Recent reviews by The Thermal Drill

I don't have a lot of smart things to say or big selling points to give you, but i do have one thing to reassure you on, should you be on the fence about buying this game:

That's it. That's all i've got. If you think the game looks good but doesn't have enough going on for you to pay the 30 dollars, just buy it. it just keeps going, and it just keeps getting better.

Spectacle upon spectacle, the game somehow keeps raising the stakes. The beginning hours can seem underwhelming or not THAT good, but just trust me on this. It gets better.

It's crazy that i got this Soundtrack for 21 Euros on sale and it came with a game, too.
wait, what do you mean i bought Trepang2? there's a seperate store page for the soundtrack? oh well, 21 is still a good price.

For the love of god, just give us a proper way to play offline. these botched launches wouldn't be happening if we could just play without the servers

please

WE DID IT, HELLDIVERS!

THE PSN ACCOUNT THREAT HAS BEEN ELIMINATED!

In all seriousness, this is probably the most sensible a game company has been this year so far! finally, some good news, right?

The game is amazing, and you should ABSOLUTELY buy it, especially now that we have been liberated from the need to make a PSN account!

Become a hero
Become a legend
Become...a Helldiver

Probably the best, scariest and funniest horror game i've ever played. Positively terrifying and hilarious, you should definitely buy it and play it with friends!

you will never be able to play any other FPS ever again. 10/10

Having played this game for all of 3 minutes, i can say with utmost certainty i am completely qualified to review this game for all its worth. it is truly a masterpiece of human artistic capabillities, unmatched by no other, it is a gateway to true artistic creativity, and it is up there with the 7 wonders of the world, it is a global representation of us as human beings, it represents us. From now on, in about 3 million years, aliens may land on our planet, and discover this very game, and think "wow, there must have been an amazing civilization on this planet", we have etched our legacy into this game, and it shall be the tabloid that represents us throughout the galaxy. All our years of evolution lead up to this very moment, and i wish to hoist this game as our species' flag. It encompasses everything we stand for and everything we've done, and it truly depicts what we as a society and civillization have achieved, and that is to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ twiddle our thumbs and make this ♥♥♥♥. 0/10

Got it from a friend, and i must say, it's going in my top 3 favourite games of all time.

Origins

This game originates from a series of old flash animations about limbless featureless characters murdering each other in increasingly violent ways, birthed from no other place than Newgrounds.
This game is in fact a sequel to a 2D flash game of the same name, now renamed to Madness: Project Nexus Classic.

Now what makes this game good?

Unlike its predecessor, this game actually stands on its own, MPN: Classic was more of a novelty than a game, not being too incredibly in-depth combat wise. Now, however, this game has become a truly skill based experience, with parries, dual wielding, grenades and all the arsenal a fellow grey cross man would ever need. There's actual skill to be had in this game, and it isnt just clicking on bad guys

Alright, cool, what about game modes?

The game offers 2 game modes (and possibly a 3rd as dlc, however it isn't set in stone, and could actually be cancelled), that being Story Mode and Arena Mode.
Story Mode is your basic meat and potatoes game mode, following the main protagonists of the original Newgrounds series (Hank, Deimos, Sanford, Christoff/Jebus, Hofnarr/Tricky) trying to take down the infamous, all powerful "Project Nexus", a Project that if inherited and harnessed, could be too powerful to handle. Not much else to say about it, kill bad guys, do objectives, and pilot the kick ass protagonists of the Madness universe.

Now, Arena Mode is where its at for a lot of people. Arena Mode starts you off as a dinky no good grunt with hardly any combat skill and no weapons to boot, and you grow them to be a be all end all killing machine. You get to pick an Origin for your character, that give them a backstory, perks and even weaknesses. OOOOOOR, alternatively, you can pick the Noob Origin, which means you have no backstory, no perks, and also no weakness.

The story for Arena Mode is pretty simple, you wake up in a bus, instructed by a character only known to you as "Doc" (2BDamned canonically) to "build an empire" in order to "begin the enmeshment procedure" with "the Mandatus", in an unclear daze, you get off the bus to an empty, dusty, dreary building you apparently have to take over, and turn into a massive money pumping business for Doc. you work your way through, knocking out squatters, and making friends with a guy named "Bossman" who helps you to get started and begin business, he shows you the "Sleepwalker Program", which is a pod that puts you to sleep, and as you dream, lets you train your combat skills. From there on out, you snowball your way to freeing a pilot, doing missions for cash, and so on so forth. There's even more than that to the story, but it's already too much to cover

Alright then, so what about the gameplay?

