Recent reviews by Nickolis

The basic premise behind Risk of Rain is simple: explore a randomly selected level, find the exit teleporter, fight off a huge wave of aliens, and then repeat until death inevitably shows up. Killing enemies along the way nets money and experience, the former of which can be used to purchase a random smattering of the hundred or so items available.

Risk of Rain includes online multiplayer for up to four players, or local multiplayer for two. In some ways, the multiplayer is easier, increasing base firepower right from the beginning. As the game progresses, it becomes even more difficult, as neither experience nor items are shared between players. As with the single player, once a character is dead, he's out for good. So while playing with friends is potentially more entertaining than going it alone, sitting and waiting while your friends have all the fun is not quite so good.

Graphically, Risk of Rain delivers above average pixel art, although the tiny player models take some getting used to. The aliens are the real stars, and they are well drawn and animated. The sound design is excellent, with the soundtrack portraying the antagonistic alien worlds fantastically. During one emergent instance, I was killed and thrown off a tall tower, falling several screens just as a musical crescendo hit, creating an incredibly dramatic scene that I will remember for a long time.

• TIMED - What throws a wrench into it all, and really sets the tone for the whole experience is a timer in the top right corner of the screen, constantly counting up. As time passes, the monsters that spawn become more powerful, able to take and deal more damage. The timer sets up a risk/reward scenario in which the player can be cautious and thorough, gaining as many items and as much experience as possible before taking on the boss and moving on, at the cost of having to face more formidable enemies.
• TENSE - The result is an environment that rewards a balance of exploration and speed, causing the player to be in a frenzy at all times. Even when no aliens are on screen and actively threatening murder, there is an aura of tenseness in knowing that dawdling too much will cause the eventual monster spawns to be insurmountable.
• SEMI-RANDOMLY GENERATED - This all takes place in environments that are kind-of-sort-of randomly generated. The levels themselves are pre-built, with several possible levels available to be randomly selected for each stage. Within those randomly selected levels, the entrance, exit, item locations, and monster spawns are all randomized, so no two plays on any given level are identical, and runs can vary widely in which levels are selected. Somewhat ironically, the constant variation makes individual runs with a given character feel quite similar to one another. Since the player can never know where exactly to go, it is always a frantic search that can be fraught with the bad luck of having chosen to explore in the wrong direction, or the fortune of stumbling upon the teleporter early.
• CLASS VARIETY - Though each run with a given character feels similar to previous runs with that character, gameplay changes drastically depending on which character is in play. The default is a Commando, who is highly mobile and has good range on his attacks, but can typically only affect one enemy at a time. In contrast, the Enforcer is much slower and focuses on crowd control, able to knock aliens back and attack with a small area of effect. In total, there are ten different classes to choose from, but only after unlocking each.

• NO IN-GAME GUIDE - Slightly irritatingly, Risk of Rain is not very clear on exactly how one unlocks additional classes, or really, how to do anything. There is basically no hand-holding; players are given the one instruction to "find the teleporter" without any indication for what it looks like, which direction it may be in, or the small detail that an enormous boss will show up once said teleporter is found. That's not to mention the completely hidden mechanics governing the Left 4 Dead-esque AI director, which must be discovered through repeated play. The lack of transparency is not gamebreaking, nor is it an issue for me, but it could be a turn-off for some who prefer more help getting started.
• CONTROLS - Most egregious are the default controls. The keyboard layout does not suit the frantic gameplay; I often found myself hitting the wrong button and activating the wrong ability at the wrong time, turning what would have been a life-saving maneuver into an exercise in frustration as I took a beating and waited for a cooldown. Native gamepad support is included, but binding movement to the D-pad on an Xbox 360 controller causes a lot of missed ladders and non-movement as the game ignores diagonal input.

All things considered, Risk of Rain is a lot of fun. Though it is held back by its technical faults (which can be reasonably expected from a project created by two students), it has the right stuff to elicit the "just one more run" response that rogue-like games are known for. With a little more polish, it could be truly great, but as it is now, it's still definitely worth checking out.

