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Recent reviews by Parallax

Showing 1-7 of 7 entries
1 person found this review helpful
0.1 hrs on record
Whilst Superhot VR may appear on the surface to be similar to the likes of Pistol Whip, it is in fact a very different proposition. Its clever and rather unique central idea is that the on-screen enemies only move when you do. If you stand stock still, so do they, but if you raise your gun, go for a melee weapon or attempt to dodge, your enemies will attempt to slaughter you and their bullets and projectiles will fly through the air at the same speed as your own.

This, along with the fixed setups of each of the short levels, makes each section into more of a puzzle to solve rather than a re-enactment of The Matrix, which elevates it in our book. Unfortunately, a series of poor design decisions and unreliable tracking drops it right back down again.

Each level being its own little puzzle to solve invites a trial and error approach to working out what your enemies are going to do and how best to defeat them. Unfortunately, your punishment for death is getting busted back a few levels. This bizarrely outdated decision means you spend far too long dragging yourself through missions you’ve already completed again and again, just to earn the right to have another crack at the level that sent you back in the first place. For an action game, this would be a questionable decision, but for a puzzle game, it’s near ruinous.

On top of this, the game doesn’t seem to bother with getting you to recentre yourself in your play space between levels. This is particularly unfortunate as the dodging and lunging for weapons in each level require more space than your average VR game. This means you’ll often start a new level with your nose pressed against a wall or straddling the end of your bed. Uncoincidentally, this is the only game we’ve played so far in VR that’s seen us actually punching a door (the impact of which was, thankfully, largely absorbed by the sturdy controller ring).

The combination of the excellent idea, game mechanics and striking visuals make these awful design decisions all the more of a shame. It’s pretty obvious that the forced replaying of levels you’ve already cleared over and over is a lazy tactic designed to mask the otherwise extremely short running time of the game, not that that excuses it, but the lack of proper centralisation is harder to explain. Unless you have the patience of a saint and you fancy playing in your garden or the local town hall, we’d advise waiting for a deep discount before trying this out.

Fantastic concept // Simple but striking aesthetic // Has the potential to be a masterpiece if the developers bother to fix it

Death frustratingly results in having to repeat completed levels // Positional tracking doesn’t automatically reset between missions // Audio is a little too minimalist // Occasionally unreliable physics

65% // Fair

https://steamproxy.net/groups/MensaGamer

(NB: We played the Oculus Store version of the game for the purpose of this review)
Posted 21 August, 2024.
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2 people found this review helpful
20.1 hrs on record
For the uninitiated, the Horizon branch of the Forza series is the arcadey sibling of the more simulation-like Motorsport. As with previous entries in the series, Forza Horizon 5 sees your superstar racing driver transplanted into a new open world map taking on a series of races and events for the hedonistic Horizon Festival.

After the last intalment’s approximation of the UK, 5’s move to Mexico is welcome. British developers Playground Games have boiled down the country into a paradise of beaches, palm trees, rainforests, abandoned airports and a volcano, all of which make for an excellent setting around which to race the frankly indecent quantity of licensed cars.

We could count the number of racing games we’ve truly enjoyed since Sega Rally on one hand, but FH5 is the best arcade-like racer we’ve ever played. The setting, vibe, atmosphere, handling and sense of progression come together to present an incredibly enjoyable gaming world full of events and open world challenges that you can complete at your own pace.

That’s not to say there isn’t room for improvement for the inevitable FH6. Your driver and his festival buddies all too often cross the line between being joyful enthusiasts and braying bellends, and the fast travel mechanic is incredibly limited until you spend several (admittedly quite enjoyable) hours opening it up. Some of the live events being added in on a time-limited basis during each of the in-game seasons could also be explained better, and encounters with other players in the open world are disappointingly rare.

If you’re in the market for a fun racer that’ll scratch your itch for filling a virtual garage with hundreds of cars in a glorious sun-soaked setting, Forza Horizon 5 is the current gold standard.

