Recent reviews by Kebmo Zenk

Carl Sagan once said, "Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still." Exploration, wanderlust, and discovery are at the heart of No Man's Sky. I can't speak for what this game was at launch - but now, as we enter 2024, this game stands as a love letter to the explorer within each of us.

No Man's Sky has a plot, but it is as nebulous as the incomprehensible gas clouds photographed through the Hubble.

Instead, this is a game for explorers. It's for the player who love games like Minecraft because they are eager to discover the next beautiful vista.

Hello Games, the developer of No Man's Sky, claims there are over 18 quintillion planets available for players to explore. That is 18,000,000,000,000,000,000 - an unfathomly large number, and one that, as it has been claimed, would take literally billions of real life years for a single person to fully explore.

Of course, these planets are procedurally generated, so to call them "unique" is a little bit of a stretch. However, at over 50 hours into the game, I'm still discovering truly new types of planets, and the vast majority have been undiscovered by other players. So, while No Man's Sky suffers the formulaic sameness that other procedural games do, it still feels like a vast, entirely unexplored universe.

No Man's Sky offers a wealth of content, and provides players eager to explore a massive universe a seemingly infinite playground for discovery. If you want an in-depth space sim or combat-heavy looter shooter, you'll find this game lacking. But, if you want to find yourself warping from star system to star system, discovering new planets, establishing bases, and seeing what the universe has to offer, then there are truly no games that compare in scope to No Man's Sky.

Ripout has all the ingredients to become an exceptional co-op shooter, potentially joining the ranks of games like Deep Rock Galactic or Left 4 Dead.

Despite only just entering early access, with only a single patch as of this review, Ripout stands as a very fun game. It features excellent progression, a captivating aesthetic, and engaging gun play that underpins an enjoyable gameplay loop.

As a sci-fi-themed co-op shooter, Ripout draws clear inspiration from beloved genre films and games, with nods to classics like The Thing, Aliens, and Dead Space. The developers at Pet Project Games have a clear vision that guided their aesthetic choices. Ripout brims with sci-fi visual tropes, from damaged spaceship hulls to grotesque organic structures and flickering CRT monitors, creating an atmosphere that's both nostalgic and sinister.

Lighting plays a crucial role in setting the game's tone, with levels adorned by murky shadows and smoky neon. Bright orange and blue lights contrast dimly lit deep red walkway lights and shadowy corridors. Sparking conduits and flashing computer displays offer brief illumination in otherwise dark rooms. Pet Project Games have masterfully executed their vision, crafting haunting yet often stunning environments.

Ripout's core gameplay loop is straightforward: 1-3 players choose a mission from a pool of available options and disembark from their mothership to the selected level. Every mission unfolds aboard a derelict ship, where players encounter various mutant monsters and environmental obstacles.

Successful completion of these missions demands precise shooting, environmental awareness, and strategic use of character modifications. The shooting and combat mechanics feel just right, with each shot or melee attack carrying weight, clear damage indicators, and satisfying enemy reactions. The diversity of enemies keeps the game challenging and players on their toes. Enemies can emerge unexpectedly from sticky biomass structures or ventilation shafts, creating a constant sense of tension and the occasional false alarm, like an exploding electrical conduit, adds to the unsettling atmosphere.

Like most modern co-op shooters, Ripout leans heavily on procedural generation to keep players engaged when replaying similar scenarios. Fortunately, Pet Project Games excels at creating randomized yet coherent and often familiar derelict ship layouts for players to complete tasks and missions. The game follows a hub model, allowing players to rest in the mothership between runs, craft gear, and adjust their equipment loadout. This model will feel familiar to anyone who has played Deep Rock Galactic, offering a welcome sense of continuity between hub and mission sequences.

Players are rewarded with crafting components, schematics, and more after completing each mission, providing ample motivation for another run before tackling increasingly powerful enemies and intricate levels. This ensures steady progression and a range of options to develop your character.

Despite its strengths, Ripout is a small game from a small developer in early access, which comes with a few minor grievances:

• The difficulty can fluctuate significantly from easy cakewalks to overwhelming challenges within the same sector.
  
• The game currently offers a decent amount of content, but not an extensive amount, which means players can likely experience it all in under 25 hours.
  
• The interface, both for abilities and equipment, appears rather basic and could benefit from some enhancements.

Nonetheless, it's important to emphasize that Ripout is a solid foundation with great potential. It knows its identity and is built upon a sturdy foundation.

