Останні рецензії користувача Slowacki

It's one of those games that make you wish that Steam had a more complex grading system rather than the binary one. Crashlands is a game that reminds many (including myself) of Don't Starve. In my opinion it is to Don't Starve, what American remakes are to European original films. It's goofier and more flashy, but in the process loses the idea of what makes the original so genius.


Crashlands drops you into an alien world, where you need to craft and help the locals to retrieve the packages lost during the crash landing. You have to scavenge and hunt mobs for materials that allow you to craft better gear and challenge harder mobs. It's actually fun for the first few hours, until you notice, this is it, that's basically the whole game. Just grind to craft another workstation, another weapon, another armour. It might have been okay as one of the possible activities, but it gets really old when it's the only activity available. And you have to do it a lot. There are 35 levels of equipment and they increment in twos. This means, the same gameplay loop has to be repeated around 17 times, that's at least 10 times too many. It's also possible to 'domesticate' pets, until you notice, that it's basically another part of the crafting system as the domesticated pets create materials which you'll need to create your weapons and armours with. It doesn't really help that the design of most of the gear is rather uninspiring. You can have the same sword/axe/helmet/etc. every 2 levels. I mean, it looks different, but the only actual difference is that it deals a bit more damage than the same item of the lower tier and a bit less damage than the item of the next tier. Only the gadgets and devices are a small breath of fresh air, at least some of them offer interesting, new mechanics.

Another gameplay element that's gravely underdeveloped is base building. There are possibilities of building furniture, plants and some other random stuff, but they (mostly) serve no purpose. You can just put them around if you feel like it, but there isn't really any good reason to do so. The only things that are actually needed are workstations, which allow you to craft better and better gear (there's like 20 of them) and pets nest. The rest of furniture might as well not exist.

The enemies are nicely designed in terms of their looks and attack patterns, however, they all suffer from one major problem - bullet sponging. Most of the time you'll find yourself slapping the enemies with your ineffective weapon for mediocre damage and just running around to not get hit. When you get better weapons, you'll move on to other enemies which will have the same spongey feeling to them. On the other hand enemies attacks welcome you to the world of hurt. Most special enemies will deal enough damage to one-shot you. There are many defensive stats, but at some point you'll probably notice, that the most important one is indeed the HP, that lets you survive the one hit and quickly heal up, the rest probably matters, but there isn't any in-game explanation of what do they exactly do. Like what does 20% toughness do? Does it decrease the physical damage by 20%? More? Less? Does it mean 100% toughness makes you invulnerable to physical damage? Who knows...

Enemies' attacks usually give you a lot of time to dodge, but it's unfortunately balanced with the speed your character is moving. By far one of the most frustrating things about Crashlands is the fact that most of the time you're literally crawling through the world. Being able to activate the 'turbo mode' helps a bit, but you can't have 100% uptime on it, so that sucks. Something like a Don't Starve's 'Walking stick' would be a great help to the game - that is an item that allows you to walk really fast outside of combat, but has to be switched to a weapon during combat, so it would still not be that easy to dodge the attacks.

There are also some minor bugs in the game, where quests aren't properly marked on the map or your teleporting doesn't work the first time you click (happens A LOT). Not that big of a deal in the end, but it does show the lack of polish of the game.


The story initially got me interested. It was a bit goofy, a bit crazy but it held up. I was following it rather closely until the end of Savannah, the first act. After that though, I was a bit underwhelmed with the game mechanics and just felt like finishing it up for the sake of being done with it, reading just a part here and there to still know what's going on. Reaching the last level, Tundra, I was so worn out I would just skip every dialogue ASAP. It didn't matter anyway and it did feel stretched just for the sake of having three acts.

This might have been different if the quests were a bit more creative, but unfortunately they aren't. 90% of the quests will be your typical 'kill this/gather that/talk to someone'. As I mentioned before, it might be interesting enough for the first act, but after that you'll find just skipping most of the dialogues and then checking your quests screen for the item that you actually need to gather up to finish the quest.


For me the strongest asset of this game. Crashlands looks neat. It's colourful and it feels alive. Even though most of your gear does the same, it looks differently, based on the materials that were used in the crafting process. The enemies and allies look a bit (positively) weird, which fits the goofy, alien theme of the game. The animations are fluid, damage indicators clear and you can easily spot all the materials as they have their distinctive looks.

My only complaint here would be the lack of possibility (at least I haven't found it) to disable screenshake. I always turn it off in any game I play, and I found it as annoying in Crashlands as in any other game.


I actually liked the music of the game of the game and I think I had it on for most part of the game. It was nothing to write home about, but it also didn't get on my nerves, which is important, as the game is about 30 hours long and you'll be hearing lots of it on repeat.

