Recent reviews by Help

TLDR: It's closer to F13 as an asymmetric stealth multi-objective game rather than a game of DbD freeze tag.

There've been a lot of complaints over the launch state of the game, from rampant cheating, highlighting a lot of balancing problems, and even big differences that the devs either acknowledge or dismiss between PC and console versions.

Victim tactics;
Looping - there's no pallet drops, instead there's infinite slide/crawl loops and survivor only vaulting spots that can be broken by Bubba.

Distraction - bodyblocking is still a thing, but more risky here. Distraction from noise and baiting with aura reading similar to DbD.

Stealth - You can hide quite well in this game, as the dark corners appear a lot darker for Family than Victims. Aura reading doesn't happen much from Gramps unless he is at full lv5, and Cook can only target one player for himself. Several other perks give conditional aura readings, like dropping down a well will highlight a player for a few seconds.

Offensive - no flashlights, instead you have a bone shiv that can be a backstab stun, or a risky struggle fight.
If it's a Family 2v1 then struggle fight means instant death for the victim.
If any other family member touches you during that struggle animation, you're dead. Even if you've won the struggle, you'll be instantly killed.

Other things such as Door Slam stuns have been a hotly contested subject between community players and the devs, that's the closest thing to a pallet stun. It used to be a no limit and infinite stun loop that all players can perform on each other.

Ghosting - in-game VoIP, but limited to teams only. So they do callouts and relay information even while they are dead to other players by spectating teammates.

Exits - TCM has 4 different exit objectives, which each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Some exit gates are timed, while others are just far away out in the open with a ton of locks and traps on them. If the Family members don’t do their job to turn on some generators, Victims can easily escape and win in less than 2 minutes.

Family tactics;
Chase - This is fairly basic, almost like an M1 Killer chase. Bubba has the weakest chase, but strongest hit, and can destroy survivor only vault spots. Cook is good at tracking, and Hitchhiker is great at endurance chases since he can slip and crawl.
But with the addition of teammates, you can corner a Victim during a chase. Unlike in DbD you need to have a Killer ability to corner them.

Camping - There isn't camping Victims in this. You might be able to try to corner them, but whether if Victims run the wrong dead-end route, it is more their fault for entering a dead spot.

Patrol - DbD Killer 3-gen is probably the closest thing to patrolling in TCM, since each Family member needs to do their route almost perfectly. Otherwise, it leaves an easy escape opening.

Pressure - Putting pressure on Victims here is a bit different than DbD. DbD you're regressing gen. There's no regressing anything here. Once a padlock lockpicking progression is made, it is kept there for good. Once a padlock is broken and unlocked, it is broken forever. Once an objective is set up, it is done for good, and just acts as a switch. (E.G. Pressure Gate/Fusebox just flip back on)

Teamwork: Family members can be helpful or hurtful. Those who don't do their load of the work will make a match a lot more difficult. Such as not feeding Gramps, not turning on power gens, not locking doors, etc.
You can see how it can be a clean sweep if one Family member is AFK or d/c.

Roles: You have to play your roles.
Such as if a pressure gate has started charging up. Bubba has to run to guard the gate. As he is the only one that can one-shot a survivor.
Hitchhiker setup the traps at the gate, if he has any left to set, otherwise everyone else has to run to try to turn off the Pressure tank before it opens.

HP/Killings:
Here you can probably take 8-10 hits from the Hitchhiker and Cook. While taking 1-5 hits from Bubba. There's no second chance, if Victim is downed by a Family member they are dead.
If the Victim hurts themselves and bleeds out, they are given a second chance to revive themselves. If they bleed out a second time, they die. You don't need Victim teammates to revive you, and you can't help Victims out of snares. (or at least I didn't see an action prompt when trying)

Match Duration:
Average speedrun for Victims exiting is less than 5 minutes.

Hard to say what the average match is for TCM since it really depends whether the Family and Victims knows what they are doing. But usually less than 10 minutes if Gramps is fed, callouts are happening, stuff is being locked up, etc.

(Review during Steam Free Weekend from April 27 to May 1st 2023)

Deceive Inc. is a free for all PvP heist game, in which agents try to extract the treasure before anyone else is able to. Disarm security locks, avoid guards, or kill your opposition and steal their treasure. You can either play solo, which is much more chaotic, or play teams which would be a match of 12 players in a 3v3v3v3.

Objective-wise this game reminds me a lot of The Hunt Showdown PvP. Except, minus the boss fights and roguelite element.

Each Agent has 1 unique passive & active ability, and gets to pick 2 gadgets which are account shared between all Agents. They are also bound to one weapon, which is decided during the game lobby, weapons can’t be lost or stolen.