For fans of co-op shooters with friends to join in, there are few better ways to spend your time and money. One can only be hopeful that Ripout will continue to receive support and evolve into another standout within the genre as it grows and matures.

The Warhammer franchise started in the early '80s as a tabletop miniature wargame. While far from an original fantasy world, it's nonetheless well known for its dark setting, grim characters, and black humor.

Vermintide 2 takes place at the end of the Warhammer timeline. The Twin Tailed Comet has heralded the End Times, and all across The Old World cataclysm and calamity take hold.

The primary antagonists of this game are the vile, cunning, and ruthless skaven. They are ratmen who fester and breed in the bowels of the earth, inhabiting the dank depths of sewers, mines, and ancient cave systems.

Many video games have tried to capture the essence of Warhammer's fantasy setting but most have fallen short. By comparison, Vermintide 2 may be the best realization of this world.
The point of Vermintide 2 is straight forward: hack, slash, shoot, and burn your way through hordes of skaven and rotbloods. Stem the vermintide, push back the forces of Chaos, and buy humanity another day to fight.

You accomplish this by playing as one of five characters, each wielding a range of weapons and offering several customizable class specializations. There are three core specializations and one paid DLC option for each character (save for the bright wizard, Sienna, whose DLC has yet to be released).

Each offers passive and active abilities that fundamentally change how the character is played - from emphasizing ranged combat to playing a supportive role.

On the whole, each character and their respective variations feel unique, useful, and are fun to play. Keep in mind, however, that not all are perfectly balanced - some characters, and especially some specializations, are more challenging to play. Some will require better precision, timing, and situational awareness; and at higher difficulties, knowing your class in and out is absolutely vital for success. As is teamwork.
Vermintide 2 is the same genre as Left 4 Dead, Deep Rock Galatic, and World War Z. At its core, it's a co-op shooter that demands teamwork. You will have to stay close, work together to fight off hordes and special monsters, and revive each other when fallen. For this style of video game, Vermintide 2 hits all of the correct notes:

• Playing together with other players is fun and rewarding.
  
• Each character has the potential to complement the others, creating unique team dynamics.
  
• The in-game chatter of the characters plus text chat, voice chat, and a useful tagging system make communication simple.

While teamwork is promoted and the game design allows for a robust interplay between characters, the combat is where Vermintide 2 truly shines.
Co-op shooters live and die by their combat. If the gameplay is boring, then it doesn't matter how streamlined or original the game is. Fortunately, Vermintide 2 is incredibly fun.

Each weapon feels weighty, and smashing, shooting, or slicing through a skittering ratkin is incredibly gratifying. Blood and gore rain down. It's easy to find yourself in a bloodlust, hacking and slashing for the sheer thrill. However, it's just as easy to misstep, miscalculate, or overextend, forcing you to fight tooth and nail for your life.

It's the combination of chopping block action and second-to-second tactical decisions that makes Vermintide 2 combat so rewarding. It's fun to simply swing a weapon, yet there's a true sense of accomplishment when playing well. This level of gameplay creates a highly immersive experience.
Whether you're a fan of the Warhammer universe or just enjoy co-op games, Vermintide 2 is an absolute gem.

It's a visceral, often brutal gaming experience that truly captures the look, feel, and atmosphere of the Warhammer world. There's plenty to do and the majority of players will undoubtedly get their money's worth from this one.

On paper, Deep Rock Galactic (DRG) is so absurd your instinct may be to roll your eyes: another Left 4 Dead clone that features dwarf miners in space shooting bug aliens beneath a planet's surface. But DRG does what every L4D clone has failed to do: innovate. And in doing so, its undoubtedly the very best of today's co-op shooters.
At it's stoney core, Deep Rock is a a standard class-based co-op shooter. Its game play loop doesn't stray too far from the mold. Yet it manages to innovate in a way that similar games have failed: keep it simple, stupid.

Simple Beginnings
The original Left 4 Dead was a monumental success. For gamers, it may have even been a cultural watershed. It ushered in a revitalization of the zombie shooter genre and every Triple A game studio wanted a slice of the action. Co-op shooters became the norm, and continue to pop up on real-world and virtual video game store shelves.

Yet all of these games failed to bottle the same magic as the original L4D. Instead, they added more features, more weapons, more enemies, more game modes, more of everything in the hopes that adding more equated to a stronger buy-in from the player. In large part, these added layers failed. All along the key to success was never replicated.

Enter Deep Rock Galactic.