The sounds were mostly well chosen. Enemy sounds were fitting, 'juicy' sounds were 'juicy' enough. No complaints there.

On the other hand, the person who decided to put the 'thumping' tree in the game, should really re-evaluate how it impacts the playthrough. Hearing that annoying sound for 'roughly' the 8 hours you spend in the last act was stuff of nightmares.


Crashlands does some things good, it does most things mediocre and a few things - plain bad. It is even a great game up until the point where you notice you've basically seen everything and still have around 20 hours of grind left. If it took 10 hours to complete, this review would probably even be a positive one. It's just, that the game is stretched to almost 30 hours, but the content is just not there anymore past the first act. I mean, you'll see new monsters and the story progresses, but it doesn't feel different enough to justify it.

If I were to describe Crashlands in one word it would be 'uninspired'. The gameplay design just doesn't change one thing and you simply can't have players doing the same for almost 30 hours, it's boring and frankly, quite tiring. The only thing I could think of after I've beaten the final boss was the LoTR's 'It's over, it's done', I was happy to finally finish it and I know, I won't be coming back.

More of a piece of art rather than a game, ABZU is definitely one of the most beautiful creations I've seen on PC. Colourful and vibrant, the underwater world is just amazing.


The gameplay of ABZU unfortunately isn't anything to write home about. One could call it a 'walking simulator', but 90% of the game takes place under the surface of water, so is it a 'swimming simulator' then? Most of the time is spent swimming from one place to another and 'beeping' on objects to solve puzzles. 'Puzzles' is a bit of a big word, as it doesn't really take any effort to progress. Any experienced gamers will immediately notice what's to be done to move forward, however, inexperienced ones shouldn't really have any problems either.

It's pretty clear that having an ability to move in this game is just a way to get from one visual wonder to another. But my, my, what visual wonders are those.


ABZU looks amazing. The game is a few years old at this point, but it looks just amazing. The world is so vibrant, the fish look like real, everything is so colourful and alive. The developers were definitely aware that the graphics is the strongest point of the game and that's why they added the 'meditation points' - places where you can sit and wander with your camera through the multitude of sea critters swimming in your vicinity. A great way to take some amazing screenshots.

There are different zones and each one has a different colour theme. The sea critters also change from zone to zone. Swimming along Giant Squids or Blue Whales looks just breathtaking. If you're okay with just experiencing a game visually rather than through engaging gameplay, you definitely need to play ABZU.


The music in ABZU is well made and fitting. Mostly instrumental, it enhances the relaxing experience of just swimming around. Sometimes a bit mysterious, a bit dramatic towards the end it complements the visual feast perfectly.


As I mentioned several times, ABZU is not a game in a classic sense of it. The gameplay is rather shallow and the puzzles really simplistic. However, if you feel like experiencing a visually amazing spectacle and just relax for 2 hours, this is the game for you. 20€ might be a bit of a steep price for it, but I'd say it's a good grab for 10€ and below.

One final note, the 'controller is strongly recommended' notice is pretty important. The controls are a bit clunky when using keyboard + mouse and it can be really exhausting for the fingers operating the mouse. Playing with a controller is MUCH more enjoyable.

Enter the Gungeon has finally become my favourite rogue-like. It took a few years, but eventually it dethroned the reigning champion: Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. This top-down rogue-like shooter is flashy, brutal, filled with gun puns (seriously, where did they get all those ideas?) and most important - LOTS of fun. At this point, I believe it's a must-play for any rogue-like lover across the globe.


The premise is pretty simple - a few daring adventurers risk it all delving into a bullet-kin-filled dungeon in order to find the bullet that can kill the past and change their life mistakes. But as you take control of one of those characters, you'll find out it's not as easy of a task as it seems. When you start, you only have your own, trusty gun, which, to put it lightly, is not that useful. But as the game progresses, more and more guns are unlocked and it does get a bit easier.

Talking about guns, there's LOTS of them and nearly each one has a pun or a pop-culture reference in its description or in the way it works. There are small gun, big guns, explosive guns, weird guns, inverse gun, useless guns, gg guns and many more, coming to a total of over 240. I sincerely applaud the creativity of the developers. There's a gun for everyone and at some point everyone finds their favourite one that they'll always use above any other. Personally, I love using the Megahand, which is the reference to Megaman's Mega Buster. I think there are no true 'GG guns' though, like for example the Brimstone item in Binding of Isaac. Some guns can make a short work of the bosses, but then they'll usually be limited by their ammo capacity and/or usage scenarios. This slightly changed with the introduction of synergies. Guns synergise with other guns and passive items, which sometimes can produce truly run carrying results. It's rather hard to achieve such synergies though, it will not happen during regular runs, unless you're playing the gunslinger or find the Lich's eyes

Another crucial part of the Gungeon is the dodge mechanics. It's essential to your survival, but it does take some time to get used to. Timing the dodge rolls is actually way more important than the gun play. It's especially crucial when it comes to boss fights, as some of them turn into a real bullet hell and there's no way of avoiding all the projectiles without dodge rolling. Further down the Gungeon, using dodge roll in the right direction and in the right split of second is a matter of life and death.

