Recent reviews by StaticSpark

Guns Gore and Cannoli is simply really really good. It's tight, and feels like a classic "video game" which is so hard to describe with words. It's a feeling, like a game given to you by your dad. Something so classic and untouched by modern contrivances and slop, with an undeniable passion that seeps into every crevice. This game is art pure and simple.

The gameplay loop fits perfectly with the story. Weapons and enemies are introduced so organically and you feel a real power buildup over the course of the entire game. From start to finish the game is a nonstop thrill ride with no real lows, only a constantly great adventure. The final level is a perfect wrap-up, allowing the player to use every tool they have gathered and even writing about it makes me want to play it again. The story is good, perfectly simple with a solid beginning, middle and end, and the dialogue is amazing.
Vinnie Cannoli is one of my favorite protagonists in gaming. Every line is delivered so entertainingly and the vast amount of quips means it's hard to get tired of them.
The difficulties of the game are static, but I found Impossible to be the best display of the game's true difficulty for a seasoned player. The grueling feeling of barely scraping through massive hordes of zombies and using every tool you can to the last bullet is amazing, and so impossibly contained within the quite simple framework of only shooting in one direction.

Truly, this game is a modern classic, just play it.

I hate 2D platformers
As a Die-hard FPS man I struggle to play any other genre, and when I do it's still got some FPS-like qualities.
I should hate pizza tower.

...

But it's so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ GOOD

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, IT'S UNIVERSAL!
THE MUSIC? AMAZING!
THE GAMEPLAY? SMOOTH AS SILK!
THE CHARACTERS AND ART? CHARMING, ORIGINAL AND WELL MADE!

BUY THIS GAME, EVEN IF YOU THINK YOU WON'T LIKE IT.
GET A CONTROLLER FIRST, THOUGH.

Kingdom of the dead is an amazing game overall with few errors to speak of.
It's story? Self contained and compelling, with a beginning and an end with a middle shaped to the player's experience directly. The dialogue is also witty and enjoyable.
It's gameplay? Simple and effective. Doom-like in nature, I cannot help but enjoy the simple run and gun style of KOD. The map design allows for large, open combat that makes me enjoy moving around more than most shooters in the non-movement shooter genre. The gunplay is great, and the ability for each weapon to have an alternate fire adds more to the game than I believe many would think. The health system is very grueling, with healing and health increases being few and far between. However, the difficulty remains stagnant throughout the game except for the last mission, where it is drastically increased. This is a consequence of the freedom of level choice, so I cannot fault the game too much. However in the same breath, any difficulty below the maximum feels a bit too easy. I may be experienced in shooters more than the average joe, but there's still little difference between normal skill and easy.
On a more positive note, enemy design and placement is great! Each enemy has a clearly defined weakpoint whether it's the head for humanoids or the glowing bits on eldritch horrors, I was never confused on where to shoot. Same thing goes for bosses as well.
The artstyle? GORGEOUS. This is, in terms of style alone, one of my favorite games of all time. Never before have I felt like I was playing a comic book or graphic novel. The visuals with the few bright colors clashing with the overarching black and white creates an inherent sense of direction for the player, using the game's core feature in the gameplay loop.

Overall, I cannot recommend Kingdom of the dead enough. It's an enjoyable -10 hour experience that will blow you away and leave you satisfied as a player.

The zenith of Boomer Shooters, it's going to be hard for anyone to top this.

I play a lot of shooters. Always have, always will. But Nightmare Reaper is simply one of the best out there, and I cannot recommend it enough. It's so thoroughly fine-tuned, and it feels like its years of early access truly helped it to solidify itself as the game it is today. It's got enough content to fuel well over 100 hours, and truly could be infinite in some regards. The story feels very optional, never a requirement, but there if you want it.
If you like shooters, you simply must give Nightmare Reaper a go. You will not regret it.

Incredibly stunning and the true zenith of the modern retro shooter genre
HROT oozes quality, from the tense, dreadful atmosphere to the perfect polygonal artstyle.
I love HROT and can't wait to see the finished product. If the early access is anything to go by, it's going to be the definitive retro shooter of this generation.

This game is pretty good. Halo's gameplay at 1.5x speed with a very cool movement system. An almost seamless blend of halo and portal, as most have said.

However despite how good the game's gameplay is, I can't recommend it in its current state.

You may have heard about the queue to get in, which is pretty bad. However, the game is in beta and it can have a pass for that now. The real issue is bots.

Every new player is going to have a very poor introductory experience to the game. They're going to hop into matches and think they're really good, gods even. They'll win most games and feel great, I know I did. But soon they'll question it, and wonder why they're doing so good. The inquisitive ones will stop playing to pursue this, others won't. The others will only be forced to wake up once they reach the ranked mode, where they hit a brick wall as the game unveils casual mode. Very easy-to-beat bots do plague the mode which is funny since the game was so popular its servers crashed. Why would they need bots? Surely not to flood already unstable servers and fool new players right? that'd be terrible!

Well, here we are. The fact that there isn't even a warning or line of text about there being bots in casual is honestly very disingenuous from the devs. Every match feels like a schizophrenia meltdown as I ask my own team whether they're real or bots, to mixed responses.

Please, 1047, you don't need bots. Remove them from casual and let the players sitting in a queue play instead.
Bots do not belong in public multiplayer matches in ANY multiplayer game.

ULTRAKILL is a really good game. It's got tight combat, an impressive art style and a heavy emphasis on combos that keeps it engaging. The story is tight and simple which is perfect for this type of game. Its only current problem is the amount of time it's taking. I'm never one to rush games because I look good, polished products, however the game has been in early access for 2 years and we still only have barely 2/3s of the game with no clue on when to expect the next big update. Not to mention the rate of updates is slow as molasses, bringing sizable amounts of content every few months if we're lucky.
This brings the unfortunate side effect of having features that could be unchanged for over a year be reworked later on down the line, causing a ripple effect throughout the game.

Buy ULTRAKILL now, but don't truly invest your time into it until it's finished.

You don't need a review to tell you this game is good.