Simple, Fun
While the trend in the genre has been added layers of complexity, Deep Rock bucks convention and instead opts for a streamlined approach: limited but still customizable class options; simple game modes; limited, easily identifiable enemies; and easy drop-in game play tailored to the number of players.

Altogether, this simple formula allows players to quickly get the hang of the game, jump in with friends or strangers, and have a blast playing. Of course, this alone only makes a good game. But Deep Rock Galactic is more than that. It's a great game.
Part of Left 4 Dead's success was its iconic characters that helped to breath life into the game world. And that's an often overlooked element of the winning formula.

Unlike other modern co-op shooters, Deep Rock is brimming with life. The four dwarf classes are constantly quipping and displaying their unique personalities. Beyond this, the station where players customize their dwarfs and select missions is equally as lively. It's a clearly lived in hub of activity with its own personality.

A robot bartender is there to serve drinks.

A jukebox offers an eclectic playlist for dancing.

Barrels can be kicked for nothing more than sheer entertainment.

The gravity can be disengaged simply because why not?

These are small, simple details, but they help establish what feels like a uniquely defined world. Something many games, of any genre, seem to forget.
Deep Rock Galactic offers players simple, often silly, fun. It's a co-op shooter with plenty of heart, that is brimming with personality, and never gets in its own way. Whether as a solo dwarf or with your dwarven drinking buddies, DRG is a blast.

[Post Void] is a fever dream. It's a squigglevision, Kafkaesqe colorful nightmare. But what exactly IS [Post Void]?

On its surface, [Post Void] might look all flash and no substance. Even if that were true, the flash is enough to make it worth the low price of admission. But the game offers more than a feverish art style.

One part rogue-lite, one part corridor shooter, and a simple dash of time attack make up the soul of [Post Void]'s gameplay. You start the first level equipped with only a pistol. Your objective is to shoot your way through a maze of narrow corridors to the glowing portal at the end of the level. You then get to choose one of three random upgrades and jump right into the next map.

What makes [Post Void]'s gameplay loop challenging, rewarding, and above all fun, is each level is both procedurally generated and progressively more difficult than the last. Adding to this is a constantly draining health bar, represented by the idol your character holds in their left hand. Killing enemies is the only way to fill the idol. This creates a tense, pressing need to quickly gun down enemies and always move forward.

Failure to do so leads to death, sending you back to the very first level. Points are awarded based on your accuracy, enemies killed, headshots, and the level you reached.

Rinse. Lather. And repeat as desired.

Fortunately, this frantic action is complemented by simple yet satisfying shooting. Guns handle tight, their recoil feels weighty, and crisp pixelart animations offer juicy impacts - heads pop and spray pinkish gore across walls and ceilings.

Tight corridors and some nice vertical touches make gunning down enemies, and avoiding their attacks, surprisingly difficult at times. The ability to perform a stylized slide can assist you in outmaneuvering enemies or quickly closing the distance for a speedy takedown. Otherwise, speed and reaction time are your only friends here.

Maybe the only downside is a limited selection of weapons: the starting pistol, a sawn-off shotgun, an uzi, and a knife. Switching to these weapons is only available in-between levels, and are part of your three random options. This adds some RNG flavor to the mix, but can be frustrating if you have a preferred playstyle.

[Post Void] is proof that simple yet well-executed gameplay and an inspired art direction can create a masterpiece. At only $2.99, this game is an absolute steal. I've paid over three times the price for games that were less original, less entertaining, and left less of an impression than [Post Void]. If you're considering picking this game up, do it. It's one hell of a ride.

Danger Scavenger is a top-down, roguelike bullet hell shoot ‘em up set atop the cartoonishly neon-soaked rooftops of a cyberpunk megacity. It’s a clear attempt at distilling the hallmarks of the roguelike bullet hell genre into something light and simple: think one part Risk of Rain 2 mixed with one part SYNTHETIK meets Little Tikes My First Roguelike.

As the player racks up points, defeats bosses, and fights their way to other skyscrapers, they’ll unlock an increasing assortment of possible loot from a current pool of 23 weapons and 37 equippable items. Afterwards, both types of loot will become available as drops from chests or as purchasable items in between missions.

Weapons include melee staples, like katanas, and sci-fi mainstays like plasma rifles. Meanwhile, the equippables range from active items like a cloak that renders the player temporarily invisible, to passive items like a sheriff’s hat that grants an increased fire rate. Both types are stackable and their perks compound, growing stronger or allowing for extra uses per stack of item.

