Recent reviews by VALIS

It's important to understand that this is very much a roguelite. You do runs consisting of branching path races with boss battles after a certain number of races, and there are upgradable components (guns, speed, etc.) during the runs and also permanent upgrades done outside of runs.

Because of this, your car stinks at first. Slow, sludgy, and weak. This is the gamble they took in this game by making a driving game a roguelite and handing you a doodoo car at the start. Each new car you unlock is a little better at something or other, but I suggest you make a beeline to unlock the SQR-NE55, which I think is a level 4 or 5 car (out of 10?). THAT car handles exactly like you're expecting cars to handle in a non-roguelite racing game. I beat the game with it, also placing 1st in every race along the way. The game goes from WTF hard to almost a little too easy once you upgrade. But that's a roguelite.

The boss battles are a lot of fun. I think there are three rotating ones and my favorite is instead of a race it's you vs. a big 'ol boss truck, his half-sized main side kick, and a bunch of little protector cars, running however many laps you need in 5 minutes until you destroy him. Or you can destroy everyone, but you need to destroy the big guy in 5. The end boss battle is cool too but I'm not going to spoil it.

Holding down on D-pad to respawn is key once or twice a race. Since this is primarily a car combat game and everyone is firing at you along with there being a lot of obstacles in the road, you're going to spin out a fair amount and it takes forever to make a multi-point turn to drive forward again. Just respawn.

Having beaten the game I'd really like to see some other modes now, like to be able to choose the track, race type, and amount of enemies. Or maybe a daily challenge with leaderboards, some reason to want to come back and play it more often.

The game is pretty good, maybe not worth the price right now if you're not an arcade racer junkie like myself, but with some post-launch refinements to the gameplay this could end up being a nice one. I'd bet money they're going to make the starting car better, because apparently people can see things like "roguelite" and a mile long list of car upgrades and still think the driving is just bad while being oblivious to what type of game they're playing.

If you're wondering what the guy with the Bomberman avatar thinks about the surprise Super Bomberman Collection, he thinks you couldn't ask for more. It's outstanding. Seven games including two newly translated ones (SB 4 and 5), a new boss rush mode, achievements, art gallery, music gallery, cloud saves, scan lines, rewind, save states... for twenty bucks! Feels like a birthday present even though I bought it.

The emulation is well done, nothing about it seems off. Right now there's a glitch where the game speed is too fast when v-sync is enabled and it's enabled by default, but turn it off and everything runs as it should. I assume that will be patched up shortly but until then I haven't noticed any screen tearing with it off, even when scrolling the screen.

Bomberman is one of my all-time franchises, and this collection is an ideal way to bring a large handful of its better early games to the digital age. Fingers crossed the collections keep coming like they did for Castlevania.

Took a leap of faith on this one with zero reviews and zero Youtube videos (until I just uploaded one, linked below) and thankfully it paid off. It's not a great game but it's a solid bargain bin entry and pretty much exactly what I expected: mediocre hack & slash combat mixed with puzzle-platforming and exploration/treasure hunting. 6 levels plus a tutorial, persistent skill upgrades and special attacks, hidden areas, treasure chests; you know the deal.

The combat of course follows the basics of Dark Souls in this Dark Souls world -- you've got a slash, a jumping roll-dodge, and a counter parry attack. If you're patient enough you can just keep rolling and rolling and rarely get hit, but it's the same in most games of this type. I think the window for the counter parry attack is very small because I can rarely seem to pull it off without taking damage.

Controls equally well with KB/M or controller, with 360 degree camera control on either the mouse or right stick. The levels seem to be of decent size given how long it took me to complete level 1 (~45 min). Not a hidden gem or anything but definitely worth the pickup if you like this style of game and see it on sale.

[Note: The game starts in Korean. The fourth option down on the main screen is language, scroll right until you see your desired language listed.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k29YIlSS14A

I'd assume most people who make video games like video games as it's not exactly a path someone would choose for money or fame. I assume the developer behind Zortch loves video games. Besides the game being infused with so many smart design choices, so many good firefight setups, so many homages to classic FPS of the past, he just seems like a real gem. People on the forums have an issue here and there, maybe they don't like the movement momentum, maybe they're getting stuttering, and he goes and compiles personal .exes for them hoping it fixes their issues. Someone wants to make a high-res texture pack for the game, the developer goes ahead and fixes it and reduces its file size and throws it up on his itch site for everyone to grab (which I recommend you do, and I wish I saw that before I put 11 hours into the game).

