Recent reviews by Mangle

Elder Scrolls: Arena is an extremely underrated game. This is the only game in the series that lets you trek throughout all of Tamriel, from Elsweyr to Hammerfell all the way to Black Marsh. If you can put your headspace back within the context of its release, Arena is grand and has admirable scope, even by modern standards. It's easily got the greatest dungeon-crawling in the series. More varied and less mindnumbing than Daggerfall, not boring interconnected corridors like Skyrim, it keeps things interesting, and there's a sheer abundance of different dungeons to explore if you just search for them. It might get repetitive for some, but this is offset for me by the charming artstyle and explorative atmosphere. As is obvious, game's completely free. Can't recommend it enough, especially at that price tag.

It's basically an interactive art piece, but one with a relevant message, a message that's depressingly realistic. Played on Steam Deck and can confirm it plays well, verification makes sense. Although, that said, performance in the Shroom Zone tends to chug like a alcoholic sailor on Deck, and there aren't any real graphics options for you to adjust. You can beat the game in just around 45 minutes first time thru if you're dilly-dallying, but it's free and has a great aesthetic, so why not add it to your library?

In the short time I've been playing this obscure little shooter from Russia, I'm pleasantly surprised by how fun it actually is. The premise of a game flipping the dumb "evil Russian" trope on its head and, quite frankly, realistically depicting American foreign policy in comparison to most jingoistic western military shooters, safe to say it conceptually enamored me, so I took the plunge. It's ended up becoming a favorite of mine, in spite of some of its issues. I'll elaborate.

The level design is a bit above that of other "Slavjank" games because pretty much nothing is reused. It's all unique from level to level, layout-wise anyway. Levels are fun to explore, because, if you're thorough, you can find weapons earlier than you're supposed to in secrets around each stage, and even weapon upgrades. It adds a great amount to the replayability factor, on top of the game's short length. The game is only around 2 hours or so your first time through. It makes it really easy to pick up, play, and breeze thru after an afternoon lunch. But as mentioned before, all of the levels are unique, unlike many other "Slavjank" titles that see fit to copy-paste rooms, whole hallways, it can get a little confusing. It doesn't get confusing here, however. I wouldn't say all killer since there are a couple of boring turret sections, the second one in particular being a bit drawn out, but definitely no filler.

Gameplay is faster paced than I thought it would be. Moving at a diagonal and bunnyhopping, you can go really fast. This is a product of jank, but one I'm thankful for. It makes zipping around the levels that much more fun. The fact that the game also didn't go the route of regenerating health or a two weapon limit like many other games were going in the direction of around the time, I greatly appreciate it. Patriot: DemocratiZation spreads out its weapons just enough to keep things fresh, introducing them where they'll be most useful, like the sniper rifle right before a big, open area with machine gunners posted really high up, for example. There's also some fun level setpieces, mostly involving changing the layout around you or hijacking vehicles to drive em into stuff. In one such setpiece, you drive a truck into an alleyway where it changes the level geometry so you can transition to the next level. Just a nifty attention to detail. Insert Marge Simpson holding a potato saying, "I just think they're neat" image here or something.

It is admittedly befitting of the term "Slavjank", as it is janky, mostly in the animation and AI departments with enemies. Enemies in this game can pretty much instantly turn on you and start firing, almost like they're cultists from the game "Blood." That said, if you aim for the head, they go down like a breeze, so it's not a huge issue. And the store page says the game came out in 2025, but that's obviously wrong, this game graced the world in 2006. For an FPS game from '06, it's not much of a looker, though there is a charm in its sorta "lo-fi" visuals. I obviously can't be too sure how big the budget was that they were working with, but it'd probably go a long way in explaining the length of the game as well as its graphics. Language barrier might be a dealbreaker for some, as pretty much all of the game is spoken in Russian, no subtitles except for mission objectives. Or, at least, inconsistently. Also, the game ends on a cliffhanger. So that's a bit lame. But it's whatever. I think it's safe to guess we won't be getting a sequel any time soon.

At the end of the day though, I just greatly admire what this game's trying to say about my own country's bad, aggressive tendencies abroad, how the American military trades human blood for oil and practically works at the behest of corporations, all while simultaneously not d*ckriding the military of the Russian Federation, seeing it as kleptocratic and corrupt. That's something not many military shooters manage, I find, so that's something that makes this game feel a little more special to me. On top of just being a genuinely fun little romp that's easy to and fun to replay. I recommend it, least if you can catch it on a discount.

Game is utterly busted. Have gotten softlocked at numerous points just for playing a tad too quickly, weapons almost universally suck a*s, quicksaves are broken, and the final level is absolute bullsh*t, infinitely spawning a bunch of damage sponge enemies in armor to spam the game's strongest weapons at you in an extremely open area where progression is unclear. It honestly gives me Hunt Down the Freeman flashbacks. That's besides the fact that tons of areas are copy-pasted throughout the game, making it dull as hell to navigate. Story and voice-acting are funny but not enough to make this a worthwhile experience. Not recommended at all. F*ck Neuro.

Easily the most mindless Serious Sam game, the "dancing with the weapons" formula pretty much every other game in the series has is completely absent here. Enemy statistics don't match the other games, and the mooks you'll be facing change with each area, so building up any familiarity from enemy to enemy is not gonna happen. I think this is communicated clearly by the fact you can't even view Netricsa to get a read on enemy HP and weapon damage output. Constant weapon-swapping to deal with specific enemies and scenarios is no more.

That said, if you're not a hardcore Serious Sam nut and just want a fast-paced shoot fest, Serious Sam 2 will do the job sufficiently. It looks fantastic for a game from 2005, runs even better, and the added dual-wielding and sprinting from the update a couple years or so back take the game's original glacial pacing and movement speed (likely byproducts of being simultaneously developed for console) and improve upon it. The game feels like it was balanced around dual-wielding, frankly. Get it on sale if you can, your opinion might vary.

Wolfenstein 3D but even better. Love this gem.

This is one of the greatest FPS games of all time.

Like another review said: Call.

One of the best Dragon Ball games of all time. If you even remotely like the IP, play this game.

Long live Comrade Lenin :stasi: