what-so-ever.
If not that (probably because it would be tedious to implement ball-squishing from any possible direction), then at least some paper shreds particle effects (matching your ball's color) that fly off your paperball combined with a loud crumple sound effect whenever the ball detects it has been crushed or forced to clip through something.

Inconsistent Platinum Medal Difficulty: Some platinums are absolute BEASTS that require totally mastering a level after dozens and dozens and dozens of attempts, and other platinums, I kid you not, I achieved over SIX FULL SECONDS (on Broken Twister) faster than the platinum medal time within 3 attempts on a stage or less. Gables is also one of them I remember off the top of my head where I had a solid 2 or 3 seconds on the platinum time within 5 attempts.
On top of this, numerous platinum medals are genuinely NOT possible unless you use a technique that I originally thought was the result of slightly under-tested mouse/keyboard control scheme, but apparently not. It is called 'boosting' and can be done on controller too, and is performed by moving at a diagonal angle instead of straight forward/left/right, which results in noticeably superior acceleration power. If you aren't comfortable with using this technique, a large swath of platinum medals are quite literally impossible for you. As someone who got all the platinum medals in medal mode, I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but I do think there should be some sort of hint or teaching moment to inform the player that the 'boosting' technique exists.

Now, I get that there's a LOT of stages and making the platinums super tight and flawless on every single one would have taken a lot of time by the devs in the playtesting stages, and I also get that CHANGING platinum medal times to be shorter would rob people of past victories and make them feel cheated, but if this ever gets a sequel, commission some of the best paperball players you can find to grind out all the levels for you and screenshot their times to base the platinums off of. Hell, I'd do it for free in such a hypothetical, I adore this game.

False Platinum Medal Times: It has happened to me thrice now that I get a goal time that is an exact match of the platinum medal time (say, 16:88 for platinum and I get exactly 16:88 on the clock) and it DOES NOT give me my platinum. I recall on one past stage though that I DID match it perfectly and it DID give me my platinum medal. Seems the game's internal logic timer is EVEN more precise than what is shown to the player on-screen or something. If this can at all be remedied with an update, it should be. I have screenshot proving I matched the platinum medal time down to the exact milisecond and it denied me my platinum on Pong, and it also happened on Clock Hands, too.

A bit too few noob-friendly levels: I dunno if this game will ever get worked on again, or if a sequel is even feasible in cliax games' budget/time frames (given this game alone saw multiple content updates and DLC and no doubt took a HUGE amount of work just to get where it is right now) but I think the game could benefit from a few dozen more levels that are more in line with what someone 12 or younger could be capable of accomplishing. I get that the more creative and engaging a level is, the unavoidably more difficult it HAS to be by design, and blitz mode is a nice handicap for less skilled players to have a better chance at seeing and beating tougher levels anyway, but I noticed the game has a lot of levels difficult in their own right and with neat gimmicks (clearly designed to satisfy monkey ball fans, which they do very successfully), but not enough levels that are just designed more about showcasing a fun and satisfying use of the physics engine while simultaneously having generally low difficulty.

Things like nestling yourself into a catapult and being launched onto a huge bouncepad that flings you into a giant basket that is practically guaranteed to catch you, or going down an insanely steep ramp that starts at 45 degrees, then turns into a sheer 90 degree drop, then a 110 degree ramp so it's literally inverted and you're just free-falling, then shifts back into an 80-degree ramp again near the bottom.
Fun stuff like that that is generally simple/straightforward to accomplish and leaves the player with a feeling of "Wow, that was so cool!" instead of "Wow, that was tough!". The golf-club-level in Cherry Skies is a decent but rather mild example of this type of level.

Overall: None of this changes how much I love this game, it's still fantastic and everyone who even SLIGHTLY enjoyed any monkey ball game at any point in their lives should buy this (and the DLCs) and play it. It is a PHENOMENAL amount of enjoyment/playtime for a weirdly low and generous price tag.

Edit2: Also, just had to add, the OST is unbelievably stellar. IMO it's literally better than the OG Monkey Ball OSTs. Psychedelic is my favorite, but I couldn't think of a single one that came off as forgettable/bland. They're all wonderfully catchy and absolute fire. If half of the game's entire budget went into paying the composer, I wouldn't even be slightly surprised. The music truly is SHOCKINGLY excellent across the board, give the amount of tracks in the game.

The bot infestation seems to be gone for now, but should VALVe elect to severely neglect one of their best and longest-running games to the point it ever gets that bad a second time, I'll re-revise my review back to negative. The experience TF2 provides from the way it was designed as a game is phenomenal, and that's why it has such staying power, but the way it is managed by VALVe has had notably massive ups and downs. here's hoping the beauty of TF2 will be protected adequately this time by its owners.

The quality of the game speaks for itself, it's one of the best space exploration games I've ever known. It knows what it does well and puts all its focus on that and only that, never overstaying its welcome or shoehorning in any unnecessary mechanics.

It eloquently jumps back and forth between narrative-driven exploration and exploration-driven narrative; half the time you explore somewhere because the story peaked your interest about that location, and the other half of the time you are just exploring somewhere because it personally interested you, and story elements find their way into your lap while you're there.

Despite the blunder of Epic Games exclusivity from when this title launched, the masterpiece it came out as makes me feel deeply honored to have backed it on fig when it was in its crowdfunding and infancy stages. Furthermore, as far as I'm concerned, Mobius smoothed things over with their backers later when they released the utterly fantastic DLC Echoes of the Eye, giving said DLC to all their backers for free when that was in no way expected of them, nor part of any backer reward tiers.