And, oh yeah, the game is 5 bucks. 350mb. Custom engine. Can run on Windows XP if you want.

None of this would matter much if the game wasn't good, and I think the game is fantastic. Absolutely top-notch gameplay. In looks, in game speed, in movement fluidity, it feels like a very deep and elaborate map pack for Quake 2. If you know your classic FPS, Quake 2's movement felt smooth like butter and it also does in this game. It is fun to simply run and jump and jumpkick. But where this game really stands out is in its level design. So many fantastic and varied firefight setups.

Like one memorable one had me inside a spaceship about 150 feet off the ground, the floor made of nothing but fans pushing the enemies or me upward, several dozen enemies bobbing up and down on the wind, and I could either try to peek out the back of the ship and pick one off at a time, or look straight up through the ship's porthole to see if I could snipe any of them. Another great setup was similar, hiding inside a doorway with a glass atrium ceiling out in front of me, another couple dozen enemies jumping around on the outside of it including that guy with a beehive head who releases an endless stream of bees, and I sure hope none of those glass panels break while I'm planning out my... OK, they broke through one, and some of them including the bees are starting to come in. Maybe I can just focus on that one pane unless... alright, another one broke, and now another, and another. From careful planning to chaos.

If you like classic FPS, Zortch is gameplay perfection.

Currently going through what I believe is my fourth playthrough of this game since it came out in 2005, I am in as much awe of it as ever. Half a survival horror and half a tactical corridor shooter, F.E.A.R. doesn't skimp on either side. The fear comes from both directions in equal amounts: What's lurking around that next corner you slowly creep towards? Some kind of bloody, ghostly hallucination, or a gang of tactigoons all suited up in full armor waiting to put two dozen bullet holes in you?

It's really the gunplay where F.E.A.R. still stands out all these years later. The horror element is fine, strongly aided by an eerie soundtrack that knows when to punctuate and when to stay out of the way, but the shooting is about as good here as it ever got. It's not a difficult game if you're patient and sneak 'n peek your way through levels, and there's also a ton of health packs (too many) scattered about, but the enemy AI is smart. They flank and circle behind you, they take cover, they react to your noise and light, but they also drop hints. Sometimes you can catch their reflection on walls and floors, or hear their footsteps, or listen to them calling out positional orders to each other. A showpiece FPS effort from one of the best developers to ever do it, the almighty Monolith Productions.

Just wanted to drop some quick praise for one of the all-timers. That this game combined with its two expansions packs frequently goes on sale for $2 is one of the greatest values in gaming anywhere.

With a few Woden racing games in my library already and a new one out this week, it seemed like as good a time as any to get familiar with them. This first one apparently was taken off the store fairly quickly, released in August 2020 and delisted about 3 years later. Presumably as the developer's skills improved and they released more games, they just didn't want this decent but amateurish game around anymore on their account. But that's just a guess.

There's a lot to like here, it's reminiscent of classic top-down arcade racers like Kaneko's Great 1000 Miles Rally and SNK's Over Top, but of course without the looks or tight control of those professional arcade games. The graphics are a bit odd here, there's like a blur/smudginess over the image that I can't seem to make go away no matter what setting I choose. But it's also quite possible the max res. here is 720p and it's just going to look like that on a 4K screen.

Controller support (a must for any racing game) is solid, every button is about where you expect it to be including trigger gas and brake. There's 14 individual races, each one of which seems to award you a new car, and 3 cup races containing 4 races each. The game is fast and controls well with a noticeable difference in the cars, but there's one major flaw: The trees (and sometimes buildings) over hang the track frequently, completely obscuring your vision of your car and sending you into all sorts of chaos as you try and figure out how to get back on the track. Or even what direction you're facing. An absolute "what were they thinking?!" classic. But outside of that one major misstep this was a pretty nice first effort, and I'm excited to get to the rest of the Woden racers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJoK80Hf6YA

This metal inspired wave-based arena FPS is too much of a mess to recommend. The field of vision is ridiculously small so you're constantly bumping into objects and enemies you couldn't see. Or worse, getting stuck in corners and dying almost instantly. There are a lot of settings here, which is nice, but they barely seem to do anything. For instance, on controller you can set any key you want to sprint but none will work. With KB/M, you can adjust the mouse aim sensitivity all the way from 0 to 100 but it's a barely noticeable difference. There aren't near enough different guns in a game where you're pretty much just shooting clumsy, low-detail enemies in a tiny arena and nothing else. The game also runs quite poorly at 4K with either DLSS or XeSS, or no upscaler. FSR saves the day though and it runs well for me (4070ti) through there.

