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Running With Rifles is an isometric tactical shooter set in a world war environment, you’ll be battling in snow, deserts and islands to try and win victory for your team. The combat is satisfying and requires you to not just run in and shoot the opposing team without much consideration, but take cover and choose your moments to strike and attack. Surprisingly there’s still a handful of dedicated fans who play online so finding matches shouldn’t be too much trouble.

• Loads of unique maps
• Lots of items to utilize (sandbags for cover, grenades, turrets etc.)
• Leveling up grants you access to new weapons and the ability to recruit soldiers in a squad to command
• Different game modes to try out
• Multiplayer still has its set of dedicated fans
• AI is decent and can be challenging
• Different difficulties and customization options to cater for the way you want to play
• Lots of replay value
• Cartoon-like graphics

• No sort of interactive tutorial
• Sometimes the battles can be long and drawn-out (up to 4 hours on some big maps)
• Sometimes I’d have no idea who I got shot by, would be nice to have some kinda indicator as to who shot you (Sometimes I’d even get shot off-screen by someone who was out of my vision)

• On the rare occasion the pickup button wouldn’t wor
• Some of your teammates temporarily have the opposing teams colours for a few seconds and then switch back

As with any world war type game you are expected to be careful and take cover as often as you can, running carelessly into the enemy territory isn’t wise. You’ll have to take advantage of the environment that you’re in to use as cover or to get a vantage point. There’s a lot of tactical gameplay involved which might no appeal to some but for me, I enjoyed this change of pace to think more tactically instead of rushing in to kill the enemy without much thought.

Ranking up is an important part of combat, with each rank you’ll be awarded with unlocking weapons / items to purchase in the armory or pickup in battle and the ability to command a small squad of soldiers. You’ll find your standard weapon types here, nothing out of the ordinary, pistols, assault rifles, snipers etc.. The majority of these weapons have an unlimited amount of ammo, but special and rare weapons like rocket launchers have limited ammo. There isn’t really a ‘best weapon’ as each have their pros and cons, whilst some are more situational than others.

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As well as weapons you’ll be able to control and call in different types of vehicles such as tanks and transport trucks. Each vehicle felt very unique and different to control, the tanks were slow as was the cannon, the jeeps were quick and an easy way to transport a small group of soldiers etc.

The single-player campaign was enjoyable up to a certain point, the problem arises when you’ve come to this sort of stalemate in the match where neither you or the enemy team can secure a capture point and you both keep taking it from each other. Some people might love these drawn-out battles where it takes hours to make any sort of progress but it did frustrate me. Even if you go stealthy and capture a different point by yourself, you’ll find the AI will spawn there to try and secure that point you’ve captured but consequently you’ll lose a different capture point. You can easily host your own server or join others in multiplayer, and thankfully there is still a small group of dedicated fans playing this game so finding a match with a few dozen people won’t be a problem.

There are a handful of different game modes that are available to you that offer different types of playstyles. The main one is the campaign that sets you on a team and you go to different maps to help out and secure them. You’re also free to adjust various settings however you want, from the chance of surviving a bullet to the accuracy of your team / enemy team. Quickplay is the same as this but you can choose your maps and can adjust more settings for example how many bots on the map.

Man Vs Zombies is exactly what you think it is, you’ll be by yourself and will be fighting against zombies. For me this game mode didn’t really add much, there didn’t seem to be a variety of zombies but instead they’d be running / walking after you with different speeds.

Man Vs World is practically the same as the campaign only this time your on your own and need to be stealthy to capture control points. The AI doesn’t try to take them back though, you’ll only encounter other soldiers that are defending. I enjoyed this a lot as I didn’t really get much of a chance to try out the stealth mechanics in the main campaign.

Each map that you fight on is elegantly crafted with a lot of environments to take advantage of to use as cover. Some maps are bigger than others with more capture points to take control of with your team, whilst others are smaller and more compact. The problem with the bigger maps is that there are too many capture points to take control of with your team and the battles can last hours in a sort of stalemate situation.

There are a lot of different types of maps that you’ll be fighting in, from towns to construction sites to the more traditional world war maps with trenches and more open plain environments. The small town levels were my favorite as there was a lot of opportunity to take height advantage by climbing on top of buildings to scope out the surrounding areas.

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Whilst in battle there isn’t any music playing in the background, instead, there’s a lot of focus on the sounds of battle. Weapons shooting, explosions, soldiers grunting their final breath, vehicles, soldiers moving which definitely immerses the player more into the game, even more so if you wear headphones. When you’re sneaking around enemy territory you’ll be able to hear footsteps in different directions giving you a rough indicator of where it’s coming from.

The art style is very simplistic and has a kind of cartoon look to it despite how realistic you can make the game itself. Each map has its own distinctive look and feel making it easy to set apart from the various other maps that you’ll be fighting on, some of them are set in deserts, some is snowy areas and some on sunny islands. This helps the game feeling fresh and new every time that you progress either in the main campaign or when you select a new map in quickplay.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2107570923

Running With Rifles is such a great tactical shooter, it manages to hold up the test of time and still has a handful of dedicated fans. With a variety of maps to fight on and an arsenal of weapons to unlock and try out, anyone who enjoys big tactical wars will be pleased with this title.

Police Stories is a top-down tactical shooter which might give off some Hotline Miami vibes because of the similar styled graphics. However, unlike Hotline Miami, this title has you play as a police duo who have to be tactical play it smart to clear out buildings with criminals inside. Despite how fun this title was when we finally unlocked some decent non-lethal weapons, this game is riddled with crashes and annoying bugs that really hindered my experience despite being a fully released game.

• Combat is a lot of fun if your playing co-op with a friend
• Different weapons and gadgets are unlocked as you collect points
• A variety of different items to use
• Game rewards non-lethal takedowns more so than lethal ones
• Has a lot of emphasis on tactical careful gameplay, any wrong move could kill you
• The RNG placement of enemies and evidence keeps the game fresh and different every time you fail

• Using warning shots wasn’t always reliable
• Don’t get any decent non-lethal weapons till a few missions in, making the first few missions a struggle to do without killing anyone
• Needs more distinctive enemy types with different attacks
• Mechanics are never really expanded upon all that much
• The game is overpriced for the amount of content there is (about 4 - 5 hours)

• Game crashed 9 times whilst playing co-op with a friend on Steam
• Sometimes there would be a red flicker of numbers on the screen every few seconds

You play as Rick and / or John who are a police duo neutralizing criminal threats in the city, each building that they solve leads them to another place to clear out either through their walkie-talkie or from the evidence that they find at the building they cleared out. The story follows these two as they uncover who is behind all of the bombings and various crimes and bring them to justice. It’s a rather cliche storyline so don’t expect anything that mind-blowing to happen.

