Recent reviews by blake++

4h13m to finish campaign. Quit upon trying to three-star Playground 3 (true total playtime is 6h)

• The available movement options are simple yet cohesive. A dedicated 180 button is really great, and playing flawlessly feels incredibly satisfying
  
• Stellar visual style and character designs. Everything's really striking. Surprisingly still looks incredibly modern
  
• Map design does a good job Most of the time informing you where to go without making everything red
  
• The reveal of Project Icarus is one of the COOLEST ideas EVER, and the enemies it introduces are far more engaging and interesting as a result
  
• Really high tension during chase sequences
  
• Time trial 2 stars/later campaign sections do a good job challenging the player, encouraging route planning and experimentation
  
• I actually liked the combat, especially the gunplay. It's kind of simplistic and odd, but it breaks up the intense parkour with some simple gunfights
  
• Modding scene seems to be nice and active!

• Time trial 3 stars are insanely difficult, which I respect, but when you demand perfection from the player, the player gets to demand perfection back. Sadly, the game is not perfect. The game has awkward clipping issues (I got softlocked twice due to this, and simple planks or objects on the ground can totally kill your momentum if approached "Wrong") and doesn't always do the proper contextual action (vaulting when you intend to step-up jump and vice versa is a common issue, and vertical wallrunning doesn't always occur depending on the wall). I'm down for a challenge (please see my profile for credentials), but this is absurd. I don't believe the developers got these three star times, because I don't think they would've shipped the game with those requirements. The campaign does not challenge you anywhere near this level, reinforcing this theory.
  
• Sliding feels too slow compared to everything else

• The story overall lacks subtlety and precise execution. The concept is cool, but with voice acting being awkward, storylines being left totally open, odd/overbearing voice acting, and weird pacing, it fails to live up to its ideas.
  
• I find the animated cutscenes to be an odd clash with the rest of the visuals. It's interesting, sure, but I'm not really sure if it gels

• The volley of bullets constantly barely missing you all the time is a little bit too much during police encounters
  
• Grabbing someone's gun sometimes can be janky
  
• Shotguns barely seem to do any damage?
  
• Explosive barrels being in the game is ABSURD. Really?

• Some areas are far too bright (the kind of brightness that turning down the slider can't fix)

I really do like Mirror's Edge. I think it's a fantastic parkour game, and it made me very excited to play the reboot Catalyst to see how it changes things up, but it is not perfect. Frankly, it's not even close to that. Issues with story and combat could be overlooked if the parkour was airtight, but even when playing base game content, the parkour has leaks. I can see why this is a cult classic, and I have major respect for the other games it inspired. Really glad I gave this game a shot.

I give it a Mixed review, but there's no button for that. Since this is a small indie dev, I'll give thumbs up, because I like the effort and I can tell there's care put in here.

• Story is pretty cool
  
• Few moments like the snake are SUPER cool. Felt very immersed at that moment.
  
• Multiple QoL touches like multiple keybinds, native Linux build, sensible defaults, and glimmers/sounds on relics are super appreciated!!

• Detail and atmosphere are overall lacking; I found a few aspects compelling or neat but a lot of others extremely questionable. At one moment I saw hundreds of human bones just pasted on a concrete wall. It was startlingly out of place and amateur.
  
• The death system in general is useless? I don't quite understand the point of the system at all; the game doesn't benefit from it. I would've much preferred the platforming to be more challenging and demanding with frequent checkpoints while removing the death system. It felt annoying to have to do an entire level over because I died (which only happened on the final level)
  
• Camera is placed at about your stomach on the character model. It feels very weird to do tight crouchjumps as a result; it doesn't feel like a Normal height.
  
• It's far too easy to slide when you mean to just do a crouchjump, resulting in a death
  
• The final level is much harder than all the others, which is a shame that the difficulty spikes so rapidly instead of slowly ramping up over the course of the game.
  
• Collapsing platforms do not regenerate over time, so if you jump on one, then jump back to a safe platform, you cannot progress despite passing the skill check.
  
• Invisible death barriers when I tried to sequence break one time.
  
• One long level is awkwardly split up into two levels. It breaks up what otherwise would've been a nice, long level.
  
• Objects that should have collision sometimes just don't.

Honestly? Don't buy this game for exploration. Buy Lorn's Lure instead. But if you are a person who likes to play speedrunning-type games, this might be for you.

