Recent reviews by h e x a g o n

UPDATE: The developers have released a patch that addresses some of the issues mentioned in my review, including improvements to movement speed, minor improvements to combat, and a few other fixes. However, there are still no plans to implement a save system for online play, which remains a dealbreaker for me, and is not great for those wanting to experience the game for the first time online with friends. I’ll revisit the game later down the line or when the price better reflects its current state, if nothing changes.

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I want to begin by saying that I approached this game with the hope of rekindling the magic of my childhood. Back in the '90s, I would religiously watch Mighty Morphin Power Rangers every Saturday morning as it aired, utterly obsessed with everything Power Rangers. So, when I first learned this game was in development, I was ecstatic. Fast forward to its release, and it pains me to say that Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind feels like a half-baked effort that falls far short of its potential.

From the outset, the developers acknowledged challenges with the online co-op functionality, initially promising two-player co-op at launch and a later patch to enable full 5-6 player online multiplayer. However, the game launched without any online multiplayer at all—a major letdown that immediately soured the experience.

Eager to give the game another chance after the promised patch, a friend and I returned to try it out, only to be met with more disappointment. The gameplay felt sluggish and uninspired; the movement is slow, and the combat is disappointingly limited, with all rangers sharing an identical moveset and only a single super ability each. While such simplicity might have been acceptable in the early '90s, it feels woefully outdated today, especially in light of gems like Streets of Rage 4 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, which have set the bar high for the genre.

What truly marred the experience was realising that our game progress hadn’t been saved after slogging through 4-5 stages, made all the more tedious by the aforementioned gameplay issues. Upon investigating, I learned that the developers had stated, “Saves are not supposed to work online due to a variety of issues, but we are working on a way to improve that situation.” While it’s commendable that they’re addressing this, such a glaring issue is unacceptable in a game priced at £30/$35.

To the developers’ credit, they’ve done a commendable job of capturing the essence of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers—to a degree. The game evokes a strong sense of nostalgia, with a mostly original soundtrack that includes some thoughtful nods to the series, along with the iconic theme song featured during key moments. However, even this aspect feels somewhat incomplete. The absence of a full morphing sequence or the ability to start as the rangers in their civilian forms and earn their morphs, as seen in earlier games, feels like a missed opportunity to truly embrace the source material. While this is more of a nitpick compared to the game’s fundamental flaws, it would have been a welcome touch for fans.

I appreciate the developers’ intention to address these shortcomings, and I sincerely hope the game improves in future updates, as I would love to revisit this game someday. For now, however, Rita's Rewind falls short of the morphinominal experience fans deserve.

Satisfactory is easily one of the best games I’ve had the pleasure of playing, though my initial experience during Early Access was rocky. Playing with friends who already knew the ropes made me feel like a visitor wearing a guest pass—wandering around aimlessly while everyone else seemed to have a clear plan. I didn’t know where to begin.

It wasn’t until I revisited the game years later, post-release, that I truly got into the swing of things. Honestly, I didn’t think I’d stick with it to the end, but here we are. With the help of a good friend—and another good friend who joined briefly in the early stages—we painstakingly worked together to 100% this beast.

Our teamwork made the journey even more memorable. I took on the role of primary factory builder, designing ambitious and sometimes wacky creations. Meanwhile, my friend acted as the quality assurance officer, double-checking that my designs met the necessary mathematical requirements to keep things efficient and on track. He also focused on solo factory projects and tackled a great deal of the MAM tech tree, ensuring we always had the tools and resources needed to expand our operation.

The game’s soundtrack is excellent and adds to the immersive experience. The map is massive, with four sprawling biomes filled with a large variety of resources, collectables and unique creatures that generally don’t appreciate your presence. Thankfully, you won’t find swarms of ravenous alien threats like in Factorio. Rest assured, your factories are safe from attacks here!

You can also tame lizard doggos, which occasionally give you presents in the form of materials. (Though it’s less cute when they gift you nuclear waste, forcing you to sprint far away to safely deal with it!) A special mention goes to the game’s AI companion, whose witty commentary pops up whenever you unlock a new tier or discover a collectable. Blending Douglas Adams-style humour with GLaDOS-like wit, it adds a delightful layer of personality to the game.

At its core, Satisfactory is about logistics, planning, resource gathering, more planning, and problem-solving—all with a dash of base-building. It feels like a 3D, more relaxed version of Factorio. The game is incredibly addictive once you dive in with a clear plan, and it’s shockingly easy to lose track of time.

Whether you’re playing solo or with friends, Satisfactory offers a deeply rewarding experience that’s hard to put down once you’ve started building. It’s a fantastic game, and worth your time if you enjoy factory building games.

Palworld is a lot of fun and really well made! It mixes core concepts from 'Pokémon,' 'Ark,' and 'Minecraft' into something totally fresh.

