Recent reviews by Loher1

This game has genuinely the best movement of any platformer I've ever played, bar none, but it feels as if I was only truly starting to "master" it by the time the game was ending. The whole experience is around six hours long (with grabbing all collectibles/time trials) and by then you'll have the skills to complete the game, but it's only scratching the surface of what you could pull off with proper mastery.

That's my only gripe, that there isn't MORE. For the price, the game is a perfectly reasonable length and is more than worth spending the change, but with a movement system that's so fun and free-flowing I really wish there was some kind of map editor or modding support so I could spend hours tackling new challenges within this games systems.

Regardless, it's worth your money for stuff other than just staring at goat thighs (although you can and should do that) and when my only complaint is I want to play it more, that's a good sign.

I wanted to like Risk of Rain Returns, I really did. I played the original (although that was on an old profile I lost a long time ago, so maybe there are some rose-tinted glasses) and absolutely loved RoR2, and was looking forward to the lessons they learned from the sequel enhancing the original.

They seem to have promptly forgotten those lessons. Before getting into my issues with the game, the positives; the pixel art is beautiful, the gameplay is tight and fun, the enemy and item variety is excellent, and the soundtrack is unsurprisingly brilliant.

The biggest problem is player agency, or a lack thereof. Most great Roguelikes (Isaac, Gungeon, etc.) have a common thread, which is that player decisions impact run outcome. Not just their mechanical skill, but their choices. In Risk of Rain 2, this is most evident in the Scrapping/Printing system, you can choose to delete items you've decided aren't good for your build, and then choose when and where to print that Scrap. You take a chance, losing immediate power on exchange for potential long term gains.

This means that two identical runs played by two different people could go very, very differently, depending on what they scrap and print. Risk of Rain Returns discards this system. The ONLY meaningful choices you make are The Multishop item you buy sometimes and whether to fully loot or rush. Similarly, there is no Recyler for items in this game, there are no Void items that offer alternative paths, there are no diverging routes, hell there isn't even Shrines of Order. Taking away all of these choices makes runs feel far more stale and less interactive, as you either end up feeling insanely overpowered or absolutely helpless, and it's based more on what items you were given rather than what items you were able to create. You do not make the run, you are given it, or you're not.

In that sense, i think Risk of Rain Returns unfortunately fails as a Roguelike, and although I could excuse these things in the original, it feels bizarre that they lost all of the design philosophy they took into the sequel. Although still a fun time waster now and again, it's not a complete Roguelike experience in that sense, and I'm just gonna keep playing RoR2.

Usually I write very long, fleshed out reviews. For Dusk, that isn't necessary. This is the best, retro, boomer shooter on the market bar none, and it is insane value for money if you're a fan of Quake or Doom or any such series, but even if you're new to retro FPS it's a worthwhile experience in its own right. Everything about this game is perfect or near-perfect, and I cannot think of a single thing I would change.

Buy this game. You will not regret it.

I really want to like this game. I held out hope that 1.0 would improve all of the major issues, but it's just introduced a slew of new bugs (everything from rare A-Posing suspects to serious issues with AI officer pathing to the loadouts just not working on your squad to straight up absent features like police trailers). The main issue though, as it has been since the beginning of RoN, is the suspect AI.

There are a load of reviews below me complaining about the sudden random headshots through walls or tiny pixel peeks, and yes, that's an issue. It's ridiculous that a drugged up junkie is rapid firing a high-caliber revolver through the wall and hitting every single shot, especially considering half the time they're doing it totally blind. It's equally ridiculous when they shrug off three bullets without seeming to suffer any pain, like some kind of super soldier. But the issue is deeper than that; the issue is that the AI in no way acts like a realistic human would, which is kind of the entire point of a realistic SWAT game like this.

