Recent reviews by prpl_mage

The review bombing is crazy.
We've seen negative reviews being posted because of the following things:
-That streamers got access to the game before players (that's the business, not the game)
-That there will be paid DLC (seriously, like the cosmetic DLC haven't even dropped yet)
-Felynes speaking with actual language (you can turn that off)
-Monster hunter fake language being removed (just activate japanese, you probably don't understand those words either)
-That you can't freely edit your character's body type etc after the character creation without purchasing a character edit voucher (I get that people dislike this, but it's not a big deal).
-That the game is ugly and "worse graphic than a 10 year old game" (sorry, I'm not seeing that at all.
-That the game isn't optimized and keeps crashing( the game runs great for me, better than Space Marines 2 without having to change any settings)
-That male/female is "removed" (it's still there with a different name, just giving you more options in the character creation etc)
-That the game is too easy (people haven't played the game yet but will still write a review about what someone else has said or felt. Sure Low Rank is too easy if you're playing multiplayer and everyone knows what they're doing now that enemy HP is scaled to the number of people in a quest. Also some story missions have you playing together with an NPC hunter which reduces the diffculty harshly.)
-That the game is too short (It took around 19 hours to complete the low rank story, then High rank started with less story beats but more systems and monsters than low rank.)
-That the game caters to casual players (Yes, in low rank there are some systems that saves your butt a few times too many. Such as the npc support hunter in some quests and the quality of life mechanics of the Seikret. In chapter 3 onwards, and in high rank those make less of a difference.).

I hope that when people actually play the game the review score will balance out because the game runs well, looks great and plays a lot like World without too much of Rise added to it.

And no, if you've spent 100+ hours already, this first week the game has been released, and you feel like there isn't any content - that's not a bad score, you've just really grinded the game faster than the devs can push out the next update. Like seriously, 80 hours in 7 days, that's like 10 hours a day. Spending 80 hours on a game isn't "too little content". There will be updates.

Alright, so what is Voidtrain? Well, it's part shooter, part crafting game, part train builder/ railroading game.

See the game is literally railroaded as your train travels through the void on a set of tracks. You can go forwards or backwards or stop but that's it. Each area of the game, called a gate, consists of a length of tracks leading to a teleporter which takes you to a station. Sometimes the station is a story hook and other times it's just a place where you can fight some enemies, upgrade and modify your train and do some slot machine/trading. Then when you're finished you set on out through the teleporter to the next gate and repeat the process.
Along the tracks there may be a puzzle island you can visit to solve some sort of light or button press puzzle for a loot chest. Or there might be a depot of enemies to block your path, or there are mines, or an enemy train chasing you, or abandonded wagons, or an arena battle (and also shark attacks).
As you play you also gather resources that can be used to craft a bunch of train and character related gear. And you can spend resources to gain research points to unlock more crafting recipes.

You have fun while playing it, but it lacks the exploration other games of this kind tend to have. It's still in early access but got 4 content updates in 2024. So let's hope they keep up that pace to add even more content to keep players hooked!

Is it great? No.
Is it good? Yeah
Does it look good? Yepp
Does it sound good? Always.

This is another Games Workshop license game that could've been amazing but end up being good. There is a 15 part story mode and an Operations mode that you can repeat. Operations mode is where you have the most fun though as you get to create your own team and progress it through an operation; a series of battles and have choices to improve them and gear up.

The AI of the enemies could've used some more time in the over though as they sometimes make sound decisions that completely screw you over, but other times get stuck on terrain or mistake verticality and end up using a reaction skill instead of actually participating.

Did I have fun? Sure did, but after playing though the story twice and the operations on different difficulties with each of the 5 houses I've done all there is (aside from steam achievements).
However, I feel like games such as X COM did a better job at making a campaign out of it and systems surrounding it. This one is keeping close to the board game which both assists and hinders it.

This is a bullet heaven kind of game. You defeat enemies and choose from drafted abilities to gain for the rest of the run. You also earn exp by playing with each of the 6 different classes which can be spent on a talent tree to unlock more passive abilities for that class.
Each class has some different gimmick that makes them play differenly instead of just being different ways of launching projectiles at enemies. There are 4 stages in total as well as a hardmode version of the stages but that's enough to satisfy the kind of itch this game has for me. Big numbers, getting lott, killing lots of monsters and getting stronger every day.

