Recent reviews by Retro Menace

Do you like horror aesthetics but HATE the horror genre's over reliance on 110 decibel jumpscares? This is the game for you. The game's mood and atmosphere is delectably creepy, without relying on jumpscares.

Other than that, it's a short and sweet horror game with a unique movement system that makes you feel the weight of being in a tense, horrific situation. If you're into horror, it is absolutely worth a try!

Mouthwashing is a fantastic psychological horror game.

I feel like most indie horror games go big on jumpscares that go 11/10 on volume with very little actual horror. This is not that. The storytelling, atmosphere, and the scares are all expertly done and never feel like easy cop-outs.

This is one of the best horror games ever made, bar none. Please play it if you have any interest in games in general, even if you're not a huge horror fan!

The game's fighting systems, presentation, and story are all pretty good. However, the game is marred by incredibly scummy business practices. To go down a brief list...

1 - The game is $70, not the standard $60 - along with deluxe edition nonsense.

2 - The microtransaction store and Battle Pass were patched in AFTER release so that was microtransactions wouldn't blemish review scores. Can't let the consumer be informed, that'd hurt the bottom line!

3 - All the MTX and Battle Passes require V-bucks that you can only buy in specific amounts. The smallest amount you can buy is 500 for $5. The battle pass requires 600.

4 - The devs refuse to ban the majority of rage quitters, or even automatically mark their rage quit as a loss saying that it's "too hard" (Even though this has been standard in this genre for over a decade now). Why? Cause if they ban people, that's less people buying microtransactions! So, enjoy playing ranked and getting cheated out of wins that you earned cause some executive doesn't want to hurt rage-quitter's feelings, cause then those rage quitters might not spend money on the game.

5 - The game's built-in customization was neutered, on purpose, at launch so that customization options that were present in base-game Tekken 7 could be sold back to you here as part of the Battle Pass or MTX.

6 - The new DLC character is insanely strong, AND you CANNOT use the character in practice mode to lab out their weaknesses, counterplay, punishes, etc UNLESS YOU BUY THEM. This include's the game's built in replay-learning tools that they heavily advertised. This means that DLC characters, even if they're only okay, are objectively pay-to-win because people have to pay a fee in order to learn how to fight against them!

So to summarize:
- Costs more than Tekken 7, cause some Suit said "♥♥♥♥ you, pay me"
- Lied to reviewers and consumers through ommitting their MTX and DLC practices, cause some Suit said "♥♥♥♥ them, let's get paid"
- Uses Fortnite's psychologically manipulative V-buck system where you can't buy the exact amount you want so you always have a little left over, cause some Suit said "♥♥♥♥ you, pay me"
- Refuses to ban Rage-quitters or even automatically count their rage-quit as a loss, cause some Suit said "♥♥♥♥ you, they might pay me"
- Less customization options that Tekken 7, only to sell them back to you later, cause some Suit said "♥♥♥♥ you, pay me"
- DLC characters are insanely powerful at launch and you aren't even allowed to learn how to fight against them, using the game's advertised learning tools unless you pay for the character, cause some Suit said "♥♥♥♥ you, pay me"

I put up with a lot in modern games, but THIS is too much greed to handle in one game. Thank god I bought my key off a third party site, lmao.

I've played plenty of Vampire Survivor likes, bullet heavens, whatever you wanna call them. The simple takeaway is, Picayune Dreams is something special.

The music, graphics, and presentation are all dripping with a deliberate and effortless style that is unlike pretty much anything else out there right now. There are stylistic similarities to things like Yume Nikki, of course, but the game blends it all into its own unique thing.

