Recent reviews by noibn

A short and sweet Metroidvania-style combat/platformer. It's pretty standard as far as the genre goes, which is not a bad thing (it's kind of like comfort food). The controls feel good and the difficulty is about average (it's not very difficult except maybe a couple of bosses). If you are a fan of this style of platformer, this is worth the price for a few hours of entertainment, especially if on sale.

Axiom Verge is a classic-style Metroidvania game (heavy on the "Metroid" part - as in, they could be long-lost twins). So, as someone whose list of top favorite games of all time contains Metroid and Super Metroid right up at the very top, you can probably guess how I felt about this… I loved it. The way I see it, if you're going to pay homage to the best, you may as well go all out, and do it right. And on that front, Axiom Verge does not disappoint. So if you’re a fan of those games (or the 2D Castlevanias, etc) then this is a no-brainer.

The game is extremely well-designed, looks great, has a good soundtrack, and plays well (for the most part). You can't ask for much else. I enjoyed the exploration, item collecting, boss battles, story, and the overall atmosphere of the game. My only small gripes have to do with the way a couple of the game mechanics work (or rather, don’t work) - specifically, the grapple tool and the dash/teleport ability were way too finicky and/or inconsistent to pull off, for my tastes. I'll concede that part of the issue is probably that I used the control stick on the controller rather than the D-pad for primary movement, which makes those abilities harder to reliably pull off, but in my opinion, that should have been accounted for as part of the design. In particular, the dash/teleport ability just didn’t work consistently enough for me, and made a few parts of the game extremely frustrating. But other than that, I really can't think of any other complaints.

All in all, this is about as good a game as one could possibly hope for in the classic Metroid style. It's a game I could/would have probably made myself, if I weren't too old and lazy now (or, like, had no job or family). So major kudos to the developer (just 1 guy) who not only had that technical know-how, but also the time, ambition, and dedication I lack, who actually followed through and made this. It's a very, very, impressive piece of work, and well worth checking out for anyone who is a fan of this genre, or classic-style 2D action-platformers in general.

This is an absolute must-buy for fans of the previous game ("You Have to Win the Game", available for free on Steam). It follows the same basic formula of platforming (there is no combat at all), exploration, and puzzle solving. Similar to the original, the look is retro, only this time around the inspiration is more from the 8-bit console era. In fact, the majority of the aesthetics are pretty blatantly, err, "borrowed", from Zelda II. While this might seem a bit shameful (and I suppose it is in some ways), it touches me smack dab in my happy nostalgic gaming place. This is pretty much a perfect game for someone like me who still looks fondly on those old days of gaming and wishes there were more games in that vein. The gameplay consists of exploring a top-down overworld map, and then exploring several side-scrolling locations (towns, caves, dungeons, etc) to solve secrets and collect the items needed to win the game. There is not a lot of hand holding, and there are lots of secrets, so you do have to pay close attention (or be very thorough exploring) to finish the game, which is something I really enjoyed. The bulk of the game involves platforming and solving platforming-related puzzles. The difficulty is mostly reasonable throughout, with just a handful of really tough spots, so it's a decent balance. Although it can be quite challenging at points, checkpoints are plentiful and there is no penalty for dying, so it's not too frustrating overall. I would not recommend it if you don't like platformers at all, or don't have a good controller, though. But otherwise, I think it is an excellent game for those who like old-school and/or challenging platformers.

