Recent reviews by Charlie

Where is my meow??????????
How do I find my meow??????
What is the point of this DLC????
I am so confused...

Currently, this game is still under development and devs are working on updates very actively. This game should've been an early access but devs had trouble making that happen according to one of devs' note.
It is not call of duty or assassin' creed, it is an adult game and only 2 men are working on it so I think it is pretty well done even for current stage. The female protagonist is sweet and sexy, the animation is fluid and there are many costumes you can change. Besides, they have future plans for this game so it will get better and better.

太长不看版：
游戏很有新意，适合与基友/家人一起消遣娱乐；目前内容不断更新，仍有潜力。

完整版：
这篇评测写于2020年12月28日，版本是1.2.1。距离上一次的评测过去大概10个多月
下翻可以看到之前的评测内容。当前的版本（1.2.1）小有惊喜，上次评测的推荐性我选的是否，因为整体感觉不是特别满意，这次调整为是，也就是推荐。
原因有两个，首先是很多开发者在游戏正式发售之后就开始懈怠，对于游戏的修复和更新逐渐会放缓，而这个游戏的更新还是比较勤快的，今天玩了两局，之前提到的BUG都没有再遇到，体验感大幅提高，因为一局大关卡的游戏时间是比较长的，如果中途因为卡BUG导致无法进行，既浪费时间，又降低了游戏乐趣，所以修复BUG，提升稳定性之后对游戏体验的帮助非常巨大，这两次都非常顺滑，可以好评。
第二是游戏即便已经从early access变成正式版，开发者增加了新的道具，以及新的敌人，这样就丰富了游戏的内容，通过解锁新的敌人也增加的一些新的玩法。同时这也许意味着开发者之后还会继续更新这个游戏，增加更多的内容。
不过游戏仍有潜力，之前提到的你可以通过几次游戏摸索出适合你的万金油套路，这个基本上也没有改变，你依然能找到一个最有效的套路。
游戏的角色其实也有修改的空间，目前的角色只是皮肤的差别，如果通过修改让不同的角色拥有不同的能力（数值），可以让多人合作变得更加有趣。
游戏模式也有潜力可以挖掘，比如计时赛，比如最高分或者无尽模式，这些我会向开发者进行反馈，目前的游戏模式稍显单调。
虽然游戏的关卡是程序化生成的，能做到每次都不一样，但是程序化生成也有自己的缺点，就是当你玩几次就能发现程序生成所依据的一些规则，这个时候，手工设置的地图可能会比程序生成的地图更加有亮点。所以我也希望开发者可以加入一些特定的地图来促使玩家更换战术，增加多样性。如果能有地图编辑器，共享或者使用其他玩家制作的地图，游戏性会大幅提高。
最后是希望开发者可以持续更新和维护，让游戏越来越好。
希望本篇评测可以帮助大家。


完整版：
这篇评测写于2020年2月17日，距离下一次更新，也就是正式版大概还有十天
根据开发者的更新计划，下一次更新就是正式版
虽然目前还是抢先体验版，但是我个人认为目前版本已经非常接近正式版

游戏的优点显而易见，本地多人，手柄支持，和好朋友一起玩耍非常开心，有时候也具有挑战性
游戏的核心设计也很有潜力，也具有一定的策略性，比如金钱的使用，道具位置的放置都能体现一些策略性

然而，游戏的问题也非常多
比如到目前为止我玩了18个小时，大概玩了15局，如果没记错，其中至少有10局都遇到过形形色色的BUG
这些BUG包含：下床动画不衔接，拿到虫子后异常顿卡甚至无法行动，道具产生空气墙阻挡通道，完成关卡但相应成就不解锁...
这些是让我觉得游戏是半成品的原因之一

接下来说说另一个原因，也就是游戏模式
游戏模式过于单一，你在最开始的几局会觉得游戏非常有意思，既可以和虫子战斗，还可以购买道具
然而后期你就会陷入“买动感单车—买床—买炉子—买水槽—买桌子—买地毯—买喷雾—去下一个房间”的循环
你会找到类似这样可以适用一切的万能策略
虽然游戏核心很有潜力，但是开发者似乎没有继续扩展的计划
对于这样的游戏，本来可以有更多的游戏模式，就比如：无尽模式，夺旗模式，计时赛，甚至自定义设置的游戏模式
再想的远一点就是自定义关卡，Mod支持，然而这些目前都没有，游戏模式只有一个