Using these items, the player's ultimate objective is to fight to the top of a robot infested megatower, mowing down different enemy types across procedurally generated rooftop levels. Atop each towering skyscraper is a final boss. After defeating the boss of one building, the player then gets a brief reprieve to restock and craft equipment at their hideout before moving on to the next mission and building to repeat the same process again.

At its core, Danger Scavenger achieves an almost zen simplicity. It offers a streamlined approach to the genre, and works well as an entry-level type game. I can see it being a great way to introduce someone to roguelike shoot ‘em ups. However, this comes with the cost of a slower pace, lack of variety, and often redundant gameplay that turns a lot of the thrill of this genre into more of a grind.

With that said, Danger Scavenger still offers up a good time and it can be easy to get into the rhythm of the pulsing electronic soundtrack. Unfortunately, for veteran players these moments are noticeably punctuated by obvious lulls filled with samey levels and scenarios that simply fall into the trappings of a game that’s too procedural for its own good.

Ultimately, this is a well-made game. It has its fun moments, and I’d recommend it as a casual or simpler alternative to games like Risk of Rain 2. I'm recommending Danger Scavenger on the basis that I can't say it's a bad or overall unfun game. I don't think that I'll sink a lot of time into it, but I'll still get my money's worth.

Viola is a hybrid mix of turn-based JRPG-style combat, platforming, and rhythm game focused on the fairytale adventure of the titular Viola - a young girl and struggling musician who finds herself sucked into a magical, musical world inside of her violin.

I want to immediately note that Viola is an Early Access title. Essentially, that means only about the first hour of the game is currently complete. In other words, what you’re purchasing now is a glorified demo and a “pre-order,” so to speak, of the finished game. So, keep that in mind when purchasing or considering this game.

With that said, I think that there’s enough of a feature-complete, albeit still unfinished, game to share my initial impressions.

This is usually the type of game that I attempt to avoid or outright ignore. The turn-based JRPG style of game is one that I feel we’ve aged out of - it was necessary for its time, but the progress of technology has allowed game developers to move into more actively engaging styles of gameplay. While I understand there is plenty of nostalgia around this type of game and it affords smaller, independent developers the opportunity to craft some elaborate games, in most of these cases, I find its implementation boring, lazy, and often uninspired; however, what intrigued me about Viola is how it seemingly mixes multiple forms of gameplay into a seamless experience.

Viola offers players some light platforming with a blend of turn-based, rhythm game focused combat. Going into the game, I had a few initial apprehensions, the first being the aforementioned musical combat.


Exciting, Musical Combat

My major concern with the rhythm-based combat - and by extension most of this game - was that it would be a clunky experience, too simplistic and easy, or a combination of both of those issues. Fortunately, Viola’s combat works well and even manages to offer a mildly challenging, fun experience. Most impressive is how well the concept of music and the musical gameplay is implemented into the game’s world.

Combat in Viola requires the player to match a sequence of buttons as they appear. Attention, reaction, and timing are all crucial. Everything from normal attacks to more impressive “crescendo” attacks require short segments such as this to both increase the actions damage and ensure its success. If you screw up and miss or hit the incorrect button during, say, the casting of a spell, it will fail.

This makes the combat more than the standard fare, click a box, click an enemy, rinse and repeat gameplay old-school JRPGs (and their modern homages) rely upon. In a larger sense, the musical gameplay is carried over into gameplay segments outside of combat.

Players must learn songs in order to active campfires, which act as save points throughout the game. Additionally, music and musical aspirations are an inherent theme within the game’s plot and world - both in the story told and in its aesthetics. Overall, this is something that’s very well done. Now, one area I was also apprehensive about was the platforming.

Aside from rhythmic centered combat, Viola boasts platforming and exploration. Again, I was initially worried this would fall short. While the platforming and light exploration in the game so far are serviceable, they’re far from challenging.


Less Exciting Platform Action

The platforming in Viola does its job, but currently, it can feel clunky at times. For example, jumping can feel unresponsive and whether Viola will execute a double or triple jump feels hit or miss. Additionally, I never felt challenged by any of the level designs. By and large, the platforming is straightforward and requires little thought, planning, or precision.

But, for the most part, platforming is there and it works. I don’t imagine players will come into this game expecting groundbreaking platform leaping, edge of your seat wall scaling gameplay. Regardless, though, it would be nice to see more challenging level design as the game progresses in development.


Gorgeous Sprites, Colorful Palettes, and Friendship For All

Visually, Viola is a beautiful game. Most sprite animations are fluid and the backgrounds are gorgeous. The color palette is bright, cheerful, and compliments the tone of the game well. There is little else to say about it besides it’s a visually cohesive and well-executed experience. The last part of the game to focus on is its story.