The Witcher 3 is one of the most impressive games I've ever played, in terms of scope, story, visuals and content. The size of the open world in this game is simply mind blowing, and it's not just a bunch of emptiness and filler. Pretty much every square inch of the world is drenched in absurd detail, and it's so ridiculously good looking you almost can't believe it. So yeah, I was impressed. Beyond that, the story is a great conclusion to the previous two games (though the plot connections are more in the history of the world and the characters, rather than specific story lines, so it's probably OK for newcomers). The characters are written and voiced really well, as always. As for the gameplay, it's pretty good overall. Although the combat can get somewhat repetitive after a while, there are enough different types of scenarios to keep you on your toes, as far as changing up battle tactics and selecting different items and potions to use, etc. As for the story, the main quest is great, but there are also tons and tons of side quests, which make up the main meat of the game. Some of the side quests are very simple and short, but many are just as in-depth as the main story quests. There is very little pointless filler, aside from some collectible-oriented quests. The variety of quests is also excellent - there's a great balance of combat, exploration, and detective work. Oh, and on top of all this, there's also a full-fledged collectible card game you can play, which is really fun. The game does have a few downsides and annoyances that come up every once in a while, so it's not exactly perfect, but the negative points were inconsequential to me, when taken as part of the whole package.

I've put over 150 hours into this game (though that's playing with a 100% completion/exploration type of mindset, so your playtime may vary, depending on how deep down the rabbit hole you go), but either way, have no fear that there isn't enough content for the price. In summary, I can say with no reservations that this is one of the few $60 games I've ever played that is actually worth every single penny of the asking price, plus more. So if you enjoy action style RPGs, don't hesitate to pick this up. The only reason I would say not to buy it would be if your PC isn't able to run it well. This is a game that deserves to be seen in its full glory at maximum settings to truly appreciate what a work of art it is.

You Have to Win the Game is a short but sweet exploration-based retro platformer seemingly designed with the sole purpose of plunging a bullseye arrow into my nostalgia heart. The game has the look of the early PC games I grew up on, complete with CGA graphics (you play it through an in-game CRT monitor emulated on the screen), but designed with the modern pixel-perfect platforming sensibilities of games like VVVVVV and Super Meat Boy. Thankfully, it's not nearly as hard as those games, and can be easily completed in around an hour or so with a little bit of determination. Checkpoints are liberal, and there is no penalty for dying. And for those who enjoy a tougher challenge, there are harder modes available, along with a collection sidequest for 100% completion.

And the best part? It's absolutely free. Seriously, as in no-strings attached, no microtransaction bull$h%t, 100% free. One might think that may mean the quality probably isn't that great, but I assure you it's rock-solid, and clearly made with love and care by someone who was inspired by those early days of PC gaming as much as I was. If you're a fan of 2D platformers, or games having a retro-style with a bit of challenge to them, check this one out.

I am a huge fan of Supergiant Games' previous game, Bastion. Topping that game was a tall order, but I think they've managed to equal, if not better it, with Transistor... though I guess that depends on your personal tastes. First of all, if you have not yet played Bastion, I implore you to do so. If you have played it, and liked it, then I can definitely recommend checking out Transistor. Both games share some common fundamental elements: isometric action gameplay, a set of diverse weapons, amazing music and visuals, and stories moved forward by in-game voiceover. In the case of Bastion, the voiceover was provided by a narrator. In Transistor, the voice is that of the soul of a "dead" man within the main character's weapon (the Transistor). The other main difference is in the way combat is handled. While combat in Bastion plays out in real time, in Transistor you can pause the action at will (on a cooldown) and plan out a set of actions (or "functions" as they are called in game) that will play out in rapid sequence. So essentially, Transistor is more of a strategy game.

The game takes place in a city called Cloudbank. You play as Red, a singer that's lost her voice after an attack by an organization called the Camerata. Red wields the Transistor, an object that can absorb the essence of people, who in turn, become "functions" that can be assigned to your combat loadout. The gameplay loop consists of clearing out groups of enemies, collecting new functions for the transistor, and then combining those functions in all sorts of different ways. There are 16 functions, each of which can be used in one of 3 ways: as a primary action, as an upgrade effect for a primary action, or as a passive effect for your overall loadout. With 4 passive slots, 4 action slots, and 8 upgrade slots available to assign your functions, you can imagine how many different possible combinations there are to experiment with. And man, is it ever fun. There's plenty of room for experimentation to find what works best for your play-style. It's a brilliant combat system. The only negative I would say about it is that it's a bit confusing to figure out at first, as the game offers little in the way of explanation. It doesn't take all that long to get your head wrapped around how things work, but the early going might be a bit confusing.

