Recent reviews by Pawkeshup

One of the greatest comeback stories of gaming. I hardly need to add in my two cents, but just count me as among the converted. They could have given up on the game. They could have written it off. But instead, they made it, what I feel, is the definitive space exploration game.

Each update adds more and more content. As of this review, they added the fully customizable Corvette class ship, a mobile base that you can build as you like. The price is still a new game price, but I have no issues with that, as this feels like a new game every time they add more content.

Definitely worth the price of admission.

Clicker Heroes is about letting a game run for endless hours, burning electricity to spite the planet.

There is no point to this game, truly, beyond that. Somehow, though, I put in an insane amount of time on this game.

How do you start describing this game?

It's equal parts fantastic power fantasy game and compelling story telling. It's a passion project that could have ended a company, and instead has come to define what it takes to be a successful and respected F2P game. Warframe has continued to evolve through its time, and not just based on the ideas the studio itself has. Digital Extremes works with the community to help keep the game fresh and serving the player's needs and wants.

So what makes this game so compelling?

It starts with the visuals and audio. Warframe doesn't look like any other free game out there, and that's because DE designed it that way. The game looks and feels like a triple A title, full of lighting effects, high quality textures and excellent physics. You won't find assets bought from a store, nor will you hear music from a free source. The game features the production asthetic of any other major studio, yet you get to play it free.

It continues with the movement. Where as some third person action games have fluid running and jumping mechanics, Warframe takes this to a new level. Jumps can be extended via aim glide, and you can launch yourself forward with a "bullet jump". Add to that wall running and slides that can be started in the air, and you will soon be flying at a breakneck pace through the levels in the game.

And those levels are also a part of the game's magic. Outside of the now two Open World areas of the game, every other level is procedurally generated. This helps to keep the levels from feeling stale despite seeing many of the same elements hundreds of times as you grind your way through the content. Because, at the end, grinding is what you will do a lot of in Warframe. However, the combat makes that grind feel a hell of a lot more fun than it should be.

Warframe allows you to take in three weapons (primary, secondary and melee) as well as the powers of your warframe to take on the enemies you will encounter. Guns often have excellent sound design with beefy impact sounds. Some rifles even tear enemies in half, blow off limbs, or cleanly sheer off heads of your foes. The many bladed and blunt weapons have great feedback, and have momentum to add to the movement system in the game. The grind that you are doing is, in fact, to earn the right to use as well as the parts to build more warframes and weapons. And, trust me, that is just addicting.

The progression feels excellent. It is rare to hit on a weapon or warframe that is not worth the grind in the end. Take, for example, Equinox. This warframe takes double the parts of any other warframe, yet when you gain access to it, it has double the powerset. Featuring both massive damage and amazing healing, the frame ends up being fully worth the time you had to invest to get there. Every warframe and weapon levels as well. Warframes unlock powers and gain stats as they level, and both warframes and weapons can be bolstered by mod cards that enhance the stats. The amount of points available for putting these mods on increases as they level. Mods also have polarities, which halve their cost when put into a matching slot. The game features a way to add these polarity slots, allowing you to put more and more mods. The mods themselves ALSO can be leveled, increasing their strength. Put on top of all this an overall leveling system for your account that allows you to have a higher base starting points pool for mods as well as being able to access stronger weapons, and you can see plenty of ways to invest your time.

All that grinding might take up your time, but everyone knows grinding can grow stale. That's where the storyline hooks of the game come into play. After a starting cutscene, Digital Extremes sets the tone from then on by holding back the next major storyline beat until after you've spent almost as much time as it takes to complete a triple A title before handing you the next piece. By doing that, it feels so much more intense when it happens. DE ups the intensity by giving you one of the best reveals in gaming in that next piece, one so great that the community considers it anathema to reveal even hints of it. From there, the story just spins out so beautifully. And that's not even considering the two new open world areas which have compelling stories all their own.

The game is not without issues. As it uses peer-to-peer matchmaking, it can be difficult to connect for some players. And though there is a solo mode for the game, squad play is truly far more interesting with the various interactions you can take advantage of. PvP suffers both from this peer-to-peer connectivity as well as just an inability to balance so many different warframes on top of that. There are also bugs that crop up as the game is updated, as well as some massive ones that appear with each major release. To DE's credit, the worst of these bugs are dealt with as quickly as possible when discovered.

The monetization strategy can also confuse many when they start. You are given a tiny amount of premium currency with no way to earn any from DE itself, while you are shown many items you can buy but that takes ten times that amount. It is a misunderstanding, though, because the only items you would need to buy if you wanted are slots for more warframes, weapons, and riven mods. Absolutely everything else can be earned in-game. This is also a company that removed a loot box mechanic because someone used it too much. That's right, they were making a lot of cash from someone, and they shut that down out of their own desire to not take advantage of someone that badly. If that doesn't showcase their ideology on how to ethically monetize their game, I can't say what will.

There are games that set standards in their genre. Warframe has decidedly done so not only for third party action games but for free-to-play games and their monetization strategies. With each new expansion and content addition, the game just shows how much this team loves both the game and its community. I highly recommend downloading this title and trying it out. And if you do, I'll see you out there, Tenno.

One man.