Police Stories has a lot of emphasis on tactical and careful combat, any enemy that you encounter can take you out within seconds if you’re not quick on your feet to either shoot or subdue them. The combat was fun and somewhat satisfying after you had cleared out the building, there were a few intense moments near the end of some longer missions in fear that you might die and have to restart.

As far as weapons and equipment go you won’t find anything out of the ordinary, you’ll be given a standard rifle that you can use to either kill or subdue enemies with and you’ll unlock new weapons and items as you progress. However, since you’re part of the police force you have to abide by the law which means that unless an enemy aims a gun at you, you can’t shoot them. The other alternative is to fire warning shots near the criminals to make them submit, unfortunately these warning shots sometimes just don’t work, the criminal could either run away or shoot you back and by that time you’re already dead.

The non-lethal approach seemed to be mandatory as you would be given less points for killing criminals as opposed to making them surrender and cuffing them. These points give you access to other levels and unlock new equipment that can be used in missions to make the non-lethal approach easier. However, it didn’t take much testing to figure out which items seemed to be superior compared to the others.

The enemies that you encounter are all pretty much the same just with different weapons, the game never feels like it expands upon introducing different types of enemies to make the game harder (suicide bombers, holding civilians hostage etc.). The only types of enemies you’ll find are fake civilians and your standard criminals / terrorists, the game never felt that difficult as we managed to get through it within 4 - 5 hours.

The level design was consistently good throughout all the missions of Police Stories, with hand-crafted levels that force you and your partner to carefully traverse around the building to ensure neither of you get killed. You could either stay together to neutralize the threat as a team or split up and go through rooms solo to get clear out the building quicker.

This game tries to keep things fresh and interesting by randomly placing enemies and evidence that you have to gather throughout the level each time you fail or replay the mission. This also ensures that you don’t just memorize the enemy locations and makes going around every corner just as dangerous as the first time playing through the mission.

The missions never seem to outstay their welcome either, they were usually short and sweet that might only take a couple of minutes to get through (depending on if your playing solo or co-op). That being said, the game only consists of about 4 - 5 hours of content on the campaign and after you’ve completed that you can either go through the missions again for achievements or go to custom missions whereby you can set how many enemies / civilians are on the map and clear it out.

The soundtrack definitely keeps you on your toes as you clear out rooms with intense music playing in the background, the majority of the missions having their own unique soundtrack.

The visuals definitely gave off a Hotline Miami vibe despite the two games being quite different gameplay-wise. Each room was detailed and seemed to have a lot of thought put into it, however as you get to the end game missions some of the levels might seem kinda familiar. There didn’t seem to be enough variety int the rooms created to make the final few missions feel unique, instead it kinda felt like a mish-mash of different rooms we had previously seen all put together.

Police Stories was definitely an interesting title to play through with a friend despite feeling like a copy from a game called Swat 4 but with a top-down perspective. The price is rather steep for the amount of content you’ll be getting, and even though this game is ‘fully released’ there’s still had a handful of crashes and bugs to deal with whilst playing co-op. I’d recommend picking up this game, but only if you have a friend to play co-op with and when it goes on sale considering the crashes and bugs that are still riddled in this title.

This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers

Fury Unleashed focuses on an intense run and gun combat with combo-driven mechanics to encourage the player to move fast to reap the combo benefits. You’ll find and unlock new weapons that are satisfying and effective to use as you maneuver around enemies to avoid getting hit. It seems to be inspired by a few older run and gun games mixed in with some rogue-lite platformers as well.

• A hectic run and gun rogue-like that encourages fast and intense gameplay
• There are loads of guns to try out and unlock
• Comic book styled graphics
• Skill tree can be altered by removing skills points and requiring them in different skills
• Minibosses are plentiful
• Music gets more intense the bigger your combo is

• Harder difficulties get rid of leveling up between runs making it less rewarding and encouraging to play
• No indication of how many bullets are left in a clip or how long the reload time is

Combat
Fury Unleashed is nothing short of a hectic run and gun game that provides a lot of flexibility to how you play. Weapons are the bread and butter of this title, giving you a wide variety to choose from and unlock new weapons as you progress. Since there isn’t an overwhelming amount you’ll be able to test these new weapons that you’ve unlocked and decide which ones you like the most. Some of them have a random chance to come with additional benefits such as having flaming or poison bullets to the rarer cases of finding weapons that have infinite ammo.

This title encourages players to be quick on their feet to keep their combo going for as long as possible by giving them additional benefits. Your combo will increase with every enemy you kill and the time before the combo expires will be reset when you shoot an enemy or an object that breaks. By default, you’ll gain an ink multiplier that can double the ink you pick up as long as you keep your combo going. Another useful combo skill is the ability to gain a shield that protects you from being damaged, every time you achieve a combo of five you’ll gain this though it only lasts if you can continue your combo and with the right skills it can stack up to three shields.

You’ll encounter a lot of different mini-bosses throughout each run of Fury Unleashed, each of them suiting the environment of whichever comic book you are in. Both the main bosses and the mini-bosses aren’t overly complicated and don’t have much variety to their attack patterns. However, you can definitely tell that most of the time was focused on creating these bosses with very high levels of detail and creativity to make them all unique from one another.

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Rogue-lite elements
Throughout each run you’ll be collecting ink which is your experience points to level up between runs. You can obtain ink by killing enemies, bosses and absorbing it from weapons and armor you don’t want from chests. Between each run you’ll be able to spend your skill points to acquire new abilities, some of them seemed a lot more beneficial than others. You are however able to reset your skill points at no cost so your free to mix and match different skills to see which ones suit your playstyle.

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As well as leveling up, you’ll have the opportunity to unlock new weapons for later runs which definitely gives a sense of progression if you die a lot and struggle to progress to the next area. These weapons can seriously pack a punch sometimes and gives the player more of a chance to find these rare of better weapons. You’ll unlock these weapons as you play through each run and don’t necessarily have to go off the beaten path to find them, after obtaining the black and white drawing of the weapon you’ll have to give it to another guy who can create it in this world in the same run. I never really had any problems with this and it was a nice sense of progression compared to just leveling up and gaining new skills and abilities.

Upon completing the game on Hard mode you unlock the next difficulty with is called Incredible. This is where the game felt a lot more luck determined and got more frustrating the more that I tried. In this difficultly, the game resets your characters level to one when you die in a run, it gives you three random skills to choose from after you’ve completed a chapter if you’ve gathered enough ink to level up. Therefore dying at all in the mode doesn’t give you any sense of progression and is based on skill and luck of finding decent weapons and being offered generous skills to choose from. Furthermore, the game doesn’t feel like it encourages you with new unlocks or anything upon completing this mode (as far as I’m aware) besides the personal feeling of beating the game on a harder difficulty.

