Последние обзоры Xavier: Renegade Angel

This one pulls aspects of multiple all-time classic roguelikes and turns itself into something effortlessly unique in the process. I know it's been said in the reviews already but it somehow needs to be said again that this one is essentially Spelunky + Dead Cells (with a bigger emphasis on the Dead Cells sense of speed and general movement). The music is excellent and it controls like a dream on a Deck. It's as tough as any other respectable roguelike too and it's shot to the top of my list in record time.

The mood of this game is perfection and slugging mechs in VR is the slap that my VR library needed. They nailed the physics and punching the absolute filth out of a bitey mech and watching it fly across the arena is something I don't think is possible of which to get tired. The soundtrack and vibe is sludgy and dirty but still clever and sharp. This is not an easy line to walk but these guys did a fantastic job.

As a testament to the games greatness, I can admit that I've never punched the air harder in my life than when playing this. Also if you punch your wall accidentally while playing this, it will most likely result in the entire side of your house vaporizing. Just flat out disappearing and there's simply nothing that can be done about that. So be careful. but still so worth it.

This game is a thing of beauty and you should check it out.

First off if your interest in this game is based solely on the bizarre AI-inspired art of cackling nuns laughing at our earnest protagonist, you're going to be in for a bad time here. It's something weird that doesn't really go anywhere and the same could be said for everything else 'weird' in this game. The fact it CTD a half dozen times with a less than generous checkpoint system didn't help either.

The first hour shows a lot of promise but I'm still not sure if the game comes through on the themes it was trying to sell or perhaps I'm just not smart enough to grasp them even if it did. The 3 hours or so runtime is a very slow burn that leads to a final 10 minutes of 'wat' to wrap things up, which certainly compliments the entire theme of nothing matters and everything is irrelevant. That theme is never going to make for a thick ending but it still seemed a bit hurried all the same.

I really liked this game but I'm not entirely sure why. The first 1/3 of the game is surreal in the best possible way and then the rest of it just feels like it's trying write a check that it no longer has the energy to cash.

Some games give you a slender amount of HP and a lot of weapons and ammo to offset that fact. Sometimes other games will give you a lot of health and a lot of guns and just let you run wild. Mega City Force instead takes the interesting angle of 1) killing your character in two hits + 2) making you beg the ghosts of your ancestors to find another weapon while the boss chases you around the map and the starter pistol is empty and the other gun hasn't been replaced since no more weapons were found and it's also out of ammo. And then when you do pick up a new weapon, they make sure that is has a curiously low ammo count as well.

The art and music is great but I'm not sure I've ever seen a game try so hard to prevent me from having a good time. It's still an no-brainer positive recommendache and maybe I'm just bad at it. I haven't tried casual mode yet but life's too short for casual mode.

It just seems odd to scrounge for weapons this hard in a game where you can get killed in a matter of seconds if not careful. I really like the game but seriously dayum.

This might be the first VR horror game that I legit just cannot finish and I mean that in the form of the highest praise possible. Flashing that polaroid camera down a pitch black hallway to try and light it up for a split second to capture a look of the thing chasing me is nearly just too much to comfortably process. Well done devs, I'm honestly really impressed at the amount of dread and terror you've managed to stuff into my eyeballs here.

The graphics are unexpectedly beautiful and the game seems to already run fairly well as of v1.01 on a 3080. There's some goofy control issues that I hope will get sorted out and the inventory is a little too unresponsive for its own good but the mood of this game is unmatched from anything I've played in VR in a long time.

This is a genuinely terrifying game and if you're a horror junkie, I'm not sure anything else hits quite as hard as this one.

Sony actually had one of the biggest surprise hits of the last decade and still found a way to mess it up. Shareholders getting sucked off by Jack-Welch-style-late-stage-capitalism was the only thing that could have wrecked this game's momentum and it's exactly what happened. They looked at a humongous source of fun for millions of paying customers (when even optimistic sales forecasts had this moving around 100k units) and decided that their worldwide smash hit just wasn't QUITE enough so they decided to sell your email address and gaming preferences too as a way to say thanks.

What's funny is if the game really only ever did sell 50k and barely made a ripple, no log in would have been required and would effectively become a better version of the game (or at least not pulled from 100+ countries' Steam stores).

Any idiot would know Sony should have simply maintained the wave of good vibes from HD2 until HD3 and THEN required the PSN accounts, why would you drop it in the MIDDLE of one of the most active MP games in the known universe?

At any rate, all the best to Arrowhead and I can't wait to buy their first independent game at full gd price.


edit: nm. Now it's just an awesome game again and that's always cool.

Anyone that has played Budget Cuts 1 or 2 knows that FTG knows how properly to whip up a VR game and their skills are on clear display with this one. It has a very similar vibe to the Saints and Sinners games but there's something really beautiful about the lighting along the Venice walkways that stopped me in my tracks more than a few times.

It controls like a dream on an Index and the climbing is inspired by Boneworks mechanics and that's always ok in my book. If I had known the game was this good I wouldn't have waited for a 30% off sale. This deserves 3k positive reviews.

The controls for this game are absolute honey and this hits all the high notes of a solid action roguelike.

Let's have a quick checklist:

The soundtrack - whips
The controls - as stated above, honey
The colors - bah god so much stimulation
The art - slaps
Having the option to alternate between using guns or morphing into a pinball to murder enemies (and to get ammo) - brilliant

I'm going to drop a crazy amount of time into this one and even after barely an hour of play time, it's immediately evident that this game deserves a top spot in an otherwise crowded genre.

But seriously whoever calibrated the controls and feel of the game should be nominated for a Nobel prize. For any reason. It's untouchable. The speed of this game is incredible and it's easy to manipulate given the perfection of the controls. I'm in love.

edit: it's been a couple months since the original review but I've fallen in love even more with this one in the time since. My posted playtime is low since I play 99% of the time on my Deck while offline but this game is absolute eye popping glory and while the difficulty spike between the 3rd and 4th levels is a bit too intense for its own good, the game is 100% a blast and I'm thankful that a title was able to stop me from exclusively mainlining Elden Ring and Balatro for the last few weeks.

edit 2: this game still crushes on a Deck, really beautiful stuff.

The soundtrack alone is worth $14.99. The second coming of poker is a nice touch too though.

This game came out of nowhere to be one of my favorites of the last few years. It's equal parts puzzle and adventure game (with the puzzles disguised as rock climbing) but the setting is the most fascinating part of the equation. Houses and bars and restaurants and temples carved into a mountain side impossibly high in the air as you scale it trying to take care of your adorable blue alien fish rascal buddy.

The last chapter hits like an absolute brick to the dome and I've not really seen a game stick the landing like that since the end of INSIDE or maybe even Far: Changing Tides. The story is surprisingly easy to follow which is not generally a strength of 'silent' games like this with no human NPCs or dialogue of any kind.

Jusant is a thing of beauty and recommended to anyone with a pulse. Also if you don't have a pulse, I'm not sure how you're reading this.