Recent reviews by Ausdrake

Since it's initial release I think I've played this more than Vampire Survivors, and every update just keeps adding more to do, all for the low price of nothing. Lemme tell ya some neat things about the game from the perspective of someone who's only played VS in this genre:

- All characters have a unique primary weapon and set of skills, which encourages you to create a build to suit their playstyle, for example: some characters are critical hit focused, some characters benefit from picking up food items, others emphasise healing, one rather unique character rewards actually getting hit, so building for durability works well for her.
- Manual aiming with mouse and controller, feeling more like a Twin-stick shooter and making aimed weapons very satisfying to use
- Defensive and utility items are actually useful, instead of "just clear everything on the screen fast and go afk 4head" (mind you, this is still possible to do)
- Kickass chiptunes soundtrack
- Harder difficulties become like a mix of Touhou bullet hell and a FF14 raid with a lot of ground markers to avoid, resulting in some pretty hectic enemy formations
- Slow Life mode with fishing, farming, and house decoration
- There's even a cute Vampire!

No you don't need to watch Hololive or know the memes to enjoy this. I've known numerous people, both friends and random streamers who don't and still love it. A friend of mine who doesn't watch Hololive had this to say regarding people who might dismiss it due to being associated with vtubers: "they should learn to appreciate other games in the same genre who come late, but bring greater innovation than the original ever did".

If you like these kind of survival/broken-build games and aren't the type that feels physical pain from anime aesthetics, there's really no reason to not give it a shot. It is free afterall :)

What can I say that hasn't been said already? I love this game, the Jill wallpaper has been my profile background for years. I decided to revisit it on a whim to get the remaining achievements and was reminded how much I love the characters in this game. It doesn't shy away from taboo or politically incorrect subjects, but it doesn't revel in them like teen-fiction would (except sexual humor, this game LOVES that). It feels 'real'. People talk about real sh.it in a believable way, and it's not watered down for a "broader demographic" or to avoid offending people. Also it can be damn funny as much as it can be heartwarming/breaking.

A must buy for fans of VNs and a highly recommended purchase for those who don't, since it has just enough gameplay and choice to make it not feel like a mere graphic novel.

Seriously, this is a gem. Best enjoyed with beverage in hand.

To save our mother Earth from any alien attack,
from vicious giant insects who have once again come back.
We'll unleash all our forces we won't cut them any slack,
THE E.D.F. DEPLOYS!

Explosions, giant bugs, giant robots, giant guns, bigger explosions, alien motherships, 800 stupidly unbalanced weapons and tools, deliberately cheesy plot and dialogue (there are no synonyms here), awesomely outrageous and excellent value for money. This is Godzilla, Pacific Rim and any number of B-movie monster/disaster films all rolled into a wonderful shooter that's in on the absurdity, laughing with you.

• Good difficulty curve; very easy and silly initially but as each difficulty tier increases things get progressively more unforgiving (and the weapons become more and more outrageous to compensate).
• Progression system where you acquire more and more weapons and armor from crate drops for respective classes so you can survive even higher difficulty levels, in the same way that Diablo (and games like it) require better loot for higher difficulties.
  
• Terrific co-op game but also tons of fun solo, particularly if you're a completionist who wants all the achievements.
  
• Best drinking game: take a swig whenever someone says "Giant Insects"

Worth the money? I say absolutely.
Is it on sale? Why haven't you bought it yet?

Melody's Escape solves a problem I've felt that alot of rythm games have: that low tempo songs are usually boring. With no shortage of buttons to push and lovely visuals even slower songs are fun to play. It also has a neat feature where it tells you how well it has detected tempo and timings in each song, so you can tell if your favourite song is going to have button presses on-beat (or not). I've found some songs to not sync especially well (especially rock/metal songs) and anything progressive with no consistent rythm or pattern is probably not going to give you a very fun course. YMMV.

I'm a big fan of rythm games and used to play Stepmania 3.9 endlessly as a teen, but sadly my wrists and reflexes aren't what they used to be. Melody's Escape gives me all the fun of pushing buttons in time with music with a customisable difficulty. If you're like me and want heaps of buttons to hit but can't get the timing right, you can customise the difficulty to be more lenient with timings without sacrificing quantity of inputs, and so on.

Add to that steam workshop support where you can create and share outfits/hairstyles for Melody (and even make your own obstacle courses for songs if you're patient), this is one of the better rythm games out there.

Plus Melody has a tiny schoolgirl uniform, that's always a plus in my book.

Yes, yes and yes, I haven't been this smitten by a game in a long time.

Vermintide wears it's obvious Left 4 Dead inspiration on it's sleeve, however it's set in the oft underused Warhammer Fantasy setting; features a horde of angry, plagued and militant rat men instead of zombies and has a heavy focus on melee combat instead of ranged.

While it may not have the same depth as some other first person melee games, it makes up for it with extremely satisfying animations and sound effects while still retaining a subtle degree of complexity. You will need to learn to use charge attacks, pushblock and dodge, without those nuanced skills you will find yourself taking alot of needless damage. Ranged weapons are primarily utility, as ammunition can be scarce. However, swapping between melee and ranged weapons is very quick with your only limitation being the associated weapon's reload speed, allowing them to be used reflexively based on the situation (such as taking out that pesky Ratling Gunner on the roof).

The game advertises "mountains of shiny loot", which will flip a switch in some people (myself included). Don't come into this game expecting an action RPG, don't expect to have a "main character" that you level up exclusively, don't come into this thinking the main point of the game is to grind for loot. This is Left 4 Dead, you play the game because you find it fun. Unlike L4D you will have a chance at earning loot upon successfully completing a level which can be used only by a specific character, but you won't always get an item for the one you are playing. This is likely to encourage you to try out different characters.

I point this out because many people are understandably miffed by how heavily RNG focused the loot system is, comparing it to Destiny. Unfortunately it seems alot of these (valid) criticisms are made by people who are putting the loot first and the game second, perhaps because they had the wrong idea about what this game's design philosophy seems to be.

if you want an extremely competent and challenging co-op FPS game with an atypical melee focus and are willing to put the loot as a secondary motivator for playing instead of the primary one, I highly recommend you pick this one up.

These monster-girls really like being clicked on, like... really.

Additionally the "Enter Boss" and "Leave Boss" buttons are highly misleading given the subject matter!

It's like I died and went to Moe-anthropormphism-waifu heaven.

One of the best arcade brawlers in history (next to the Aliens vs Predator by Capcom), surprisingly deep with a heck of alot of replay value in the form of multiple paths, tons of secrets and many playable characters, and enhanced with the best rollback netcode out there (GGPO), this is a solid purchase.

It may be hard to justify the price to some people (personally it's totally worth it), but if this is on sale right now and you're even remotely interested, BUY IT!

I can't remember the last time I've laughed out loud so much at a game before, this game is carried by it's writing and it's just as zany as you might expect. The gameplay is so-so, it's been done better in other games, and it has alot of faults in places, but nothing serious enough to make it bad. Serviceably average. It doesn't have much replay value, and will only last you a few hours unless you're stupid like me and play on hard. Until you figure out a few exploits to make combat effortless, the spread out checkpoints and cheap difficulty (only applies to hard) can make it really frustrating.

If you live in Australia it's totally worth the asking price if you like Deadpool's 4th wall breaking, vulgar and ridiculous antics, anywhere else and it might be worth waiting for a sale.

A beautiful game, gorgeous artwork, a decent fully voiced story, the character control feels great and is extremely precise, fantastic music and one of the best PC ports out there. Do yourself a favor and pick up this work of art.