Visually, the game is just absolutely stunning. The environments are so gorgeous that I would eat them up if I could. The story is somewhat inscrutable (which I've heard brought up by people as a negative on the game), but there is plenty of information available within the game to flesh things out if you put in the attention and effort required. But ultimately, I never felt any of that really mattered too much. At its heart, the main plot is simply a love story, and that's all that really matters in the end. The other highlight of the game for me was the music. As with Bastion, music has a huge impact on the game experience. The music is consistently outstanding throughout, perfectly setting the mood for each area you traverse. There are also a few vocal tracks spread throughout, which are particularly good, especially the ending song, which was the high point of the game for me.

I guess my only disappointment with the game is that there just isn't more of it. The story can be completed in around 6-8 hours I would estimate. After that, the game allows you to "recurse" through the story again indefinitely, while keeping all of the upgrades you've acquired, and making the enemy encounters harder each time. This is nice, and worth playing through at least once, but really, there's only so much you can go through the same few areas and watch the same cutscenes, etc, no matter how much you enjoy the gameplay and visuals. But what is there is excellent and worth the asking price. So in summary, if you liked Bastion and the turn-planning combat of Transistor sounds interesting to you, definitely give this a look. Or just give it a look anyways. Games like this just don't come around every day, and need to be experienced. I can't wait to see what Supergiant does next...

If you're a fan of the original Wasteland, the long-awaited sequel hits just about all the right notes you'd hope for. It builds upon the original's style, writing, skill systems and combat in a completely logical way, without getting "too modern". It's also chock-full to the brim with references to the original, both in dialog and in the locations you visit (the whole first half of the game is basically a love-letter to the fans, as a matter of fact). So if you're coming into it from the same nostalgia-fueled background as me, you'll probably enjoy the game.

As for everyone else, I am really not so sure. The game is good, but far from perfect. The biggest issue is probably that the combat can get to be a bit simplistic and tedious after a while. Although there are elements of strategy to it, you almost never need to do anything "outside of the box" to successfully win a battle. The story is OK, but nothing you haven't seen before - a post-apocalyptic wasteland threatened by a megalomaniacal antagonist... yadda, yadda, yadda. The writing is good overall, striking a nice balance between serious and playful, though some of the dialogue ends up being a bit cheesy (especially towards the end). Two other big issues are the pace and length of the game. It really takes a while to get rolling. This is partly due to the aforementioned tedium in combat, but mostly because of the sheer size of the game. It becomes pretty obvious after a while that the developers just decided "screw it, this is our one chance to do this, and by god, let's go all out"... and "all out" they most certainly did. They threw everything they thought of in there, plus an extra kitchen sink. On one hand, that's admirable and I completely understand it. But I also just ended up feeling that maybe they should have scaled back their ambition just a tad, which would have allowed more time to tighten up and polish the experience overall. There are quite a few bugs in the game, at least as it initially launched. Thankfully, there was nothing completely game-breaking that I found, but there were definitely some bugs in various quests and dialogue options, and a few other glitches that popped up here and there. Finally, I also felt that the skill and weapon systems weren't quite balanced properly. After completing the game, it became kind of obvious that some of my skill, attribute and weapon investments were more or less useless. Again, not the end of the world, but the game could definitely use some additional balance in its systems.

Overall though, none of these minor issues greatly affected my personal appreciation and enjoyment of the game. I backed this Kickstarter project on day one, and don't regret it for a second. That said, I am also pretty forgiving when it comes to these sorts of things, especially when I know what a labor of love the project was for Brian Fargo and his team. So while I do recommend it overall, I would suggest it primarily for fans of old-school turn-based RPG/tactical-type games. Casual players, or those on the fence should probably check out some gameplay videos of the combat, in particular, to see if it's up your alley. If so, and if you are willing to look past a few minor flaws, definitely give Wasteland 2 a shot.