Agents will need to gather intel points to hack, or obtain security cards to bypass locked doors.
For the long play during a match, players can find “field items” across the map, which boost some base stats for the players during the match. The players can decide the order of their upgradables during the game lobby in their character loadout.

You can kill other agents and steal their loot; field upgrades, intel, security cards, etc. Agents are given 3 revive chances by a teammate, there is no time limit for reviving. As long as the player doesn’t leave the game, or a total team wipe. The Maximum HP is reduced 25pts from reviving each time.

Anyone carrying the treasure will have their position revealed to all the other players, which is pinged every few seconds. Camping extraction points and objective terminals is the biggest hurdle to get over. It becomes a battle of skill and attrition, who is able to outplay or wear down all the ammo of the other players. Early aggressive plays to aim for team wipes would make extraction much easier.

Gunplay is straightforward. No bulletdrop, semi and automatic guns have bullet spray, and rifles and pistols fire straight on. Headshots deal critical damage. But if you’re cloaked in a disguise headshots are nullified and you’ll receive less damage for the first shot. In a 1v1 standoff, this makes it more of a game of chicken, trying to bait the other person to shoot first so they drop disguise.

The gadgets and abilities are much more fun than the gunplay. You’re able to fly a drone that tags targets, which then is visible to you and your teammates. Tripwire which removes disguises from cloaked agents, gun turrets, and much more.

Each agent has unique abilities that vary widely. They can help detect other agents or assist in defensive fire fights. E.G. tracing the steps of the enemy agents, or revealing an area to see if there are any threats around, or defensive shields, walls, and domes. You’ll need to level up your agents to unlock access to more abilities.

Unfortunately with most multiplayer games the issue is playerbase, players that disconnects from the game or leave early aren’t replaced with a bot. Since most of the action is in PvP, players leaving early or dropping out of a match makes it a lot less fun.

Spectating other players or teammates doesn’t necessarily show you their point of perspective if they are using a gadget.
E.G. if they are using a drone or spyglass binoculars, it would look like they are standing still doing nothing.
There's no way to communicate aside from ping spamming for people without VoIP.

• You start with three agents and earn credits by playing to unlock more agents.
  
• Playing an agent will gain XP for that agent which unlocks more abilities and gadgets.
  
• Loot boxes give cosmetic items for your agents.
  
• Game pass Seasons which provide more cosmetics as you play more.

While using a nVidia GTX 1070 8gb the game suggests running on High graphical presets on 120FPS. Which pushes the GPU usage to 100%.
On Low preset settings with a 30FPS cap, it only takes up 25% GPU usage.
Recommended you have more than 4gb of VRAM on your GPU.

Steam Free Weekend July 29~31, 2022

Northgard is a 4x real time strategy game that is light on the variety of combat units, but makes up for it with the specialized heroes, clan buildings and research power ups. Race to see who can complete one of the 4~5 objectives first to win the match.

There's a story mode that just allows you to casually explore each clan without being overwhelmed with all the elements of the 4x strategy in a ranked match.

4x game genre usually has multiple win conditions of "explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate" It uses a summer/winter time mechanic, which helps slow down rush attacks early on as winter debuffs all players' attack power.

As far a 4x game goes, it is quite forgiving on how much you can mess up and still recover. Certain victory paths are definitely a lot harder to achieve on certain clans, but it isn't totally unobtainable.

The game allows you to create custom matches, such as toggling on/off which win conditions you want in the match. If 4x isn't your thing, maybe just go with the classic RTS exterminate custom match.

The game is played in real time, so it isn't turned based like Civ games, nor is it rigid tiled based. However, you do have loosely shaped zones you need to capture and build your structures on. The build flow is fairly familiar; always scout first, then lay down your primary resource buildings, then decide on which victory condition you're shooting for.

There's minor micro-management you can do, such as in combat you can micro your units to spread the damage between your troops. This is quite ideal since troop sizes are small in this game, under a dozen units most of the time.

You'll also have to micro-manage some of your resource generation as it can easily tip out of balance causing your clan to fall apart from the inside.
Such as lack of food will damage all your units,
or lack of wood for warmth during the winter can spread diseases,
or unable to pay the upkeep in gold will make them burn down your structures.

The fog-of-war notifications in a ranked match can be annoying, as it pings you really early on with information that you can't even make use of.
Such as whether or not other players are turtling with defense towers, or going aggressive with troops.
But since you can't freely scout the entire map quickly like an RTS, your only guess is by ratio with these pop-ups. After you discover the player, you can then look on the progression board to see what they are trying to achieve.

(Review from Free Weekend from June 20th to the 27th 2022)
Simply addicting, CrimeSight, a turn-based ‘who dun-it’ murder mystery game where up to 4-players sleuth a mansion to determine which one of you is the evil puppeteer murderer.

