Recent reviews by King Chao

Normally my reviews are very in-depth and usually at least somewhat positive, I review games that I like.
But like, hey, remember when this game was good?

...okay I have to say something more than that.
SCP: Pandemic (AKA SCP: 5K) has fallen off hard. It tried to be too many things: a tactical shooter, a horror game, a puzzle game, a multiplayer FPS game, a story-based co-op linear story game, an "open world" exploration game with backtracking and gameplay elements that only make sense after further progression...I could go on but do I need to? SCP: 5K should always have been about the linear story co-op experience. Horror elements make sense, and I think some light puzzling could work too, kinda like SOMA...but the execution is just not there. You'd think all of these gameplay gimmicks trying to fight for your attention would be overwhelming, but it's actually more of a painful walking simulator with occasional combat interruptions. The puzzle elements are either all fetch quests or confusing and non-intuitive "find the lever in this random room that's behind a door that looks exactly identical to every other basic office door of which 50% of them are locked and thus completely useless." The horror parts at the beginning were actually pretty awesome, but that atmosphere died out pretty quickly past the 15-minute mark: walking in circles aimlessly is actually bad for immersion, funny enough.
Also the optimization is TERRIBLE: I was consistently lagging at key choke points where reaction time was the most important, and my PC isn't low-end by any stretch of the imagination (Radeon 7900 XTX GPU and Ryzen 7950x3D CPU). Some of the lighting effects made SCP: 5K look great, but play terribly. Personally I think it makes more sense to polish the visual presentation AFTER core gameplay optimizations are introduced, so that at no time is the player forced to endure 30 FPS or less when fighting a horde of zombies that WILL take advantage of your weakness and 4-shot you in 3 seconds.
I think the part of writing this review that bugs me the most is that there was a build of this game that I played about a year ago that was actually pretty spot-on. It had it's quirks too, but I remember a more streamlined and consistently engaging experience than this version. I can see some improvements from that older model in the new version, like the intro, the menu, and...well obviously the length of content. But apart from those aspects, this is a completely needless DOWNGRADE.

But hey, it's an alpha. The developers clearly know how to make a good SCP game (because they did it before in a previous alpha that was significantly superior in a lot of ways). I have faith they will iron out the kinks and make SCP: 5K into something really cool and special for the SCP community to enjoy. It's just...not that right now, and that's ok. Wouldn't really recommend in it's current state, though. 4/10

Manifold Garden is a simple puzzle game with no strings attached and I love it for that.

It's visual style reminds me of Antichamber but the gameplay is nowhere near as obtuse. And that's no hate on Antichamber, that game is frustrating and unintuitive on purpose. But Manifold Garden succeeds in giving the player obtainable goals and reasonable expectations. It's a bit on the easier side if you know what you're doing, which I actually like: the "Talos Principle 1" effect where you remain stumped on a puzzle with no method of breaking through that hurdle, so you just sit there for minutes or hours contemplating why you're even playing the game? Not really present in MG. Some might say that's a critically missing feature for a puzzle game, but me personally I like that I always feel like I'm moving forward, even if the puzzles have got me...well...puzzled, I'm not sitting in one place doing nothing.
This brings me to the main gameplay gimmick of Manifold Garden, and I gotta say it's one of the better ones: perspective-oriented gravity. Objects AND you are affected by what YOU subjectively consider to be "down," and you can change where "down" is by walking on walls and ceilings like you would floors. It adds a lot to the "liminal space" aesthetic, but also it makes tackling puzzles both intuitive AND fun because most of the time all you need is a change of perspective. Literally. Change your gravity mode and fall for a few loops or so (btw, no fall damage, thank god), and you'll be able to get the hang of most of the puzzles. The other ones that are more complicated require knowledge of mechanics that the game gives you plenty of time to learn.
The sound design is mostly atmospheric, not too much to say about good or bad. I'd say the dark world segments sound the best, can't really say why: you'll just have to play the game to see what I mean.
And if all of that wasn't enough, Manifold Garden is beautiful. I'd say it's easily desktop-wallpaper material, and being able to move through these surrealist worlds is an experience I can't say I've ever really done before. Maybe in Hyperbolica, but not to this scale.

Overall Manifold Garden is a balanced experience, and I can appreciate a game that knows what it is trying to be: the backrooms if it was good. 8/10

This is everything Poppy Playtime should have been from the start.
This game has so much SOUL, you can really tell every inch of this thing was hand-crafted with so much passion and dedication. The map is big, the potential is there, and Rambley is peak fiction. For a "30-minute chapter 1" I was surprised by how much content they were able to jam pack in there. I wasn't expecting collectibles but it's a pleasant surprise I guess.