The crafting and automation systems are nicely balanced—complex enough to keep you interested but not so tough that you need to look up guides constantly. Another great aspect is how you can customise the world to suit your playstyle, making it way less grindy than most survival games if you prefer it as such. The Pals are beautifully animated and full of personality, while the characters you meet are kind of basic, but still charming enough, and yes, you can capture humans too!

There’s also a cool breeding system that lets you create new Pals or elemental versions of ones you already have. You can mix different species to make unique Pals not found in the wild, or even give existing ones elemental traits. The logic behind the breeding system is pretty cool too. The system uses a clever bit of "breeding math"—each Pal has a number, and when you breed two together, the game adds them up and divides by two and that result determines the Pal you get.

There’s a ton of content and more depth in the game than is on the surface, which is impressive.

On a side note, Nintendo is actually suing Pocketpair for patent infringement—not over Pal designs, but for gameplay features, which is ridiculous.
I really hope Nintendo loses the case because Pocketpair has created an exceptional game, something Nintendo hasn't quite managed with the Pokémon IP in a long time.

This is easily the most fun I've had on a game this year. The kind of game that has you screaming in terror one minute, and laughing your ass off the next. It's a great time with friends and still pretty fun with strangers too, and I am far from being bored. (Word of advice - Use in game voice chat).

Lethal Company has a straight forward game loop in which you travel to various abandoned (but not really abandoned) moons, in search of scrap in order to reach company quotas over the course of a 3-day deadline with each day having a time limit, meaning you must return to the ship before midnight, otherwise the autopilot will take off without you. It sounds kind of daunting but the game manages to strike a good balance of allowing you a generous amount of time to explore each location whilst keeping you on your toes.

I won't talk much about the scary things trying to halt your progress, as it's honestly worth going in blind if possible, although I'd imagine most people will have a good idea by now.
But, yeah it's amazing what this one dev has been able to accomplish in terms of how terrifying, and yet hilarious the overall experience is.

Lethal Company for me personally, has taken the mantle that was once held by Phasmophobia, and at this point even so early in it's development, it outshines it in most ways.

I look forward to seeing how this game evolves in the future.

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Some people say a man is made outta mud
A poor man's made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong

You load 16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go

I OWE MY SOUL TO THE COMPANY STORE

[START AT THE BOTTOM AND SCROLL UP]


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╬═╬ I'm still in a dream, SNAKE EATERRRRRRR!
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╬═╬ Crime, it's the way I fly to you
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╬═╬ In my time there'll be no one else
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╬═╬ Not for honor, but for you
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╬═╬ I give my life
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╬═╬ But you're so supreme!
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╬═╬ What a fear in my heart
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╬═╬ I'm searching and I'll melt into you
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╬═╬ What a thrill
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╬═╬ With darkness and silence through the night
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╬═╬ What a thrill
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I had fun with this game over the years, and even considered playing again for old time's sake, but then I find out they've cut support for those that use linux, ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up mod compatibility and pushed epic online services on the playerbase. Yeah, no thanks.

There's a long running joke that this is a dead game, and now that's going to become a reality. What a waste..

Really fun survival game to play with friends. Great crafting system, with a satisfying research system, a decent amount of customisation and freedom, and a whole lot of unlockable features as you progress through the story.

While the story kind of feels like a tacked on component, it is quite enjoyable as you progress through objectives, and unlock some really good upgrades for your raft, and tools, etc.

It is worth noting that exploration is key, as it can be quite easy to miss some collectables and such.

The only thing missing is a customisable difficulty setting, as the Hunger/Thirst system on Normal difficulty is too much of a chore (especially early game) but Easy difficulty makes the game feel trivial. The perfect balance would be Normal difficulty but with the Hunger/Thirst from Easy.

This is a must play for fans of Co-op open world survival games. Many hours of fun to be had!

"Good morning, ♥♥♥♥ breaker"

I can't unhear it. D:

The game was pretty fun to play with friends, but now they are forcing you to create an Epic Games account.

I'm not a fan of Epic's shady business practices, or their ♥♥♥♥♥♥ underdeveloped storefront, so that's it for me.

RIP

"Sir, this place is dead. Whatever happened here, I think we missed it." - Sgt. Apone (Aliens - 1986)

A great game but the playerbase is unfortunately pretty vacant.

It's worth playing with a couple of friends if you're a fan of the movie Aliens, but once you've played through the campaign once, and went for a few rounds on the survival mode that is unlocked upon the campaign's completion, it doesn't offer much else currently.

Highlights: Blasting xenos. Satisfying gameplay. Immersive sound design. Various classes along with a decent selection of weapons with a variety of upgrades. A serviceable story (Better appreciated by those that are familiar with the lore/movies/novels).

Flaws: No VoIP (Use Discord). No text chat. AI co-op partners are terrible. No Crossplay. Awful matchmaking feature that throws in AI partners after 20 seconds of no one joining. (Especially bad now that the playerbase is so low).

It's worth noting that there is a roadmap of planned gameplay updates at no extra cost, so hopefully that breathes new life back into the game. Fingers crossed.