Recent reviews by Grey

Big, BIG monkey island fan here. Played the first game on my dad's amiga back in the 90s, and was a giant fan ever since.

After playing this game, I was incredibly saddened- the game really pales in comparison to its predecessors (especially the first three) in so many ways; And not just via the graphics. I know there were a lot of complaints about the graphics in this game, and I was one of the people offput by them when I first saw the trailers as well, but I didn't let it bother me because monkey island is so much more than graphics- and to be honest, I kind of got used to the graphics after about 20 minutes in the game anyways.

The biggest disappointment was that the monkey island writers never bothered to answer any questions or give the game series any sort of conclusion- I was SO happy to see Ron Gilbert back in the saddle, and was really hoping to get some kind of proper, Ron-Approved ending... but this game ends up not providing an ending at all, and it feels like the final answer to all of the wonder, hope, and lore that I was interested in was "The story is unimportant as long as you have fun". I was really insulted by that, since in most of the previous games, the world of monkey island felt so ALIVE.

Looking at each of the islands you go to in this game- they all feel so EMPTY! Maybe 2-3 places per island, or location, and mostly a big expanse of nothing. Compare the locales of this game vs the islands of MI2, or MI3- like phatt island, scabb island, or Plunder Island... vs the vast empty islands of brr-muda, or terror island (which was a huge letdown). Even melee island had its locations cut in half from the first game, and what we did get was (mostly) empty! Stan's place on melee stood out to me as a great example of this - once a bright, colorful place with a ton of stuff to see and interesting ideas, vs a sad empty reminder of better times (with only two items to grab and no other interactions other than for guybrush to reminisce about older days). To me, that kind of sums up the game too- it's so empty and lifeless compared to previous games.

Also, I really didn't like how many times they focused on hand shots. What was the need for a closeup of people's hands reaching out to exchange something? That was weird.

Anyways, I did get the messages that the team were trying to send, and I also read the note at the end of the game, but as a long time fan, I was really saddened that we got no real closure or answers to all of the wonderful story that the writers had created in the past. It felt like they kind of just gave up on this wonderful gem of a series, and that's depressing.

A great double-feature of games (triple feature counting the free GB-style hunter game) that is totally worth the value. Interesting stories in each game, decent graphics, great NSFW scenes, and some decent gameplay make this pack a great deal in my opinion!

This was a surprisingly good game. Not quite as deep as say... shovel knight, but the gameplay is solid, there are a decent amount of powerups, secrets, and even a nice bit of replayability after you beat it.

Of course, the NSFW stuff helps it a lot too ;-)

Some stuff I would have liked to see, which maybe we will see in another game by these folks:
Character customization/leveling with skills and XP
in game shops (instead of random old fellas in hoods conveniently placed to sell you upgrades lol)
The ability to whip upward/up at an angle!! blargh that would have been nice to have!

Other than that, the game is quite solid with a decently sized world to explore/progress through, and only a light bit of backtracking here and there (unless you miss a bunch of stuff). I also like how they put the random 'challenge orbs' as you travel to let you know if you are strong enough to proceed according to the developer's design.

I did run into some bugs here and there, which seems to have gotten better as time has gone on (kudos to these guys for their quick bug fixing!!), and i'd be willing to bet that most of them will be completely gone very soon (at the time of this review).

TL:DR - Great game! give it a purchase if you like castlevania style games and likeNSFW!

Afterthought: (Holy crap it would be amazing if these guys did a SOTN style game instead of oldschool castlevania. Maybe in the future- so support them in the meantime!)

Turned myself into an invincible battleaxe wielding giant to do battle with an unstoppable rocket launcher wielding killer robot.

10/10

Ok, so this is a toughie to judge on a pure 'yes/no' rating. Overall, I will rate this as a 'recommended'- if only because i think it merits the $20 cost. Overall, it's fun, but has a bunch of issues- which become more and more obvious as you get farther into the game.

The biggest problem the game has is poor directions- there are a few points in the game where they don't explain to you what is going on, and you just have to sort of guess (or look online) to see where to go next. The first example of this was the helicopter mission- you need to run around until you beat 6 different military unit dudes, take their dog tags, THEN go to the military base- with no directions.

The second time this happened was near the end- when you are chasing a generic grey looking clone thing. Turns out that despite the game telling you that you can go to EITHER the auto HQ -OR- Cyndi HQ, you actually need to go to both... specifically auto HQ first, THEN to cyndi HQ, THEN go to the high school. The game is very unclear on where you need to go here, and we ended up breaking our immersion by going to cyndi's, then the bridge, then following the grey thing to the high school... where nothing happened. Had to look up the proper order on that one as well.

