Recent reviews by elevator13

Vampire Survivors mixed with Breakout makes for a surprisingly good time. Inventive character/class choices which can dramatically alter your playstyle, and the game provides incentives to try classes besides your favorite with persistent power upgrades when beating a level with a character for the first time. Well worth the $15

Good shooting and tons of varied weapons + character classes with branching possible upgrades to support a wide array of playstyles.

Pretty fun RTS with light 4X elements. Combat is very macro and "attack-move" focused instead of tactical (think Supreme Commander instead of Company of Heroes). Overall recommend, but may wait for a slight sale like $40 instead of paying $50 full price.

Pros:
- Very simplified 4X formula. Some may view this as a con, but compared to other games like Stellaris/Endless Space it's much easier to manage your empire.
- The three different races (and 2 subfactions within each) reinforce distinct gameplay styles thanks to their distinct tech trees and unique racial ability.
- The shifting orbits of planets/asteroids can drastically change your strategy as the game progresses, as new phase lanes (travel paths between systems) open up and old ones can be lost. You may find a system nestled deep in your empire slowly become more exposed as the match progresses, or discover a new way of attacking an enemy. Also note if you don't like the orbits/shifting paths, you can disable it for any map.
- Good number of pre-designed maps to play on, which do feel distinct (and some make chaotic use of the shifting phase lanes).
- AI is competent, and the different difficulty levels will test you

Cons:
- Decent looking game, but not AAA production value considering the relatively high price tag. Some upgrade icons are reused across multiple upgrades, smaller combat units like corvettes and strikecraft have incredibly weird/unrealistic flight paths if you zoom in on them.
- The three different races' combat units are fairly similar. There are some differences (and aesthetically they are very different), but they tend to all fulfill a similar role. E.g. all races have a scout corvette, combat corvette, generalist cheap frigate, ship combat capital ship, colonization capital ship, etc. Don't expect Starcraft levels of distinctness in playstyle.
- The 6 subfactions of the 3 races are generally similar across the races. Each race as an aggressive/military focused faction, and a defensive/minor faction diplomacy focused one.
- Random map generator is very basic, you cannot adjust any map generation settings (e.g. resource abundance, number of stars/planets)
- No campaign

Fun Soulslike with deep buildcrafting and solid core gameplay, puzzles, loot, and tons of secrets.

Pros:
- Boss design is usually good, sometimes great, and always varied. Every boss fight has something unique to separate it from the others without feeling gimmicky
- Gunplay and melee combat is satisfying
- Tons of secrets and puzzles to discover
- Loot always feels meaningful and unique (you never go from a level 10 blue shotgun to a level 11 purple shotgun)
- Secrets and randomized levels give each world a decent amount of replay-ability. You won't be able to get every piece of loot or fight every boss on a single playthrough
- Deep buildcrafting with multiple playstyles (glass cannon, tank, healer, pets/summoning, status effects, etc.) to mix and match as you earn more loot

Cons:
- When playing co-op, netcode can be poor, especially at high ping. Very noticeable when trying to use non-hitscan weapons (bows, grenade launchers). Also no ping/connection quality indicator when joining public lobbies, and frequent random disconnects when trying to join one
- Overall short campaign (first playthrough took 12 hours with mostly full-clearing every area, now I can blow through a fresh campaign in under 5 hours)
- Getting good performance heavily relies on supersampling/DLSS

An addictive ship-builder game with a satisfying "kill, upgrade, expand, repeat" loop. Can be initially frustrating figuring out the best way to use defenses (armor/shields/point defense) and feeling like your ship dies too fast. However once you're past that, the game provides a lot of fun problems to solve:

- Actual design/blueprinting of your ship using the game's robust ship editor (including the ability to have a fleet of multiple independent ships instead of one mega-ship)
- Balancing offense/defense/utility/mobility
- Crew placement + assigning roles
- Fighting some surprisingly varied enemy ships. Some ships sit back and shoot you as you might expect, others will rush you down, aggressively strafe to test your mobility and defense weakpoints, or even split into multiple independent ships when part of them is destroyed.

One of the best gaming experiences I've had in years. The less you know the better - go in blind and don't watch any gameplay.

While Destiny 2 has its flaws, its core gameplay is great and it offers a unique experience with well-made raids in a first person shooter. I recommend trying out the free-to-play version and playing through the Red War Campaign (talk to Amanda Holliday in the Hangar in the Tower). I'd also recommend trying out one of the raids (Eater of Worlds is a good and short) and the Menagerie. If you're hooked and want to buy one of the expansions, Forsaken has more content than Shadowkeep for cheaper, but it may be hard to find groups since Destiny veterans have moved on to Shadowkeep.

Enjoyable with some nice changes from Far Cry 5, but too short and not enough replayability to be worth $40. If you have money to burn, enjoyed FC5, and want more, you can get it now and have a good time. I played all the content in about 15 hours, but you can probably get through the main campaign in about 10 hours. I'd wait for a sale when it's $30 or less.