Pros:
Loads of driving aid customisation // Glorious Mexican open world that’s a pleasure to belt around // Fantastic rewind function // Tons to do at your own pace // Loads of licensed cars to thrash

Cons:
Limited avatar customisation // Characters can be annoying bellends // Fast travel requires several hours to properly unlock // Huge open world feels bare without encountering more online players

85% // Very Good

https://steamproxy.net/groups/MensaGamer
Posted 20 August, 2024.
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9 people found this review helpful
9.1 hrs on record
After Streets Of Rage 4 so ably demonstrated that the side-scrolling beat ‘em up genre is truly evergreen, there was only one question on the lips of every hoary old veteran who remembers the original classics - why stop there? Apparently Tribute Games had the same thought, as they’ve delivered a reimagining of the classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game and brought it bang up to date in all the right places. And, of course, left it in the past in all the right places too.

Each of the 16 levels hit a sweet spot in length of around six to ten minutes, and are strung together in an old-school hub. In addition to driving to the levels you’ve unlocked themselves, you can also visit various characters who task you with finding collectibles around each stage. If you’re the type who likes to smash every piece of destructible scenery you lay eyes on (and why wouldn’t you be), these are very easy to find.

Each level also comes with a trio of challenges, such as utilising a particular move so many times or steering clear of obstacles. Completing these and finding collectibles, along with beating the living daylights out of everything that moves, all contribute points towards levelling up whichever of the seven playable characters you’re using. This gives you extra health, special attack gauges and, later on, extra special moves.

The combat is absolutely and utterly sublime. There are just enough moves to give you plenty of options without being overwhelmed, and each of the seven characters come with a noticeably distinct moveset that vary in terms of range, speed and power. As the main story can be whizzed through in a couple of hours, levelling up all of the characters provides a nice extra excuse to keep coming back.

As any right thinking human would expect, you can play through the whole thing in couch co-op. What’s particularly nice about the implementation here is that there’s no arguing over the health-boosting pizzas, as you can share your health with a quick high-five and even revive your teammates if you get to them before they croak… or whatever sound turtles make when they buy the farm.

And the multiplayer options don’t stop there. There’s full drop-in, drop-out online co-op with any friend who owns a copy of the game and various remote play options, such as Steam’s Play Together or Parsec, if they don’t and want to share yours instead. You can also drop into an online game with up to five other randoms, with which the game and netcode copes superbly.

The presentation is flawless, with the animated cutscenes and enthusiastic voice work capturing the relentless high of the source material. Pixel art is used for every facet of the game, which we prefer to Streets Of Rage 4’s gorgeous but modern visual design. The cheerful soundtrack rounds off a near-faultless package of neo-retro design.

As much as we adore Streets Of Rage 4, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, for our money, is the better game. The retro design is consistent across the board, online options are seamlessly implemented and it doesn’t contain any of the occasional difficulty spikes of its predecessor. It also runs similarly perfectly on Steam Deck. The only question a game like this leaves us with is what classic property we want to see updated next. The Simpsons Arcade perhaps? Or maybe Final Fight? We’ll settle for all of them…

94% // Outstanding

Pros:
Glorious pixel art graphics // Excellent controls with distinct movesets // Versatile and reliable online and offline multiplayer options // 90s-style soundtrack and voice acting // Revives and health-sharing

Cons:
You might not be old enough to appreciate how good this is // Quite short // Story feels like an afterthought

https://steamproxy.net/groups/MensaGamer
Posted 19 August, 2024. Last edited 19 August, 2024.
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1 person found this review helpful
7.2 hrs on record
From the developers of the SteamWorld series, including the fantastic SteamWorld Dig 2, The Gunk is an altogether different sort of game. Like an intergalactic Luigi’s Mansion, but starring a one-armed space lesbian instead of a nervy Italian plumber, the setting is an uncharted planet ready to be pillaged with the assistance of a rather satisfying to use proton pack.

This back-mounted vacuum cleaner can be used to scan your environment, which also fills an experience bar that unlocks upgrades, suck in resources to build said upgrades and clean up the titular gunk that’s polluting the otherwise beautifully rendered world. The proton pack can also be upgraded later on to help vanquish the world’s hostile lifeforms, most notably by sucking the innards out of the arseholes of the larger four-legged creatures.

