Recent reviews by cerise

I'm looking forward to The Outer Worlds 2, much to the astonishment of my friends.
My hopes are not high for TES 6, it's at the point where I got Starfield wanting ANY Bethesda style open world RPG and somehow was so completely underwhelmed it wasn't even that. I think I would have actually wanted another copy of Skyrim over this.
The whole thing just felt mediocre, insisting upon itself with a fanfare akin to leaving the vault for the first time in a Fallout game as you do ostensibly what is just leaving work for the day. The AI are incompetent enough not to be a challenge and competent enough not to be entertaining in the slapstick sense. The environments, while excellently realised, feel shallow when so little is spread out over so much. Despite the key locations in the game a largely procedural galaxy lacks the sense of placeness of so many other Bethesda RPGs. And loading screen fatigue is, unfortunately, not exaggerated.
Bethesda boasted a massive galaxy but in an industry full of "vast open worlds" filled with little meaningful content I can only hope their next game plays more like Morrowind than No Man's Sky. A smaller more focused game, handcrafted and intimate with a refreshed and competent core gameplay loop, is where all the good that is in Starfield would really shine.

CRUELTY SQUAD REVIEW

OVER 500 HOURS OF MIND PUMPING ACTION


An immersive power fantasy simulator with tactical stealth elements set in a sewage infused garbage world
RECENT REVIEWS:
Overwhelmingly Positive (123)
ALL REVIEWS:
Overwhelmingly Positive (1,291)
RELEASE DATE
4 Jan, 2021
DEVELOPER:
Consumer Softproducts
PUBLISHER:
Consumer Softproducts
Popular user-defined tags for this product:
Early AccessFPSImmersive SimStealth+

I'll forewarn people and say right now this isn't the kind of game you play for the gameplay and run past/skip through everything else, this is more of a game where you play for the everything and sometimes find yourself practically skipping past gameplay.

It's like LISA in humour tone but it's not immediately emotionally devastating (granted there's plenty of room for a sucker punch of a tonal shift). It does just drop references to stuff as kind of in jokes which isn't exactly super original but it also has it's own humour in there and both come together to give the game some really good character. Music included, again appealing in much the same way LISA's music was but it's inspired by it as opposed to copying it, has it's own thing going on.

It's like kind of got the core gameplay loop of Hotline Miami but on the horizontal axis, except combat is actually just kind of flailing a stick at the people in front of you, which either really needs improving or is just a spot on stylistic choice to put the player in the shoes of some person who picked up a sword and has no idea how to use a sword.

I'll be real and say people keep dropping game titles myself included when describing this game but anybody who brings up big budget AAA 3D game titles is missing the point. Instead it's kind of like a love letter to the whole indie game dev scene, a scene that if you're familiar with you'll pick up on all the little nods to. As I say I got a lot of vibes from Devolver and the RPG maker indie scene, but there's more in there, and considering it's a free damn pilot demo thing just play it and feel smug when you pick up all the genre influences. I guess this is almost the same as the in jokes and humour thing, it's got both references and it's own style and it comes together to give the game it's own great character.

TL:DR if you like the indie game scene you'll like this game for it's character, the gameplay needs work for sure, but the game's story and tone is delectable

I bought Starbound back when it had promise to be a good sci-fi game inspired by Terraria, I can't honestly say that's what it became. There's still elements to this game which are really great, a soundtrack of such depth and scope it will knock your socks off, the malformed but still there story elements and variety of species, and it's own unique sense of charm.

I'll just say now that it fundamentally appeals to a different audience than the group which basically got the project off the ground, if you're new to this and unconcerned with the ethics of that, look at it with a fresh set of eyes and maybe you'll find promise in a lot of things others found disheartening.

That being said, 10/10 soda drinking game, would drink soda again.

I got this game for free and I still want a refund.
There are people who put time and effort into this game, and for them I am sorry, because much like me when I played this game every second of our precious time on this earth was wasted.

In breif, Ballistic NG is a loveletter to everything about early Wipeout games, it's like a playable nostalgia memory of Wipeout 3, familiar in all the right ways without being the same thing, though in this case you also have modding support, a plethora of content and loads of extra goodies to tailor the gameplay to your liking.

All for the price of a relatively expensive sandwich.

This game's come a long way, while it isn't free to play anymore, it's certainly much more substantial in content and quality than it was back in it's fledgling days, while the game stil sees updates in it's "early access" state, with a game more or less fully fleshed out getting new content and updates in a way which honestly reminds me of the hayday of Minecraft development.

I'm going to make this short and clear.
Play the first game too, sooner or later.
Satisfying ending, relatable characters, good indie game overall.