"He sits on his ass all day, smoking dope and jerking off while he plays that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game. If that's our standard for goodness... then no wonder this country's screwed." - Michael De Santa

Grand Theft Auto V pits the player into the roles of the three main protagonists: Michael, a married man suffering from a midlife crisis, Franklin, a gangster trying to make a change for himself, and Trevor, who's just a Canadian psychopath. The trio get together and perform all sorts of daring heists and escapades.

The game is action-packed with chases, gang shootouts, and intense heists that get crazier as the game goes on.
When you're not robbing a convenience store or shooting rednecks, you can partake in all sorts of activities. You can walk your dog—Chop, go golfing, play tennis, and even get a lap dance at the strip club (Sorry Roman, there's no bowling)!


The GTA Online Protagonist can be created according to the taste of the player to customize (gender or appearance). The player will choose a gender, then choose the parents and grandparents of the character to affect his/her appearance. Then, the player chooses how much the character spends his/her daily life; this will create the initial stats for the character and slightly change the appearance.

After you have finished creating your character, you arrive in Los Santos with an open welcome by Lamar Davis (Especially if you're a female). He then has you do a street race with him (and other new players, if available), and shows you to Gerald, a drug runner who'll give you easy jobs to start you off in Los Santos. After you complete this tutorial, you'll join a free roam session with up to 32 other players (Who'll either become your friend or your enemy).

There are multiple game modes in Online, including:

• Free Roam - Run around with up to 32 of your closest friends (or enemies), causing chaos and other nonsense. You can also compete in mini-games, such as target practice, arm wrestling, golf, and tennis. If you don't like to be killed constantly by other players in Free Roam, you can play in Solo Mode, but you'll be unable to play game modes that require more than one player.
  
• Missions - These are given out by characters in GTAV (Lamar, Gerald, Martin, etc.), and are co-op jobs with up to 4 players.
  
• Survival - Try to survive up to ten waves of enemies with 3 other players.
  
• PVP - There are multiple subsets of this, including: Team Deathmatch, Deathmatch (Free for all), Vehicle Deathmatch, Team Elimination (You only have one life.), Capture (A twist to Capture the Flag), Objective-based missions (Complete a objective, while the enemy team tries to do the same), races, and parachuting.
  
• Heists - These are my personal favourite. With up to three of your friends (friends are highly recommended, unless you want to fail the heist repeatedly), you can perform challenging and rewarding missions to obtain lots of cash and exclusive heist vehicles. Unlike basic jobs, these heists involve multiple sub-jobs within them called Heist Setups that must be completed prior to the Heist Finale. As the heist leader, you can set what crew member does what job and their pay for doing that job. Teamwork is essential because the entire team shares one extra life (or none at all if the dificulty is above normal), and if that life is expended, the current mission fails and you'll have to restart it.

There are multiple glitches in GTA Online, some are funny and weird, the others are exploits and game-breaking. So far I haven't seen any hackers, but I wouldn't doubt their existence.

In retrospect, I give Grand Theft Auto V a 8/10
+ Amazing story
+ Excellent gameplay
+ Fun with friends, and fun without them!
+ Great graphics
+ GTA Editor
+ Heists are fun and replayable for more cash
- Glitches

"Now go! I need to meditate. Or masturbate. Or both." - Trevor Phillips

"I know what you're thinking, but the funny thing is, I don't even LIKE videogames..."

Postal 2 is a insane first-person shooter that takes place in Paradise, Arizona, yet it's far from being a paradise.

In Postal you play as The Postal Dude, a tall thin man with a goatee, sunglasses, a blue alien t-shirt, and a long black leather coat. The story takes place throughout one week. Each day you complete mundane tasks created by your nagging wife. As the days go on the town gets progressively worse with protestors, terrorists, and even the undead.

