Recent reviews by Benjamin Freaklin

After my first run (which ended in death after about 8 minutes) I thought, that was kinda fun, let me try a couple more times. What felt like a little while later I unlocked the achievement for playing for 333 minutes, when 'a couple more times' turned out to be more like six hours. This game is insanely polished and well-put-together for Early Access, and at this price point they're practically giving it away. It looks good, it plays good, and the different heroes each feel suitably different from another in playstyle. To be honest, even if development stopped right here and now, I'd feel satisfied with what I got. That they're going to add more stuff over time is icing on an already very delicious cake. I 100% recommend this game for anybody who likes the survivor/bullet heaven genre even a little bit.

4/4/23 edit: Fatshark has been hard at work addressing the issues laid out in my review below. The crafting system is complete; bugs have been ironed out; new mission modifiers have been added; and where functionality is still lacking, a mod-friendly policy has seen players step up and add some excellent features. This should have been the game on launch, but it's the game we've got now. All that said, I think it's appropriate to flip my review to Recommended. What was good about the game remains good or has been made better, and what was bad has been addressed. If you're in for a horde shooter or a quality Warhammer: 40,000 title, you'll find one here.



[Original review starts here. Some of my critiques here are no longer valid, but I've left them as-is for posterity.]
The music is solid, the atmosphere an excellent representation of the source material, and there are many cool moments to be had here. Spraying down a horde with a flamer, the roar of Assault Chain weapons, the occasional back-and-forth of snappy dialogue between characters - all of this is great. The minute to minute core gameplay is largely good and has been pretty satisfying for almost 30 hours. It would probably be sharp fun for another 10 to 20, at least. Why the 'no' recommendation, then? Because the game isn't finished.

I have played and enjoyed many Early Access games. I have no problem with their unfinished state because they're self-identified as exactly that - Early Access. They are not out of development yet. But Darktide is marketed as a finished game and a complete product when it unquestionably is not. Enough has been said by other reviewers about the predatory cash shop/microtransaction system, the questionable design of the mission board, and the mobile game-esque shop interface. All of these can be improved on, yes, but badly designed or not, they do work as they are. The provided experience is fully functional.

However, fully half of the crafting system isn't implemented. A huge component of progression - you could convincingly argue that this is itself half of the game - has a sign on it that says 'coming soon.' And when is 'soon'? No one knows, because Fatshark won't publish a development roadmap. Vague promises of updates being made into 'short term plans' and 'top priorities' are the word of the day, with a buttery soft deadline of 'in the future' to placate the fanbase - now that the fanbase has already handed over their money, of course.

This is yet another developer releasing a buggy, almost-done product with no disclaimer that it's being sold this way. It is fraud, plain and simple. I can't sell you a car without an engine or a bike with no wheels and call it a complete package, then laugh my way to the bank when, after pocketing your cash, you discover what you've actually bought. That is a crime. Neither should Fatshark (or anyone) get away with selling you this game as a finished product when it is still months away from completion. Shame on them for trying.

All the un-fun, stupid ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ you come to expect from Dota repacked into 30-40 minutes of dice rolling and foolish AI behavior.

EDIT: After 40ish hours of play and some helpful YouTube tutorials, I say the game's actually alright. Still frustrating at times though. Try it out, maybe you'll like it. Watch some videos though, there are a lot of behind-the-scenes mechanics the tutorial fails to explain that, if you don't understand, will absolutely tank your ability to enjoy this.

EDIT 2: Valve has given this game the Artifact treatment, abandoned it, and left it to die. Spend your time elsewhere.

Clunky controls, dull missions, non-existent story, and absurd difficulty spikes make this game completely un-fun. Don't accept its age as an excuse, either; 'Zone of the Enders' is two years older and a game far more worthy of your attention than this.

Let me be clear - this is a very, very narrow 'yes' recommendation. I don't think this game is for everyone, possibly not even for me, though I did complete it.

Art - Visually, the game looks great. It delivers on its inside-a-book aesthetic and does wonders with the two-tone color palate available. Your monstrous allies and the various enemies all look nice.

Music and Sound Effects - Largely forgettable, with the main battle theme music wearing out its welcome long before the game is properly finished. Sound effects are also lacking across the board. The Minotaur's brutal physical attacks sound nothing of the sort, for example. You'll be muting this and listening to a podcast before too long.

Gameplay - Man, am I ever conflicted on this. On the one hand, the combat is grindy, repetitive, and almost entirely lacking in the kind of feedback you would ask for in a tactical battle system. What abilities do enemies have, and what do they do? How much HP do they have currently and in total? In what order will they act? Simply put, you don't know. Comparing the combat in this game to that in, say, Darkest Dungeon, the difference is worlds apart. Yes, Darkest Dungeon also has heroes and enemies act in different and sometimes-unpredictable orders during combat, but you can *see* everyone's Speed stat in DD, so you can at least estimate who's likely to go first. That's not even the least of the problems, though.