The bosses in Gungeon are the true test of skill. They have significant amounts of HP and most of them can completely cover the screen in bullets. Additionally, not being hit during a boss fight grants you an additional heart container. Not getting the additional heart containers on easier floors usually means not having enough life to get through the latter, harder floors.

Enter the Gungeon, as every other rogue-like has many layers or RNG. Sadly, it feels like some runs can be pretty undoable due to it. Basically, most of the items and guns can be found in chests. The chests can be of different colours, some yield better items than others. Then you still need the keys to be able to open the chests in the first place. On the first floor, there'll always be enough keys as you can buy one from the store, but further down it can get pretty tough if you're unlucky. Same goes for ammo. All of the guns in the game have limited ammo capacity (besides the starting gun and few exceptions), which means you'll most likely run out of ammo at some point. Let me tell you, nothing is more frustrating in this game than having a great gun and not being able to find ammo for it for the duration of the run. Drops from clearing rooms are pretty infrequent and only improved by getting more coolness, which in turn is mostly gained from a few specific items. In this regard, I much prefer the Binding of Isaac, where there's much more regular drops and you can also gain the luck rather easily. Here, paired with the HP scaling of enemies, having bad gun or drop RNG can easily equal to an end of the run or at least make it painstakingly slow.


I really love the style of Gungeon. It's a top-notch pixel-art. Slightly goofy, really colourful and amazingly detailed. The gungeon is never visually boring, it always looks fresh and crispy. The colour palette choices are very well done as well, it's pretty easy to tell what's going to hurt you, where the enemies are and which projectiles are yours. I think it's a pretty important aspect for a rogue-like where one mistake can end your run. You need to immediately know what has to be dodged and what's safe and I feel like the visual cues are well-made for that.

The enemies look great as well, each of them has its own unique demeanor. It not only looks awesome, but also gives you an immediate information of what attacks to expect and where to focus your firepower first.


I can't really tell much about the music of Enter the Gungeon. I think it was pretty forgetful, I've had it on maybe for the first 5 hours of gameplay, but then for my sanity's sake I've replaced it with music from my Spotify playlist. I feel like that's a pretty common thing for rogue-likes though. I tend to spend a lot of time replaying the same levels, so listening to the same music over and over again can be pretty annoying. The only exceptions to this rule, in my opinion, were the original Binding of Isaac with amazing as always soundtrack from D. Baranovsky and Risk of Rain with it's very mysterious, sci-fi sounding music.

Guns on the other hand sound great. Each has it's own shooting and in some cases the explosion sound. The enemies' sounds (especially bosses) are also important cues to when and what type of an attack is coming your way. After enough hours, I could tell what to expect from bosses based on their charge attack sound. Useful stuff.


Enter the Gungeon is a game of pure fun. Today, after 115 hours of gameplay, I've finally beaten the last challenge, so I'm probably going to take a break from it for a while. However, I had a great time for most of those hours. From starting up and sucking really hard, to finally taking down the final boss after a really hard and long run, up until now with all the secret bosses, characters and NPCs uncovered.

I love games which are loved by their developers and Gungeon is definitely one of those. It's been worked on for 3 years and updated for free every time, improving the gameplay, fixing bugs and adding heaps of new stuff to play through. It's one of those games where picking it up at the full price is just worth it, in my opinion.

A note of warning though, being a bullet-hell rogue-like, Enter the Gungeon is a rather hard game. When you start off, you'll die and die and die until you 'git gud'. And then you'll probably still die from time to time. If you get frustrated easily or if you've never played any hard games before, then maybe this is not a game for you. If, however, you're looking for some challenge, just get Enter the Gungeon already and start shootin'.

Wuppo is a puzzle-platformer in which you explore a whimsical and lively world inhabited by four multi-legged, friendly, round-ish shaped races - Wums, Blussers, Splenhakkers and Fnakkers. What starts as a quest to go back home, turns into a engaging story about friendship, politics and meaning of life (with a dash of saving the world thrown in).


I feel like the time spent in the game is split between three main elements pretty evenly. Those would be fighting with your trusty Gumgumgun, jumping around and solving puzzles and talking to other creatures.