As far as the story and the game world are concerned, it’s so far very much a cheery, lets-all-be-friends-and-work-together coming of age tale. The game’s creator, Jelle van Doorne, clearly has a love for these types of lighter-toned, JRPGs. While some of the game’s dialogue can feel a little overly sentimental or too hammy, it still has its charm.

Almost every character seems to only have Viola’s best interests in mind and are willing to tag right along on her adventure of confidence-building self-discovery. Can it be a bit much at times? Sure. But conversely, not every game has to be bleak, dark, or a deeply nihilistic experience that requires the player to question their own morality. Sometimes it's nice to enjoy a happy-go-lucky tale of friendship. So, I'm willing to give it a pass.

Overall, Viola is much more than I thought it would be and I’m looking forward to seeing its progress unfold. If JRPGs are your cup of tea, for $10, I think you’ll find something to enjoy in this game.

Oh, Turok you sweet, sweet dinosaur-killing, dimension-hopping Native American with a penchant for gratuitous violence. What a guy and what a video game series. Turok 2 is the better of the original trilogy; and we are going to agree, from this point forward, that the abysmal Turok reboots from both 2002 and 2008 don’t exist. They aren’t real. They can’t hurt us.

Unlike the first Turok game, the second features a new Turok, the badass-but-maybe-kinda-racistly-named Joshua Fireseed, who, this time around, teleports across various dimensions or planets or something and fights a multitude of different enemies to stop the diabolical plot of something called the Primagen. It’s all ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bonkers.

There’s a plot in this game somewhere, but it’s pointless and nobody ever said, “I sure do wish this game about a Native American dinosaur killer who traverses space-time had less action and a deeper plot!” That’s not at all what you came for. No, you came to Turok 2 for a ridiculous, gory, and fun shooter - which is exactly the experience that you get.

You see, Turok 2 comes from a time and place in gaming history when developers sat down to design a new first-person shooter and challenged themselves to come up with crazy cool weapons, over-the-top enemies, and imaginative level designs. Nobody stopped to ask if the story made sense or if the game was too unrealistic. At least that’s how I think Iguana Entertainment, an arm of the now-defunct Acclaim, approached Turok 2, because they checked off every single one those marks.

Crazy cool weapons - CHECK

Over-the-top enemies - CHECK

Imaginative level designs - Ehhhh kinda CHECK

Let’s dive in and begin with the bottom (and the weakest) item on the list: level design.

So, here’s the deal. Turok 2 features some excellent set-piece moments, not only for its time but even by today’s standards. There are many precarious moments, like scampering up ladders and darting across narrow ledges as distant enemies try to snipe the player. Or, brief but well-done “vehicular” sections that require the player to ride on the back of a massive, rocket launcher equipped dinosaur. Yet, on a larger scale, the level design can be frustrating.

As was the case for many classic shooters, Turok 2’s level design can be unintuitive. Key objectives are sometimes down easy to miss pathways, and the player will receive a “mission failed” message if they try to finish the level without first clearing all objectives. Additionally, certain areas can only be accessed by acquiring special abilities from subsequent levels. What this means is the player will spend a lot of time backtracking.

All of the backtracking could have felt fun if most enemies respawned, or if new areas were more than simple grab-and-go sections. Instead, once the player clears a level, it remains mostly empty, and the go-back-to-move-forward sections offer no new challenge. Worse yet, the levels tend to feel progressively repetitive, and it becomes confusing which way is toward the beginning of the level and which way is toward the end of the level.

This becomes an annoyance after the player has spent the past half-hour retreading an otherwise finished level in search of an overlooked area. Unfortunately, what could have been an opportunity to create a sense of organic exploration becomes a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ game of Go-Back-And-Find-That-Spot-You-Missed. But, as far as negatives go, that’s it for Turok 2. Everything else is spectacular, including the enemies.

What’s cooler than massive hybrid dinosoids equipped with energy weapons or humanoid raptors with razor claws? How about glowing molten lava dinosaur-men, or stumpy, musclebound swamp creatures with giant plasma swords, or even mantis-like aliens with futuristic gadgets. That’s right, you get all of that, and more, in Turok 2. Most importantly, these nasty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ are more than just eye-candy - they know how to fight.

Turok 2 deserves much more credit for its enemy design. Early in the game, dinosoids will hang back and shoot at the player before occasionally detonating themselves in an attempt to take the player with them after receiving mortal injuries. Other enemy types might rush the player, slamming the ground with area-of-effect attacks. The variety in combat is awesome and requires the player to adapt to new enemy types on each level.