Its one of those special, unforgettable, timeless diamonds in the ruff that you will get the best possible experience out of by going in totally blind. Outer Wilds is all about exploration and discovery, with all its mechanics and dynamic environment systems weaving together to compliment these foundations. The more you have to discover (I.E. the less you know about before playing) the better time you'll have playing. There are no upgrades or game progression systems in Outer Wilds. The only way to 'progress' in the game is to acquire knowledge by exploring the excellently hand-crafted free-roaming worlds and environments the game lets you navigate through with zero hand-holding. Once you have enough knowledge, the puzzle that is the ending of the game is revealed to you, and what a truly fantastic ending it is.

A literal must-play for anyone who is even slightly interested in space exploration games, or just exploration games in general, really.

It's one of those special games where the less you know about it going in the more enjoyable of a ride you'll have.
This is the perfect example of how you build dread and lure the player deeper by weaponizing their own curiosity against them.

Campaign is incredible, albeit shorter than I wanted it to be.
Multiplayer is fun if you can actually find a game. Survival wave defense with giant mech bots is awesome, so frontier defense is the only multiplayer I ever actually bothered with.
Shame they abandoned this game, it really is something special and it shows when you get your hands on it.

Gameplay loop is tedious and the game quickly stops being fun once you recognize this loop (run in big circles on maps shaped like a circle and shoot occasionally) and also tripwire fired their CEO for having non-woke opinions on twitter. Game is made by yet more self-righteous smoothbrains that think diversity of thought should be scrubbed out of the games industry. Exercise your right to vote with your wallet if this bothers you, purchasing this game is not supporting honest or inclusive people.

Very creative new mechanic, got good exercise of it, paced its lessons well enough that I was never stumped thanks to not understanding a mechanic, rather I was stumped because of poor direction in level design.
Puzzles were very clever for the most part, either establishing a concept, or demanding multiple fundamentals in certain orders.
Ran into a couple glitches with test chamber logic, but having experience with mapping in hammer myself, as well as understanding how the mechanics were taught to me in prior test chambers allowed me to easily peg them as glitches and quickly fix them myself so I could continue. Nothing major or a cause of any serious confusion or hold-ups.

Compared to Portal 2:

Humor in writing: 6/10, nothing special but definitely made me smile or chuckle more than once.

Puzzle creativity/complexity: 7/10, solved a few chambers in a way I definitely wasn't supposed to because the real solution didn't come naturally to me, but an unorthodox solution did. Thankfully, dev anticipated this and has unique dialogue and an end-chamber fix for if you manage to solve it through fanaggling movement/variables instead of the intended steps. Chamber 17 was particularly BS in my opinion. Taught me an incorrect lesson based on its layout, leading me to believe my time portal could ONLY be placed in a very specific little box, when in actuality I was meant to do a quick little circumventing of this and gain access to my time portal for the whole chamber, which begs the question why even design it that way? Just give the player access to the time portal for the whole chamber instead of making it seem like you can only change time periods in a very specific little box in the wall. Really started to get into the territory of "More steps means harder puzzle, right?" near the end, and test chambers became a bit more tedious and a bit less fun as a result of their solutions just being longer to solve but not necessarily harder. Keeping track of the order of operations in my head is where most of the later chambers' difficulty came from, rather than applying an existing mechanic in a unique way that encouraged thinking outside the box. Still, multiple test chambers did successfully give me the critical, signature Portal "A-hah!" moment when I solved them.

Story: 3/10, very nothing-burger. Fits the lore of the Portal franchise (technically), but its attempts to tie itself in with Portal 2 plot was so lack-luster that it really didn't even need to try. The "story" never engages the player, rather it just uses dialogue between test chambers (near the end) to try and squeeze its justification of its own presence into the timeline of Portal 2 and attempts to resolve obvious complaints or common questions the player might have based on what they are told. There is zero visual story-telling. It's all just dialogue that feels like it's trying too hard to explain itself to you rather than interest you in a mystery that gets concluded by the end. The ending cinematic was poorly-made. It had low fps for some reason, even though it was a pre-rendered cutscene, and the camera movements were janky and uncomfortable. The ending itself (that I got, and most other players will too on their first time playing) was underwhelming to the point that it didn't even need to be there, and was clearly just trying to chase the coattails/formula of Portal 1 and 2 endings, minus the satisfying payoff or charm that left you thinking about it after you had closed the game.

Music: 6/10, no special track composed exclusively for the credits, though this is excusable given the credits were obviously going to be very short. The music that was present wasn't so much distinct songs, but pleasant and atmospheric loops that even had multiple versions playing dynamically for if you were in the present or the future, which was a very nice touch despite how simple the musical presence was overall. It knew what music it did and didn't really need for gameplay, and was gentle but satisfying about what you heard, where you heard it, and how often.

Overall: Very fun little gem, despite any of its flaws. Gave me the same feelings of confusion>realization>satisfaction that I hadn't felt since I first played the Portal games, thanks almost exclusively to the new mechanic of the time portal and all its caveats. Unless you're particularly snooty and demanding about the quality you expect from free mods based on your favorite franchises, definitely give Portal Reloaded a play. As far as gameplay goes, (but ONLY gameplay, unfortunately) it scratches much the same itch of the main titles, though obviously a fair bit shorter in length.

A remarkable amount of content from years of updates and TLC community-feedback-drive developer support. Terraria has come such a very long way from the "lol 2d minecraft" it began as way back when.
Definitely a game for anyone who enjoys rpgs or 'in it for the long haul' game experiences. It's remarkably well balanced and has a flavor for almost anybody. Builders, boss lovers, quest takers, roleplayers, class-based combat admirers, the whole nine yards.
If it looks even slightly interesting, absolutely give it a try. It has a hidden addictiveness. Once you're in, you're in until the end, which speaks wonders to how well-polished and intricate and interconnected all the content really is from start to finish.