Recent reviews by Mal

I don't need a PSN account to play this game.

If you like souls like games already then you'll probably like this one.

If you're unsure though, this probably won't sell you on the idea.

Quite enjoyable co-op shooter

fun team play, but it's also good solo

♥♥♥♥♥♥ OP bosses ruin game balance

Fun, fast paced FPS with it's own aesthetic.

If you're reading this, you'll notice the note at the top of my review that says "Early Access Review", now that might be confusing to most people, since you'll also notice that a major expansion pack/DLC is now available for sale for this game. Weird right?

When confronted with this inconsistency, the devs have been nothing but contemptful towards their playerbase, making me ashamed to have spent money on this game.

This game has a significant amount of good content to be had. But it hids all of it behind layers of BS so that you have to go through cringe-worthy missions, and grimace every other minute to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ play the game.

Rockstar, I don't play your games for your pretentious story, I play it for the city you create and the mechanics you put in it.

So far, I cannot recommend this game.

I loved the original Magicka and can still recommend it for lots of fun, co-op and solo.

This? No so much. The combat system is oversimplified, and while I can understand them changing mechanics so people can't just use the same combinations they did in the last game, it seems like all the nuance of spellcasting is gone. Rather than having to come up with complex combos to kill enemies, I've found myself using very simple and boring combinations to kill enemies, like fireballs.

Most importantly, I can't recommend you play this game solo. The original magicka had some difficult sections, where you had to really think and diversify your techniques to pass. This game is not like that. It's difficult to the point of being unplayable solo. Enemies swarm you, knock you over, and one single enemy can kill you in just a few hits, and there are typically at least ten enemies on screen at a time. Furthermore, shields are practically useless except for protecting against one single element, and when you respawn you are immediately vulnerable and typically spawned right in the middle of a group of enemies.

This doesn't require nuanced, flexible thinking, it *REQUIRES* at least two players to be won. While I love co-op games, this game is supposed to be playable solo. Some would call me a masochist because I insisted on playing through the original solo. But this? So far I've found this impossible.

In general though, the controls feel floaty, you've lost the sense of feeling powerful that you had in the original (powerful meaning dangerous, even to yourself), and it feels like they just slapped the terrible Wizard Wars mechanics onto a new story that I likely won't be able to complete since few of my friends have any interest in this game and it's impossible solo.

I really, really, wanted to love this game. I was totally ready for another game just as good as the original.

This is not that game. Only buy this if you'll be playing it with friends the whole way through and don't mind an inferior product.

Excellent deconstruction of the shooter genre. After playing this I felt like "I want to go home and rethink my life."

Great RPG. Huge number of mechanics to learn, and it doesn't do the greatest job of teaching you, but once you figure it out, it's pure genius. Love it.