同时，敌人的种类也很少，只有两种虫子，地上爬的，天上飞的，除此之外没有了
因此缺少了敌人的种类，你也不用去开发新的战术和策略
当你玩过几次大尺寸地图之后，你就会发现可玩性大大降低，没有新的敌人，没有新的玩法，没有新的关卡
而你玩到大尺寸地图大概也就3-4小时，那个时候你就会逐渐失去兴趣
最后支撑我玩下去的理由是成就和解锁道具
然而成就有时候会因为bug无法解锁，有些解锁的道具功能也十分鸡肋
可选人物也非常有限，吸引力一步一步降低的时候就很无奈了

所以目前的游戏虽然非常有潜力，但是尚未被挖掘，甚至可以说是半成品
当然，也许开发者在憋大招，也许正式版会推出一堆道具更新，也许正式版会有多个游戏模式
不过目前的版本来说，可以玩玩，但是可玩性局限，所以感觉挺遗憾的
希望正式版真的可以再添加一些内容
如果正式版比现在的这个版本增加稳定性，游戏性，我会修改这个评测
希望对其他玩家起到帮助

This game is highly recommanded. The visual is stunning and insanely detailed. You can pick a random object and it is much more detailed than average games and even better than some of the AAA titles like games from Bethesda. Controls are comfortable and optimization is great. I beat this game on my GTX970m laptop with most of visual options set to high.
The FX are freaking awesome and I havent got any glitch or bug. So it is way beyond my expectation. This is an excellent game.

A game you must have and play. 10/10 isn't enough to describe how great it is.

First of all, I think I got this game for free by using a coupon on green man gaming. But not too sure about that since it has been 4 or 5 years from then on.
Ok, here is the review.
Dead Pixels is based on a very simple concept or storyline. You get cought in a zombie infection situation and you need to push through hordes to get to evac point. Here the simplicity of concept works well as it is self explanatory and straight forward. It is a side scrolling shooting game and it is retro.
I am a big fan of 8-bit(also 16-bit) pixelated art style, and this game, I really love it, I can say it is well polished.
Some games are trying to be retro, but from artistic aspect, their art resources don't have consistency so some games look like cheap flash games. However, this game, is not on of those. From every aspect, it's retro.
In the main game which you play as a survivor trying to get to evac point and you can upgrade your abilities and buy or sell some stuffs. Also, you need to buy different types of ammunition for different types of weapons. Along the way to your desination, you can find some trading room to do those things and you can search rooms for supplies or weapons.
You also get some money from killing zombies, I guess it is loot maybe.
The level are procedurally generated so every time you play, the level will not be the same but the difficulty is gradually increasing. This is a fun part.
I remember when this games was released, it didn't include "the solution" mode which you are supposed to find your way to a power facility and overload it and fall back to your drop zone. It is suprised to see developer add more to it although this game is cheap. I should say the developer of this game is generous and responsible.
With new mode, you actually have 3 types of games: the story mode, the special ops and survival mode. This game is a real gem and really worth the price.

The creator of Limbo is back with their new game Inside.It tells a story without a word as same as Limbo does.
I finished this game about 5 hours including searching for special items that unlock achievement and exploration. However I only found one achievement but I certainly wasted some time.
So it is a pretty short game. However, you don't want to go very fast since it is not a time trial. Each scene contains infomation to construct and solidate the story. You need to take time exploring the surrounding atmosphere.
I don't want to talk too much because this may spoil the story so I just want to say it is worth time and money.
Final words, the name of this game sounds way too simple, however, once you finish the game, you will find that Inside could possibly be the best name for this game.

Edit:
After I finished this game, questions about the story even raised more. Then I did some search on Google to see if there is any official answers to those questions. But no, there is not. I guess it is what the developers want. They want to give players freedom to think about the story so they left a big empty space where you need to fill your own imagination in. I am going to weave my own Inside story and I think that is where Inside shines.