Gameplay consists of first-person shooting with a handful variety of armaments. The difficulty scales from Liebermode to Really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Hard. On harder difficulties, health items are instantly used on pick-up and civilians will attack on site. This game features secret weapons and ammo giving you an advantage on what's to come. There's a plethora of achievements each consisting of a reference like Loverboy's song Everybody's Working for the Weekend and Modern Family[en.wikipedia.org]. Even though this game was created back in April 13, 2003, the game still gets weekly updates from glorious Running With Scissors, and still can beat today's 'next-gen' games.

• Original Storyline
  
• Comical murder
  
• Still gets updates
  
• Mods
  
• Achievements
  
• Replay value

• Combat kinda feels mundane
  
• Some glitches
  
• No co-op campaign
  
• Can't kill Mike J enough

So, what are you waiting for? Buy the game!
Toploader totally didn't force me to make this review. Help.

"Charles de Gaulle, are you not going to buy Dino D-Day: Last Stand?"
"What do you take me for, an idiot?"

Dino D-Day: Last Stand DLC is a new major update to Dino D-Day in which it adds a new co-op gamemode, Last Stand. In Last Stand you battle against ten waves filled with nazi dinos and acquire money to buy upgrades, special abilities, new weapons, and animal companions. If you already love Dino D-Day, then what are you waiting for? Buy it! Novgorad needs money to buy more Tofuman.

"It's like Broforce, but instead of being high on freedom, you're high on time travel."

Super Time Force Ultra is a fast-paced sidescrolling game that utilized a unique mechanic, time travel. Using time traveling otherwise known as "Time Out", you're able to go back into the past while your past self is still there allowing you to have multiple versions of yourself to kill everything that stands in your way. There are multiple characters to unlock that each have their own special abilities. The game contains a time limit and collectables for each level and boss battle which would require you to use Time Out if you wish to collect them all. You have a limit to how much you can use Time Out which can be increased by the aforementioned collectables, and makes the game relatively easy if you spam it, but hard if you don't use it at all.

Here is the spolier-free plot.

• Sexy pixel graphics
  
• Fun
  
• Replayable
  
• Nostalgic
  
• Controls work great
  
• Valve characters make an appearance
  
• Easy and difficult at the same time

• Time Out still shows Xbox control GUI

UPDATE: Offline mode and Steam achievements have been added into the game. I have edited my review to reflect this.

Dungeon Defenders Eternity is a revamped version of the original Dungeon Defenders. In this new one is a whole slew of new content (Check this guide for more info about that).

There's now offline mode in the game and the option to host a private tavern with your friends.

The only thing you can use your IRL money to buy is the cosmetic emotes and (upcoming) accessories that don't do anything useful other than making you look cool. All of the DLC from the original is for free in this game.

At first, I didn't like the whole Playverse thing, but it's really not that bad. In Playverse, you can create groups in which everyone in that group will get sent a invite to join another group member in a match, and you can have multiple groups.

The game doesn't have a tutorial, so good luck new players to DD figuring out what the ♥♥♥♥ to do. You can't customise your Eternia Crystal like in the original game, but it isn't that big of a deal. Survival mode has been changed to instead 25 waves, to one continuous wave that lasts a hour long. I used to only own 50 items in my box, then it went up to 800 once I did one successful match of survival.

Pros:

• Revamped end-game and other fixed ♥♥♥♥
  
• No more hackers
  
• Trading Cards
  
• Runs great
  
• Still the good 'ole Dungeon Defenders

Cons:

• Doesn't use Steam to update the game
  
• No tutorial
  
• No splitscreen
  
• Not Dungeon Defenders 2

The local news where I live actually did a report on this.
10/10

Loadsamoney.

Survive wave after wave of evil mutant naked things. Buy stronger, more powerful weapons at the trader after each wave, and watch, time after time, the level 1 Support get trapped in a corner by a fleshpound because he didn't know to stay the ♥♥♥♥ away from him. What are you waiting for? Buy this game and learn the tale of how only British people survive the apocalypse, or wait until Killing Floor 2.

Run into battle with dual-weilding sword & axe, or send out your parrot to peck out your enemies' eyes out in this fun, free game filled with Monty Python references.