The gameplay is, in many ways, standard Bullet Heaven fare - save for two main things.
1: The bosses are actual bullet hells bosses with unique patterns, tactics, dialogue, and designs. This is notable in a genre which, unfortunately, usually follows after Vampire Survivors and just makes most bosses big walking bullet sponges. No. In Picayune Dreams, the bosses are ACTUAL WELL DESIGNED BOSSES. It's great.
2: The game does not have a 'synergy' system when it comes to choosing items in your loadout, like Vampire Survivors or Binding of Isaac. Some might dislike this, however, I think the lack of a synergy system is a fantastic, deliberate choice by the devs. For example, in Vampire Survivors, if you grab the Bible, you HAVE to grab Spellbinder, otherwise you're throwing. Synergies are often so powerful, that not going for synergies is just straight-up playing the game wrong, meaning your choices are far more limited. Picayune Dreams decision to not have synergies opens up your choices in game so much more, and I found myself doing things I'd never do in other Bullet Heavens - such as picking up one or two levels of an upgrade in order to get the upgrade's utility, while not overly investing in it.

Long story short, the game is $5, has an awesome aesthetic, gameplay, bosses, a really neat story, and it's $5. In a world of $70 games with 3 hour campaigns, a solid indie game with a sublime aesthetic is worth this (maybe a little too generous) asking price several times over. Get it.

I really, REALLY wish Steam had a "mixed" option for reviews, because that's how I feel about the current early access state of Project Warlock.

TL;DR: This game has fun gameplay, cool art, a few questionable design decisions, and a replicatable save bug which SOFTLOCKS YOUR SAVE and forces you to restart the entire game from the beginning if you get it. You can see where the game will be filled out over the course of early access, and I'm very excited to see where the game goes from here.

As for a more thorough review, the gameplay is really fun! I'm glad to see how they remixed the magic system from the first game. The artstyle shift is awesome as well, going for a more Quake inspired look that makes the game look unique, and I'm a huge fan of the aesthetic. I had plenty of fun with the current build, and I can see where they're going to add new stuff over the course of early access. I can see this game being downright amazing by release time, and I will update my review to reflect when I think the game has earned a recommendation.

However, the current state of the game is far too rough to recommend to average people, and is mostly just for "boomer shooter" die-hards only, due to the following reasons.

The movement is a tad janky right now. Jumping makes you lose a lot of momentum, isn't as fine tuned as you would like, and you will occasionally get caught on flat walls while jumping which can lead to taking some hits you really shouldn't have.

The game has a replicatable autosave bug which softlocks your game. While this bug has only been reported by myself and a few other users on E1M5, the fact that it can happen at all means you should be cautious of this on all levels. This happened to my only save and forced me to start the entire game over from the beginning. If you play this game, MAKE SURE you quicksave and perhaps even manually save on a regular basis so that way if you get softlocked, you can revert to a manual save!

There are a few smaller design choices that're a bit odd. For one, the game LOVES to spawn enemies behind you, and the game's audio very rarely warns you of this. Secondly, the game has a weapon upgrade system, which is cool, but has one major flaw. Once you upgrade a weapon, you are stuck down that upgrade path for the rest of the game. There is no way to revert to the other upgrade path if you don't like the upgrade you chose. And considering that all you have to make the choice on which upgrade you choose is just the name of the upgrade and a single sentence, it's hard to make an informed choice on which upgrade is the best for you.

If you LOVE boomer shooters, I think you'll enjoy this. But the game being a tad janky (for now) means I can't recommend the current early access build to anything but enthusiasts. Regardless, due to the amazing artstyle and fun gameplay, I'm looking forward to seeing where the game goes from here. I can't wait until the day where I can change this review from negative to positive.

Do you like horror aesthetic but HATE the horror genre's over reliance on 110 decibel jumpscares? This is the game for you. The game's mood and atmosphere is delectably creepy, without relying on jumpscares.

Other than that, it's a short and sweet horror game with a unique movement system that makes you feel the weight of being in a tense, horrific situation. If you're into horror, it is absolutely worth a try!

Hitman is a unique, one of a kind stealth game with amazing level design, unique situations CONNECTING TO THE HITMAN(TM) SERVER. PLEASE WAIT. and plenty of target to kill in unique and interesting ways!

