Recent reviews by DUSTED

I've been waiting to get back to Hollownest for 5 years. I had honed my skills and reaction to combat the Hallow Knight's enemies. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered Silksong took place in an entirely new world, with entirely new skills and movement required to beat new enemies? Suddenly I was getting hit, getting close to dying, almost losing TWO precious resources. You mean I have to get good, AGAIN?!

10/10 - This game is hard, in a different way than Hollow Knight. 7 hours in and I am just starting to unlock skills that allow Hornet to run circles around the Hollow Knight.

Helldivers 2 came out of nowhere and took my breath away. The core gameplay loop is amazing and the gun play is tight and feels great. The game is well balanced around making most load-outs viable, with some optimization for mission type of enemy faction. The factions are both unique and challenging in their own ways. The rewards and progression are consistent and don’t use explosive tactics like limited time events to milk you or force you to play any more than you want to.

And the community. This game is unique in its communities ability to unify around major orders and memes. When the great PSN schism threatened to cut off many Helldivers from different regions, their comrades headed the call and took action, and against all odds prevailed. This sense of belonging to a greater struggle and persistence in the face of near certain death is a high-water mark in gaming history.

Join the Helldivers!

Super great start to an Early Access game. As a huge fan of Subnautica's submarine/mobile base for exploring a dangerous and mysterious world, Forever Skies called to me from the first marketing material. The demo was a nice teaser, and now that EA has launched, I am pleasantly surprised. I love the idea of traveling in a ship that I built, which is my only source of safety in a dangerous world.

The world building is fantastic. The game world is mysterious and dangerous, forcing you to explore and learn how to survive. The airship building is intuitive and low level resources are easy enough to come by, while rare components give you a senses of thrill and excitement to find as they enable progression. The research and tech tree are satisfying to expand and you slowly become better as surviving this dangerous world. And finally, the first below Dust level (end of EA content) was very fun to explore and I look forward to more story content.

Now to the areas that could use improvement.

The world is procedurally generated. While I was hoping to explore an abandoned city by exploring roof top to roof top, that is not what Forever Skies delivers. Instead, you are sailing above a cloud of dust and landing on POI's which are like islands in the Dust. You cannot explore below the Dust sea, and the lone tower tops are not really connected by anything, simply acting as places to stop and quickly strip of resources to add to your airship. There are common POI's and rare POI's with rare resources found only on the rare POI's. There is some progression and you have to go higher to get the good stuff, but currently there is no way or reason to explore down. There is also no reason to explore anything, since the world simply renders ahead of you and de-renders behind.

Overall, its a a cool idea, and Forever Skies indeed, but I hope they add some more interesting and permanent locations and biomes worth exploring. It is certainly worth playing to build a cool airship and see some of the POI's but beyond that there isn't much to do after you find all the ship parts, etc.

Very very promising and I look forward to future updates!

I was skeptical. Now I believe.

This is a review having just bought the DLC and started a new Brutal playthrough. So far, the first thing I noticed was the new lighting effects. I know this is part of the free update, but it looks fantastic and I am happy to support the devs who keep improving the game. The new music is also immediately apparent, and adds to the atmosphere.

My biggest complaint with Riftbreaker is maximizing replay-ability. Once you get to the end game on Brtual, new games are pretty much the same. That's why I like these new DLC's: They add story, they add missions and maps, the lengthen the time it takes to get to the end, and they give me a reason to start a new map. I will update once I get to the main content of the DLC, but so far, its already worth it.

This is what good DLC content looks like. More story. More maps. Free additions to survival. The extra map fits in great with the existing game, and the new towers and power ups are a nice compliment. I really enjoy how you have to adjust your strategy based on which biome you are in. It makes for very interesting survival play since you have to adjust your build order for each map, which adds replay-ability to the game.

Onbu is my friend. Do my friends always do what I want them to do? No. So sometimes I have to drill into their backs and set them on fire. Its for the best, really.

The tower defense meets twin-stick shooter meets factorio resource harvesting and base building game that I never knew I needed. It's a light version of all of those, but still tons of fun. Very pretty lighting. Light on story. 9/10

EDIT: 5/30/2023 Still love this game. Nothing comes close to the destruction you can wield and the lighting is fantastic. I did another Brutal Playthrough after the Metal Terror (great content) and I am starting a new Brutal on now that Into The Dark DLC has launched. The free updates that come with each DLC is a great practice. The new lighting and survival tile-sets add a lot to the game. I don't know why I am so invested in Ashley and Rigg's story, but I am. Hoping for more single player content down the line (and co-op since a vocal population is really excited about that!).

Edit: After >40hrs game-time, still a great strategy game and very atmospheric. Still really hard, and I wish the maximum bonus let you steam roll a run, but it doesn't.

Yeah this game was great and has aged like wine. The single player campaign is a blast. Nothing captures the power of being a Space Marine quite like stomping thousands of orks to death. My favorite multiplayer mode is Exterminatus. Playing with a team of 4, you fight off wave after wave. My only complaint is that they don't have more maps. Honestly, it could have been an entire game of its own.

The multiplayer unfortunately has not aged well. While the combat is fun, the game is host dependent and the game browser is non-existent. This is unfortunate as it means its hard to find a lobby, and you need multiplayer kills to upgrade the weapons for Exterminatus.

Overall, Space Marine is good visceral fun, marred only by the console development and abandoned before it really could have been something great.