These generic little wave-based FPSes have been flooding Steam by the hundreds for 10+ years now, but at least most of them have the good sense to be a buck or two. $13? For two levels? You gotta be kidding me. If you're at all interested in this game, wait until it's $2.

Have you ever zoned out in the middle of class and sketched out an idea for a video game on a piece of notebook paper? I have to imagine that half the game design ideas that kids ever came up with were something a lot like this. It's a toxic wasteland and there's cars, you race against other cars, and everyone can pickup different guns and other powerups. You can upgrade your car in various ways in the garage in-between rounds. Some of your opponents are a mutant gorgon looking chick in a bikini, and a murderous redneck with a spiked baseball bat, and a similarly murderous fisherman who wants to hook you. If you run over the toxic waste, your car sizzles. I think I'll call it... CARnage! And look at the time fly, only 10 minutes until the bell rings.

CARnage looks and plays like it came straight out of the blood & guts era of the Genesis and Amiga, like Ivan Stewart's Off Road meets Toxic Crusaders. Controls very well with controller or keyboard, lots of races, alternate routes, multiple championship cup series, a steal at $3 on sale.

It's against my instincts to buy action/arcade games without controller support because besides just about all of those types of games needing it, it's also a likely tip off that the developer is not doing the minimum in terms of selling a quality product people should pay money for.

Warning sign #2: Almost all the reviews so far are from people with 1 or 2 lifetime reviews and private profiles, a dead simple tell for fake or friend reviews.

Warning sign #3: This game is in a Genome Guardian bundle, the 206th Genome Guardian bundle currently for sale for those keeping score at home. All the games in their bundles are exactly like this -- potentially decent looking arcade style games that are underwhelming and underdeveloped once you actually play them.

I'll keep it for now since it was $2 on sale in hopes it gets some desperately needed controller support, but there are hundreds of better games in this arena shooter action roguelite style on Steam.

There's so much to like about this game -- the eerie underwater tomb atmosphere, the creative enemy and boss designs, the tight gunplay -- but I've rarely seen a better game get in its own way as much as this one. The balance and progression are terrible. This is a tough game that gets tougher each level you progress, which is fine and what I'd prefer, except the difficulty jumps are extreme. Those late bosses are comical in how difficult they are, as hard as any Dark Souls boss I know of. And speaking of Dark Souls, that's one of the things that sabotages this game: While a lot of people complain about the "runback" to bosses in Dark Souls, those runbacks are trivial compared to what you have to deal with here. Having trouble with end boss #3? OK, just keep doing that same run through levels 1-3, about 60 minutes worth including 2 end bosses and 3 mid-level bosses, until you get back to end boss #3. Then he kicks your ass again and maybe you got an idea of what to try against him next time, but hey, 60 minutes to get back. Even as you get better, that time won't get any quicker, at least not by much. Same stuff in this game, over and over and over.

This could be partially overcome if the roguelite progression in the game wasn't also among the stingiest you'll see. The skill wheel is very large and the points to unlock on it are few, besides which most of those skills are like a 1/3 thing. Spend a few points to get 1/3 of the skill, spend more to get 2/3 then 3/3. There are a bunch of cool guns in the game but they don't unlock easily. There's several meta games in Abyssus, like find that one pinhole in the sky or wall on a level and shoot it. So you can sit there and tediously scan the environment on every single level looking for that pinhole, and you never know how many you've gotten so far or how many are left, or just get hit with the feeling after a while "how is this fun?" Why is so much of this game's content locked behind what feel like chores?

It's like they were dead set to put 30 hours of game in here, but what's really here is 5 hours of game stretched like salt water taffy. I still recommend Abyssus, but not as eagerly as I would have otherwise. Everything is here for a 9 out of 10 game, but the tedious structure makes it more like a 6.5 or 7 thing. These are also the gripes of someone who really enjoyed the roguelite structure when it made a comeback/transformation 10-15 years ago, but by this point I'm just sick of it. Nearly every single indie/AA stuffs their game with incrementals like you have to re-read the same page of a book 4 times before you get to read the next page. For me, 5-10 exciting, replayable hours will forever and always make a better game than 30 tedious ones.