Recent reviews by Hot Coldman

I don't think there's a game that does exploration quite like this at such a scale. Bleak Faith isn't afraid to let the the player get lost, wander out of bounds or trek long distances on foot just to see if there's anything there. The ambient guitar soundtrack and Blame-inspired post-future setting really tie the room together.

It's an "Audio Video Gameplay Experience" alright.

As unique as it is uniquely upsetting. It's great fun when it works and usually funny when it doesn't, though sometimes it breaks completely. I imagine this is what Star Citizen is like if Star Citizen was good but also if it was trying to lobotomize me.

8/10 an experience I almost regret having.

trepang3 will just be a crack pipe with a healthy sprinkling of adderall applied directly to the pineal gland.

Imagine cutting paid content from a 10 year old game with 300 active players.

closest you can get to playing sekiro without playing sekiro. extremely tight combat more than makes up for flaws in story delivery and enemy variety.

It looks like a co-op shooter but it's actually 3 MMOs in a trenchcoat, with all the grind that entails.

it's max payne titanfall with a dash of superhot and F.E.A.R, don't think any more needs to be said here.

Inflict punishment. Fish in the sewers. Play the stocks. ♥♥♥♥ yourself. CEO mindset.

While the souls-like inspiration is obvious, what this game really is is a spiritual successor to Skyrim.
Hear me out here: there are countless opportunities to use the platforming mechanics in probably unintended ways to take shortcuts, sequence break, climb mountains by landing on edges between surfaces, surf and slide on edges and so on. Furthermore, Shattered features a hoverboard which outclasses even the Skyrim horse at jank-mountaineering with its ability to scale nearly vertical cliff faces and negate all fall damage. Best of all, Shattered rewards the player's efforts at breaking the terrain by providing alternate access to new areas, secrets and well-hidden items - very few areas in the open world section have only one access point, so more often than not your jank-surfing will yield you an item or bit of lore you may not have found the intended route to, or even just the satisfaction of parkouring over a gate you weren't supposed to be able to open until half a level later.

To address other aspects of Shattered: the world-building and story is fairly interesting if you can find it and piece it together (some critical bits of lore are well-hidden), and the combat is serviceable - the focus on parrying provides some additional skill ceiling, but there's not much weapon variety and most enemies can be stunlocked easily. Most of the bosses feel very similar to standard enemies too - only the three Demiurges really stand out, and two of those are optional.

Shattered really shines as an exploration game - go in expecting some rewarding if somewhat janky platforming and you might be pleasantly surprised.

A rhythm FPS is pretty much the game I always wanted, and after Harmonix's Chroma disappeared without a trace I wasn't sure there would ever be another. Therefore I'm pretty biased in saying that BPM is the bee's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ knees. Active reloading and forcing shots to be on beat really contributes to that feeling of creating something more with your inputs, a symphony of shots and clicks to a background of 90bpm rock, and the more intense music playing during boss battles makes them really stand out.

That being said, the game's not quite perfect. One thing I failed to mention above is that BPM is a roguelite rhythm FPS, and comes with the hallmarks of roguelite design: garbage RNG and a lack of encounter design. Being a rhythm game, BPM mitigates the latter issue by being rhythm focused, so dodging to the beat and circle-strafing compensates the lack of cover in rooms full of projectile enemies, but the RNG can really flop its ♥♥♥♥ on the table if it feels like it. Often you will see items in shops that are mathematically unpurchaseable at that point in the game, or just run an entire floor without receiving a single key for any of the locked chests and rooms in the level. Also there are lots of flies. Binding of Isaac has them too, so maybe it's a roguelite thing.

I've seen many complaints about the saturation filter making certain levels appear very red, but in my experience you stop noticing it once you get into the game, so it's really only an issue for spectators. What isn't a spectator issue is that some latter levels (Helheim 1) stutter a bit on my system, and a certain expanding globe attack turns the same color as the dodge indicator, which can be a run-ender on the harder characters. However, once you know it's there you can definitely work around it.

All in all, BPM is somewhat of a rough diamond. It has its flaws, but on the whole it's pretty rad, especially considering that it's the debut game of a small studio. AWE Interactive has contributed a solid entry to the rhythm-shooter genre, and I eagerly await their future projects.