Recent reviews by robracer97

Absolute scumbags at Activision

It's Iron Lung, but much more boring. Not enough happens in between all the tedium to keep you interested, nor do you have any real agency. Only 2 slightly spooky things happen the entire game of 7 levels, before the predictable ending. The levels after finding the ship are insanely tedious for no payoff, and I feel are just there as filler so the decryption mechanic can be used. Yet the contents of the files were not interesting enough to warrant them

There's some good ideas here to add to the Iron Lung formula, but not nearly enough is done with them. You never need to turn off life support, so there's no time pressure to navigate the intentionally tedious menus. The time pressure is the LINCHPIN of the Papers Please style games like this.

This is so good it brought the old high-school friend group back online.

The movement is basically perfect. It's a very tightly focused shooter that does what it set out to do extremely well.

The moment to moment gameplay is very satisfying and tight feeling. Its got a lot of cool details and I think the reload animations are great. I enjoy the overall pace and spectacle of the game. It takes Hotline Miami's formula and turns it on its head so you're NOT supposed to die, but instead live out your roguelike John Wick power fantasy. This comes with a lot of sacrifices to the general HM mechanics but I think it works for the most part.

I recommend this if you're looking for a similar experience to HM, but something more casual you can play without having to sweat too hard. It's great for when I have like 30 minutes to kill between irl responsibilities.

Some gripes I have: The black, blood red and white aesthetic is uncompromising, to the game design's detriment. Things like windows, and the AOE goo NEED to be more visible. In chaotic situations it is very easy to lose track of what's happening because you, the guns, the enemies, and the goo destroying your health is all black and white.

Bullets come out of your muzzle so in said chaotic situations you can be shooting over enemies and not kill them. Bullets should come from the player's origin point when your hitbox touches an enemy.

Surviving a fight but being left on extremely low health is when the game becomes tedious. You have to basically cheese the rest of the floor by abusing corners and the slowmo to not lose upwards of an hour of progress. A small health regen back up to a max of 15-20% health over time might help the pacing be less impacted. Health drink help this bit it's RNG if you get them.

Crashing to desktop simulator

Incredibly polished, stylish and fun. The combat feels amazing, and the setpieces that introduce new enemy types are executed extremely well. Insanely impressive for a one man job!

If I had one nitpick, I wish the lighter wasn't replaced by a flashlight so soon. I liked the tension of using it and being dis-empowered by being restricted to one handed guns. Plus the level action one handed was neat.

It's a math game pretending to be a horror game

Really impressed with how well they updated HL1's level design while keeping all the setpiece moments intact. Soundtrack is a banger too

One of the best 'So bad it's good' games out there. Worth the 2 hour playtime just to get to the end credits rap