This title does an interesting with its soundtrack, the combo meter determines how intense and dramatic the music gets to add more intensity to the combat when you have higher combos, and this pressures the player in some way to keep the combo going. Apart from that, the music for the bosses again just added more pressure to the player as they fight this massive creature or mechanical structure.

Each area is definitely unique and different from one another, though you might get a bit bored of how an area looks if you’re stuck on it for a while. Apart from that, I liked the look of each area, it really suited the theme of what enemies you’ll be encountering and was a fresh experience when you first entered a new area. However, the final area which is just black and white which posed some problems for me, it was hard to figure out where bullets were coming from as they blended in with the black and white background.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2100904399

Fury Unleashed was definitely enjoyable to play through for the first time, it’s a hectic run and gun rogue-like that will take a couple hours to complete and leaves you feeling satisfied. However, despite trying multiple times on the harder difficulties there wasn’t enough content to encourage me to complete them. Sure there are a load of weapons to unlock there are powerful and fun to use, but by the time I had finished the game I had unlocked the majority of them anyways. I would still recommend getting this game though, even if you just complete it on hard.

This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers

Hypercharge started off to be a fresh and unique take on the tower defense genre, not necessarily redefining it by any means but it definitely stands out from the crowd. The idea of being a toy soldier defending Hypercores against a multitude of various toys was a charming experience. However the further that you progress into this title, the more obvious it became that some core mechanics were either overlooked completely or restricted compared to other tower defense games.

• A variety of different enemies with different variations
• Each level is well designed with a lot of attention to detail and secrets
• The majority of weapons were decent and fun to use
• The idea of being a toy fighting against different enemy toys was quite a charming factor
• Lot of replay value if you have a full team
• PVP is also available if you’re interested in that

• Lacks and restricts basic tower defense mechanics
• Games difficulty doesn’t scale with the number of team members, solo players won’t survive
• There are fixed positions where you are forced to build towers, with little to freedom
• Sometimes the game feels too RNG based, sometimes you’ll get OP weapons that spawn and other times you won’t get anything worthwhile
• The range of turrets is represented by a number but it never shows how much a unit is in the map

• Sometimes towers to me were damaged but to other players, they weren’t damaged at all
• An instance happened where the wave wouldn’t end so we were forced to restart

Like any tower defense game your main objective is to protect your base of operation, in this case you’ll be defending Hypercores. Depending on which map you play on, there can be anywhere between one to four Hypercores to protect. It isn’t necessary to protect them all though it does affect your rating on the level which can unlock new towers.

Upon starting a level you’ll be given three minutes to explore the map, collect money, build defenses and find batteries. Exploring these maps was always enjoyable the first few times, though some maps were more platform heavy than others, there was still a lot of secrets and collectibles to find as well as references and jokes scattered around the map. Three minutes barely seemed like enough time for a team of two and we usually fell short on time to do all the necessary preparations for the upcoming wave.

This title definitely brings new mechanics to the tower defense genre that makes it unique. Whilst your defenses primarily slow down and shoot nearby enemies, the majority of the firepower will come from the weapons that you acquire. There’s a decent amount of weapons that you can find that can mow down most of the enemies, though some were clearly more superior than others. Unfortunately finding these weapons comes down to luck whether they spawn in a shop or around the map.

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In order to progress through the game you’ll need to obtain medals to unlock other levels. Depending on how many Hypercores you protect will depend on what medal you will get. On expert difficultly, it can be very challenging to get the diamond medal and it got to a point where it felt impossible to progress with just a team of two.

As you progress through the game you’ll undoubtedly encounter a lot of different enemies from different toy sets. You’ll be fighting against toy soldiers, robots, spinners, bouncy balls and various other enemies along with different variations of them on the harder difficulties. Some defenses were more effective against specific enemies (for example fire traps were good against spinners) but it was more of a trial and error system to find out which ones were best against what enemy. Spinners were a primary concern if you built walls since the walls were hollow if the spinner could get inside then it would destroy the wall in seconds and leave your Hypercore exposed.

However, Hypercharge seems to overlook some of the most basic tower defense mechanics or make them more restricted. One of the more annoying restrictions is the fixed positions that you build your defenses on, there’s little freedom to where you can place your towers, and although the harder difficulties give you more places to build it still felt rather restrictive.

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To add more frustration there isn’t any indication as to were your enemies will be coming from. This becomes problematic since you don’t know which Hypercores to protect with more defenses and which ones you don’t have to bother with on that wave. It punishes the player despite not giving information that they need to effectively spend their money and choose which defenses would be the most effective.

One of the more noticeable flaws with Hypercharge is the fact that it doesn’t seem to scale its difficultly depending on how many players are on your team. Solo players will definitely have a hard time getting through the more difficult levels because of the sheer amount of enemies spawning or because of the size of the maps. It seems that Hypercharge was definitely created with a full team in mind, punishing solo players or teams below four in a number of ways. You can join random people through servers however, you do need a level of communication that doesn’t seem possible when playing with random people.

Another overlooked mechanic is yet again more information that is withheld from the player, being able to know what enemies will be attacking on what wave is vital to keeping the Hypercores alive. Hypercharge doesn’t seem to have this basic feature, on more than one occasion we had to restart because we didn’t have the defenses required to effectively take care of the enemies on that wave. This would usually result in a Hypercore being destroyed or heavily and having no choice but to restart since it would affect our rating for that level.

Playing in the perspective of a toy soldier was very appealing, being able to climb the familiar environments of the bedroom, kitchen and gardens was a joy. Every map has a lot of detail both in the textures and references that you’ll find by exploring the maps. Enemies are all designed to be just like classic toys and some are obviously plain knock offs of classic toys from your childhood that adds to the charm of the game.

Hypercharge definitely brought some interesting mechanics to the table, its just unfortunate that it forgot about some of the more basic ones. Playing this game solo is practically impossible up to a certain point and even with another friend you won’t be able to get through the entire game without a full team. If you and some friends can team up and play this game together then I would definitely recommend this title. If not then I would wait for an update until it balances some of these issues so it can be possible to play solo or with a friend.

This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers

Moonlighter is an intriguing title to say the least, who wouldn’t want to be a shopkeeper by day and a dungeon crawler by night? The first half is where this game shines the most, you’ll be exploring dungeons, fighting bosses whilst collecting materials to sell in your shop. However, the further that I progressed the more that the charm and novelty of being a shopkeeper and a dungeon crawler wore off.