It plays like a tabletop board game. Game modes allow you either play 3v1 or 2v2, with smaller matches of 2v1 or 1v1.
For games that aren’t 1v1, there’s an extra layer of deception as you have to figure out which one of your teammates is the evil opposing player.

The game goes through day-night cycles with phases that pressures the murderer to act faster, as the game automatically reduces the suspects based on player locations.
Players have to upkeep their survivor’s food, health and stamina if they wish to outrun or chase down other targets. There’s only a handful of traps and weapons used to slow down survivors, or obscure their vision.

As simple as it sound, it requires careful coordination.
Survivors win if they can end a match with the quarry target alive and catching the correct killer.
While the Killer has to murder the quarry target before the time limit ends to win the match.

Free Weekend Review:
(6/16/2022 ~ 6/20/2022 public free weekend campaign)

While it might look like a horror game with all the visual design, mechanics-wise it's a stealth survival co-op squad game. There's no scares or tension, just atmosphere at best if you're looking for a spooky game.
It wasn't what I expected with the announcement trailers, thinking it was a 'Left 4 Dead' type of combat.

Instead, it is much more methodical. Scavenge and clear rooms of enemies while trying to make the least amount of mistakes between defensive gate checkpoints.
It does give you checkpoints to restart your run, at the same health and ammo state you've reach the checkpoints at.

The defense capture points and enemy spawns are randomized each run, as well are the key phrases you need to type into the consoles. It seems to deter speedruns and skipping parts of a mission for a run.

Quality of Life options of searching for VoIP players in game lobby should be adapted in more games.
E.G. flag yourself as no mic, or search for players who only uses mic.

It is best played with actual players instead of the bots as the AI can only accomplish so much.
E.G. the bots can't do a timed sneak attack with you, so you won't be able to stealth takedown that takes more than 1 hit alone with bots.
Bots are also reckless with rescuing downed teammates at the cost of them getting incapacitated as well. One down player can mean all your Bots are going down instantly trying to save them.

If you're craving a vibe of some older mmorpgs like Dark Age of Camelot or Runescape, this might be the game for you.
I would wait a year until they fix all the bugs and balancing issues.
But you also run the risk of the game dying out before they fix anything...

New World has a PvP centric gameplay and a combat system that is a small step closer to real-time action than most mmorpgs.

However, I don't understand the incentive in endgame PvP...
PvP controlled territories helps players level up, but upon reaching max gear and max level, zone control has less value to the players.
E.G. XP gain is pointless if you're max level. (similar player bonuses that you usually see in pay-2-skip models)

So, PvP seems to be just there for the sake of PvP, which would be good if the combat was polished, but it isn't. They are still working out nerfing some classing and buffing others.
Still a farcry from any combat in single player action games like Dark Souls, but it is... something playable... I guess?

It’s still rough around the edges, but still an intense 5v1 asymmetric PvP action game.
Not much of the combat is explained in the tutorial, but rather learned during live matches.

It might become infuriating for new people when veterans don’t pull any punches, leading to matches ending within a minute. Learning crucial moments when to attack, defend, or run away will take time.

The game is on sale now for 50 cents, pick it up while you can.

First Impression: Enjoyed how well it was bundled into a short play session.

This game takes combo hack-n-slash and branching story decisions and bundled it into a short 1 hour episodic adventure branches.
I feel like it has a lot to offer, and after completing one arc, I'm a bit itching to find out more.

It would heavily rely on the hack-n-slash gameplay to keep the player engaged.
If the hack-n-slash aspect of it is more refined as the player replays and unlocks abilities in each path of the story,
then it can be as wonderful as DMC action games.
The wonder would be in the stylish combos the player can pull off.

But with the first basic abilities, I can already feel that combat is a bit clunky.
With throw, dash, chain hook, and counters. I could pull off a few stylish attacks.

But what frustrated me was other enemies body blocking my targets,
and that dash itself doesn't deal damage on enemies as it does to destructible boxes.

Dash is instead used to just close your distance on an enemy... which the chain hook does a better job at...
or used to just escape an attack, which isn't useful if you want to upkeep an attack combo.

Free-weekend Review: Steep learning curve for balancing your kingdom's growth. Each faction has a specific objective and play style. In-depth lore makes the world feel more alive.

A solid continuation to the DMC series.
The co-op options are lacking, and most of the game you're just ghosting someone else instead of actually playing with them.
Nero and Dante's gameplay is solid. V's is a bit too button smashing to upkeep a combo.

Micro-transactions removes some grinding aspect of the game to upgrade weapon abilities, and allows you to buy more continues.

If you use online mode, you will receive continue tokens each time someone up-votes your run.
Earning orbs to upgrade your skills gets increasingly easier as you continue to play. Since it's based on combo skills, and using the Dr. Faust later, a weapon you unlock, will multiply your points even further.