While a large variety of enemies is important, it has to also feel satisfying to kill this myriad of opponents, right? Absolutely - and this game nails the combat down, too.

Blasting an enemy with an explosive sends them flying dramatically into the air, only to come crashing back down in a rain of their own blood. Shotgun fire easily removes heads, leaving behind a crimson geyser as a decapitated enemy falls to its knees. Limbs often react in much the same manner. It’s an absolute blood bath.

Combat in Turok 2 is visceral, outlandish, and undeniably gratuitous. It’s also exactly what you’d expect from a game featuring dinosaur hybrids fighting alongside aliens: good old fashioned fun.


You may have already deduced from the previous paragraphs that the weapons in this game are magnificent. Seriously, my compliments to the chef, because they cooked-up one hell of a good time - and, I mean, isn’t that the point of a shooter, to have weapons that are fun to shoot?

Back in the heyday of first-person shooters, there was an arms race. Developers competed to create the wildest, craziest, most insanely awesome guns. Guns that shot bolts of lightning, hunks of molten shrapnel, even globs of acidic goo. You had memorable classics like Doom’s BFG and Super Shotgun or the Devastator from Duke Nukem 3D. These weapons had a singular purpose: to wreck ♥♥♥♥ and look cool doing it. Well, in this old school arms race, the nation of Turok 2 also built itself an impressive arsenal.

You’ve got weapons like the Tek Bow, equipped with a fancy scope and capable of firing both regular arrows and explosive arrows over long distances. You’ve got the Shredder, a tech’d out shotgun upgrade that fires multiple rounds simultaneously at hypervelocity, creating hard-hitting shrapnel ricochets. Then there’s the dreaded Cerebral Bore, a weapon that locks on to enemies and fires a homing projectile that bores into their skull before finally detonating. My personal favorite is Razor Wind - a spinning, circular blade that, when thrown, travels at high speed, slices through enemies, bounces off walls, and finally return backs to the player coated in blood.

There are over twenty weapons in Turok 2, and all of them handle well. Most weapons have an appropriate range, have an obvious “weight”, and receive some recoil if they fire projectiles. Even the standard version of the shotgun handles surprisingly well.

It was common for shotguns in the first few waves of polygonal shooters to feel weak. Unless you were literally on top of an enemy, shotguns tended to be no more useful than tossing a handful of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ gummy bears. Fortunately, designers behind Turok 2 realized standard buckshot has an effective range of up to 35 yards, so the shotgun serves as a solid mid-range weapon against most enemies.

Overall, Turok 2 is phenomenal. It’s exactly the type of game you’d expect from the 90s. That is, fast-paced, violent, and constantly trying to both challenge and excite gamers. Graphically, the game has aged, but I still think it has a bright, almost cheerful color palette, coupled with hilariously outlandish levels of gore. NightDive’s remaster has only made all of these elements better.

If you’re a fan of shooters, retro games, or just love the idea of going absolutely ballistic on dinosaurs, swamp apes, and bug-people, you’ll love this game.

Red Faction is an FPS game by Volition from 2001 that takes clear inspiration from its contemporaries - Half-Life being an obvious comparison to make.

The game's plot, characters, and setting… well, let’s say they lack in both originality and flair. Imagine crossing Total Recall (the Schwarzenegger and only version of the movie) with Half-Life, then stripping it down to the bare bones.

It’s the future. There’s a mining colony on Mars. The company who owns the mines (and the miners) is the vaguely diabolical and appropriately sci-fi sounding Ultor. The miners are little more than indentured servants. There’s a mysterious plague. Miners are being treated like subhumans and are dropping dead like flies. From this up rises the titular Red Faction, and with it, our mostly silent protagonist, Parker, who spearheads the assault against Ultor.

Oh, yeah, and there’s a creepy scientist, a mysterious female leader of the rebellion, corrupt business practices, and quite a few OSHA violations. But you get the gist, right?

Hey, I will say that at least there is a story and the developers did put some effort into it, so they deserve a little credit, and really, the story at least services the gameplay. And it’s in the gameplay where Red Faction really tries to strut its stuff.


In an attempt to be the Next Big Thang, Volition developed their Geomod technology. In essence, if players shoot a rocket or toss a grenade at most surfaces, it will cause appropriate damage. This means players can tunnel through the subterranean mines of Mars or blast holes through walls to flank unsuspecting enemies. At least in theory. In practice, Geomod feels underutilized.