This is an early access review on alpha 0.2.5.
Role playing game is a big game genre. However, during the recent years, we don't see many good hack and slash games or we don't even see many of them.
More RPGs are going into first person or more tactical and many of them are turn based. This genre lacks good action RPG like Diablo, Titan Quest. Now Wolcen comes into my eyes.
It probably is the first CryEngine's action RPG and the developers does utilize the power of CryEngine very well. From the features like DOF and Time of Day, and what impressive is that they even enable the dynamic global illumination in this game. Along with CryEngine's material and lighting system, the visual is stunning.
The combat is pretty basic but it is acceptable since it is unfinished. But it is smooth and satisfying. The physics is solid and you will love to see enemies being knocked away.
There are some issues that need to be improved like low FPS on high end video card and loading time is long. But I think they will get these done and it will grow to a great game.
Totally worth investment, I hope my 15 bucks help them. :)

First of all, I received a free 3DMark steam key from the package of Inno 3D GTX1080. It activates both Steam and download version of 3DMark. So thanks to Inno 3D, I got free stuffs and that makes me pretty happy.
I don't have 3Dmark 11 so I cannot make comparison of those 2 version but as Futuremark suggests, 3Dmark is more reliable than version 11 you probably need only this version to benchmark your hardware.
3DMark contains several demo scenes which are pretty the same as game scenes but with less hardware bias and better utilization. Since it is only a benchmark tool, it doesn't have to be running smoothly on low end hardware. It doesn't use the technologies that mainly used in games which may reduce the GPU utilization or multi GPU configuration. The good thing is that the GPU performance it reflected is very close to the raw power of GPU. However the bad thing is that in games, there is an increasing possibility of results varied. For instance, in 3DMark, dual GPU config could probably reach 1.8X to 1.9X the performance of single GPU, however in games, you can only expect 1.6X to 1.7X, sometimes games even doesn't support multi GPU config.
Taking the benchmark tool aside, it has a stress test feature allowing you to test your hardware stability. If your hardware passes the stress test, you can expect it can handle daily use without any problems like BSOD or GPU temperature issues.
At this time, 3DMark only support DX11 benchmark, Timespy(DX12) and VRMark are on the way here. I will update this review as they come out.

Before judging Painter 2, I should go with Painter 1 first.
Substance Painter is a great tool for texturing your models. Traditionally, artists use photoshop to draw directly onto UV'ed texture maps. It worked as how you wanted. Then 3D applications like 3ds Max, Zbrush, and ect. supporting mesh or polygon paint come out. It works better and you can fix the seams along the UV shells. However, the problem still remains, players or audiences want better visual presentation, artists pursue more realistic result. So you don't just paint a texture map. Instead, you have to make an accurate material. It is where Substance Painter suits the need best.
With Substance Designer, you can paint material directly onto your models. It has 2D + 3D viewport making it very useful to monitor the result during the process. Moreover, it supports PBR and IBL by default which is currently an industrial standard.
For people who are familiar with photoshop, don't worry, Substance Painter is simple to use and ease to comprehend. It supports alpha, brush, layer, erase, and things you can find in photoshop. So after few hours of playing it, you will get yourself into it.
Another benefit is that you can use both Substance Designer and Painter at the same time, you can make some procedural textures in Designer and imported into Painter and then paint your custom details. It is a great combo.
Also, a sweet thing is that you can bake your maps inside Painter. It saves your time and you don't need to swap applications to get your baked map into texturing process and you can always rebake and adjust them.
So let's get back to Painter 2. It is a newer version of 1 with some fixes and improvements. From my experience, I noticed that 3D viewport has been improved, and thanks to Nvidia and Allegorithmic, they integrated Nvidia's Iray GPU render into Painter 2 after they've done it with Designer 5. This is a powerful render engine and you can get a photo-real result inside viewport and no need to load your texture and mesh into 3D application and make a render. Also, this make Painter even a competitor to Marmoset Toolbag 2 when presenting 3D assets.
Next thing is paint and erase go physical, it provides magical result to your asset if you choose the right way, but sometimes it is difficult to control and the results don't look good.
Particles works a lot better, leak and burn are matching more the way in real world. New smudge tool and clone tool are just like what you use in photoshop.
The most important thing is I don't think Allegorithmic will continue updating Painter 1, so Painter 2 will be the future for them to improve. And Allegorithmic is trying their best to build an environment. Even if some features you expect don't show in Painter 2, I believe in them, Allegorithmic will make Painter 2 better in next years. Also, I got 50% off since I own Painter 1, and if you bought painter 1 after Feb 1st, you will get Painter 2 for free. So if you need a texture tool, just buy it, if you want future upgrade, buy it and even though you are comfortable with Painter 1, with Painter 2 grows you will buy it sooner or later, so just buy it now.