Recent reviews by pladd

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Sony has, for now, reversed their decision to require a PSN account in order to play Helldivers 2 on PC. Woo! That's great! Let's hope they keep it that way, and don't pull the rug from under the playerbase again later.
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Helldivers 2 is good. It's a ton of fun to play, with nine separate difficulty levels to account for whatever skill level (or state of mind) you're currently at. It has a boatload of variety, and the developers (Arrowhead) are actively supporting the community and adding more.

Moreover, the devs have put a living story into the game and use the events of that story to justify the introduction of new enemies, mission types, and other challenges—often providing little warning, no warning, or *outright denial* that the new content exists! It contributes to a feeling that the enemy factions are genuinely evolving and adapting, rather than just "we finished a new enemy type, here you go."

The satire of the game is executed really well. Yeah, you're playing as a front-line stormtrooper working for a fascist military autocracy. But the government is called SUPER EARTH. You call in an airstrike and your pilot radios in that they're "DISPENSING FREEDOM!" You throw a grenade and shout, "HOW ABOUT A NICE CUP OF LIBER-*TEA*!" Your government farms bugs for oil—excuse me, sorry, "Element 710," not oil—and yet can't stop the bugs from continually breaking containment, and deploys poorly-tested chemical weapons that keeps accidentally mutating the bugs into deadlier variants that overtake entire planets.

Anyway. It's an extremely good game, it's not fallen prey to scummy money-siphoning garbage tactics (yet—hopefully never), and the developers are responsive and open about genuine problems and their attempts to solve them.

Cobalt Core is fantastic. A great mix of solid gameplay, snappy writing, and a killer soundtrack. The story progresses as you complete runs and builds up to a satisfying conclusion, which I didn't expect from a roguelike deckbuilder game. I could go into more detail about specific design decisions that contribute towards the game's overall success, but you don't need that from me. Just play it!

[Context: I haven't finished the game yet. I'm about halfway through, as far as I can tell. Very minor spoilers ahead.]

Atrio is far from perfect, and I love it.

It has some rough edges. It has some annoying bugs. It has some jank in certain mechanics. Its progression can be uncertain at times. The devs are working to fix bugs and add polish, but that takes time.

But Atrio is also novel, bizarre, and unabashedly Its Own Thing. The setting is cool! The darkness/light mechanic is eerie! You play as a naive ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ android that keeps annoying its overseer SO MUCH that it tries to get you killed, then devolves into keyboard-smashing frustration when you survive! You use frogs as vacuums!

If you're looking for a bug-free factory game that encourages perfect optimization, Atrio's not there yet - give it a while.

But I'm just enjoying the experience of turning Blood-Ore into Blood-Cubes so I can build buzz saws into the ground so I can clear trees away so a giant robot eye (that wants to be my Friend™) can turn on my minimap (oh my god I finally get a MAP thank CHRIST).

The gameplay is good! The art is good! The music is good! It's a lot of fun to play! If you're a fan of Isaac, Gungeon, or Hades, you'll probably like Revita.

It's not perfect, because nothing is perfect. Some of the special boss challenges are WICKED hard (looking at you, Depression). Some of the special weapons feel clunky to use, while others seem super strong (I've never felt happy to get the boots or the bow, but the scythe? oh baby yes). The story-progression pathways can be a bit unclear at times; I still haven't figured out how to access some of the secret areas that I can see, which is a bit frustrating.

With all that said, I'm still having a blast. There's SO many modifiers to unlock, challenges to attempt, and different weapons to mess with. The dev added some great quality-of-life features as well; for instance, when you unlock a new modifier, you start your next run with that modifier for free, so you can immediately see it in action. YES. THANK YOU. I LOVE THIS. REWARD ME FOR UNLOCKING THINGS.

So, yeah. 28 hours in and I've still got tons of items to unlock, weapon augmentations to discover, secrets to figure out, skills to develop, and probably other stuff I don't even know about yet. Buy Revita, and if you regret it you can yell at me.

Gripping, mysterious, funny, and beautifully scored. I'd recommend this to anyone, but extra thumbs up if you have a history with MUDs.

If you like MOBA-style, ability-based gameplay and the battle royale format? You'll probably like Battlerite BR.

Each character is unique enough to give the game variety, but the hero pool is (currently) small enough that you can learn each hero's moveset in a reasonable amount of time.

Will there be times when you say "♥♥♥♥ this, that character is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥"? Yes. It's a hero-based game, some matchups aren't perfectly balanced and some character(s) will always have a slight edge in a given meta.

Will there be times when RNG screws you over because Timmy Dumbface got the good loot and you got a giant pile of stupid trash? Yes. It's a Battle Royale game.

Will there be times when you're about to win a fight, and then Sarah Poachmaster steals your kill, and then kills you, too? Yes. Again, it's Battle Royale.

But sometimes you'll be Timmy Dumbface or Sarah Poachmaster, and you'll laugh at the idiots that got unlucky, and you'll get to the final two, and then Sirius will kill you, and then you ragequit for a while.

(no, it's not free. yes, it's worth $20. no, I didn't play OG battlerite.)

I recommend this game, but with a LOT of reservations. TL;DR: Alien: Isolation peaks early and is worse off for it.

~~VERY MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD - I talk vaguely about events in the game: it's more "At one point, Harry Potter has to overcome a series of trials to get the Stone," and less "SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE."~~

There are a lot of things Alien: Isolation does right, and overall it's a Good Experience™. The opening several hours of the game have a wonderful progression curve as you slowly piece together enough gear to go from helpless, terrified prey to slightly less helpless terrified prey. This experience builds wonderfully into a tense, climactic moment where you're trying to make a desperate escape from the alien in the hopes of getting rid of it altogether.

My problem is that this moment occurs a third of the way through the game.

After that point, you rarely obtain new or interesting gear. The gear you *do* obtain acts only to trivialize enemies that used to be frightening. I had hope at one point when the game forced me to give up my weapons, which resulted in a return to that helpless, fearful sensation that the early game created so well; but I found replacements for my guns immediately after that section, and I stopped being afraid.

If you're playing on a harder difficulty, you can probably expect to re-play the more frightening sequences several times as you trial-and-error your way through, and your terror when the alien catches you will turn into frustration as you're forced to watch it reset your progress for the umpteenth time. I came to cherich save stations not because they offered a sense of safety, but because they meant I wouldn't have to do the previous section over again.

The last two thirds of the game just dragged on for me, turning fear into frustration. It's still worth playing for the story, the setting, and the overall experience, but expect to chew through a lot of gristle to get to the end.