While the player can certainly blow holes in walls or create their own makeshift tunnels, the level design gives little reason to do so. Occasionally, there are painfully obvious and entirely contextual moments of destruction. For example, the player might find a jammed door that requires them to tunnel around. But with two quick rocket or grenade blasts, they’re through.

Aside from these scant scenarios, there are a few obvious metal grates that alert the player of “hidden areas” and routes; however, that's about the extent of it. There’s never really any use for blowing holes in ♥♥♥♥ otherwise. Sure, it’s cool to see some actual environmental damage after an explosion - it gives the sense you have an actual impact on the world around you. Yet, these moments are fleeting and ultimately unfulfilling. While the Geomod feature could have a strong presence in the game, Red Faction is still a good, albeit somewhat outdated, FPS experience.


This game is "old school" in a few ways. Namely, difficulty and lack of quality of life features. For example, ALWAYS remember to save and SAVE OFTEN. This game is evidently a product of a time before the common adoption of autosave features. I’m not sure if this is also true for the PS2 version, but if you’re playing on PC, you’re gonna want to save your game like every ten minutes. Failing to do so could result in the buttcheek and fist clenching fury of losing half an hour or more worth of progress. Which extra sucks considering how hard this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game gets.

Seriously, this game becomes an absolute nightmare in the later sections. Standard security guards make way for armored and highly trained mercs - and by that, I mean they’re bullet sponges with near laser-precision accuracy. Also, there are two boss fights that are beyond aggravating. Both features enemies who fly around in temporary invincibility bubbles, with pinpoint accurate one-hit-kill attacks. It's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nightmare that in no way challenges the player’s skill. Although, Red Faction is a ton of fun in spite of this.


Red Faction's pacing and shooting mechanics feel great. Except, kind of, for the shotgun - I mean, for whatever reason these early fully-3D FPS games never seem to get shotguns right: unless you fire point-blank, you might as well use a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ seltzer bottle. However, Red Faction least guilty of this when compared to most of its contemporaries. The other weapons, though, man, they feel good.

The assault rifle, sub-machine gun, precision rifle, and rail gun all handle exceptionally. Rifle bursts are accurate and impactful. The submachine gun gleefully sprays hot lead. And the rail gun, oh the rail gun, nothing feels more satisfying than ripping an enemy in half through a wall.

That’s what surprised me most about Red Faction - I felt engaged the entire playthrough. Even when I was frustrated or the game’s difficulty felt steep, I kept pushing forward, and it never felt like I was doing so in spite of these shortcomings. I genuinely was having fun. Although, the gameplay suffers a few low points, namely the vehicular sections and the stealth sections.


There are sections of Red Faction that require the player to hop into a submarine or an armored vehicle. These parts of the game are the most lackluster, mostly because the vehicles themselves handle like ass and there’s never any excitement in the simple shooting-fish-in-a-barrel-gameplay that accompanies these type of game moments. Also, the game’s two stealth set pieces both feel as equally out of place.

I get the need to break-up the constant shooting and create a different type of tension for the player. The problem is, the engine Red Faction is built on is incompatible with stealth. During these sections, the player is in disguise and simply told to “not get too close to” patrolling guards or cameras; however, what defines “too close” feels arbitrary. It’s possible to walk within three of four meters of a guard looking directly at you and not set off any alarms. At other times, if the player gets within the same distance of a guard with his back turned to the player, that guard instantly recognizes the player.

During these sections, the player is likely better off not taking the disguise and continuing through the level as if it was a straight forward shooter because that’s far less annoying.


Red Faction is an undoubtedly old game. It’s so old most college kids today probably never knew Red Faction was a FPS long before its recent third-person iterations. Despite its obvious aging, the game is still fun. Most of the gripes that I have with the game have less to do with the game’s age and more to do simply with its design.

Yes, of course, the graphics are dated, and the lack of iron-sight aiming is a tell-tale sign of “old school” shooters, but Red Faction is still solid and, most importantly, it's still fun to play.

Despite a few hiccups, the game’s presentation is well executed and the gameplay is engaging. Since it is an older game, you’ll likely have to mod it in order to get the game running on modern computers. Fortunately, the Pure Faction mod is an easy to install fix that even comes with its own launcher. In my two play-throughs of the game, I didn’t encounter any major bugs or graphical glitches while running it through Pure Faction.

At the price you can pick this game up for, it usually competes well if not better than comparable modern indie titles at a similar price point. So, if you, like me, want to take a trip down memory lane or just want to pick up a fast, challenging old school shooter, your money would be well spent on Red Faction.