The boss fights were well-made, I played on normal difficulty and they were challenging enough to make me sweat a little, but not too hard to make me feel frustrated. Each fight was also pretty different from another, regarding the boss mechanics. I'd often die on the first attempt, just to understand the boss' move pattern and breeze through it the next try.

If I had to point out one thing that was constantly bugging me while playing, it would definitely be the inventory management. As you progress through the game, you get more and more items and even through you can set up hotkeys, if you're playing with a controller, there's just not enough buttons to have all the useful items easily accessible, which means you'll be browsing your inventory pretty often. This wouldn't be that much of an issue, however, Wuppo doesn't feature active pause. So, if you're in a boss battle and don't have any healing items bound to a hotkey, you will most likely die. It's not that bad on the normal difficulty, as I didn't find myself using healing items too often anyway, but I feel it might be a huge annoyance when playing on the harder modes.


The game was made by only two people and it shows. I mean, don't get me wrong, I actually think it looks pretty great, as the rather crude but childish style actually fits the whole game perfectly. However, you might notice that some elements, e.g. the purple tubes in Popo City can be a bit of an eye-sore. Despite that, I do love how the game looks.

It's often a case with Indie games that even though they look good-ish on the first look, the more you play, the more boring the scenery becomes, you just notice the copy pasting of assets and plain, empty textures covering most of the screen. This is definitely NOT a case with Wuppo. I feel like the devs have spent A LOT of time creating the world, there's a lot of work put into every level. Be it some weird plants in the background, mysterious runes carved into rocks or even some moss in long abandoned ruins. Every part of the world is refreshing in it's own way and I loved exploring them.

One more thing that deserves praise, especially for an indie game like that is the liveliness of the portrayed world. The locations feel really alive. The city is full of Wums rushing somewhere in hurry or just working on something. Creatures are queueing to the Wondersplenk attractions or interacting with each other. Many AAA open-world games could learn a thing or two from Wuppo when it comes to adding a 'beating heart' to the world.


The music in Wuppo is perfectly made. I felt like every piece was actually carefully chosen for the level I was in. Wumhouse music was really warm and sort of melancholic. The dark passages and ruins had more mysterious and weird soundtracks. The city's music was work-inspiring and fitting the general rush everyone was in perfectly. It's often a bit goofy sounding, which also fits the general theme of the game. The combination of the graphics, sound design and story really reminded me of the time long ago when I played The Neverhood. It just sparked the same warm and melancholic feelings in me and I think it's great that games can still do that.


The story of Wuppo starts rather silly, but develops nicely. It's nothing too original, it's easy to predict how most of the events will unfold. But it's still solid and with a dash of humour added, I was happy to play through it and even watched most of the filmstripes just for the fun of it.

The dialogues can be really brilliantly written. I think I talked to all of the NPCs and always went through all possible options. There's a lot of information hidden there, as well as, jokes or some general life wisdom.

The life wisdom, which actually deserves a paragraph of its own. I think the story is merely a pretext to talk and think about real life and it's problems. It may not be obvious immediately, but the game touches upon a lot of real life topics. For example, the four main races present different approaches to life, or types of people. Wums are more outgoing, Blussers are the introverts, Splenhakkers like building and constructing and Fnakkers seem to be centered mostly on the physical development. But even within one race, like Wums, there are differences. Wums in the Wumhouse like their lazy, relaxed life, while the Wums in Popo city are focused only on work. There's also the focus on making friends, which yet again reminded me of The Neverhood. And let's not forget about the stereotypes and how they're often misleading and disrupt our communication attempts.

All in all, I think there're a lot of topics regarding real life and its meaning embedded into Wuppo. It's not too much 'in your face' though, it doesn't really push any agendas on the player. It mostly just presents how different people have different priorities in their lives and how we should respect that.


To sum up, I thoroughly enjoyed playing Wuppo. If you feel like setting out on a mystical, but a tad goofy journey through life with boss fights and some puzzles, this is a game for you. Relax and just hop into this slightly crazy world, but remember; NO ICE CREAM IN THE LOBBY.

The Dweller is a small, indie, puzzle game that lets you play as a monster defending its lair (tomb?) from the way too curious archeologists (and some army later on?). It's really short, easily beatable in less than 2 hours and to be frank, it's just not that much fun.


Most of the time you'll find yourself moving rocks of different sizes, as the monster can only move within ground (for the most part of the game). And while in range of a scientist you'll quickly eat it or slide the rocks over them. And that's basically it.