• Interesting hybrid of dungeon crawling and shopkeeping
• Bosses are interesting and diverse
• Each dungeon is varied and has a specific theme
• New game+ feature
• Pixel art is beautiful

• Combat is simplistic
• After awhile you’ll see the repetitiveness of the game through each dungeon
• Shopkeeping gets tedious and repetitive
• Final boss is a joke and not challenging at all

The core mechanics that are presented aren’t anything new, you’ve probably played a game where you’re a shopkeeper or a dungeon explorer before. However, Moonlighter presents itself as a hybrid between the two that creates a rather unique and enjoyable experience. By night you’ll be exploring the mysterious dungeons, slaying monsters, gathering materials and trying to defeat the end boss. By day you’ll be selling said materials to customers in your shop in exchange for money and upgrading your gear.

There’s definitely a sense of curiosity when you first enter a dungeon, what new enemies await you? What new materials will you discover? Each dungeon is randomly generated with three levels before reaching the final boss, along the way you’ll discover enemies with simple attack patterns and new materials to either sell or use to upgrade your weapons. The main gimmick of dungeons is that if you die in the dungeon you lose all the materials that you’re carrying. There are a few ways to exit the dungeon, you’ll be given a Merchant Pendant that will teleport you out of the dungeon for a price (depending on how far you are and on what dungeon). Or you can use another item that allows you to return to the position back in the dungeon for a higher price without the dungeon randomizing again.

Managing materials you’ve collected is one of the most annoying parts of exploring dungeons, you’ll be given a limited amount of space in your bag to place materials which can only be stacked to a certain amount (usually 5 - 10). The materials on the top row will stay with you regardless of if you die in the dungeon or not, however you’ll lose the rest. You’ll realise that there’s no possible way of picking up every material that you come across so managing your space becomes problematic. There wasn’t ever a backpack upgrade so you’ll have to resist the urge to pick up everything you see. This forces the player to decide which materials they want to take with them and usually boils down to which is the most valuable.

The combat isn’t anything that advance, you’ll be given a sword and a bow as your weapons and your able to dodge roll. The monsters that you come across only have one attack so defeating them comes down to learning when they’re vulnerable, the attacks get a bit more complicated as you progress to new dungeons but nothing that complex. Upgrading your weapons with materials and money back at the town can make them inflict fire, poison or electric damage depending on what dungeon you’re in. These elemental attacks don’t seem to have weaknesses or strengths against other elemental monsters which poses the question of why bother with it in the first place?

Despite how enjoyable the first few dungeons were to explore, there was a point where I could see a routine developing every time that I would unlock a new dungeon. I’d spend a few runs gathering materials to upgrade armour and to sell, I’d then just beeline it to the final boss. The dungeon doesn’t try to encourage you to explore after you’ve bought everything that’s available to you, so I saw no point in staying in the same dungeon for longer than I needed to.

The mini-bosses that you’ll encounter before moving on to the next level aren’t that great, they were more annoying than enjoyable to defeat. The end bosses however were a lot more creative and fit the style of each dungeon very well. Each one has a set of different attacks that you’ll have to learn can can be challenging even if you have upgraded all of your gear. However oddly enough the final boss of the game was a joke, I was able to defeat him extremely easily on my first try without developing a strategy.

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The shopkeeping side of Moonlighter is a nice change of pace compared to exploring dungeons. With the materials that you’ve acquired, you’ll be able to sell them to customers in your shop. Selling these items comes with a twist however, you’ll need to estimate the price for how much you think the item is worth and then increase or decrease it depending on the customers’ reaction. Luckily you have a handy book that keeps track of what prices are too steep or too cheap when a customer purchases or complains about an item. This does create a rather tedious trial and error mechanic that can be more annoying later in the game when you need a lot of money.

Another thing to keep in mind is the demand on items, selling a lot of an item will decrease it’s value if you’ve sold an abundant amount of it and customers won’t be willing to buy it for the neutral price. But on the other hand, customers will pay more for an item that is in high demand that you haven’t sold much of. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t record the prices for higher or lower demand on items, only when the item is in neutral will you record the best sale which can be rather annoying when a lot of items are in high or low demand

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As you progress further you’ll be able to buy upgrades to your shop to increase the number of items you can put on sale at once, more storage space, a better bed to increase your health etc. It definitely felt like I was progressing not just with unlocking more dungeons but with upgrading my shop to make it better and to acquire more money. Unfortunately, the novelty of owning a shop wears out and becomes more of a hindrance as you progress. What was once an enjoyable experience becomes more time-consuming and mundane due to how repetitive selling items got. Despite upgrading your shop to make it better, the core mechanic of being a shopkeeper isn’t expanded enough to keep it interesting throughout the entire game.

The soundtrack throughout Moonlighter is very distinctive and sets the atmosphere for each dungeon when you first enter it. There was always a sense of urgency and intensity when fighting bosses that made defeating the bosses a lot more satisfying when you beat them.

As to be expected, the pixel art throughout this game is beautifully designed. Each dungeon has it’s own theme whether it be fire, electric or jungle. The enemies suited the environments to an outstanding level and really made each dungeon feel unique in its own way.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2086821746

There’s no doubt that I enjoyed the majority of my time with Moonlighter, from exploring dungeons, gathering materials and slaying monsters to being a shopkeeper and earning money. However, there was definitely a cutoff point where the novelty of the core mechanics wore off and became more annoying than enjoyable. However, I would still recommend this product despite this.

This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers

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Alder’s Blood is a brutally difficult turned based RPG set in a grim and dark world where beasts roam free and terrorize the land. Its mechanics are based on XCOM but with a lot more emphasis on stealth. If you're expecting to get through this game with brute force then you have another thing coming. Like any game it has some flaws, but the majority of them can be overlooked due to how incredible this game is.

• XCOM styled combat with complex and unique mechanics
• Punishing mechanics that make each turn count
• Loads of tools and equipment to take advantage over your enemies
• Levels vary, some with lots of cover whilst others require you to be more thoughtful and hide behind environments
• Most of the time there are ambient sounds playing instead of music to add more tension

• Different variations of enemies look identical
• End-game levels get frustrating since all the levels are over-populated with enemies
• HUD in battles could be more elaborate to show the character’s health and stamina
• Misclicking was a common problem when trying to select another character
• Using 6th sense to reveal the enemies view isn’t 100% accurate

• Confirming a level up for a faction would take multiple clicks
• Placing the final charge on the level called Reigns End has the text ‘Mission_ReignsEnd4’

God is dead, we killed him. Now we suffer the consequences, the world is spiraling out of control, his rotting corpse attracts inhuman abominations that roam the land and wreck the lives of the innocent. Sword and steel alone aren’t enough to defeat these beasts. However, Gods death has sprouted a new form of life to combat these horrors called Hunters. Their sole purpose is to vanquish the evil that has plagued this land to protect humanity. You play as the chief of these hunters, helping humanity to destroy Gods corpse.