The Gunk is at its absolute best in the first two-thirds of its approximately six hour running time. The unnamed planet you get to explore is resplendent with vivid colours, and accompanied by a pleasingly unpressured musical score. Things take a turn for the final third, as the tediously on-the-nose eco plotting has you infiltrating a miserably dark and gloomy base in which the sense of wonder is replaced with too many of the annoying but unchallenging enemies and a sense of the plot spinning its wheels to add an extra hour to the total.

Something that unfortunately plagues the entirety of the game is the unutterably awful writing and some of the worst voice acting ever to befall our ears. This starts out bad and rapidly descends to ear-rapingly horrendous, thanks in no small part to the two protagonists falling out and throwing the most pettily juvenile hissy fit in the history of gaming.

The bugs, by comparison, are easier to forgive. This is, after all, an indie game, so occasionally getting stuck on the scenery and entire textures spontaneously disappearing are easy enough to tolerate.

It never gives us pleasure to stick the knife into an indie title, but the fact The Gunk is so enjoyable until that final schizophrenic third makes it difficult to maintain a charitable outlook. It almost feels like a potentially great game has died at the altar of a hamfisted ecological tale, eschewing what could have been an unequivocally pleasing entry into the increasing bastion of titles that are both satisfying and relaxing.

Pros:
Gorgeous visual environment design
Sucking up resources and the gunk is enormously satisfying
First four hours make for a gloriously relaxing and enjoyable time

Cons:
Some of the worst writing and voice acting we’ve ever heard in gaming
Somewhat glitchy
Last third is a gloomy mess
Horrendously annoying and unrelatable protagonists

69% // Fair

https://steamproxy.net/groups/MensaGamer
Posted 18 August, 2024. Last edited 18 August, 2024.
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4 people found this review helpful
1 person found this review funny
5.9 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Despite only two of its projected three chapters having been released at the time of writing, The Coffin Of Andy And Leyley has attracted impressive amounts of both controversy and fans. Particularly so considering the game is essentially a visual novel with some minor interactive elements, and appears to have been put together in RPG Maker. Nevertheless, it packs quite an impact.

In what’s essentially a modern gothic horror, the game opens with twenty-something siblings Andrew and Ashley who are trapped inside their parents’ flat without food for reasons that become apparent as the story unfolds. It’s pretty clear that Ashley has severe issues, with her brother constantly imploring her to get her head checked after they get out. Andrew isn’t particularly far behind though, with his devotion to his sister compelling him to go along with virtually all of her largely terrible ideas.

90% of the game consists of reading through the highly entertaining conversations that take place between the protagonists and a handful of supporting characters. Although this is text-only, the characters are rendered in a visually pleasing almost manga-esque style that really brings them to life.

The physical locations are represented by considerably less aesthetically pleasing top-down art that’s a little too simple. The environments are extremely basic, which is fine when you’re simply moving your characters into the next location. Exploration is less interesting, and tasks meted out by the game, particularly in the later throes of the second episode, devolve into dull fetch quests and busy work. The puzzles presented later on are also lacking in complexity, although one near the end is extremely important to the story branches that are promised in the final chapter.

Although the game never gets close to being a point and click adventure, or really anything other than a visual novel, it’s nevertheless extremely entertaining. The writing is absolutely stellar, and carries with it a jet black, twisted sense of humour that would send Tim Burton running away screaming. The story quite happily trips into some dark places, with your enforced participation in Andrew and Ashley’s dreadful yet amusing deeds extending to flashbacks which reveal the depths of the latter’s obsessive and manipulative nature.

That these two characters remain likeable throughout is a triumph of characterisation, not least because the emos are constantly facing a pretty unfortunate set of circumstances foisted upon them. But of course, as with High On Life, it’s worth considering that humour is subjective and that a tolerance to dubious deeds is just as vital. This is a story that isn’t afraid to go where angels fear to tread, not least when one of the branching narratives makes it clear that Ashley wants to manipulate her brother into a different kind of relationship altogether.

One of the many joys of gaming is the ability of games to simulate situations in which you’d never normally find yourself, the list of which now includes banging your sister. Yes, the graphics are basic and yes, the music is plinky-plonky, but it’s rare that a visual novel comes along that’s so skillfully written and flatout original. If you choose to devote a few hours to these incestuos siblings, you’ll likely find yourself desperate for the release of the third and final chapter to see where on Earth, or indeed in Hell, the tale and its twosome end up.

