Recent reviews by Kaster

It's gorgeous, the soundtrack slaps, it plays incredibly well, and it's amazing both solo and with friends.
There's literally impossible to not love this game. For £15 it's an absolute steal. Support indie devs!

It really sucks that, at its core, there's a great kart racer at the heart of Disney Speedstorm. Sadly, the aggressive monetisation kicks in after only your first hour or so. Even though there is a single player-esque 'campaign' in Speedstorm, you'll eventually be priced out of races even against AI.

There are so many different currencies, battle passes, loot boxes, and tabs in the store it'll make your head spin. Upgrading your characters and karts is at the core of Speedstorm, but each individual character has what is essentially its own individual currency, which needs to be used in tow with another currency to be able to upgrade them and progress at all.

That is but scratching the surface of the egregious monetisation practices in Disney Speedstorm. It's truly a shame because it plays well, it looks great, and the music is kind of ridiculous but I'm here for it. I know it'll never happen, but if there was a one-time 'unlock all' purchase or the title was repackaged into a premium paid release with no microtransaction-riddled nonsense whatsoever, it would be a day-one purchase for me.

Being this aggressive in the monetisation space with a title that would probably sell like hot cakes as a premium release is beyond me. Greed sucks. Try Speedstorm if you want, but you'll leave feeling disappointed, as you'll then know what could have been.

Can't keep away from the rapids. Fantastic gameplay, stunning visuals, a moreish roguelike you just keep sinking time into. It's great solo, but even better with friends!

The only real bugbear I have with this game is its Steam Deck performance. It's playable, but it could be better. Would be the absolute perfect Deck game if it could actually achieve a stable 60fps- at present the best you'll get is capping it at 45fps, and it's rough to reach that most of the time. Hopefully this is something the devs could look into for a future update?

15/10
would jork my rat peenar again

spent my first few hours building ONE building
my park has no dinosaurs and isn't even open yet
10/10

This is the kind of demo I wish I could put 'Mixed' for instead of outright positive or negative. Fundamental gunplay feels pretty damn good; chunky shooting alongside an interesting mechanic of ripping out cores and using them in different ways in combat. However, the mouse acceleration feels absolutely horrid, and the sensitivity settings don't even work either. Thank goodness I have a DPI switch on my mouse I could use to make things feel at least a little playable.

One more quick note on the combat front, while the UI and menus are nice (even though the cursor movement feels weird on even that too), the weapon mag and reserve ammo numbers appearing holographically on the side of the weapon is a cool idea in theory, but it's really hard to read when in the fast-paced combat scenarios this title leans so heavily on. I'd much rather this were just a readout in the lower-right of the HUD like how pretty much every other shooter does it. Sure, it's not as exciting or unique visually, but boy would it make the experience better.

Visually, Metal Eden has promise, but whether this is the settings menu barely working, or a deliberate decision, everything impressively looks both oversharpened and blurry. I've told the game not to use resolution scaling, and everything is set to the 'Epic' quality, but it still left a lot to be desired. Hopefully this is just a quirk of an early access demo, and not representative of the final product.

Finally, the audio mix feels all over the place. METAL EDEN is very much wearing its DOOM 2016/DOOM Eternal chonk in gameplay and sound design on its sleeve, but the mixing overall needs more time in the oven, especially in the cutscenes. There's always quality leeway with a demo, but this just feels outright unfinished in this case.

While this review definitely pointed out more flaws than positives, there's absolutely something there with METAL EDEN. I just hope, for Reikon's sake, this demo isn't wholly representative of the final product, as I feel on release it'll land on its feet somewhat, but a lot of polish is to be desired.

Planet Coaster 2 is absolutely everything I wanted it to be. Water parks, scaleable scenery (which can now be attached to rides), a completely revised pathing system, and a lighting engine that makes your parks absolutely sparkle. Sure, the new UI takes a bit of getting used to, and muscle memory will take a bit of time to recalibrate, but aside from that, you're got the best park sim on the market.

For a title that was announced and released within the space of an hour, damn is it a fun time. Plays well, soundtrack slaps, manages to not go too far down the cringe-y dialogue and exhaustingly over-the-top character route.

It's a gorgeously vibrant, yet tasteful experience so far. Can't wait to dig into more! Plus, it's solid on the Steam Deck. Wicked stuff. 🤟

I played the hell out of this on my Xbox 360. Awesome to see it again.

Picked this up on Steam because I want to have this game everywhere I can.
(Reviewing with 40+ hours on PS4)

Tetris Effect (and the subsequent Connected mode) is one of the most euphoric experiences you'll ever have with a video game. Tetris itself is already a perfect game, and paired with the satisfying visuals which tie in with your inputs and gorgeous soundtrack makes this title not 'just another Tetris game.'

I could ramble on for hours as to why this game deserves every second of your available time, but to keep things short:

PLAY TETRIS EFFECT: CONNECTED
THANK ME LATER