Recent reviews by Smirok Gambeson

Lie to your friends
Stab things with a glowing hot knife
Parry everything, and I mean EVERYTHING
Pet the cat
Suffer burnout from the inordinate amount of bosses and minibosses you'll face
Listen to some pretty music
BECOME A REAL BOY
SEIZE THE WHOLE WORLDUSSY

Burn your PC into a crisp while you wait 20 minutes for the ghost to pick up the damn phone simulator

This game is lightning in a bottle. It scratches so many itches for people like me who love swordplay fighting games. It isn't perfect, and it will kick your teeth in if you don't know what you're doing, but when you get to that point where you understand how the game works, it is pure combat flow.

Damn, this $20 soundtrack came with a free video game???

Really nice game, although the monetization and microtransactions are...

...Questionable.

I am the spy

A cozy little indie singleplayer experience that offers its own unique story and setting. If you've played any of the Resident Evil or Silent Hill games or you're a massive fan of those two franchises, you're gonna feel right at home here. There's puzzles, janky mechanics done on purpose to sell the bit that you're just an average schmoe with no experience in handling firearms, and limited resources to make sure you're spending your ammo as consciously as possible. The atmosphere in this game is creepy and enjoyable, enough to the point where I've gone "nope, I don't want to go inside that room" and proceeded to flounder around the areas I had access to not knowing there was an essential item I had to grab there to progress.

Just don't make the same mistake I made and start the game on Hard mode. If you're extremely dedicated to this game, you'll give hard mode a try, but trust me, the game is hard enough with limited supplies and your character not being able to keep the gun accurate while moving or spamming bullets. Save scumming is also highly recommended because this game can really punish you with the amount of setback you experience if you don't save often enough.

Gameplay-wise, this game offers a lot of value as a free-to-play title. The game has its own quirks that take some getting used to, but the TTK (time to kill) is decent for both solo and team play. Higher-tier weapons often make killing AI creatures easier but doesn't directly translate to PvP effectiveness, which is very good; it's still possible to get outgunned in numerous cases, but weaker weapons can still outplay an expensive loadout if executed properly.

My two main concerns are playing with squads and seasonal wipes. Playing with squads itself isn't a bad mechanic for the game, and if you squad up, you're more likely to run into people who are also in a squad. The only issue I have is the amount of loot per compound doesn't really reflect the number of people working in co-operation. A single compound hardly has enough loot besides the bare minimum someone might need to get a campaign mission done, and in a game where having as much available to you as you can get your hands on benefits you the most, I feel like duo and squad lobbies should have extra loot so progression isn't hindered just for teaming up.

Seasonal wipes are something I really do not look forward to. Often times, I find myself playing the game for so long that I feel compelled to bring low-value loadouts just to make sure I don't go bankrupt on in-game currency or be forced to sell materials I'm hoarding for crafting, easy job claiming, etc. I would be fine if the wipe only got rid of whatever was in your stash, but progression in factions and quarter upgrades get reset too, which is way too much setback. With the way crafting and purchasing items are priced, you get the impression that it would take a lot of time and several good raids in order to get some of the strongest weapons and gear. Some of these weapons and items cost a fortune, requiring several rare/difficult to acquire/extremely competitive resources as well as an insane amount of in-game currency, more than would be possible for a dedicated player, let alone a casual that can't play for more than two hours.

Mechanics that reset progress are generally the bane of every gamer's existence: it's why Payday 2 had a mechanic implemented to gain infamy without resetting your level (albeit slower than going infamous normally) and is the reason why games like Dead By Daylight and Hunt: Showdown are considering removing the progress reset "penalty" of prestige, if they haven't already. Oh, and remember that these games give you the option of resetting your progress for the sake of rewards. In The Cycle: Frontier, there is no choice, all for the sake of "balance" or whatever. Sure, going up against a stronger loadout sucks, but this game is already sort of balanced toward the direction of advantages, not absolutes. I really hope for the sake of this game (and for the 75 hours I've binged this game as of writing this guide) that the devs reconsider seasonal wipes and go for something that will keep the game fair while respecting the amount of progress people put into the game at whatever pace they like. I don't feel like playing this game anymore knowing I'll have to do the same progression every season, but it's not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination.

(Premium currency and cosmetics are not affected by these seasonal wipes, but if you're using premium currency for something like gear insurance,* you could actually be wasting real money if you don't pay attention to when the wipe is scheduled.)

*under normal circumstances, nobody would, but the game literally allows you to generate premium currency idly for free without even needing to boot up the game except to claim it.

Green Hell is like The Forest only with a *lot* more emphasis on survival. Poison and venom can be exasperating, you can't really "sneak up" on anything like you can in The Forest, and here you have to manage your intake of nutrients instead of just keeping your belly full. On top of that, the game has a unique "inspect for injuries" mechanic where you search your body for wounds and then do the proper treatment based on what the problem is... this ranges from removing leeches from your body to treating an infection to bandaging cuts of both lethal and superficial variety. This game doesn't hold your hand, but where The Forest has a more arcade-y survival mechanic, Green Hell is realistic, unforgiving, and more than likely to get you killed multiple times on your first few hours.

I find this game to be significantly more rewarding and satisfying than The Forest, because putting so much depth into how you need to survive and what you need to look out for gears you toward a playstyle that compromises nothing.

This game is legitimately creepy and I love it. It follows the same formula as "Slender: The Eight Pages" in that you have to collect things to make the bad guy go away and said bad guy gets more and more angy the more you collect, but this is one of those games where less is more...

...and sometimes, less is just less. Unfortunately, there's few (if any) crazy techs you can pull off. Some maps have places where you're not meant to jump off but can anyway to buy yourself time when you're getting chased, but other than that, there's no clear-cut method of hiding from the monster, and really your only defense is running away (which is very quickly undermined by how damn fast the monster gets toward the endgame) or using your UV light. The UV light is a fun mechanic, and is by no means a bad one, but making it the only concrete option to keep the monster from killing you (aside from throwing your friends under the bus) makes the game less replayable. This game isn't so much about skill and nuance as much as it is strategy and executing a plan in an environment that does everything it can to derail that plan, and that makes me kind of sad.

Still, it's better than that ♥♥♥♥ game Dead By Daylight. It's worth the five bucks, just buy it.