Lastly, the 'ending sequence' of the game is very confusing, and also glitchy. We died on the final boss, and when we came back, broke the game. How did we do this? there's a point where you are running to the spot where the final boss is, and a big metal wall comes down to 'seal' you into the fight. Well, I ran ahead of my buddies, and the wall came down behind me... and in front of them- and guess what? the game won't start the final boss fight unless you are ALL in that area. So we essentially soft locked it- the guys behind the wall had to leave the game in order for me to start the fight... and when they came back, they came back on the other side, right where they had left. That's some bad design right there!

Those were the only real problems we had (other than maybe not being able to get soda from the damn machines! anyone else have that problem?), but I had a good time when i wasn't pulling my hair out about them (or trying to deliver milk! arrrgh!!). Plus, the game is only $20. I think it's worth that price now, but if you think that the glitches/game design choices don't merit that sort of cost, get it on sale- it's definately worth your time if you like games with a retro feel, having a fun time with buddies, or just beat em ups in general.

I nominated this game for a 'backstab your friends' award.

This (and duck game) are both serious contenders for that title- a game where you and your buddies can backstab, slaughter, make deals, and laugh your heads off while you do it all.

So this game is pretty good. Lots of secrets, LOTS of weapons (holy crap there's like 20 of them) and items, a good metroid style game if i ever saw one. And man, metroid has needed some good games lately. Anywho, I got it on sale for around $14 bucks- i'd say the game is good enough to merit that price. It's very good indeed- though it's rather short... you could easily beat it in a day if you really tried (took me a few hours each of 3 days of very casual play to beat it). Only thing that it needs (imo) is something akin to space jump- because the method of getting up into high places (jump up, teleport up, fire drone, quickly deploy drone, swap places with drone) eventually started to get on my nerves. Indeed, there is so much stuff in this game that it's rather easy to mix up your fingers trying to do various manuevers.

It's still a good game though :)

I picked this game up for $5.

It's not worth it.

But not for the reasons one may think! The game is a very simple game, with procedurally generated maps and loot 'chests' (the doors of buildings are basically all loot stashes, and you just loot them instead of going into the building), and some good AI for the robots that are always trying to kill you.

On the one hand, I often found myself bored as I trudged through empty fields, seeing nothing and becoming lost all the time.

On the other hand, when I was finally able to defend myself, figuring out ways to combat the often overwhelming bot force became very fun and action packed. So much so that when I was inevitably killed, I felt like playing again (after a bit of a cool down, thanks to my temper lol).

Normally, I'd say this easily merits the $5 tag I picked it up for... but for one word: Glitches.

Did these developers test their damn game before releasing it?! I have CONSTANTLY been running into three specific glitches that make the game unplayable.

Glitch 1: My inventory mysteriously vanishes- yet I cannot place items into it, or remove items from it (or try to use any of the few items that do show up).

Glitch 2: The boats in between islands mysteriously dissapear, thus stranding me on the island I am currently on.

Glitch 3: My most hated of all glitches- randomly (though it likes to do it more when I get shot), the entire game will vanish, leaving behind nothing but a colored blur that you can tell is the layer behind the clouds above. I still have access to my hud, and can even open my inventory (but not use items), but everything else is gone. no buildings, no weapon in hand, no clouds, and no ground. It's just blank. I can hear when i use my weapon, and even still take bleed damage (but cannot be shot or hurt otherwise), but anything else (including enemies) just dissapear, and never come back.

After the 5th or 6th time of this occurence, I have decided to give up on this game. Please try harder next time, devs.

Good game, but has many bugs still. Some of them make the game just flat out not work!

Others are smaller, but still annoying (like the notorious 'alt tab no sound' bug). Overall, still a good game though!

This game is great! It plays like metal slug, with an art style similar to that from Scott Pilgrim (if you've played it). In addition, it is built very well for co-op play, and boasts a fairly impressive customization system that is based off of various weapon parts (I.E having the stock of a shotgun, the reciever of a pistol, and the barrel of a rifle on all at the same type) that you gain access to as you rank up in game. These guns and upgrades (you can upgrade your character with mods as well) are assembled with parts that come from enemies on missions- it actually felt reminiscent of Monster Hunter, if anyone reading this has played that (excellent) game series. Overall, being able to play this game with friends, and having so much customization has been a blast. It also has a decent sense of humor and some nice art, as well as challenging gameplay (at times. Othertimes it's rather easy). TOTALLY RECOMMENDED! :)