While the main story can be beat in a single sitting for every game, there's CONNECTING TO THE HITMAN(TM) SERVER. PLEASE WAIT. of replay value to be found in challenging runs like trying to kill targets with no disguises using only sniper rifles, checking out the CONNECTING TO THE HITMAN(TM) SERVER. PLEASE WAIT. different story missions, and just experimenting with the fun sandbox that was made for this game.

So, yeah, if you just wanna play this for the story it is VERY short. You have to be okay with the idea of replaying a game multiple times (or buying a game on sale) to get your value for the money. But when you do, this is a unique, unparralled CONNECTING TO THE HITMAN(TM) SERVER. PLEASE WAIT. experience that can't CONNECTING TO THE HITMAN(TM) SERVER. PLEASE WAIT. be gotten anywhere CONNECTING TO THE HITMAN(TM) SERVER. PLEASE WAIT. else!

Okay but seriously the biggest problem is the always online for this game. Even if your internet gets shaky for a second, your single player game will be PAUSED while the message "CONNECTING TO THE HITMAN(TM) SERVER. PLEASE WAIT." holds you there until you reconnect. If you don't reconnect or your internet goes out? Can't play the game, I assume.

This game is fantastic and incredible, and if you want a game you can play right now that's great AND YOU HAVE A STABLE INTERNET CONNECTION DESPITE THE GAME BEING SINGLEPLAYER I highly recommend it. But if you DO NOT have a stable internet connection, or you're the type of person who really wants to play games you bought 20 years down the line... Yarr Harr diddle-dee-dee, if you catch me.

This game is amazing. Would literally probably be the best stealth game ever made if not for CONNECTING TO THE HITMAN(TM) SERVER. PLEASE WAIT......

Got the game as a gift from a friend after putting it on my wishlist. It was an interesting concept, and I loved the idea of an expanded trolley problem game based on philosophy with a narrator that challenges you.

What I expected was a game where you got several different similar "this or that" problems, and at any moment, the narrator might interrupt to go "hold on a minute - you made a choice that put the lives of the many above the lives of the few right now... but 3 choices ago you did the exact opposite? What about this set of circumstances made you kill people here, but not there?"

The game gets nowhere close to being that clever.

By "the narrator challenges you", what they actually mean is that the narrator will always disagree with your choices and berate you no matter what you chose. The narrator HATES what you're doing EVERY time no matter what! You diverted the trolley? "OH MY GOD YOU KILLER!" You didn't divert the trolley? "OH MY GOD YOU JUST LET THEM DIE?" If the narrator disagrees with you and berates you no matter what, that isn't having your ethics and personal philosophy about life be challenged, that's being yelled at by a contrarian.

That isn't the end of how grating the narrator can be. On one early question, you are asked whether you want to force vaccines onto children (topical) BUT the catch is that this vaccine makes 20% of the kids vaccinated WAY sicker than the sickness it's vaccinating against. I've worked in the health industry and have several friends in it. A 20% "sickness-worse-than-what-we're-vaccinating-against" rate on a vaccine is horrendous and would NEVER be approved. Yet if you do the thing that the actual health industry would do in this situation, the contrarian narrator calls you an anti-vaxer. Cool. (Also brief side tangent here, no hate to the voice actress, she just read the script. It's not her fault the material is really awful sometimes)

The biggest disappointment is that there's a lot of missed potential and some early questions show a lot of promise. As the timer ticks down before the choice is locked in, every 15 seconds or so, the narrator will pipe up and say something. In some cases she will actually make a point about the question that could change your frame of mind. For example, the second question in the game is just the trolley problem but the second track contains a named, 5 year old little girl. If you have the trolley head towards the 5 people instead, the narrator makes the point "How do you know there aren't any little kids in that group of 5 people?" which is a FANTASTIC point. You DON'T know that! In that case, her narration as the timer ticks down ads urgency and another ripple to your choice!