While racing sim series like Forza and Gran Tourismo are widely popular today, high speed, adrenaline-fueled racing games were born in the arcades of the mid-80s. Two of the undeniably most influential arcade racers being Hang-On and Out Run - projects spearheaded by Sega’s Yu Suzuki. Slipstream is a love letter to those earlier, pixelated, speed through traffic, drive-by-the-seat-of-your-pants racing games.

Let me start this review off by cutting to the chase: Slipstream is great. Almost everything about the game is phenomenal. And I plan to tell you why I love this game, but first, we need to take a quick detour. We need to talk about the indie game scene; this’ll be important later.



A Pit Stop in The Indie Dystopia

Indie games - they’re great, right? There are so many wonderful, imaginative, and inspirational projects out there. While documentaries like Indie Game: The Movie have captured the passion so many indie game devs have for their work. Yet, for every work of art, there’s a handful of derivative, minimal-effort re-hashes of games from decades past.

I mean, how many “Rogue-likes” and “Metroidvania” - heavily populated Steam tags that have become such large genres that they’ve warranted their own Wikipedia pages - games do we need? When does the market become so saturated with recycled game mechanics and pixel-vomit graphics “inspired” by games so old they could legally run for president of the United States that we collectively cry "ENOUGH!"?

Phew. Alright, I'm done now.

I guess the major gripe from my rant is that there are hundreds of “indie developers” capitalizing on nostalgia to release entirely derivative and unnecessary games. Games that, frankly, aren't very good or just outright don't need to be made. That brings me back to the game at hand...



...Getting Back On Course

So, okay, what the hell does any of that rant have to do with Slipstream? Well, having written what I just did, what makes a game like Slipstream any different from the countless other derivative indie games floating around the ever-growing digital marketplaces? That’s the question this review really hinges on.

Slipstream, developed solely by the one-man team at Ansdor, is a well-crafted homage to the Out Run series. If you’re someone who is unfamiliar with the Out Run series, you’d be forgiven for thinking a game like Slipstream is an original concept; however, 90% of Slipstream, from the on-screen rivals to the titular slipstream mechanic, are taken from earlier Out Run games - games as recent as the 2009 release, Out Run Online Arcade.

As a quick overview, Slipstream is a break-neck traffic dodging racing game that requires players to beat both fellow racers, a ticking clock, and, in the hallmark game mode, an NPC rival racer. Players can choose from six different game types, ranging from the more well-known Grand Tour and Time Trial modes to the oddly named "Battle Royale" mode. All of which, again, borrow heavily from previous Out Run installments, but are nonetheless well executed here.

Yet this still begs the question: what does Slipstream do that makes it anything more than another recycled “homage”? That’s an entirely valid question to ask - and one that, honestly, should be asked far more often. That said, for Slipstream, the answer is simple: Slipstream takes all the most recent Out Run mechanics and modern design sensibilities and packages them into a beautiful re-creation of the 80s/90s arcade racer aesthetic.



A Little Retro, A Little Modern

Slipstream doesn't simply take low-effort pixel graphics, toss in a tired, old concept, and then attempt to cash in on a cookie-cutter indie/retro experience. The game is clearly inspired by a passion for the source material. The design choices are deliberate - the game feels fresh and it feels very fun .

Slipstream offers tight controls, streamlined gameplay, and gorgeous sprite work that clearly evokes a retro feel. In essence, Slipstream combines the old-school look of classics like Out Run and Hang-On, with updated vehicle handling, gameplay mechanics, and sound design - speaking of which, the game has an awesome soundtrack by effoharkay.

In addition to its overall look and feel, the game offers several other little touches: four-player local multiplayer, multiple graphical customizations - like a CRT filter and an NTSC filter, the option to add your own music files to the game's soundtrack, and Steam-integrated leaderboards.

Taking everything all together, Slipstream is a fun experience that feels simultaneously old and new. It’s fast, runs like a dream, sounds cool, and looks cooler. The typical gamer might get 5 to 10 hours out of it, while others who enjoy games that emphasize course memorization and quick reflexes might be able to get double that, and a few more diehard fans looking for the challenge of a high-speed racer might well zoom past the 30 hour mark.

Ultimately, Slipstream is a game that doesn’t do much that’s new, but, instead, combines modern and old to create something special. And, most importantly, it backs this up with solid gameplay, ease of use, and slick performance. For $10, you really can’t go wrong.