The bulk of this was made by one man. Where some triple A games, and many Kickstarter darlings have failed, one man succeeded. Dust is a revelation. The controls are tight and precise. The combat moves are basic but effective. The story is excellent. The voice acting... Well nothing is perfect.

Given this was a labour of love, it's not shocking that it's not just beautiful to look at, but amazing to play. I've not touched it for some time, primarily because reply value isn't really a thing with this game. But it's left an indelible mark on me, and remains the standard by which I judge all other indie games.

Buy it. Play it.

Deadlight is one of those games that you desperately want to love. It has a fairly strong narrative, good characters, and a fairly solid premise. However, no matter how much you want something, you can't always have it.

The game starts strong, simplistic puzzles and solid mechanics. But as traps and running sections get thrown in, the loose feeling controls and trial by death sequences become frustrating. By the end, you'll find yourself slogging through and cursing the rare checkpoint system when you die yet again.

Ultimately, I really wanted to love this game, but I just couldn't. A flawed attempt, one you're likely better to enjoy watching a let's play of rather than playing it yourself.

There is an elegant brilliance to making a game like this. Using no words to tell a story, and using controls to express how that story proceed. Ultimately this is a puzzle title, in the vain of Flashback and Out Of This World.

While the game is very short, with utterly no replay value whatsoever, it is by far worth the money. When they say games need to be cinematic, this should be held up as how it should be done. You don't need painfully rendered, photo-realistic characters or hours of cutscenes. All you need is a simple story the player gets to live through.

As for the unique controls, they are something you quickly grow used to. Beyond that, not much more can be said without spoiling a game that you should truly experience for yourself.

What do you get when you cross a bunny with a robot and a musical? This game, apparently!

While the physics are a bit janky, and the length is a touch short, this game is well worth experiencing first hand.

Disclosures: I have no ties with the developer, and purchased this game myself.

Rogue Legacy, the first big production from Cellar Door Games, places you into a unique situation for a Rogue-like game. You start by invading a castle in the tutorial. Ultimately, you meet your gory end there. The remainder of the game has you taking the role of each new heir who madly delves the castle to find the truth of what happened.

Each time you die, you are presented with three different randomly generated characters. The characters have a class, a spell, and often one or more odd traits. These traits can both help and hinder your progress through the castle. As you explore the castle, you fight through randomly arranged and spawned rooms versus a variety of enemies, with the ultimate goal being to take down 5 bosses. Each boss has their own wing of the castle save the final one, whose door you pass as you first enter the castle. The wings are generically always in the same locations, though how to access them changes each time the castle respawns.

Upon death, you take any collected gold, item plans and runes with you back to your family home, which serves as an upgrade screen. You are able to build new rooms that grant you access to new classes, more health, stronger attacks and special skills like death avoidance. Once you step out as your new heir, you can then forge new gear and buy runes. As you progress, you eventually can even lock the castle design if you have a little gold left. This feature is useful if you are attempting to run through the bosses. Once you re-enter, a percentage of your gold is taken depending on how you've upgraded your castle, and you repeat the process.

The gameplay itself is punishing but fair. Enemies aren't extremely varied, but that's a good thing. You need to learn your opponents well to make the best use of each heir to gain the most gold and items possible. While the random levels can create issues, typically because at times enemies will spawn too near an entrance to kill without receiving damage, there is rarely a time you will feel that the randomness has screwed you over.

Featuring platforming elements, melee combat and magic use in a 2-D side-scroller, the game can be hours of fun, as each run has real progress, even if only to gain a bit more gold for that next upgrade. The bosses themselves are challenging, and the game also features hard-mode versions you can unlock via finding in-game items. And once you're finished, you really aren't. Featuring a new game plus mode that drastically ups the difficulty, you get to once more challenge the castle to see if you can find out what happened so many generations ago.

Overall, it's a game well worth the price of admission, and a great first effort as far as a full release game goes. If you enjoy Rogue-likes with progression, pick this one up today.

Transistor, the second game from the studio who brought us the critically-acclaimed Bastion, is ultimately the best story-driven game of this year, perhaps even of the last several years.

This is the tale of Red, a musical artist in the city of Cloudbank. A tragic twist thrusts her and her companion into a desperate choice to fight back against those who have wronged them. Beyond that, any more storyline would be utter spoilers, as this sci-fi-themed story is the top element of this game.

But that is not all! This isometric game boasts a customizable combat system. Throughout the game, you can select powers to use with your massively large weapon. Each has different effects and cooldown times, as well as being able to use any power to alter or boost how another works.

While you can fight real-time in this manner, the sheer brilliance is the Turn() system, where you can freeze the action and plan out your moves. This by far is the best element of the game, as it showcases how deep the strategy rabbit hole can go once you get multiple powers.

The brilliant visuals of the game's hand-made elements are stunning. The art direction of this game makes each environment a wonder to explore simply to see all the detail and work poured into this game. What pushes the art even further is the beautiful soundtrack that has been created for this. I highly recommend picking it up or listening to it on Spotify. It completes the experience in a way I've not seen for a few years.

Featuring a game+ mode, a challenge mode to unlock the soundtrack, and several small, somewhat easy to miss moments which add detail to the work, there's plenty of reason to revisit the game after seeing the story complete for the first time. The game clocks in around 4-6 hours for completion, which may seem short for the price tag. However, this is one of those watermark games you want for your collection. I highly recommend it.