The monster designs again feel very inspired by Poppy Playtime, but because they don't have to be believably sold as "toys" the creature designs can be a lot more faithful to actual animals. No spoilers, but lions are scary in-person. This is one of the first mascot horror games in a while that wasn't a fangame that actually had me a bit creeped out. I don't know about full-on scared yet, but it certainly has good atmosphere and good sound design. Also the chase was ACTUALLY DIFFICULT, but also well telegraphed (kinda?).

My only real gripe with Chapter 1 of Indigo Park is the abundance of invisible walls, and to some extent I understand it's a necessary evil. The alternative would be game-breaking bugs and exploits, and nobody wants that. ;) But seriously, if the walls could be moved back a bit and debris collision be improved for Chapter 2, that'd be great. Other than that, I think the puzzles need to be telegraphed to the player a bit better (shapes in the landing pad come to mind), and some bugs with the lighting engine and rendering quality causing extreme pixelation and artifacting in light rays. That's honestly my only real criticisms of Indigo Park, and it can all be forgiven, even the length of the chapter. Because Rambley is awesome and fun and I was so stunned by the ending credits song I was not expecting that!

Thank you UniqueGeese, Jakeneutron, and the whole dev team for creating one of the most promising and enjoyable mascot horror demos I've seen in years. I plan to support Indigo Park going into the future, no matter where it goes.

they made poker fun for the brainrotted zoomers (like me :D)

I'm not usually a big fan of roguelikes or any game that hinges on the "RNG-per-run" style of gameplay, but this one works for me for some reason. The Jokers are goofy and creative, the bosses are all annoying (which is a good thing they're supposed to be), and 80% of the time when I die it feels like my fault (which again, is good). The power scaling in this game is INSANE, if you know can go with the flow of the RNG getting to Ante 8 should be no problem.

Also I played this on a friend's account before buying, got 2 wins out of my first 3 games. Bought the game for myself and haven't managed to win ONCE after like 20-30 attempts. ;_;

Remember: most gamblers quit before they make it big. Gambling is always morally correct. ;)

The GOD Unit was a pleasant surprise. It's a pretty fun puzzle game that's actually difficult but also not unfair, and that's exactly what it's trying to be. There's not a lot of fluff here, 90% or more of the game is strictly puzzles; this leaves the story somewhat to be desired. I can clearly tell there IS more going on, I just wish I knew what some of that was. Can't mention too much for spoiler reasons but the "GLaDOS/narrator character" never gets explained and that's a bit of a shame. The world-building is really good though, as long as you don't mind going off the beaten path a bit.

The main gameplay mechanic of mass-shifting is something that starts out very boring and underwhelming, though I can appreciate a game utilizing the scroll wheel for what feels like the first time in forever. But, as you continue to progress and unlock new abilities, what was once a bit of a slog becomes an actually pretty fun way of interfacing with the world. I do wish there were moments that utilized quicker reaction times more often, but then again I did play on normal as opposed to hard so maybe that's just a skill issue on my part.

The art direction is...well...uhhh...
This is another thing that gets better as the game progresses, but there's no getting over it: it looks like a low-effort Unity asset-flip game. And that's such a shame because in my opinion, that's not what it is at all. The GOD Unit suffers from a lack of visual identity, especially in the first half. I like the neon lights and the willingness to "go off script" when it comes to some colors being associated with certain actions or behaviors (i.e. power lines), while also maintaining that ideal color-coordinated pattern of puzzle elements really only having one color each (i.e. cubes & fields). But the textures, the lighting, it just feels cheap. And that's not inherently a terrible thing, UNDERTALE had a very bare-bones visual style and that game was peak. It wasn't a deal-breaker, at least not for me, but a visual remaster that maybe focuses more on a soft-contrast "tron-esq" aesthetic might be cool.

Also this game strikes a weird balance of pure physics jank and also having like...zero bugs. At least from my playthrough, I think I got stuck and had to restart maybe ONCE. There's that, but also any objects that aren't bolted to the ground when they collide with you will fly to the other side of the room. It's a lovable jank, if I can be honest. Though, combined with the poorly translated dialogue, I could see why someone would let this game go after a couple of chambers.

Overall this game presents itself, and perhaps has aspects of a messy unpolished Unity asset-flip game that you'd find on GameJolt or itch.io. There are many problems, but if you can look past those there's actually a pretty good game underneath. I enjoyed my time with The GOD Unit, and I can tell that throughout it all, the developers had fun making it. And maybe, creating something and enjoying the process, is more important than the destination. It's an inspiring idea, to make something just because you can, because it's not about "why?" It's about "why not?"