South™ Park™: The™ Stick™ of™ Truth™ (tm.)™ is one of the best licensed-property games I have ever played, though it's not without its faults.

Let's start with the good stuff. For fans of the show, it's hard to imagine a better use of the license. The designers didn't play it safe and crap out a generic game just to cash in. They took a great hook that was already built into the show (the kids of South Park™ live role-playing RPG-style) and ran with it. This is not a hard-core 100+ hour type of RPG, nor should it have been. Instead, it employs a more simplified style that requires timed button presses for attacks and defense. As a reference point, the gameplay is very similar to the "Mario & Luigi"™ RPGs. This is not only a very good thing, but it also perfectly serves the source material. So while the "RPG" aspects of the game are not particularly hardcore, there is just enough depth to keep it (mostly) interesting throughout. What really take the game to a higher level are the production values. The game itself looks and sounds exactly like the newer HD episodes of the series. Just about every character you could possibly care about makes an appearance, and they're all voiced and written exactly as you would expect. Absolutely no corners were cut in this department - the game really makes you feel as if you are in South Park™, interacting with its characters. The story is also exactly what you would expect out of South Park™. Although the basic premise is very simple - the boys fighting over an ordinary stick™ - the story ultimately progresses in ways you could never have imagined (or perhaps you can, if you've watched enough of the series over the years). The dialogue and voice acting are excellent, and there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments from beginning to end. There are also tons of obscure references and cameos throughout, seemingly for no other purpose than to make the most hard-core fans chuckle. The whole game really is just a huge South Park™ love fest. In terms of difficulty, the default setting is fine, if a bit on the easy side. If you want more (or less) of a challenge, you can change the difficulty at any point, which is a great feature that should allow anyone to complete it if they put in the time.

Unfortunately, along with all of the things that make the game good, there are also a few low points. Several sections involve slightly complicated "quick time events" (not exactly in the traditional sense, but used here for lack of a better term). Setting aside the fact that these sections seem randomly out of place in an otherwise good game, the real issue is that they just aren't implemented well. The tutorials for each action are executed poorly, which can be frustrating if you don't pick up on what the game is asking you to do, exactly. Another low point comes towards the latter portion of the game, which involves a series of "fetch-quests". While I am sure the intent of this section was to lampoon this tired video game trope, they succeeded a little too much, as it started to get fairly tedious. It also didn't help that at this point in the game, I had already maxed out my character's level, so there was really nothing else to strive for, in an "RPG" sense. It would have been nice if there was no level cap, with enemies scaled to your strength (or something along those lines). Lastly, and this is just a pet peeve of mine, but apparently there are several collectibles that can be missed if you don't get them the first time through - just a warning to those who enjoy collecting things or 100%-ing games.

Overall, my annoyances with the game are fairly minor in comparison to all of the things I enjoyed. If you are a huge South Park™ fan, I think this is a no-brainer. The amount of care that went into making it is readily apparent, and worthy of your money (at least, now that it's only $40 - the original $60 price point was way too much). In terms of length, it's hard for me to estimate, but I would say it will probably take you anywhere from 11-18 hours, depending on how deliberate/OCD you are. It's really hard for me to imagine a South Park™ game ever being done better than this. Needless to say, non-fans should stay away. But for anyone else (assuming you can get into the simple RPG gameplay), it's definitely worth checking out at some point.

Season 2 of The Walking Dead picks up a year or so after the events of the first game (needless to say, you should play that first if you haven't already). This time around, you play as Clementine, who is no longer the scared little girl from Season 1. Without spoiling anything important, the plot centers around a new group of survivors Clementine encounters, and the challenges they face.