Pros:
Top-tier writing and characterisation
Highly original story remains compelling throughout
Pleasing character art
Not overly long
Jet black sense of humour

Cons:
Overly simplistic environmental graphics
Some tasks later on feel like unnecessary padding and busy work
Voice acting would be nice

88% // Very Good

https://steamproxy.net/groups/MensaGamer/
Posted 16 August, 2024. Last edited 28 November, 2024.
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7 people found this review helpful
2 people found this review funny
0.0 hrs on record
It’s testament to just how fantastic 2019’s reboot of Modern Warfare actually was in that much of the Call Of Duty fanbase, us included, were begging Activision to support it for longer than a year instead of trotting out yet another shoddy sequel to one of the other sub-franchises. It’s taken three years and two more CoD entries, namely Black Ops: Cold War (great campaign, shame about the multiplayer) and Vanguard (shame about the entire miserable game), but Modern Warfare II (2022) has arrived with the promise of no less than two years of support before another mainline entry arrives. (UPDATE: This turned out to be a broken promise, as MW3, which was initially going to be DLC, morphed into a full mainline entry a mere year later)

Thankfully, the multiplayer feels as strong as it did in its predecessor. The most notable difference lies in a greatly decreased time to kill, so enemies tend to go down far more quickly once you start unloading into them. This essentially makes the base game feel more like its predecessor’s hardcore mode. This helps give the game its trademark fast feel, but sadly doesn’t bring with it the option to customise the team sizes as seen last year.

The most significant criticism of Modern Warfare (2019) was that the maps were largely awful. This has been addressed, with all of the maps released at the time we wrote this being superb with the exception of one that’s set at the US-Mexican border. Season One is also seeing what were easily the best maps from that earlier game, Shoot House and Shipment, added into the rotation.

The campaign is lengthier than usual, and is full of the bombastic setpieces for which it’s become known. Some of these are more successful than others, with a few outstaying their welcome. One in particular, which involves jumping from vehicle to vehicle and hijacking them, feels like a shoddy Uncharted rip off. On the whole though, some notable glitches aside, it makes for a pleasing diversion from the multiplayer that’s well worth playing in its own right.

Some changes to the multiplayer are more successful than others. The ability to choose between killstreaks and scorestreaks is particularly welcome for those of us who enjoy objective-based modes, and the daily challenges provide a needed boost to how much XP you bring in through playing normally. Changes to the Gunsmith are simultaneously subtle and more convoluted than previously, ostensibly keeping the pick-5 mechanic whilst throwing in a requirement to level up one type of gun to bizarrely unlock attachments for another.

Without question the worst change lies in the UI, which is utterly awful. Feeling clunky on both controllers and with keyboard and mouse, it’s extraordinary to think that such a dreadfully amateurish layout not only made it into a top franchise entry but somehow survived unscathed through early playtesting. But then again, so did a litany of bugs that range from faulty tracking of challenges to annoyingly regular hard crashes. At the time of writing, which is a good few weeks post-release, Infinity Ward have not only failed to fix these problems but have barely even bothered to acknowledge that they exist.

Whilst the crappy interface and unforgivable bugs do put a considerable dampener on proceedings, the strength of the underlying game nevertheless makes Modern Warfare II (2022) an essential purchase for fans of both Modern Warfare (2019) and Call Of Duty in general. It would be nice if Activision could actually finish the next instalment before releasing it, though.

Pros:
Excellent setting and characters // Rock solid shooting // Good quality maps // Choice between kill- and scorestreaks // Enjoyable single-player campaign // Shoot House and Shipment

Cons:
Game-breaking bugs and glitches // Dreadful interface // Insubstantial but convoluted changes to Gunsmith and progression // Graphics are starting to look dated again // Santa Sena

80% // Very Good

https://steamproxy.net/groups/MensaGamer
Posted 14 August, 2024. Last edited 16 August, 2024.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
118.8 hrs on record (62.8 hrs at review time)
If you're a cinema lover, Bigscreen VR is absolutely essential. If the developers would allow films to be streamed above 5 Mbps, it would be even better.
Posted 21 November, 2023.
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Showing 1-7 of 7 entries