I'm willing to risk a statement that around 30% of the levels are supposed to teach the player some mechanic and therefore, extremely easy. From the remaining ones, I think there were three of four levels that actually made me think a while. The rest is rather easy. The fact that it's possible to 'cheese' some of the levels by split-second jumping out of falling rocks makes it even easier. Annoyingly so, the last 10 ish levels of the game are completely trivial, while usually I'd expect the hardest puzzles to be found there.


The music fits the atmosphere, it's not the best thing ever, but it's not horrible either. Just some ambient tune playing in the background while you're murdering the scientists. The graphics are ok-ish. I'm a fan of pixel art in general, but the one displayed here is rather bland. Monster animations are quite nice and there are some details here and there, but mostly it's just one, simple terrain everywhere.


There's some story that's unlocked by beating the levels, however, it's very cliche and feels like it was just thrown together for the sake of it. Also, talk about an anticlimatic ending.


The Dweller is yet another simple, indie, puzzle game - that's it. It's not a horrible game, but you're not going to remember playing it a week after you've beaten it. It's definitely not worth buying for 5€, but for most of the time it's discounted to around 0,5€ and that's what it should be actually priced at.

Cultist Simulator is a resource management card game and it's definitely a unique one at it. It's also targeted at rather specific audience - players with a lot of patience both for the grind and for reading tons of text. It's a great game to discover and learn the ways of, however, in my opinion, it's not that much fun to actually finish.

WARNING: There are some minor spoilers ahead, be wary of that.


The whole game revolves about you, the player, a person with a strong urge to discover the occult secrets and fulfil his desires. To do it, though, you'll have to manage the more mundane tasks, like working or keeping yourself healthy, as well as keeping your mental health from deteriorating. To do all this, one has to use different cards in different activity slots. At first, this is going to seem really random, but after spending some time experimenting and reading the descriptions, keeping myself alive and well, it got rather easy. There's an ongoing critic of the game, that it doesn't really explain what to do - which cards produce which results, how to not die or go mad, etc. However, I actually think the game gives away a lot of information. The thing is, I had to spend a lot of time, just reading. Putting cards in activity slots, often provides a description, which hints at a result. The aspects of cards, hint at what they're useful for. The expenditions straight up mention, what aspect is required to succeed. I feel, like those things are missed by the players and I have missed them initally as well. After losing two games though, I started to read all the ongoing activities and cards I was getting and believe me, it helps tremendously. Then, the game actually becomes a lot of fun - you get a card, you read it and then try some activities to see if you understand it correctly. Those discoveries are really rewarding if you can solve them on your own, and I definitely recommend that instead of helping yourself to a guide.

On the other hand though, after spending 10+ hours in the game, understanding the goal, how to reach it and how to progress I started having a lot less fun. See, to fulfill my ultimate desire, I had to spend A LOT of time upgrading and/or subverting the lore . This activity requires 3 random things: glimmering, euridition or reason and the combination is different every time you try it. Producing enough of those to always succeed takes around 5 minutes together with the actual studying and you have to do that many times. It's a mindless grind and really takes away from the overall experience. Then I had to get some more advanced rites and items , which means dreaming for lore, exploring it for locations and expediting those locations for a chance at getting items/rites . To sum up, from the moment I had my cult well setup with high level followers and minions and knew what to do to win, I had to spend additional 3-4 hours just grinding to actually reach the win condition. And once you have everything figured out and just click the cards over and over again, it's not fun anymore.


There isn't much to say about the graphics of Cultist Simulator. Basically, what you see on the screenshots in the Steam store is what you get. I, for one did enjoy the graphical style. In my opinion it fits the game very well and the symbols are usually a good representation of what they mean.


The soundtrack is pretty well made and I think it fits the game perfectly. Playing at night with the music on gave me that eerie feeling. I almost felt like a cultist, who studies the forgotten arts myself.


Big kudos for the aforementioned feeling goes to the writing. As I've mentioned, the game is targeted at people who enjoy reading and personally reading all of the cards was a treat. I think the style is perfect for the subject of the game and creates that Lovecraftian atmosphere. In my opinion, the music and writing style go together perfectly and greatly enrich the game.


The game might have content (the end goals to reach) for, probably, more than 100h of gameplay, but I don't think reaching all of the goals would be fun. As I said, reaching the first standard victory already felt a bit like a chore towards the end. Sadly, one playthrough doesn't differ from another one all that much, so I don't think I'll be doing that. Maybe at a latter time I'll try to reach the major victory (they unlock after finishing the game at least once), but for now I'm done with the Cultist Simulator and just don't feel like starting another round.


