Recent reviews by Mr. Cruel

Outside some annoying precision platforming in the late game, I've been loving this. Awesome game, totally worth the money.

I don't think this game is for people like me. I keep seeing people talk about it favorably to ModNation and CTR (the former I never played and the latter I only played a little), so I have to imagine what is here is solid for people coming in with a wealth of experience. But I don't have that experience, and this game, at least to start, feels impenetrable. I'm hitting all three boosts whenever I can on drifts, I'm trying to build up my boost reserves as much as possible, and I'm still consistently placing in the middle of the CPUs on a moderate difficulty, with no clue how to improve. It feels like I'm doing everything right, and the videogame is telling me that I'm not, and what few, limited guides are out there are just telling me what I already know. I understand I've only played it about an hour, but that hour has not displayed the mechanical depth I'm certainly missing. It expected me to show up already understanding it. This game is not an entry point to this kind of kart racer.

Again, if you've played a ton of ModNation Racers or CTR, feel free to ignore this review. You have the skillset that this game expects and I don't have. If I could make a dev suggestion, this game could benefit from a much more substantial tutorial. A handful of paragraphs and static images are not enough.

I've beat Doom: The Dark Ages now, and I'd argue confidently that Id is 3-for-3 with fantastic modern Doom games. As different as the gameplay loop is from 2016's more classic mechanics and Eternal's general agility and resource management, it feels great with all the pieces working together, smoothly moving between parries, shield throws and charges, melee, and gunplay. They managed to maintain the Slayer's speed while adding a lot more weight to his actions, both in terms of animation and gameplay (a poorly timed weapon switch could mean you lose out on a window of opportunity to attack, or getting too greedy with melee attacks could leave you without enough time to raise your shield to block a counter).

It's not perfect, to be fair. The much more present story aims for dark and epic, but kinda lands at "edgy He-Man". The music is forgettably fine, which is a huge downgrade from Mick Gordon's fantastic work in Eternal. There's no way to turn raytracing off in the settings, a poor mark in an otherwise extremely well optimized game in my experience. The dragon-riding sections feel like they should be setpiece highlights, but the awkward looking and feeling control scheme sucks a lot of the coolness out of those parts. And while the combat loop feels fast and satisfying when you have all your tools, it takes a bit too long to actually get them all, giving the game an unfortunately slow start.

Ultimately, though, all of these complaints end up feeling pretty small in the wake of the extremely satisfying gameplay, the fantastic environments and settings, and wide array of accessibility options and difficulty modifiers. Id software reinvented ripping and tearing again, and I think they nailed it.

You know those various charming Mario RPG's that tend to be on the simpler, easier side of the genre, but keep you engaged during turn-based battles with lots of little timing minigames to boost your power, block damage, and counterattack?

This is the uncompromised, full fat, deep and complicated, strategically demanding, stylistically and spiritually French, JRPG version of that. I've wanted a game like this for a long time, and it's better than I even imagined.

Excellent little free demo. I loved this little taste, wishlisted and followed.

I played this game for 6 hours and 39 minutes, and it's very normal, normal like me. Normal people see a new room and get excited, really excited, but not as excited as when they see a room they've seen a million times, but now they have a magnifying glass! Or when they realize they can check in broken garbage on a coat rack so they don't have to rely on bunkers. I'm making maps, multiple maps, and they're also normal.

This video game ate my brain with a labyrinth of puzzles and roguelike randomization, and I think I love it? Yeah, I love it.

Breathe.

I take several short hops on a slope for the perfect landings to build up speed. Rotating lasers in the distance, noting that for later. Cracks in the ground recede away, good.

Breathe.

I ride up a large jump, soaring perhaps a little too high. I don't care. Use the jetboard to maintain momentum, then modulating descent rate to score another perfect landing.

Breathe.

Up to the lasers. Safer to give them more space, but the ideal arcing line practically scrapes them. I practically scrape them. Perfect landing.

Breathe.




I smack into a giant rock I never noticed, dying instantly.

10/10, best Sonic game I've ever played.

Reception lady got a little messy with her Sloppy Joe.

10/10

Especially for the low, low price of free, this is worth the ride. I was more than happy enough to spend the two bucks for the little Making Of DLC just to support the dev. Speaking of, if you're reading this, I'd love to see you expand on the concept back to the idea of studying multiple artifacts in a longer experience.

I am super looking forward to this game coming out, and the little taste this offered has reinforced that. This game looks gorgeous, and between the physics and the damage model, it feels like Bugbear has nailed a magical balance between the visceral impact of a realistic car crash and the arcade-y fun to keep rolling along in your mangled mess of a car afterward. It's ridiculous in the best ways.

However, this wasn't ready for an Early Access release. The available tracks are good and fun, but there are few to pick from. Same for cars, where there are only four, and two have placeholder names. The online races give the slim early access package some much needed legs, but the connectivity is really buggy at the moment.

I can't wait to update this to a thumbs up as more updates arrive and the game gets fleshed out, but until then, this is a mechanically polished tech demo for fans of the first Wreckfest that costs $24 ($30 by early April). I recommend holding off on a purchase until at least a few updates have rolled in.