Recent reviews by General Idea

Vox Machinae is a game that really puts you in control of a large mech filled with a variety of weapons suited to your liking. The core gameplay is incredibly solid and the game has a decent amount of variety in terms of mechs and weapons. Not the largest selection, but more importantly is that these all feel unique and distinctly different from one another - this goes for both the weapons and, maybe even more so, for the mechs (which are six in total at this time).

On screen, the game is quite enjoyable. In VR, the gameplay experience is elevated beyond that and very immersive. Both have their ups and downs in terms of controlling the mechs, as keyboard and mouse can feel more precise in terms of aiming, yet VR provides a better sense of spacial awareness (given that facing forward in your seated position means facing forward inside the mech, giving you a "fall back" position). Ultimately, however, this game shouldn't be ignored by those without VR headsets, as the screened experience is incredibly faithful and about as close to the VR experience as can be.

The game has a selection of game modes, but it's all centered around multiplayer (or bots). The game certainly could do with some sort of content to fill the gap and make the game more relevant as a singleplayer experience, as the multiplayer (and bots) only experience can leave it in a troublesome position. The game has very few players - sometimes no one - yet from initial impressions it seems to have a small and active community at peak times. This is arguably its biggest fault and what many reviews point out. But if you can accept playing against bots, though sometimes stupid and nowhere near human players, or play the game at peak hours with a few others, then you'll likely have a great time with this game.

While this review was written with only a few hours and a handful of games played, it is still warrented by the impression left by the game in that short time. It's a unique and enjoyable experience with very solid gameplay that will, undoubtedly, lead to more hours - even if it is centered around short bursts of play and at peak hours.

If you're looking for a very cinematic experience, Rise of the Tomb Raider will certainly provide that. It has plenty of dramatic events and set-pieces which, combined with the gorgeous graphics, leaves you with a very pretty game to watch. The fault, however, is that often as a player one might feel redundant - the platforming is a glorified QTE-fest combined with holding down a button to move slowly forward at other times. The result is that the platforming feels more like a straight-forward cinematic or movie-like experience instead of actual engaging gameplay. Might as well have watched a friend play the game or watched the game played. The story itself lends itself well to the cinematic experience, but like it's possible inspiration - action movies - the plot and characters are what you might expect: predictable and forgettable.

When it comes to actually playing the game, the controls are mostly decent, but utterly frustrating at times. Some deaths will result from Lara not moving in the direction intended, whether it means that you're suddenly falling off of a cliff or rolling into an enemy instead of past them. The gunplay, however, feels mostly okay. The weapons, though limited in choices, feel decent and especially the bow is enjoyable against poorly armored enemies. Some of the later enemy times with more defenses feel bothersome, however.

In terms of level design, Rise of the Tomb Raider might have benefitted from more linear maps and levels. Some (if not most) are somewhere in between the linear and open maps, scattered with various crafting things and such to pick up along the way. In a similar way, the game could also have been better with the crafting system as a whole. Both the crafting system and the scattered resources connected to this feels entirely like busywork, and the game could've been better with fewer and more meaningful upgrades provided along the way, instead of the incremental stat-boosting upgrades that you craft as you go along. It's boring, uncreative, and uninspiring in a way that drags the game down from possible being the streamlined action-adventure experience that it's cinematic set-pieces and cutscenes aspires to.

The tombs provide decent puzzles, but these mostly - if not all - reliant on a single possible solution to the problem. There's little possible creativity in these, much like in the rest of the game and enemy encounters, which can feel frustrating if one's experience and perspective of the specific puzzle isn't exactly what the designers intended. However, these tombs are at least a redeeming factor, as they at least provide some meaningful and entertaining content - much unlike most of what you'll find on the map itself.

Overall, it's a fine experience, but some of the time not much of a game. It would've been more enjoyable as a movie, stripped of the clutter, padding, and meaningless content, as well as the gameplay that sometimes makes you feel more like a spectator than a participant.