At first glance Alder’s Blood might seem familiar to those who have played XCOM, the combat is familiar and there are a handful of similarities, but Alder’s Blood expands on their mechanics to make combat more unique. The major difference being the emphasis on stealth, if your planning to brute force your way through this game then you’ll likely come off short, getting overrun and slaughtered by beasts. You’ll definitely need your wits about you, avoiding detection by hiding in tall grass and behind terrain. Making sound is another key factor, sure you can shoot these monsters with a gun from afar but you’ll more than likely alert other beasts in the surrounding area of your presence.

Avoiding detection is only half the battle, since Hunters aren’t human they have a distinctive scent that attracts the beasts if they smell it. Every Hunter has a stat that determines how many tiles their scent travels and weather conditions can alter this whilst in battle. Once a beast smells your scent there’s no hiding from them. Just these mechanics alone make missions difficult, having to hide in tall grass but also having to consider each Hunter’s scent and the chance of a beast walking towards you catching your scent. This makes every turn more nerve-racking than the last and requires you to effectively plan every move whilst thinking about the risks your taking.

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The Darkness is another mechanic that adds more intensity to each mission depending on how strong it is, but this is also where the game can be unfair at times. The Darkness can alter a lot of factors in battle, from changing the weather (which can affect your vision and scent direction/distance) to buffing and spawning more beasts. The majority of these mechanics are there to add more risk and uncertainty during missions to make them challenging and that’s completely fine. However spawning beasts can sometimes be unforgiving. More often than not the beasts would spawn either just out of my range or on the other side of the map, but sometimes they’d spawn right next to me. I understand that Alder’s Blood is meant to be difficult, but spawning enemies next to me takes the fun out of the game and makes it unfair at times, especially if you’ve nearly finished a long mission and get caught messing everything up.

Stamina plays an important role in your survival, each attack and extra movement cost stamina which doesn’t regen until the start of your next turn. Getting attacked by an enemy makes you lose stamina and depleting your stamina bar to nothing leaves makes your character exhausted and unable to perform any actions on your next turn. If you aren’t careful with planning your moves you could be left out in the open and die quickly.

Killing beasts is no easy task either but there are a lot of items that can help. Throwing rocks diverts enemies’ attention, nets can trap an enemy for a few turns, flash grenades can blind an enemy for a turn, lullabies can put enemies to sleep, there’s a lot to experiment with. Carrying items becomes essential in the late game as it gives you more options to tackle difficult situations with.

Despite introducing new enemies with different ways of screwing you over, the game has a problem with increasing the difficulty. The end-game missions will have you swarmed with loads of beasts and you’ll be expected to navigate your way around them. These missions are time-consuming since you have to take extra care not to mess it up. failing these missions is extremely discouraging and you’ll more than likely step away from the game for a while before retrying.

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Each Hunter has a set of stats that can be changed from a variety of factors. Whilst high damaging weapons might take out beasts quicker, the Hunter carrying them will have negative effects such as less movement, fewer item slots, increases scent distance etc. Charms can increase your stats, though they can’t be unequipped, only replaced and destroyed with another charm so think twice before equipping them.

Corruption plagues the Hunters and forces you to keep them in rotation. Each Hunter has a corrupt meter that determines how mentally sane they are, this increases gradually every day and activating certain events. It goes through several stages starting with ‘Negotiable’ then ‘Rising’ then ‘Worrying’ and finally ‘Dangerous’. The worse this gets the more negative effects your Hunter will obtain and become more of a burden to you. You can purchase new Hunters for silver and sacrifice the older Hunter to transfer his exp to the new Hunter.

Music is far and few between in Alder’s Blood you’ll only hear a small amount of music every now and then as the majority of the game you’ll hear ambient sounds that just add to the dark and eerie atmosphere of the world.

The hand-drawn art style represents the dark and grim world extremely well, everything is drawn out with dull colours to make you feel like this world is dying and getting overrun by these beasts. The art style and ambient sounds combine to create a very eerie and dark world that I never got bored looking at.

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Alder’s Blood is a brutally challenging game that caters towards a niche audience, there are a lot of mechanics to take into account that can alter how you play in battle. At times the game seems unfair and overly difficult, but if you can look past that and the handful of flaws this game has you’ll find Alder’s Blood to be an enjoyable and satisfying experience.

This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers

For more critically honest reviews of mine, check out Metro’s Review Corner

Dragon Marked For Death is an action RPG that was originally released on the Switch at the start of 2019 and now it’s on Steam with DLC characters included. Even though it has a lot of emphasis on playing co-op, the community seems to be lacking which makes finding a party to join difficult. This title shines the most when you’re playing co-op, but solo still provides a satisfying and addictive experience though clearly inferior to co-op.

• The core mechanics work extremely well with one another
• Post game caters to hardcore fans that love to grind for loot
• Levels are crafted with all characters in mind
• Six different characters to choose from, different weapons to wield and unique abilities
• Addictive and satisfying combat
• Higher level quests gives bosses more complicated attacks to dodge
• Each character takes about 15 - 18 hours to complete the story with

• Everything is hindered by the lack of community forcing you to play solo
• Game was designed with co-op in mind instead of playing solo
• Completing the game solo is can be challenging at times
• Casual players won’t get as much time out of this game compared to players who love to grind for loot

The writing in this game is detailed enough to keep you hooked, though I would’ve hoped for more lore and backstory of each character considering it’s an RPG. Each quest that you take on has a small story that gives you a reason to help out and justifies why you’re here instead of just giving you a quest with no explanation. There wasn’t anything mind-blowing about the main story, but it was decent enough to keep you progressing to see what would happen.

Upon starting the game you’ll be given a choice between 4 different characters to choose from (six in total but two of them are locked), each with their own unique fighting style, abilities and stats. All of the standard classes are here tank (Warrior), mage (Witch), warrior (Empress) and the rogue (Shinboi), each have their own passive abilities to help them navigate areas that others can’t access. For example, the rogue can double jump and wall jump, the warrior has like a grappling hook to swing from places, the tank can push blocks and smash rocks and the mage can create a temporary platform for herself. Each character feels significantly different from one another, you can really feel the weight of the tank compared to the rogue who has a lot more maneuverability and freedom. This further encourages multiple playthroughs if you wanted to complete the game with all the characters, though don’t hold your hopes for finding multiplayer matches to join very often…

One of the main features that Dragon Marked For Death highlights is online co-op, admittedly there isn’t anything wrong with how it’s presented, it’s more the fact that barely anyone is playing online at the moment. You’ll be lucky to find a game in your region, and even if you set it to global, sometimes you won’t find a single party to join. The main issue is that the game was designed to play co-op so when you’re forced to play singleplayer, it slows down your progression and forces you to grind if your struggling. It hinders the game a lot more than you might think since some characters are designed to play co-op and suffer more than others when playing singleplayer.