In open fights, you have to use cover and place your shots carefully. The AI has no such restraint, moving three times faster than you and strafing left and right at that speed while hipfiring with near perfect accuracy. They sprint around like CS:GO sweats with no self preservation instinct, and considering they're significantly faster than you even if you wear no armour and bring only a primary and a pistol (which many of them have), it's bizarre the move speed mismatch. You might expect them to take cover, blindfire, etc. But no. They sprint around non-stop if there's any open space to allow it.

The move speed seems to imply that you should be taking the missions slow and methodical, which makes sense, but that brings up the second more glaring flaw. That lack of self preservation instinct is amplified tenfold when playing slow; you'll have a group of five highly trained, heavily armoured and equipped SWAT officers pointing guns at a random underpaid (the game even MENTIONS they're underpaid) corrupt guard, and he'll not surrender, instead he'll start doing that ridiculous stutter-step spraying. In fact, outside of using stuns (which sometimes won't work for unknown reasons), surrender seems almost predetermined, with certain radicalised suicidal terrorists surrendering against an empty pistol, while some thug drug dealers will happily take a 5v1 to the death with no cover. In open combat, they will full-tilt sprint through a door into your squad for no discernible reason, and nine times out of ten they get dropped by a full squads worth of weaponsfire, but every so often they one-tap an officer. Best cast, that's immersion breaking, and worst case, deeply frustrating.

All of this compounds on rewarding a shoot first, shoot fast mentality that turns the game into more of a twitch shooter, where planning and positioning are secondary to just hitting a shot before the suspect turns into an SMG wielding Sonic the Hedgehog on ket. The tight, indoor fights do sometimes allow that SWAT-4-esque fix, when the stun mechanics function, but the moment the game places you in a large outdoor environment the issues become glaring.

TL;DR Apart from the bugs, the fundamental issue with RoN's AI isn't that they're too strong or too accurate or too fast, although all of those things are true. The issue is that they act in a very unrealistic way, in a game that's attempting to present itself as a realistic experience, which rewards playstyles that are clearly antithetical to the presented experience.

I'll start by saying what everyone else is saying; this is a masterclass in tension building. The setting makes you uncomfortably claustrophobic, the audio is present enough to put you on edge while not being overpowering, and there are a few moments to cause panic or paranoia throughout. Szymanski is a brilliant gamemaker, and this is one of his best.

Mostly. Minor spoilers for the ending, no specifics.

Tension is one thing, but tension without a satisfying release leaves you feeling ultimately unfulfilled. As great as the tension building is (and it is great!), the payoff is... Well, non-existent. I loved the final section of the game, and was excited for how it would conclude, and in short it... Didn't conclude, honestly. This is a game sorely in need of alternate endings, because despite the low price tag the climax is, is in my opinion, bordering on absent.

Hunt: Showdown is one of the most unforgiving games I've ever played; and one of the best. It's not a game I can recommend for everyone, but it's one that's well worth your time if you have the wherewithal to get good at it.

This is a game where one bullet from 300m away in a bush can kill you. This is also a game where that person in a bush can put one toe out of line, alert a murder of crows, and have everyone in the area know they're there. If you die, it's usually quick and annoying, but what divides the players who leave a bad review and quit from the players who love this game is what comes next. "What did I do wrong?"

This game has an aggressive learning curve, and there are plenty of bits of trivia new players don't know. Use blunt on Immolators, certain weapons have different penetration, headshot Hives, even obvious things like Meatbags being blind won't be apparent outside of a tooltip and an odd "huh, it didn't notice me." When you start this game, you'll probably get dunked on for a game or ten, but if you take your deaths in stride and accept that every bullet in your head is a learning opportunity, you'll fast find yourself in the best PvPvE game I've ever played.

Because wading through a pond and matter-of-factly telling my nervous friend "Water Devils startle on movement, just don't run and it won't go for you" is some of the most immersive monster hunter gameplay out there. I can't promise it's for everyone, but the variety of weapons, playstyles, and situations is enough to keep you more than occupied, and I can safely say it's the most immersive PvP game I have played, bar none.

See you in the bayou, Hunter.