Slay the Spire is a fun mix of a card deck-building game and rogue-lite. It is consistently challenging, strategic, and truly enjoyable especially when you feel powerful after gathering some nice cards for your deck and some relics to empower you further, in addition to rooting out lesser cards.

In the game, you progress through several levels with a number of different paths. You have a choice of which way you want to go up, each step of the way being either combat encounters (normal monsters or Elites), resting places (where you regain energy, upgrade cards, and possibly more), and question marks (often random events with rewards, sometimes encounters). At the end of your path, you will have to fight a boss, and if succesful, you will proceed to the next Act, until you finally reach the end of the Spire. It's a fun way to progress through the game, giving the player a sense of agency, as each choice feels like it matters. Players of one of the most popular rogue-like games, FTL, will draw comparisons to the way you progress throughout that game - though in Slay the Spire, you are still confined to certain set paths, even if these intertwine at times.

The focus of the game is on combat and the cards, which are divided into three categories: Attack, Skill, and Power cards. Attack cards are self-explanatorily focused on attacking you opponents, Skill cards are often focused on shielding yourself, and Power cards on empowering you in some way - often permanent, in the form of buffs that last throughout the combat scenario. You draw cards each turn and spend energy to use these. The real fun of the combat comes in the form of combinations of these cards. There's a synergy between many of these cards, allowing you to become progressively more powerful throughout the combat, as you grant yourself Buffs and other effects that sometimes work well in combination with others. The game is especially enjoyable, when you have a nicely curated set of cards - or some really powerful ones, possibly more of each type - that just work so well together that you feel unstopable. Combined with the earlier mentioned Relics, which are permanent buffs or modifiers you optain from fighting Elites and Bosses, as well as from Random Events, the player can end up feeling like an unstoppable force. The game truly shines at these times.

There are three destinct characters to choose from in the current version of the game, each of them with their own set of unique cards, but also drawing from a smaller set of shared cards. The three feel unique in their own way, both in the types of cards they have available, but also how they fundamentally play and how they approach combat encounters. Hopefully more characters are added for even more variation as the game is updated, yet the ones there provide plenty of replayability already.

There's some overarching progression, as each time you've played and finished a game - either succesfully climbing the Spire or dying on your way there - you unlock new cards for your chosen character. There appears to be five levels for each character, with each level unlocking three new cards. Though I can't confirm whether the progression stops there, it certainly seems like it. But, as the game is in early access, then it may be possible that the developers add more cards over time. Ultimately, these different characters and the overarching progression adds a good amount of replayability to the game, and gives the player a reason to play with a sense of earning new things over time.

The visuals are, naturally, the first impression a game makes on the storefront, in the form of screenshots and the like. At first, I held off from buying and looking into the game, having made a quick judgment and disliking the artstyle and mediocre - if sometimes almost non-existant - animations. It's still not a great looking game, in my opinion, but it's not something that should discourage anyone from playing it. For some, it may also be a fantastic graphical style, and that's great. For me, it's serviceable and has grown - but only slightly - on me. And it certainly works well enough for the type of game, seeing that it could be played with merely numbers and text. The sounds and music in the game is fine, with recognizable sounds for attacks, shielding, and so on. Some are more fun than others, such as a flurry of attacks, or a number of lightning strikes in quick succession. The music varies depending on what you are doing, and the combat music matches the situation and serves well enough to help keep you engaged.

Overall, Slay the Spire is a fantastic little game for any fan of card games, particularly deck-building games, or players who enjoy rogue-like or rogue-lite features. It's a game that can feel hard and punishing at times due to it's RNG nature, yet almost always remains fair and losses are based on on your choices and any mistake(s) you make - whether it was choosing to upgrade a card instead of regaining health, choosing to attack instead of defend, or choosing to fight that nasty and powerful elite instead of picking an easier path. All in all, a fun, challenging, yet fair experience.