In the end, if you enjoy the Lovecraftian prose, lots of reading, driving the authorities insane and becoming immortal, I'd say, this is a game for you. As I stated before, the first 10+ hours of the game were a lot of fun to me. Figuring out how to summon your first minion or leading your first successful expedition, because you knew which followers are needed there, feels very rewarding. Reaching the actual end and the grind that leads to it, fall a bit short though. I'd say it's still worth getting Cultist Simulator, as it's a rather unique experience. However, it's definitely not a game for everyone, so be aware of the 2 hours playing limit, so that if you try it and don't like it you can still get a refund.

And one small advice from me: don't look up too much information about certain activities in the game on the internet. I looked up some stuff that was blocking me from progressing and in the end I felt I probably could have figured it out myself, I should have just read the descriptions more carefully. Meanwhile, getting that information served on the silver platter takes most of the enjoyment from the game. The breakthroughs I've achieved myself were the most rewarding parts of the game.

Unfortunately can't even launch the game because of a fatal error. That is despite having a SSE4.2 compatible processor (Intel i5-4690K).

Tried many things, however, nothing helps. Might change the review if I manage to launch elsewhere. For now, having a publisher who doesn't really give a crap about the user experience for users whose setup is just fine according to their requirements is just a huge con.

Path of Exile is a Diablo inspired Action RPG. It has (fortunately) gone away from the Diablo's increasing, repeatable difficulties and instead boasts its own solution, which still bear a resemblance to Diablo's way, but feels more natural. Your character (7 available classes) is exiled from the main continent of Oriath to the harsh lands of Wraeclast, left to die. You need to climb your way back slaughtering various undead, beasts, thaumaturgists, demigods and gods and spend the end game wiping out 'maps', which are parts of the areas that have been cleared by you previously, however, significantly buffed and all of that for the fat stacks of loot.


Main selling point of the game. You probably shouldn't listen to people that tell you how to play PoE. There's no right way, however, I think it has a niche for everyone. Personally, I love playing softcore (no permanent death) to beat the end game bosses (currently Uber Elder), but also enjoy farming maps and actually picking up and identifying rare items to test my luck and maybe sell something. Other people play only 'meta' builds that clear areas almost instantly and push for the maximum level (100), which takes A LOT of time if you're playing casually. You can also play the market. Or just farm specific areas for the most expensive drops (divination cards of specific type). Or just farm the labyrinth. Or craft your own build around a skill/unique item that you like and try to make it work. Possibilities are nearly endless.

The most basic information is that PoE is played in leagues, every three months a new leagues starts. New mechanics are added and everyone starts without any progression from the previous leagues. When a league is finished, all your characters and items are moved to one of the permanent leagues (Standard or Hardcore), depending on which temporary league you've been playing. The permanent leagues are rather dead. They're more of a fool around, test some build concepts thing. The real deal are the temporary leagues. It's a good idea to start playing whenever when it's your first time. Feel the game out a bit. And then go serious mode at the beginning of the next temporary league. Nowadays it's also possible to play in a Solo Self Found league, which means no trading can be done with other players - for those of you who prefer to progress in their own pace and not care about the ever changing economy.

One of the very peculiar things about Path of Exile is that there's not 'worthless' currency. There's no gold or some imaginary currency, just items that are used in crafting, the rarest ones being most powerful for crafting. Still, it's mostly RNG, so crafting is not advised initially.

It's not possible to put all of that information in this review, but the game offers you mostly that - freedom. There's multitude of skills to choose from. Then you enhance those skills by using the supporting skills. Then you can also add some unique items, which in this game are mostly used to change the way you're playing as opposed to Diablo's best in slot type of uniques. Then you also have your passive tree (seriously, check it out - how massive it is) and ascendancies, which are sort of sub-classes that change the way you play even further.

That said, you will not reach the end game with your first character. Probably not with your second character either. It's not easy to create your own character, even following the builds and playing the market right to get what you need can be really challenging. Path of Exile can be truly overwhelming to a new player and I wholeheartedly suggest following a build made by someone else when it's your first time. Read some guides, join the reddit, hell, even hit me up directly. The community is mostly non-toxic and understands how hard it's to grasp the mechanics of the game for newcomers and more often than not, really happy to help.


Path of Exile has a rather dark, gritty look compared to the candy-like Diablo III graphics. It doesn't look bad, but it's definitely not a top notch game in that matter - the graphics engine is rather old and it shows. What's more, some of the in-game effects are horribly optimized, I'm using GeForce 970 right now and the FPS can drop to barely a few. As far as I've read, this also happens a lot even with the best commercially available graphics cards.