Unfortunately, only around 5% of the narrator's "mid choice" voice lines are insightful, thoughtful things like that. The other 95% are either calling you an idiot or trying to say something funny (I did not laugh once.)

If it sounds like I'm nagging about the narrator a lot, it's because the game is only your choices and the narrator reacting to your choices. She's 50% of the game and she's very poorly handled. The quality of the choices also diminishes as the game goes on.

As for the "based on philosophy" part of the pitch, it fails that pretty badly. To give a quick example, after a choice later on in the game, there is a note that pops up on screen that says "this last choice was a metaphor for [one of the game's major themes]." If you have to put a literal sticky note on screen to say "that metaphor was a metaphor and this is what the game is about", you maybe should've considered getting that point across some other way.

I was super disappointed, but if you're interested by the premise, give it a shot during a sale. At it's worst, it's a neat little timewaster, and I always want to support game devs branching out and trying something new. But don't expect something super deep and insightful. Expect to be presented a series of 50-ish "this or that" questions with a British lady whose name is likely Karen Karenway, who says you're stupid no matter what.

Casual mode is filled with instant-kill headshotting snipers, bots that spam obscenities in text and sometimes voice chat using AI immitations of known TF2 content creators, and networks of bots that will join servers all at once to make it impossible to kick them.

After this problem being prominently known for at least 4 years, plus 2 years after a campaign that made Valve aware of the problem and they said they'd fix it, Valve has... done nothing but add new hats to the store for you to buy.

So Valve won't fix instant-kill hackers who use AI voice recreations to slander innocent people, but WILL make sure there's a steady supply of microtransactions ready to squeeze every last bit of blood out of this stone.

And hey, TF2 used to be super popular and successful. Who's saying they won't do this to Dota or Counterstrike at some point once it stops being as profitable as they like?

Superhot: Mind Control Delete is the followup to Superhot, an expansion for the original game which ballooned out of control until the Devs decided it would fit better as a full, standalone game, and give it away since they originally advertised it as a free expansion. It adds new weapons, rogue-like style skills, brand new levels, and interesting modifiers to enemies like armor or guns that you can't take off of them. It all sounds like a slam dunk, but the game very quickly becomes boring.

While 'time only moves when you do' is the draw of Superhot, the first game's hand-crafted levels were what really made it shine. How do you advance down a long, straight hallway with no cover while two people are shooting at you? How do you survive a brawl in a tightly packed elevator where there are three people pointing guns at you? The original Superhot was so memorable because there was an even mix of the levels I just described, which put you into what were essentially shooter puzzles, and levels that were just bloodbaths.

Due to Superhot: Mind Control Delete's roguelike-ish structure, this isn't possible. Can't put a cool elevator or hallway level in, because who knows what powerups players will come in with that could break the 'puzzle-like' levels of Superhot 1. So, instead, EVERY level in the game is an open room with a bunch of weapons scattered around and a few spawn points. Kill exactly 6 enemies, every level, and then advance to the next level. You will play the exact same levels, with the exact same weapons, and mostly the exact same power ups over and over again. I fought through the exact same Sewer level 6 times in my first 30 minutes of the game. Unlike other roguelikes in the genre, there are not hundreds and hundreds of unique powerups with synergies to collect, or hundreds of different rooms to explore. There seem to be only about two dozen rooms, and powerups, at the absolute best. It's an unfortunate recipe for boredom and repetition that made me put down the game before I even beat it, and I'm someone who beat the original Superhot multiple times.

If you still think there's novelty in the 'time moves when you move' combat of Superhot, then you may enjoy Mind Control Delete. However, it has limited weapons and combat abilities when compared to other shooters - and it has a highly limited number of maps and powerups when compared to roguelikes, creating a recipe for monotony as you play through the exact same levels over, and over, and over again.

I hate to say it, because the developers seem really cool and they clearly put a ton of effort into Mind Control Delete, but the only reason I can think of to play it is if you got the game for free.