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This doesn’t imply in any way that the levels were badly designed, each one was crafted to ensure that each of the characters maneuver abilities could be used in every level. This could give you access to a different area or give you more freedom when fighting a boss to swing around the place or whatnot. There was a surprising amount of variety in the biomes that you explore and made the game feel a lot more varied with breaking up the quests in different locations.

It’s no surprise that Dragon Marked For Death is a pure grind-fest, it has all the mechanics in place to try and encourage you to grind. The quests that you complete can be replayed on higher difficulties to yield better loot rewards and higher amounts of gold and XP. Higher difficulties don’t just increase the health and attack of bosses and enemies, but actually give them different attacks that are harder to avoid. This might’ve been more appealing to me if I was able to join a group of people who wanted to grind, again this mechanic for me was hindered due to the fact that the community just isn’t big enough to find parties to join reliably. It wouldn’t surprise me if some people are put off by the game entirely because of the multiplayer aspect being inactive.

However, what kept me coming back to this game was the combat mechanics. Every character has their own basic attacks depending on what weapons they can wield, along with special dragon attacks that each character has. These special moves cost Dragon Points that you obtain by attack enemies so you’ll always be using them, you don’t have to conserve these moves for bosses only. It’s extremely addictive to combo moves together for high damage output against the tougher bosses that you’ll come across.

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Post-game however, caters to the more hardcore fans of the genre. After completing the game with any character you’ll unlock a tower quest where each floor you clear the enemies get tougher and the rewards get better the higher you go. If the sound of senselessly grinding doesn’t fill you with excitement then you can always play through the game again with a different character on the same profile. All your gold and equipment that you have collected will transfer to each character as long as you stay on the same profile.

The soundtrack throughout this game is fantastic, perfectly capturing the atmosphere of your quest and the environments that you find yourself exploring. Bosses have more intense and faster music that contrasts well with the smooth and calm nature of the music as you explore the surrounding area. The sound feedback when you hit an enemy with your dragon attack is extremely satisfying to listen to as it sounds a lot more impactful and harsher than your standard weapon. Though the one thing that slightly annoys me is the sounds that your character makes every time they jump, attack, take damage etc. It gets annoying after a while and there’s no way to turn it off or adjust it, which is a basic feature that seems to have been overlooked.

The art style never dipped in quality and manages to stay consistent throughout the course of the game. Specific quests will take you to different biomes in the world where you’ll see a surprising amount of variation and detail to keep the game fresh for as long as possible. The sprite work and animations for the characters specifically are very smooth especially when you’re using two or three attacks in a combo and transitioning between them.
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The lack of online might be enough to turn people away from this title, however, despite playing singleplayer for the most of the game I still enjoyed it. Players who love to grind will get a lot more time out of this title compared to the more casual players. The combat is satisfying and addictive, the soundtrack is a joy to listen to and the visuals are fantastic. I’d still recommend this title to either audience, though I’d suggest waiting for a sale especially if you’re a casual player.

This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers

For more critically honest reviews of mine, check out Metro’s Review Corner

Warlocks 2: God Slayers is a satisfying hack and slash game that doesn’t take itself too seriously. With a bunch of wacky characters to pick from, all with their own unique skills and abilities to unlock, this title seemed to be an interesting one. However, there are a lot of flaws and bugs throughout the game which can be hard to overlook as well as the high price tag.

• Unique skills and abilities for each character
• Addictive hack and slash combat
• Bosses are simplistic but fun to battle
• Enough side quests to keep you entertained but doesn’t overload you with them
• Playing co-op (online or local) is more enjoyable than playing solo
• Different difficulty modifiers to make the game extremely challenging

• Can’t rebind controls
• Levels feel like mazes, very enclosed and tight sometimes
• No encouragement to play through the game again once you’ve completed it once
• Price tag way too high
• Soundtrack sometimes gets repetitive with how simplistic it is
• Hard to tell what’s in the background or foreground to jump on

• Sometimes the music will overlap
• Couldn't proceed with dialogue as the button to continue didn't work
• When playing local co op my friends character glitched and he was unable to do anything
• When entering some boss areas your character won't have any sound effects
• Sometimes in The Inn the screen wouldn’t move when I move so I was stuck on one screen

You are captured by a group of soldiers in a cage but are set free by some guy in a Hawaii mask, after he teaches you how to fight you teleport to The Inn. You’ll then need to help the masked guy to get into The Order of Warlocks going to different locations to help the local creatures. After you’ve been accepted into The Order you’ll find out that the arrogant gods have challenged The Order of Warlocks and well, you have to show them whose boss.

The story doesn’t really hold much of a purpose besides loosely holding all the tasks your set to complete together and to write some jokes. But then again, this game doesn’t exactly take itself very seriously and even though the main concept is killing gods, you only fight two of them. The writing tries to be funny but didn’t get more than a smile from me as it was just too upfront and stupid with some of its jokes.

During the course of this title, you’ll be traversing through three different worlds and numerous locations fighting enemies, defeating bosses and completing quests. However, these locations aren’t very well designed and the majority of the time you’ll feel like your in a linear maze rather than an actual part of the world. The optional paths quickly lead to dead ends and sometimes, the paths are so tight that you’ll have little to no room to manoeuvre and dodge enemy attacks. The level design could’ve been fleshed out way more with open areas to make use of your abilities, but instead what you get are a bunch of boring mazes.

But despite the maze-like level designs, the characters that you can choose are all very unique and diverse from one another. Each has their own set of skills and abilities that they can use in combat, some of them leaning more towards using magic, and some of them using melee attacks. A couple of the characters are more bizarre than others, but that just makes them stand out from the crowd and be more interesting. Though it would’ve saved me some time to see each characters skill tree before picking them.

With a diverse range of skills and buffs that you can obtain depending on which character you’ve chosen, it can lead to quite addicting and satisfying combat. Even though the enemy attacks don’t really get amplified all that much as you progress to make the game more challenging, you can mix and match abilities and buffs to make your attacks stronger. Though after I found the four skills that I liked the most I didn’t bother unlocking the others and just stuck with upgrading them to the max.

