Recent reviews by BackStabbath

Road 96 is conceptually interesting and has some unique and innovative ideas, but the gameplay is often quite shallow and repetitive. It's also very easy. I assume you CAN fail to cross but I've done 3 runs now and all of them were a breeze if you're even half paying attention.

But worst of all is the dialogue and characters. The game is heavily inspired by the rise of fascism, particular in the modern US, but the characters feel so one-dimensional that it's hard for me to connect with the story. There's an idealistic teen who causes more problems than she solves, a pair of right-wing radicals who are nothing more than "wild-cards" for the sake of it. A Faux News type newscaster who doesn't have a single line that sounds like something a real person would say, even a cartoonishly evil one. my least favourite might be the cop, because I feel like they tried to give her nuance but utterly failed. She's naive and never seems to act in a way that someone whole still has a shred of decency would act.

It's certainly an interesting game, but it really doesn't live up to the promise of it's concept. I'm honestly baffled that this game is so heavily praised. If we want good game stories that are actually about something, then we need to be holding game writing to a much higher standard. If this were a film, it would be ridiculed mercilessly and it would deserve it.

It won't be for everyone (it's probably not for most people) but this is real art, and not just because it's a "weird" story with great acting and cinematography, but because it uses the interactivity of video games to tell it's story and re-enforce it's themes.

It's a really great game, long held back by a slew of major bugs and performance issues. While recent updates have made significant improvements, it is still not a smooth, bug-free experience. But in my opinion it's finally reached a playable point of stability. You will experience some bugs, you will see frame rate drops for seemingly no reason, they're not too detrimental if you have a tolerance for them, the game is finally in an enjoyable state on PC.

It's not Cyberpunk at launch, but it's not as stable as Cyberpunk today either.

If you're coming to this straight from playing Yakuza 0, brace yourself for a regression in quality. It's still a good game in it's own right but it struggles in comparison to the prequel. If you can appreciate it on it's own merits then you'll have a good time. But if it becomes a drag, Kiwami 2 does have a comprehensive story recap at the start. 7.5/10

Genuinely excellent. It's a challenging game that can at times feel overwhelming, but if you keep picking at the mystery it all starts to unravel. I do wish there was a faster way to jump between memories, but thats a fairly minor gripe and I appreciate that the game encouraged me to make my own deductions and didn't feed me hints.

Tight movement and satisfying combat. The environments aren't very impressive being voxel based with very simple geometry, but theres a great variety in level design that keeps things interesting.

Don't buy this if you value your time, because you will lose a lot of it.

I wish I like this more, but there's some fundamental issues that hold it back.

First the positive:
- The combat feels great, the guns are punchy and when things are flowing nicely it's easy to fall into the zone and cause chaos, and at the end you're left with the blood-splattered evidence of the carnage you created with a sense of pride.
- The music is a perfect compliment to the chaos. While it might not have the same identity, variety and personality of the Hotline Miami OST, it does a great service to the mood of world and gameplay.

However, I have a lot of problems that keep me from thinking this game lives up to it's potential.
- While the monochromatic aesthetic showcases the viscera perfectly, it also makes the enviroments very difficult to read, especially when you're in the moment and trying to keep up the momentum. I would frequently bump into furniture during tense firefights, particularly large rectangular objects that aren't immediately recognisable as a rug or a floor pattern, which breaks the flow and got me killed multiple times.
- While the rogue-like structure might make the gameplay seemingly "infinite", it often makes levels feel carelessly structured and occasionally unfair. You will absolutely still find situations where the rooms and hallways are so large that you'll be shot by enemies you can't see even when you're looking in their direction. It also means that unlike Hotline Miami, there's no way to learn the levels through repeat attempts, so a bad seed and unfair level layouts will probably result in your death with nothing to learn from the experience.
- While some liquors are interesting, many of them aren't impactful enough to make repeat runs feel interesting and distinct from each other, so if the base loop isn't enough to keep you interested, you'll be bored after a few runs and the slow progression of importing more liquors makes it feel like you need to grind your way out of the problem.
- The bosses are uninspired, and can largely be defeated by just firing in their general direction while circling around the room.

6/10. If Steam let me give a more middling recommendation I would, but I don't think my feelings on it are positive enough to give it a full endorsement.

People thinking this has good writing explains why video game writing on the whole is so bad. Edgy teens written by an edgy teen. Weapons grade cringe.

Great game, really well designed with only a few minor issues in some of the puzzle designs. The stealth sequences are pretty clunky, but the check-pointing is so forgiving that it's only a minor annoyance.