Path of Exile is a free game, so obviously it has to have a way to keep afloat. That way is microtransactions. I've played many free games in my life and to be honest, I felt the PoE's way one of the best. The in-game purchases are horribly pricy, but you're in (almost) no way obliged to use them. People spend hundreds of dollars on the cosmetic items, but they're just that - cosmetic items, no advantage over free users. Parts of armour and hideout (your 'base') decorations are the most expensive, but completely unnecessary unless you like how they look. The only P2W aspect of the game is that your stash space is limited. Doesn't feel like a big problem, unless you realize that there's no in-game item market, so to actually sell things you need to keep them in your stash. Theoretically, creating more accounts, running multiple instances of the game and storing the surplus items in those other accounts' stashes is completely legal, however, rather cumbersome.

There's also the aspect of the GGG (the developer) being bought out by Tencent. A lot of people were spending money on those ridiculously priced decorative items, because the original company was a rather small studio (<100 people) and it just felt good to support the devs. However, now, with the Chinese giant standing behind it, it feels like the horrific prices can't be accepted anymore.


I don't know any other game with such a passionate developer team. The situation changed a bit after the game got more popular. The initially very personal contact between the creators and the consumers couldn't be sustained anymore with the growing numbers of players. Still, there's a lot of social media presence of GGG and regardless of their decisions, you can't say they don't love their game. The developers stay the whole nights in the office every time a new league starts and Chris, the chief developer, once missed a wedding (not his) because he just wanted to dot the I's and cross the T's before the league went live.

The community is generally great. Old timers like myself understand that the game is really complicated and usually try to help out the newbies with information or items. There're also in-game global channels where you can find help, friendship or some specific information/favours (mostly global channel 820 - free challenges/rotations help).

There's a bit of a blot on the landscape though. Some players come up with elaborate way of scamming others, manipulating the market to buy the extremely rare items for close to nothing from inexperienced players, accepting payments for crafting/boss killing help and then not going through with it, etc. You find those in every game, however, there's a no-interfere policy, so developers do not protect anyone from those, same as in Eve Online. As opposed to Eve Online though, if you try to take revenge by posting about it on any official channels, your messages will be removed for witch hunting, regardless of your proofs. It's an ugly and archaic approach that is being actively pressed to change by the community.


It's a great game with very pronounced downsides. If you want to get sucked in, try it. Just be careful, before you know it, every 3 months you'll be spending a few weeks just playing the game, to get ahead of everyone else in the league. You have been warned.

Deadlight is a platformer that takes place in a post-apocalyptic scenario, where the world has been overrun by Shadows (basically zombies). The action starts when the main character, park ranger Randall Wayne, and the group of survivors he belongs to are attacked by a group of Shadows. Randall has to split from the pack and goes against both Shadows and other people to reunite with other members of the pack and find his wife and daughter.


The game is a combination of regular platforming action with some simple puzzles being thrown here and there. It's divided into three sort-of chapters. The first one is really easy, but also the most enjoyable one. Sometimes it requires to engage in physical combat and react fast, other times it's just pure jumping and climbing. The second chapter feels like it's there just for the lack of other content to be played through. It doesn't contribute to the story almost at all and is basically a glorified steeplechase. The third one pushes the game into mostly 'think fast, react fast' gameplay, where if you hesitate you die. It doesn't really mean it's hard though, as it's possible to reload the game from the last checkpoint indefinitely.

Some people complain about the controls being not too responsive, but I didn't really feel it was a problem. The only issue is melee combat, where Shadows slowly emerge from the background and it's quite easy to mistime a swipe, hit air and get attacked by a zombie in return. It doesn't really kill the game though, as combat is mostly optional anyway.


It's a bit of a mixed bag really. The levels outside can be really neat to look at. The background of those are really detailed and alive. One can see destroyed cars and buildings, something burning down on the horizon, Shadows being pinned down under some obstacles or just wandering aimlessly. All of it gives the game a very neat, isolated feeling.

On the other hand, the parts when the main character is underground, are rather ugly. They lack the touch from the outside backgrounds and often feel very empty. The last chapter is also not too impressive visually, but it's not bad either.


At first, the story seems encouraging, there are some diary entries briefly mentioning what has happened in the last few months, just before and during the zombie invasion. Unfortunately, it quickly unravels into a rather random series of events. It feels like a few ideas have been quickly thrown in together to make something to play through, basically they were pieces of zombie movies sewn together. What's more, the second chapter is pretty much completely irrelevant to the whole course of story and I'm really wondering why is it even there. The ending and the 'plot twist' are rather pitiful and seriously (spoiler ahead): The boat is like just outside the gate, but because Randall can't swim he can't get to it with the girl? What the hell is he? A ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stone? It left me a bit baffled on how could it end in such a dumb way.