The Other Side is a really cool atmospheric thriller with cool music and fun mechanics. The music is cool and there's a lot of tension, as you don't really know whether the horror will come from outside or inside.
Control Room Alpha is an underbaked experiment that tries to be funny but fails. The scare is well built, but it's about 3 minutes long and two of those are spent explaining how it works with unfunny dialogue. Not a fan.
Despite Carbon Steel's ridiculously in-your-face HL1 reference, the mechanics are awesome and the concept was pretty cool, but I was left wanting another day with an even more complex set of tasks as a "final boss" of sorts. I enjoyed how the position of the vial injector determined how you pathed around the room, adding a slight bit of complexity to how you accomplish your goals. Also, I completely misread how you get the good ending, so it took me a few attempts to figure out what I needed to do. The endings also feel pretty meh; the bad ending feels tropey and the good ending feels unearned.
Concrete Tremor is a classic for me. The concept is deliciously evil, but the execution is lacking.
Tartarus Engine shattered my expectations by being unexpectedly bad. The technicians decide to eliminate the Infinite Torture Machine by running untested, found-on-the-internet code on THEMSELVES with NO backup plan whatsoever; neither of the other two technicians look at the code either. As a fable telling devs to not run untested code, especially when it involves people on the receiving end, is a good moral. But as an actual horror experience, the execution is atrocious.

The lack of volume control on some games was unpleasant to deal with, since the default volume is far too high. Carbon Steel not having a pause menu of any kind was really lame too.

None of the games really use any jumpscares, which is great! I dislike jumpscares but I love feeling unease and tension.

Overall, it's a great experience. It's a free game; despite my criticisms, I got something out of this and enjoyed my time with most of the titles.

The amount of mashing you have to perform is ABSURD. It's the entire game is just Mash. I was cool with "awkward" controls (a la Getting Over It) but it's just mashing. The actual chair physics aren't really a challenge to deal with either. And the woman has jiggle physics for some reason? I spent 8 minutes going down the floors, then when I had to cross the first floor, a monster was there and killed me, causing me to fully reset. Yeah, I'm not mashing through all that again just to get one more try.

• Intelligently created audio cues reward players for listening to their environment with critical information
  
• Visual design is interesting and iconic; HOLE cannot be mistaken for anything else
  
• Addictive gameplay loop with gradual progression systems and tasks to do
  
• Occasional points of scary/thriller gameplay elevate an already tense experiment to new heights. The scary points are few, so they complement the game instead of overpowering it
  
• Nice QoL touches that make the game easy to repeatedly play

• Performance issues make this game much harder to run on lower end hardware
  
• Not enough meat; you can get 100% in 6 hours (which is absolutely fair for this price point, but god I wish there were more weapons and maps to play with)
  
• Fridges don't have timers on them which sucks; since they attract enemies, it'd be good to know when the fridge will despawn, so you can let it stay out for as long as possible to farm enemies, then take the loot before it's over.

HOLE's really awesome, and I hear that the next game from this developer utilizes this same idea but expands on it. I'm very much looking forward to that. I'd personally recommend picking this up on sale.

Played on Proton Hotfix on Arch Linux

• Easily one of the weirdest games I've played
  
• Immensely charming
  
• World is interesting and beautiful
  
• Reminds me of Pikmin (though I've never played it)
  
• Definitely engaging; puzzles are not very challenging but require you to think a bit about what you do, and the platforming is fun
  
• Still holds up really well; the graphics look good and the weirdness of it gives a unique, timeless vibe
  
• Lots of attention to detail for QoL stuff (most of the time)
  
• Multiple endings!

• Munch feels kinda useless most of the time. He can't do anything with Spooce and he's slower than Abe, so most of the time you want to be using Abe primarily. Plus, Abe has a possession ability while Munch has sonar, but sonar is able to be used so infrequently that it's basically worthless on most levels. For a character whose name is in the title, it's a pretty big letdown, though still result
  
• Possession ability is far too overpowered
  
• Saving the eggs is a tedious task simply because there's so many of them. Since this is only a mechanic in a few levels at the end, it's not a big problem
  
• The final few levels have some awkward sections

• Most gamespeak options don't work, some cutscenes fail (but dont stop you from progressing)
  
• Looks normal and decent but might fall short in direct comparison to original
  
• Pathing can be bad on followers, resulting in them getting disconnected from your party if you're not paying attention

A fun little free to play puzzler that isn't too advanced in any specific department, but it's a great developer showcase with some neat level design and fun mechanics.
I wish they took more time to make more levels outside of the base selection; don't be afraid to let me sit in the ambience of solving puzzles like Portal 1 did.

A GORG REMINDER!

The Good:
Enemy variety and mobbing difficulty up. The Witch Doctors offer a cool dynamic to the fights. The new animals are pretty neat too. I like the new unique enemies and the new weapons (while most are useless and kinda derivative of the one idea) are cool, especially the Rough Rider. I do like the story, although it's a bit short. I wish we could've had a little bit more time with the villain. Raid boss is sick.

The Bad:
Huge, open maps with no vehicles allowed for a large portion of it (most of the DLC time is just running), a janky end boss that tends to softlock and also is just Bad. Secret raid boss sucks to fight and to access. Plenty of invisible clip brushes, holes in the floor, and more. It feels like no one playtested this.

Absolutely sick 1v1 FPS with lots of cool maps and fun guns.

It hurts my eyes. Genuinely.