Speaking of combat, the bosses throughout the game are kinda scarce. I was expecting to be fighting a lot more challenging and badass gods rather than traversing through maze-like levels to complete quests. However when I fought a boss, they had rather simplistic and predictable move sets, but at the same time it was still rather enjoyable to defeat them. It would’ve made more sense if you were to go up against more gods that would actually put up a tough fight.

Co-op is one of the main features this game offers as well, however the community for this game is pretty much dead. So unless you have someone with you to play local co-op (fortunately I did) then you’ll more than likely be going through the entire game solo. This is rather unfortunate considering how much more enjoyable the game is when your playing with a friend or even with a random person.

Unfortunately the game doesn’t have much in terms of replay value, once you’ve completed the game with one character it’s not that enjoyable to go through it again with another. You can modify the difficulty by adding permadeath, bullet hell, glass cannon etc. to make it harder, but I didn’t really feel the need to. Playing through the game once whilst completing every side quest takes about 8 - 10 hours, so to play the game again just to see the other characters’ skills wasn’t enough to encourage me to play through this title multiple times.

Simplistic soundtracks aren’t necessarily bad as long as their not overused too much, however Warlocks 2: God Slayers overuses them. Considering that you’ll be exploring different locations for up to half an hour, and the fact that not many sounds make up the soundtracks, you’ll more than likely be muting the games background music for longer than you’ll be listening to it.

Despite being a fan of pixel art in games, I found that looking at this particular game wasn’t really all that interesting or eye-catching. The environments that you can stand on blend in way too much with the background art to the point that sometimes you can’t tell the difference between what you can and can’t stand on.

Warlocks 2: God Slayers is one of those games that I’d have to give a neutral rating to, on one hand you have a lot of bugs and faults with this game that are hard to look past. But on the other hand, I can’t deny that I enjoyed my time playing through this title despite everything that I had to put up with. This game definitely has a niche audience, however considering the price tag I’m gonna have to say don’t bother with this game. If it still looks interesting despite everything I’ve said then I’d recommend waiting till it goes on sale.

This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers

For more critically honest reviews of mine, check out Metro’s Review Corner

Sparklite undoubtedly had a lot of potential to be an amazing game and although the concept of this title might seem interesting at first, the more I played it, the more it fell apart. It lacks in a lot of areas, variety being the most concerning one considering Sparklite is a rogue-like. The pixel art can be extremely detailed at times but graphics can’t make up for repetitive gameplay.

• Simplistic story
• Your always making progression
• Combat is satisfying
• Gadgets are unique and interesting
• Soundtrack is calm and relaxing
• Cute and detailed pixel art

• Game has a lot of potential but fails to deliver satisfying and addictive gameplay
• First few runs don’t show much variety in each area
• Patch upgrades need to be more varied
• Gadgets you find aren’t used very often
• Bosses were promising to begin with, but they started to show there wasn’t much substance to them
• Way too expensive for the amount of content you are receiving

You play as Ada, after your steampunk-like ship was damaged by a thunderstorm you are forced to abandon it and find yourself on an island you haven’t visited before. After wandering around you come across some kinda titan that’s controlled by a man. Despite your best efforts to defeat him, you are defeated and are taken up to a small floating island. You meet a small group of people who ask you for help with defeating the man known as Baron who has created these titans to keep the world hostile. With their aid, you will defeat each of Barons’ titans to bring light back to the Sparklite that Baron has made dormant.

The story in Sparklite is a simple one that only seems to serve as a purpose to hold the game together. There is very little detail about the currency (Which is called Sparklite) and it’s other uses which were only mentioned once or twice during the entire game and never expanded upon again after that. It would’ve been nice to have more detail about why these people are on this floating island or just give more details about the world in general.

The gameplay loop of Sparklite was interesting to begin with but quickly became overly repetitive due to how small each biome was and due to the lack of variety of each randomly generated area you explore. Once you arrive in the world, you need to find the boss lair and defeat the boss of this biome to unlock an ability that’ll allow you to progress to the next biome. These biomes aren’t very big at all, it might take you 10-ish minutes to explore before your forced to go and defeat the boss. Sometimes you’ll come across an identical area that you’ve already explored on the same run and this just confirms the lack of variety. You’ll be doing the same for the next four biomes and although each one is distinctively different there’s still a clear lack of variety in these randomly generated areas to encourage the player to explore more instead of beelining to the boss.

As mentioned previously, variety is vital to any rogue-like to encourage the player to try again after failing. However, Sparklite doesn’t have nearly enough variety in the randomly generated areas to encourage you to try again, and even if you do you can be certain that you’ll see a repeat of the same area from your previous run. There needs to be way more hand-crafted areas for each biome to make each run feel unique and different from the last, otherwise there isn’t much point of the procedurally generated mechanic in the first place.

Progression is another key aspect of any rogue-like in order to encourage players to try again when they fail. Sparklites progression relies on purchasing patches with Sparklite which is this games currency that you’ll carry over upon death. These patches provide permanent upgrades that you can equip, from health, armour, gadget damage and points of interest on your map though there’s only a few that you can choose from. Although this is a guaranteed way to make progress even if you die early, it would’ve been nice if there were more patches to choose from.

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On the bright side, gadgets that you acquire along the way are all unique and different from one another that can be used as both a secondary weapon and as a means to solve puzzles. However, the problem is that these gadgets are rarely used again after leaving the biome that you’ve acquired them from. The game needs to utilise these gadgets further, either using them to defeat bosses or to solve more complicated puzzles that require one or more of the gadgets. It almost feels like the devs forgot that you had a bunch of gadgets at your disposal and rarely put them to use for anything significant.

Combat in this game isn’t all that bad, with the gadgets you obtain and your trusty wrench there are a few options to take out enemies. However, through the majority of the game I only used my wrench to take out enemies and never really thought much about the other gadgets I had acquired. There was however, a level of satisfaction when you hit an enemy with your wrench, a decent amount of feedback with the sound and visual effect.

The game also has a problem with pacing its difficulty, more specifically the bosses that you encounter. The first two bosses you face are somewhat challenging, and I thought that the game was only going to get tougher from then on. It took me a couple of tries to defeat both of these bosses, but after that the game got too easy. Defeating the third and fourth boss was a breeze, despite showing little variety in their attack patterns it felt like the developers didn’t take into account the patch upgrades that you could acquire up to that point and therefore I felt overpowered. The final boss however was a lot more challenging, so much so that I was pretty much forced to grind for Sparklite to upgrade my patches further.