"democracy democracy democracy democracy liberty prosperity democracy democracy democracy liberty democracy"
-every helldivers npc, 2024

Destiny 2 is a black hole for your time.

I find myself coming back every time a new piece of content is dropped, but this is out of no love of the content that I am receiving. Attempting to introduce Destiny 2 to new players reveals the number of fatal flaws this game's business model contains, namely that it's now essentially impossible for new people to get invested in Destiny as a franchise.

Old content has been vaulted away, never to be seen again. This includes but is not limited to the original campaign that this game was offering as it's primary story (of which future content would build upon rather than replace). The story of Destiny 2 is unplayable within Destiny 2, all that remains are DLCs priced the same as full installments for AAA releases.

Lightfall was particulary dissapointing, but arguably the decline began in Shadowkeep, and even the original Red War campaign was never that good. The game is fundamentally a grind-fest, not to mention the numerous arbitrary limitations on resources and currencies to make that grind as painful and tedious as possible.

Harder content that most dedicated players would say is the point of playing the game, like Raids and Dungeons, is either locked behind a seemingly endless line of filler content pretending to be story, or is locked behind a completely arbitrary power cap that is constantly increasing due to rampant power creep.

I could go on but I don't need to.
I will still continue to play this game, purely out of my sunk-cost fallacy.
Bungie, I liked you during the Halo days, but now you've turn sour.

Bring back ALL of the vaulted legacy content, remove all of the arbitrary limit on resources, and actually try to make a DLC campaign that does more than look nice and waste your time (and money). THEN, we'll talk.

Outer WIlds is a mastepiece hiding in the shell of a game you'd never think twice about.

If you seek a once-in-a-lifetime experience in a game, you are for the most part out of luck. Most games are either endless but shallow multiplayer "forever-games," or fail to capture both your mind and your heart. Maybe it was a technical issue, maybe the story had bad pacing, maybe it was a good game but it was too linear or not linear enough.

Here, it's different...

I could count the amount of games that legitimately made me cry on one hand, and Outer Wilds is on that list. I could count the amount of games that have actually made me want to go for every achievement, because it's just that fun and enjoyable to play the game, even after I've seen everything, and Outer Wilds is on that list too. It is a gift that keeps on giving, and a week after completion I am still feeling the side effects of this game's ending.

It's beautiful, it's horrific. It's smart and high-concept but also isn't afraid to laugh a little. It's comforting, it's terrifying. It's open-ended but also linear, the perfect balance. There's always something to do, but you get to choose what that thing is.

It is the antithesis to No Man's Sky, and credit where credit's due, that game is great too. But where No Man's Sky failed, Outer Wilds succeeds with flying colors. Nothing is procedurally generated, everything is built by hand with intent. This world feels lived in, it's so big but so small at the same time.

The story is something you have to look for, but it's worth the search.
The gameplay is maybe this game's weakest link, and even then it's immersive and thematically relevant.
The setting is awe-inspiring, and changes as the game progresses, making every area dynamic to your playthrough.
The progression is counter-intuitive, but in the best way possible. You bring nothing with you between loops, only your brain and your ship-log, which I find completing to be a very rewarding and satisfying experience because I found everything myself.

To say anymore would be to puncture this game's Achilles Heel: you MUST go in blind.
To the extent that you receive spoilers is to the extent that this game cannot impress it's leviathan quality upon you, so as hard as it may be, don't look anything up. Believe in your ability to discover this world for yourself, even when it gets tough.

Best of luck on saving the universe, or escaping quantum immortality, or just finding all your friends and roasting some marshmallows. Don't eat the black ones.

9.999_/10, would s'more again.

It's a fun little "escape-room" style horror puzzle game that's a lot more cute than creepy.
That's not to say it doesn't have creepy moments, but I find myself more endeared to the characters than I was scared or spooked by the more...disturbing elements of this game.

No spoilers, obviously. Go play it for yourself, you'll probably see what I mean.
Also this is definitely a game where getting all of the endings is a must, you're not done until you're done.

If you like Slime Rancher 1, then you're in luck, because it's just more of that but better.

Normally I'd write 17 paragraphs to explain why, but frankly the game is pretty bare bones (I'm writing this during early-access so no duh), and if the game is gonna be incomplete then so will my review.

Also I'm only writing this to get the full badge for the Steam Awards 2022, whoops.
But yeah, play SR2 if you played SR1 and had a good time. You only have more of that to find on the Rainbow Island.