Recent reviews by Freddols

First and foremost, I must say that Hunt: Showdown is one of the best and most unique games I've ever played in terms of experience, gameplay, style, sound, and so much more. While I absolutely recommend the game for what it has to offer, I am afraid that there's things included in the 1896 update which at least for now, lead me to post a negative review.

Of course, one of the major things included in the new update is the horrendous UI/UX. While the old one certainly had it's problems, the new one is a major, MAJOR downgrade in every possible user experience way. For some reason, they've chosen to go with a streaming service type of UI (Similar to that of Netflix for example), which absolutely does not work here. Menus are buried behind buttons behind buttons, and it's just overall a nightmare to navigate.

I am eager to change this review to a positive one if the developers & designers take action in improving the UI, or even scrapping it altogether, but for now, I take a firm stance with this negative review, and will not be buying any further DLC until major improvements are made.

I don't understand the hype behind this game. It's a good game, but it's very similar to already existing titles. It does nothing new, but I guess the humor is kind of funny.

Ahhh, CRUX. This is one of my long-awaited games that I've been following the development of for quite some time. It's developer is a good friend of mine, and as such have had the chance to playtest the game through various phases of it's development. With all this being said though, I intend for this review to be as objective as possible.


Gameplay

CRUX features 13 arenas over 5 worlds, each getting progressively harder & more chaotic, and as such, more fun. Per any given run, you only get to play 6 arenas in their respective chronological order, meaning almost every run will be different. All the arenas feature unique enemies and boss fights, each with their own movement and ability sets.

There are 3 weapons from which you can choose to cause mayhem with. The Shotgun, Plasma Rifle, and Missile Launcher. The game sometimes refers to these as the "Unholy Trinity of Weaponry", which is spot on. All of these weapons include their primary fire, and also an alternative fire. For example, the Shotgun includes a grappling hook which you can use to better traverse the arenas.

But none of the above would matter if it weren't for the most important feature of the game: The Perks.
CRUX has a selection of over 100 perks which you can use to customize your playstyle. Every time you enter an arena, you are given the choice between 3 random perks of varying tiers. You can also unlock specific perks you want by killing bosses and using their titan hearts as currency. You can have up to 4 custom perks to start the run with. This is definitely one of the most fun aspects of the game. Experimenting with different perks and builds, and finding out how they reflect in the arenas.

Overall, the gameplay rivals many games of this genre, and will undoubtedly continue to get better as time goes on!

Graphics

CRUX's graphics are not the best in any way shape or form and I myself have critiqued them in many occasions. But that's okay. In my honest opinion, the game's focus is not on the graphics but rather on the gameplay, and as established above, the gameplay is absolutely brilliant. This is an especially important fact seeing as this is an indie game developed by one person. Do not let graphics stop you from trying this game!

Sound & Music

The sound effects in CRUX are pretty good, but the music on the other hand... Is an absolute banger. The music fits really well with the tempo of the gameplay, with each arena having it's own track. I can't tell you how many times I've caught myself humming this game soundtrack, or trying to play parts of it on my guitar.


Although the game is lacking in some areas, I think that the gameplay more than makes up for everything. I totally recommend this game to anyone who plays similar games, and I definitely can't wait for the new updates that will be added in the upcoming months following it's release!

A lot of other reviews tend to say this, and I fully agree. It's like Terraria and Minecraft (Or more so Minicraft) were combined. Once I saw the trailer and screenshots, it gave me nostalgic vibes from 2011 from when I saw Terraria for the first time.

Exceptional game, truly a hidden gem from what I can tell. The only thing I'd change so far is the soundtrack. It's not very fitting.

Well done to the developer/s!

EDIT (07/17/2023): The recent update improved some things. It added settings and keybinds which is nice, but for some reason it doesn't include volume sliders. The combat mechanics feel better for sure, but the game in general is still janky. There is also no interactable popups or hints on how to progress on most areas of the game yet. I raise my score from 4 to 5/10.

EDIT: Since posting this review, multiple people including me have been banned from the developers discord server, although we are only trying to aid this game's development.

Being a game developer myself, I know the developer, but I do not recommend this game in it's current state. I was an early tester of this game and many of the reported bugs and missing features were never fixed and implemented into the full release.

Let's look at the negatives. The game is clunky, uninformative, slow, and has missing features:

• There are no settings menus at all, so you cannot change video, audio or control settings. Anything of that sort has to be done through windows or third party apps. Heck, you can't even see the controls except for when the game prompts them or in the loading screen.
  