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The soundtrack throughout the course of this title is very calm as you wander around the world. Depending on which biome you are exploring, the music will change accordingly to suit the environment that you are currently in. The boss battle music was intense enough for the first few bosses, but by the time I got to the final boss the music just didn’t have the impact or atmosphere that this was the epic final battle.

The pixel art is probably the highlight of this game, the complexity and detail of each of the bosses are beautifully designed especially the final boss. The biomes that you explore are varied enough to keep the game interesting as you progress and the enemies that you encounter suit the environment accurately. Characters that you interact with are detailed and show that a level of care went into each and every one of them, though the animations for these characters seem to lack it makes up for it with a high level of detail.

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Sparklite isn’t necessarily a bad game, the concept seemed rather promising to begin with. Its just the game isn’t varied enough or expands on its mechanics enough to compensate for the high price tag, even with the detailed pixel art I can’t justify purchasing this game for full price as there just isn’t enough content. Maybe if this was a more linear and story-driven experience with hand-crafted levels and cleverly designed puzzles it would’ve been better, but as a rogue-like it’s not that enjoyable or addictive.

This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers

For more critically honest reviews of mine, check out Metro’s Review Corner

Dishonored is a short yet impactful title about trust and betrayal. There are a few flaws here and there but it’s easy to look past them as you immerse yourself in this steampunk world. Whether you’re sneaking around guards or going on a mad killing spree, you’ll have a blast exploring this world with the powers and gadgets you acquire along the way.

• A short but impactful story
• Be as stealthy or loud as you want
• A vast arsenal of gadgets, weapons, and powers that allow for creative kills
• A lot of emphasis on exploration
• Hidden detail about the world and characters
• Encourages multiple playthroughs to explore the world and get different endings
• The choices you make impact the world
• Ambient sounds are used instead of music to create tension and anticipation when being stealthy
• There’s always a non-lethal way of dealing with your target

• Not enough non-lethal weapons to make low chaos playthroughs as enjoyable as high chaos
• New game+ feature would’ve been nice
• The game is short and banks on you exploring the levels, not rushing through them

You play as Corvo Attano, a former bodyguard for the Empress who gets framed for her murder and the abduction of Emily Kaldwin (the heir to the throne). After breaking out of prison you meet a small group of people who know the truth about the assassination of the Empress called The Loyalist who helped you escape prison. They help you figure out where the main targets are who planned this tragic event and your job is to take care of them how you see fit.

The writing in this game is simple yet impactful telling a short story of both betrayal and trust. There’s an enormous amount of detail hidden around the world about the rat plague, how people are coping and how the world is starting to fall apart. From books you can find in abandoned houses to notes left on corpses, there’s a lot of lore to read about in this mysterious world.

Dishonored is a stealth game at heart but allows you to be very upfront and loud if you wanted to take that route. With the vast amount of deadly gadgets at your fingertips who wouldn’t want to go on a murderous killing spree to get revenge on those who betrayed you. With the countless weapons, gadgets and powers you obtain over the course of the game, you can really be creative with how you use them to take out your enemies.

Having an arsenal of gadgets and weapons that you can upgrade is all well and good but when it comes to the non-lethal side of things it’s not as fun. Sure there are sleeping darts that you can use on your enemies but its not as satisfying as using the countless other lethal gadgets you have at your disposal. I feel like there could’ve been more non-lethal gadgets to make sneaking around not killing people just as fun as the lethal route.

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The mark of the Outsider gives you supernatural powers that you can utilise however you wish during your adventure, as well as some passive bonuses that will aid you. The main powers are all very different from one another from teleporting to stopping time to summoning a swarm of rats to devour your enemies, there’s a nice amount of variety. They are all very satisfying to use and if your feeling creative you can combine these powers and gadgets to create some very creative and entertaining kills.

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There’s also a morality system that determines your ending with some details that change depending on if you have a high or low chaos. High chaos is achieved by killing over 20% of the population on each level, and low chaos is achieved by getting lower than 20%. Whether you plan to go on a murderous killing spree or deal with your enemies differently, there’s always a non-lethal approach you can take with every enemy you encounter. Small details will change depending on what level of chaos you are at, for example more weepers will appear if you have high chaos.

This title has a lot of emphasis on exploration, strongly encouraging the player to explore each and every level as much as possible to find hidden secrets, details about the world, finding runes to upgrade your powers and so much more. Depending on how much you explore and really immerse yourself in this game will determine how many hours you put into it. You can eavesdrop on enemies who have meaningful and sometimes funny conversations between one another, you can embark on side quests to help aid you on your journey, there’s just so much detail and side quests that you can easily miss which encourages you to play through the game multiple times.

Playing through the game once isn't enough to appreciate how elegant and well crafted each level is designed either. You can go the linear route of getting past an obstacle, for example obtaining a key to get through a locked door. But there’s almost always another way around, and that’s something you might not pick up on your first time through this game. It rewards and encourages players to explore the areas and find different routes around to overcome obstacles that obstruct your path.

I was surprised to find that there wasn’t any sort of NG+ system implemented into this title to further encourage multiple playthroughs. It would’ve also given you the chance to have every power, gadget, and weapon upgraded to the max and be even more creative with your kills.

Sometimes the Tallboys would get caught on terrain and would be stuck until he sees you and starts attacking, some NPCs in the Hound Pit would be in their sitting animation but wouldn’t actually be sitting on a chair and instead look like they’re hovering.

As you traverse and sneak your way through Dunwall, you’ll hear subtle ambient sounds and occasionally there will be a small piece of music if you're in a cut scene or if the main characters are talking. It really adds this level of intensity and anticipation when you’re sneaking around trying not to get seen by anyone. On the other hand, when you’re caught in a fight or get seen there’s intense music playing to indicate that very clearly.

The best soundtrack in this title is definitely the end credits (Honor For All, RIP Dan licht) it’s so elegant and creative, you get this overwhelming sense of accomplishment every time that you complete the game. I still get chills every time I hear the song start playing whether I get high chaos or low chaos, it’s such a great song and suits the game extremely well.

As you roam through the streets of Dunwall you’ll take in the result of the devastating rat plague that is spreading throughout the city. The grim and gloomy parts of the city that are hidden away make for an excellent contrast to the bright and rich colours on the cities surface. Environments are well designed, and everything looks like it belongs in this world but at the same time practically everything can be climbed to get a vantage point.

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Dishonored is probably in my top 5 games of all time, from its fantastic level design to the vast amount of gadgets and superpowers at your disposal, I think that it’s a timeless masterpiece. Despite a few flaws this title is still enjoyable and addicting to play through over and over uncovering lore and secrets you might’ve missed before.

For more critically honest reviews of mine, check out Metro’s Review Corner