I think the music is fitting, making the atmosphere of loneliness and potential danger feel more real. It isn't a musical masterpiece like Transistor's soundtrack, but it's a job well done. I have mixed about the characters' voices though. Randall's voice actor has a really pleasant, ruggedy voice, but some other characters range from 'meh' to straight up irritating.


4-5 hours of solid gameplay, probably a bit more if you're a completionist. There's also a nightmare mode, which I concur is harder than the regular one, but knowing the story, I'm not really too motivated to go through it once again. A bit disappointing, taking into account the second chapter, which, again, felt out of place and irrelevant.


Deadlight is an OK game. If you play through it, I doubt it will be stuck in your memory for long and you will definitely never touch it again, because there will be no reason to. That said, despite my complaints and whining, I actually quite enjoyed it (except for the chapter 2!). I would never buy it at the full price, but if it's at 1-2€ or in a bundle, I think it's worth a try.

The action of Full Bore takes place in a post-apocalyptic world(?), where a new sentient race of boarkind (and a few more animals) is ruling. It's a puzzle platformer in which the player controls Hildi, a boar that is accused of stealing gems from a vault of a digging company owner. As a punishment, it's sent into the mines to retrieve all the stolen treasures.


The game is a puzzle platformer, which means the (almost) only gameplay is solving environmental puzzles with your own hands (hooves?). The player has the access to a map that allows to check, if there is still something left to explore in each location, which saves the time greatly and indicates the general direction of where should one proceed. To solve the puzzles, one usually needs to dig through or move some blocks. If mistakes were made, it's always possible to "rewind time" to specific moments, so that it's possible to take off where the last right step was made. On your way down (or up), more and more secrets are discovered that put the story into context. The game is an open-world one - there's no requirement to explore many of the maps, but they often hold some additional information about the past of the world or extra gems. Moving throughout the locations and maps takes some time, but a mechanism of fast travel makes it pretty convenient.

The puzzle solving is actually really absorbing and fun. First puzzles are rather straightforward, but the game gets progressively harder with new locations. There seems to be a big spike in difficulty at one point towards the end, where puzzles get really challenging and it wasn't unusual for me to spend up to half an hour solving one problem.

The controls are smooth and reactive, which is really important for a platformer. The only issue I had was with jumping down from blocks, where the boar is somewhat hesitant to do so, which costs some extra time, so much needed in many scenarios. Another thing that I found a bit disappointing is that, there seems to be no use for gems and most of the items. I mean, I wouldn't really like to see collecting those a requirement to finish the game, but an additional incentive would be ever so nice. Because of that, the last few maps, I just went straight to where I needed to go, without caring much about clearing the locations thoroughly.


I found the pixel graphics in the game very appealing. Surface is nice, cheerful and green, while digging deeper and exploring lower maps brings some darker and more volcanic colours into play. The main characters are made carefully and look really pretty (like the shaman), their animations and also animations in general are also nice and smooth. Overall, I found the graphical design really charming and detailed enough to be able to keep my attention, but not too crowded to obscure the view of the objectives.


As I've already mentioned, at some point I've noticed that going for gems and collectibles is not too rewarding, however, I kept on exploring. The reason for that is the story or more like - the history. The story itself is pretty straightforward and could be probably written down on one page of paper. Still, throughout the game, it's possible to find notes and terminal data that introduces the player to what actually happened before the current game world existed. Maybe, it's just me being a fun of post-apocalyptic settings, but after completing the game, I've spent some time reading the other players' theories on the in-game history, just out of curiosity.


The background music is quite catchy and I never felt the urge to mute it, as I sometimes do in many games. It changes from location to location, each one has its own tune. Changing maps also changes the music sometimes to a different variation on a theme. It definitely wasn't a kind of a music I'd listen on a daily basis or while commuting to work, but it was really fitting to the game and just sounded nice and right.


It took me almost 10h to beat the game, but if one wants to be really thorough and get all of the collectibles, I think there would be somewhat 20-30 hours of playing there. Shame that except for achievements there's little incentive to go for it all. Still, I believe this is a really decent amount of content and fun for a cheap little game. It kept me interested and it was always fun to try and solve the puzzles to get some more diamonds or reach more lore secrets and that's what's important to me.


Full Bore is a really solid indie game, all pieces just fall right into place. The puzzles are just challenging enough to keep one entertained and thinking, but not too hard, discovering the lore is actually quite interesting, the graphics are all nice and charming and the music just completes the image of a well-made game. I probably wouldn't pay the full price for it, but it's a great catch if it's bundled or on a discount. So, if it's discounted somewhere and you want to put your brain to some work, grab it - you won't regret it (probably).