Recent reviews by Toe Taster

There's something about the HL1 visual style, gameplay, and mechanics that really tickles my balls. In a sea of mediocre and disappointing survival crafting type games Abiotic Factor stands out as one of the most polished early access games I've ever played. This game has pushed my bedtime to its absolute limit over the past few months. Difficulty is satisfying with full control over sandbox settings. 6 player games are utter chaos while singleplayer remains totally viable. Never has finding a new painting for my hovel delivered so much dopamine. I was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ my pants in game and IRL as the game strikes a rare balance between laughing and screeching. Looking forward to Cold Fusion and the finishing touches on an already excellent experience. Buy a copy and play it nerd.

There's no reason this game should be 50 AUD lol

I regret buying this on sale not realising it would be one of the greatest games of the modern era. You'll laugh, you'll cry, it'll change your life.

Metal Slug tactics is a game that feels like its undergone several major changes during development, trying to capture the essence of the franchise while functioning as a top down tactics and rogue-like. The game isn't bad, it's a bit confused, and personally I'm not a huge fan of the overall amalgamation.

The game is built on three core concepts:
-The first move you make in a turn determines a defensive stat that reduces damage, usually to 1-2 damage per enemy. Bonus movement does nothing for defense and only allows you to reposition for sync attacks or move out of range.
-Your squad of 3 will make a bonus sync attacks with their primary weapon when another squad member attacks an enemy thats also within their attack range.
-You can buy from a random selection of upgrades after each boss and get drops via missions.
If this sounds good to you, you'll probably enjoy the game.

So why am I complaining:
It's not what I was expecting and something feels off. The movement mechanics are supposed to represent the constant moving and dodging that occurs during the mainline games. That sounds great but it means you're running your group together in circles for sync attacks each turn and then eating enemy attacks for reduced or no damage (which looks kinda stupid). Once you get some items that generate additional actions this damage reduction mechanic falls off in favor of simply killing all the enemies that can reach you that turn. You also generally cant shoot or get shot up or down elevations creating odd situations where the enemy AI can do almost nothing (intentionally or otherwise). Bosses don't really have unique puzzles or requirements, they kinda all do the same 3 attacks (big aoe, multi small aoes, tracking aoe) and I see it as a gear/ammo check as you'll be worn down by adds if you don't just pump all your damage into them immediately. For a better word it feels a bit awkward to play as intended.

Outside of clicking on the green squares your entire tactical focus until you reach better damage breakpoints and extra actions is setting up sync attacks. The game lets you undo moves and redo entire turns which you can abuse to figure out your optimal sync triggers for higher difficulties. It's less of a puzzle and more of a maths exercise as 99% of sync attacks are a single extra pistol shot for 2-3 damage that you want to use efficiently to finish off enemies. The game needs you to focus on this too much while a lot of tactical abilities struggle to be relevant outside of the ones that are just damage + bonus action. Into the Breach is a common comparison but that worked so well for me because it feels like you're reacting and outplaying the opponents based on their broadcast moves and you have numerous very different options and debuff mechanics. MSTactics just doesnt have most of those options or gives them to you unreliably or towards the end of the run.

Mission variety feels small and some carry high risk of ending your run with an instant loss condition (bad RNG on escort, destroy truck too early without enough DPS) while others are difficult to lose unless the run is going absolutely dreadfully (kill targets/survive). You'll often play the same missions over and over for the sake of certain rewards offered on that tile, but also because you'll want to avoid the more tedious missions. There's 3 missions before each boss, and up to 3 bosses before the final boss. There's always a pressing need to get upgrade drops and coins, with the alternatives being ammo drops and reinforcement rewards that are only relevant when the run isn't going so good. I think a branching pathway would have been far better (It's also a feature of the mainline series) with the story having some integration or actual structure.

Having 4 loadouts per character is great and I like that teams can be kinda built or specialised. However there's a tiny pool of upgrades that persist between runs that form almost the entirety of the unlock progression system. It adds some new weapon upgrade options, shop rerolls and loadouts for squad members. Id have preferred to see these unlocks tied to gameplay exploits or removed entirely with how sparse they are. After you buy all the reroll charges and some character loadouts, thats basically everything done.

The changes are good.

Inscryption is a wonderful little cardgame both humorous and grim. The story portion of the game is split into three distinct parts and uses pseudo AR elements to bring the cursed software theme to life. Game is a totally acceptable length for an indie title and a semi official mod expands on the first story segment adding a lot of replayability to the game. Any fans of slay the spire or the delightfully dark aesthetic will enjoy this. My only criticism of the game is that it uses some found footage and voiceover as part of the story that implies you're playing as the person recording. I would have much preferred if it was literally you the player right now experiencing the game in real time. It would already be essentially that if those parts were simply removed. A strange choice in an otherwise excellent experience and game.

Game rocks

The game is a technical and conceptual masterpiece that is difficult to appreciate in terms of its scale. I know only that I know nothing after 40 hours in. It is beautiful and merciless, perfectly balanced in it's conventions of intrigue, challenge and reward.

Rarely does a game come around with the level of complexity and simple joys that Noita achieves.

Number 1 farming sim of all time.

This is the third time ive bought this game and I still cant beat anyone online.

Very comfy otherwise