Gameplay is exactly the same as the previous game. You mostly choose between various dialogue options, with occasional breaks for action sequences (click the mouse on Walkers to kill them, mash the "Q" key really fast, etc). There's not much in the way of "game" here - it is simply an interactive story. As with the first season, the voice acting is top notch, and the visuals work very well for the game style. I have no complaints at all about any of the technical aspects of the game. On a side note, if you import your save files from Season 1 and/or the 400 Days DLC, the choices you made in those stories will be reflected in Season 2. This is a nice touch. Unfortunately, in the case of 400 Days, the results are mostly inconsequential, which felt like a letdown.

What makes Season 2 different is the new cast of characters. Unfortunately, that's also the game's biggest issue. For whatever reason, I just never felt a big connection to anyone in this game, except Clementine (and one other person, which I won’t spoil for plot reasons). I can’t really place my finger on why this is. Maybe it's a combination of the novelty of the first game having worn off, and pretty much knowing exactly what to expect out of the Walking Dead universe by now. I'm not sure. None of this is to say the characters or the plot are outright bad by any stretch. That's not the case at all. I just didn’t feel as involved in or as attached to any of the characters as I did in the previous game.

That said, there are some genuinely good moments across the 5 episodes, and plenty of those patented Tough Choices (tm.) that have become the hallmark of the series. The highlight is Clementine, who ends up being a great protagonist. It's great to continue her story and see her progression from child to adult under unthinkable circumstances. Overall, I enjoyed the game, and it’s well worth playing for anyone who enjoyed Season 1. I always felt the legacy of the first game would be hard to live up to, and that proved to be true - just go into Season 2 with lowered expectations and you probably won’t be disappointed.

I would really like to recommend Beatbuddy, but I just can't... at least, not fully. While it's got a lot going for it, I just can't get past how buggy it is. Although I did manage to complete it, it wasn't without some serious issues. Several times I got stuck in various ways that prevented further progress - sometimes it was a matter of a game event not triggering properly, and sometimes it was due to going some way the game wasn't expecting me to (apparently). I also encountered issues where the controls would just stop working for no reason. Restoring to the last checkpoint sometimes fixes the issue, but this is rarely the case. Most times, there is no choice but to start the level (or entire chapter) from scratch. Do you know how annoying it is to have 30-40 minutes of progress wiped out, have to start over again, and hope you don’t make the same game-breaking mistake again (whatever it was)? Let me tell you - it's really f%@*&g annoying. I ended up having to do that multiple times. And would you believe, as a final bug-ridden cherry on top, the very end of the game also glitched out on me as well? Well, believe it. So on top of all the other frustration I experienced just getting through the game, I didn’t even get to see the full conclusion of the story.

Now, putting all of that aside, what’s actually good about Beatbuddy? Quite a bit, actually. The hand-drawn layered 2D graphics look great, the controls are responsive, the puzzles are generally well-designed, and the music is decent. And that’s a good thing, because the music plays a large part in the gameplay - the environment works in time with the beat of the music, requiring specific timing to pass obstacles or solve puzzles. The first couple of hours are great, as the basic mechanics are introduced. Unfortunately, it starts to lose its luster a little bit after that, as most of the subsequent puzzles are pretty much variations on things you’ve already done several times. So you might start to get tired of it after a while (or maybe I was just burned out from having to replay several areas). I would estimate the overall playtime to be somewhere around 4-6 hours.

Overall, the game is not bad, and I enjoyed it while it was working properly. The frustration from all of the technical issues I had just ended up being too much for me to give it a full recommendation. If you enjoy action/puzzle sidescrollers, music-themed games, and/or games with pretty 2D artwork, it’s definitely worth a look. Just be aware of the potential issues. I suppose it could very well be possible that you'd encounter no glitches at all… but I doubt it (several posts in the Steam forums seem to corroborate my experience). At the very least, don’t buy it at full price unless the developers hire more QA people and/or release a patch that fixes the game-breaking issues.