Class balance is an absolute mess. The Minotaur can deal hundreds of damage with his basic attack and well over a thousand to every enemy with his Power Swing skill. Meanwhile, The Ghost offers a variety of laughably bad buffs and debuffs, no damage to speak of, and a weak, fragile body that crumples when attacked once or twice. Status effects are largely useless or unreliable (knockdown), while some are utterly mandatory to have. Don't have a reliable Stun or Paralyze effect? Enjoy being wiped out by Samurai, whose party-wide AOE attacks can easily deal 30-50% of your HP. Naturally, enemies with Stun and Sleep effects often cast them on your entire party, leaving at least 1 and sometimes all 4 of your heroes crippled and worthless, sometimes until the end of the battle (since Sleep only wears off when they're hit or your cure it, and Stun seems to wear off whenever it wants to). For that matter, why are magic attacks so terrible? The Shadow, and by extension the main character himself, the Sorcerer, struggled to ever do direct damage to an enemy greater than I was seeing from my Vampire (a hybrid healing and damage class) and *never* as much as I saw from my Minotaur. It's bad.

Actions you try to take on an ally will fail if that ally is killed before the action can take place. It isn't quite NES RPG levels of cumbersome and annoying - actions taken on enemies will select a new enemy if the chosen one is killed first - but it's still something you don't really expect in a modern game. Speaking of clunky, the menu certainly is. Navigating the shop only becomes more and more awful as the game wears on and they sell more items, because neither the keyboard nor the mouse offer a good experience for getting around the interface. And forget using items in rapid succession, which would be nice when, say, applying Scrolls to your monsters or using lots of healing potions at once. This is as old as it gets, using one at a time, click by click. Have mercy.

Exploring the dungeon world is where the game does well. It feels good to open doors and peer around corners, to see this little cut-out world and ferret out its little mysteries. Journal entries are hidden about each Block that can clue you into a greater mystery at hand, plus the hidden troves of treasure to be found can help you to succeed in your quest, so you're encouraged to really prowl around and go looking in every corner. Rooms have nice detail at times, like barracks where the various guards might sleep.

Story - It has a few twists, but I think it's pretty forgettable. The ending does change based on what monsters you've summoned during the game - that's pretty cool.

Conclusion - Boy do I wish Steam had a 'maybe' button. This game was developed by one guy, and for better and for worse it shows. I don't feel right slamming a 'no' on this because, despite its faults, it's playable, delivers on what it promised to give, and is filling a hole in an old, niche genre. I do think the dev worked hard on this; it's not a broken, half-assed product by any means. It just isn't terribly good. If you're really into first-person dungeon crawlers you will probably like Paper Sorcerer. I'm not convinced this is a game for Joe Everyman, though.

It's a cute and well put-together hack and slash that winks and nods at Diablo without being a cheap imitation. The artwork is nice, the sound design solid. The music is a little absent, I think, but there are a few satisfying musical moments in here - think the 'you got an item' jingle from Zelda and you're on the right track. The narration and voice-over work is high quality and I like that. There's a few surprises ahead that I won't spoil for you.

Overall, if you like action RPGs and want to try one that puts some solid twists on the old formula, give this one a whirl. I say 8/10.

I wanted to like this game. The atmosphere was on-point at first - the music is creepy, the hallways are dreary. But my ability to enjoy the game was really hampered by poor controls, puzzles with asinine solutions, and a number of points where you just have to check every doorway in the facility to see which one has unlocked. The poor controls are a two-fold problem. It's clunky to move from screen to screen, and the UI itself is cumbersome to use, moving at a snail's pace between items no matter how fast you click on it. Combined with the asinine puzzle logic that will often see you clicking on random items to see what, if any, will combine into a tool, it just becomes frustrating. There is a puzzle involving a dial-safe that suffers from the same slow, slow scrolling. It borders on agonizing.

Corrosion isn't a terrible game. If you're a fan of cryptic puzzles with sometimes-arbitrary solutions and don't mind a UI that should have been left in the dumpster in 1998, this game is for you. For everyone else, I'd move on and keep looking.

This game will suck you in and won't let go. It's deceptively deep, with five different races and a semi-randomized technology tree that makes sure no two games are ever identical. That said, you'll want to play with the Wiki open - some technologies are not at all obvious in regards to how useful they are, or what technologies they could branch off into. Be ready to embrace trial and error and a learning curve. It's worth it.