Oh boy, where do i even start? The best parallel i can give you is playing a modern day DOOM game. It is visceral, bloody, gruesome, but most of all, BAD. ASS. This game finds the best way to make you feel like a cold blooded murder machine, ready to tear down people 10 times your own size, and treats it like its nothing but a classic Tuesday mornin'. This game is gratifying in every way. The crunchy sound design of blunt melee weapons piercing the skulls of your enemies after being thrown, the sharp "CLING!" of an empty gun, the goopy "PFLASH" of brains being blown out, it truly satisfies the animalistic desire for death and violence.

Now that you think im a murderer, why dont we move on to the actual gameplay?

Your skillset consists of a couple simple mechanics like dodges to get out of harm's way, punches to tenderize your fellow fleshy punching bags, melee weapons blunt and sharp, to cave or chop heads, guns to paint the walls with the childhood memories of some poor bastard, and best of all, grenades, to make every room suddenly be colored in strawberry jam (funny how that happens).
Everything i've just mentioned feels SOLID, and to boot, you can even block and parry, to get a skillful edge over your opponents, and dual wield weapons, whether it'd be 2 guns, 2 baseball bats, or mix n' match like a sadistic build-a-bear, it's all up to you!
The game also features MAG enemies. Big, bad, unstoppable hunks of meat for you to burn through. These big guys will give you a struggle, being the main reason for my deaths, despair, and suddenly dissapated will to live. The trick to most of the MAG enemies is to melee them until they try to grab you and dodge, at which point a sword icon will appear over their heads, then, move behind them and execute them to deal heavy damage. Doesn't work on all of them though, some are just too chonky to be stunned by a missed grab.

You can even tag your friends along! Sadly, its only couch co-op up to 4 players, and its only available in Story Mode, but the option is there if you ever want to share the experience with a pal, or three!

I see, so what about graphics and optimization?

The game is gorgeous, however, its definitely nowhere near TF2 in optimization, you'll need a decent rig to play it at a good resolution with good graphics, though, being someone that owns a GT 710, i can tell you, as long as your willing to play at 1366x768 resolution, with medium to high graphics, you'll be just fine, it can get choppy, but never in the middle of action, just in some rooms

And what would you rate this game?

Well, it definitely wouldn't be a 10/10, the game, although amazing, is not perfect. There are points where the game feels downright unfair, or even buggy, and the game just isn't worthy of a 10/10. I'd say this game is somewhere in the ball park of 8-8.5./10. Most definitely worth a buy if you enjoyed DOOM 2016 or Eternal, and even more so if you're a Madness Combat fan.

Probably one of the most fun and exhillarating games i've ever played

TL;DR

It's an amazing game, reviving a series thought to be dead, and brings deep gameplay and is a game i would recommend to people that enjoyed DOOM 2016/Eternal, ULTRAKILL and other such violent and visceral games.

(i have played this game during a free week 3 or so months ago, please do take this review with a grain of salt, as i haven't finished the game yet, but i will update this review once i do)
Oh man, where do i start? This game is incredible in so many ways! For starters, it blends puzzle horror and action elements beautifully and everything is very well paced. Never are you too scared, too stressed, or too worked up. It's quite amazing how the devs managed to strike such a good balance, they've hit the nail on the head!
Often times you'll find yourself doing very interesting and fun enviromental puzzles, or going through small airvents cluttered with all sorts of diffrent creatures, or gunning down Marines with grenades, shotguns, crossbows, ♥♥♥♥ it, even crowbars, if you're an absolute masochist!
The game also heavily rewards you for exploring and taking your time to search through every nook n' cranny and smashing every box you can find. the rewards are pretty basic, but often time much needed.
The difficulty is never really an issue, because the game is fair and rather forgiving, however, sometimes when doing risky jumps and manuevers it can be a little frustrating, atleast in my experience, although i might just be bad at fps platforming. either way, nothing deal breaking, just a bit of a incovinience

Overall, if you haven't played this game before for whatever reason, do yourself a favour and pick it up, even if you're a ♥♥♥♥♥ like i am, i guarantee you'll be able to pull through even with all the Headcrabs popping out of vents, and Headcrab Zombies bursting through walls, you'll get used to it eventually, and come to expect it

Played a while back when it was free to play, like, 2 months ago.
I personally wouldn't exactly recommend this if you were to start playing only now, because you are bound to get absolutely steam rolled by the few gods that still roam this game, and it's generally unfun. however, if you wanna play this with friends who also have no idea what the hell they're doing, then this might be worth it, depending on how long you actually wanna play for