• The game does not have prompts of any kind for when you are near interactable items such as doors and items.
  
• The game has dodgy hitboxes for when you interact with items, such as unlocking doors or picking-up items.
  
• Worst of all, the gameplay is lacking heavily. It's a walking simulator. Every now and then there's enemies in front of you, but the combat is quite clunky and not fun.

But I don't want to be overly negative. Let's focus on some positive things:

• The graphics are pretty cool and environments are pretty detailed. It's like if flash games and PS1 resident evil had a love-child. The only problem is that the game is too dark 90% of the time and the flashlight doesn't help.
  
• The soundtrack is relatively good.
  
• The story seems like it's probably interesting, but it's not delivered in a very intuitive way.

Overall, the game is a solid 4/10. The game needs a LOT of work but I do believe it can be improved. I'm surprised a lot of these problems weren't fixed earlier, especially because the game was in development for 3 years.

I'll be updating this review upon further updates. For now, I don't want to play more as I don't find it very fun.

Been playing runescape for 15 years, and I'll never forget the golden years of it. This game is nostalgic, but it's not the runescape you know from 2007. Instead, it's a figment of it with a lot of things being added and updated.

This is a STALKER inspired game being developed by a lone-wolf developer. It's made in the GameGuru engine, which although is not the best engine, it works to a certain extent for this game. People hate the GameGuru engine as how easy it is to produce games, especially when 90% of those games are scams. I say blame the developers, not the engine. This developer is trying to make the best out of it!

It features nostalgic 2000's looking graphics and mechanics, which I personally really like. It has bugs and missing features, but we have to keep in mind that it's in Alpha for a reason. This game does not at all compare to other fake scam shooter games on Steam, it actually tries to be a pretty good game given enough development time. I feel like this game utilizes the early access tag correctly, and the developer seems to be pretty responsive to any form of compliment or criticism.


When I first launched the game, I was presented with a pretty dull main menu screen. For some reason, the main menu does not have an options menu, for this you need to go in-game. Loading into the game, I was greeted with a pretty long loading screen, which I decided to look past and give the game itself a good playthrough.

I spawned in a small military camp that acts like a mission lobby. You are able to use your unlocked guns in a shooting range inside the lobby. I had a major issue, there was no sensitivity slider at all. Whatever, I decided to look past this as well. I then proceeded onto the first mission.

I have to say, the game gave me strong 2000's game vibes from games such as STALKER, Fallout 3 among others. I loved this. Although the enemies themselves were a little basic and weird, the gun play wasn't bad. I liked the atmosphere of the game very much, and the looting aspect (Although not a whole lot of loot variety) was nice.

The maps are well designed and are pretty big, but it's pretty clear where you need to go. Exploration is okay, except that there isn't a whole lot to discover. The ambiance can play at weird volumes sometimes, although it very much fits the vibe of the game.

Some things I also have to mention is that there's a lot of guns and ammunition, but not a whole lot of enemies. The game also throws a lot of guns at you very quickly, which I think is a mistake. Guns should be unlocked slower, maybe only one per level. One thing I think would also make the game a little more interesting is to limit it so the player can only have two guns. They'd have to think a little bit about what guns they want to hold and what ammo type to use. Scarcer ammo, scarcer guns, more enemies. Players would be put into more intense situations where they would have to make the best out of a bad situation. Real survival!


The gameplay is very promising, but the polish is nearly non-existent, this is a VERY raw game right now. If you decide to look past some of the problems, you might find it fun.

I think the developer is trying hard to make this a good game when it leaves early access. Let's just hope that it's not left to die. This game DOES have potential. If a lot of needed polish is added, and the game actually keeps being developed, It might find success.

Developer, if you are reading this, please add me on Steam and let's have a chat. I'm also a game developer, and I know how rough things can be.

Thanks for reading!

Amazing parkour game! Relaxing, but sometimes intense.

I've been using this software for about 6 hours now. Now, there is a few things that you should know before buying this that will hopefully save you hours upon hours.

When I first got this program, it would crash right on start-up. I had to look for a while, and finally I found out it was crashing because I had 3 other programs on: MSI Afterburner, RivaTuner Stats Server, and don't quote me on this, but I think the program also had issues with Wallpaper Engine being active.

Although I had these problems, the software itself is very great and it feels fast and responsive to use. Judging by the reviews, this version is a better pick than the other versions.

I was definitely satisfied with this product. It's probably one of the better mid-tier video editors out there.

Can't wait to play this game on my fridge!