It's one of those neutral reviews but I'm picking the thumbs up here. (Because the game runs well, and the graphics and audio is great, it does what it was supposed to do well.)

It's a neat puzzle game but I assume that I'm not really the target audience for the game having previously played a lot of games. Especially these sort of puzzle platformers. The game is accessible for everyone with clear indications what buttons connect to what (I love that) but most of the rooms involve only a few steps to clear before moving on. And once you get a grasp of the mechanics then those steps come natuarally then you can mostly take a glimpse of the level and figure out what to do. And since there's no additional steps involved you forget that level completely as you enter the pipe.

Is this a great achievement for a small team? Absolutely! But since this is purely a puzzle game with platformer controls I kinda wish for more complex puzzles to get stuck on.

Like many others it took me around 2 hours to beat the game, all the achievements are unmissable btw.

If you like the olden era Survival Horror Puzzle solving games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Parasite Eve then this might be up your alley. We have fixed camera angles with tank controls, a mansion filled with some madness and also for som reason a lot of doors needing special items to unlock (and subpar voice acting). Also, remember that they took the classic RE save system where you have limited saves with Tapes and a tape recorder. You have some enemies and a few different items to find, limited healing items and some real good puzzles. A better hint system could've been good though for some of the harder puzzles that leave you stomped. Also the final section of the game could have done a bit more to give the game the send off it deserved.

So this is the spin-off based on the Borderlands 2 DLC "Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep".

Your ordinary shooty enemies are replaced with mostly melee mooks, and the desolate scifi setting of BL2 is replaced with forests, castles and dwaven mines. That BL2 DLC was back in 2014, BL3 was released 2020, and this came out 2022. It's a stand alone game, with its own set of character classes and weapons. The same gun types as the main games appear here but with a crossbowy, magicy or steampunky look.

You have a lot of satire about DnD, famous fantasy tv shows, movies and games and in general a pretty chill atmosphere to the game. It's not super serious, but that's to be expected when you have a character creator and class choices insteaf of actual characters in the lead (also, it's Borderlands). There's some cool skills, and a bit further into the game you can multiclass and get another skill tree to pick and choose from.

Great fun if you want a loot and shoot, although the luck/loot stat can make it feel a bit underwhelming at times if you don't collect the shiny collectibles that increases it in the maps.

This is a callback to the era of third person shooters. It's a bit like Gears of War but everyone forgot how to use cover.
It's of course set in the Warhammer 40k universe, so if that doesn't interest you then there are probably better games out there for you. But a lot of people got into it from Dawn of War, Darktide or Rogue Trader and want that Space Marine power fantasy.

The campaign follows a set character as he navigates a literal campaign to protect a star system while bonding with his battle brothers and dealing with threats of different kinds. It all comes down to killing said threat and the game does it well. This also works in coop.

But there is also the operations where you have more of a free play situation with 6 different classes, a leveling up system, weapon upgrades, weapon options, skill trees and such. You can also customize your space marine here with some gear choices and colours. This also comes with coop and matchmaking.

And there's PvP, but that one uses a similar leveling up system as the operations, so get ready to be underwhelming if you start now and play a game against people who have been at it for a while.

This was a nice breath of fresh air. I mean, there's a lot of memes in the community section about this being Portal but with philosophy but it really gives those vibes at times.
The world building is mostly done with excerpts of different kinds; actual texts on philosophy, email, mythology and online blog posts. But this clearly its own thing, it is not a Portal clone in that sense. There is no overbearing antagonist, puzzles aren't about going wild with the physics engine and there are obviously no portals to get though. Instead it uses its own set of mechanics and rules to use to figure out the solution to the games 120 ish puzzles.
Those last 20 or so are hidden behind some other 30 outside of the box puzzles by the way.

Great fun, the green puzzles were pretty easy, then the yellow ones combine thinking of mechanics from the green ones. The red puzzles put it all together into thinking in series of steps and the white ones keep on the "outside the box" style, or comes down to perfect timing.

It's the original Risk of Rain, but with functional multiplayer, some extra characters and items as well as updated graphics.
If you didn't play the original - It's a roguelike, you play the game and get loot to get as far as possible and in true roguelike spirit you can choose to end your run or start over with a new loop. Or, more likely, die along the way because the game gets harder not just as you progress to the next stage, but also based on how much time you have spent in your run so far.