Recent reviews by ❤ milkkore

Last Epoch is probably the perfect game for people who think Diablo IV is too shallow but don’t have the time to get a PhD before being able to play Path of Exile.

It offers a happy compromise between Diablo’s mindless hack and slay and Path of Exile’s freedom to build your character in any way imaginable.

The game lets you customise skills to take them into different directions but is careful not to overwhelm players to the point of having to rely on build guides and third party tools. It helps that LE has very useful tooltips and makes trying different approaches easy by letting you respec your character’s passive and active skills.

The game looks and sounds fantastic, and aside from some minor issues like a slightly convoluted world map or the not yet quite perfect random zone generation, feels very polished for a 1.0 release from a fairly small studio.

Once the game gets more end game content to play after the (at the moment kinda lacklustre) campaign it could easily become one of the greatest entries to the ARPG genre.

I don’t think LE will ever replace Path of Exile as my main ARPG just because I’m too addicted to PoE’s insane levels of depth but I’m looking forward to playing LE between PoE seasons, especially because the two games feel refreshingly different from each other.

Raft is a charming, and usurpingly relaxing, survival game that does a really good job at always giving you something to do without becoming overwhelming or stressful. You start the game with nothing but a singular block of wood floating in a seemingly endless body of water. Equipped with only a plastic hook, you'll have to gather resources in order to keep yourself alive and turn your raft into a bigger and more comfortable shelter.

The game has a story you can follow at your own pace. But while the story islands you visit throughout the game are a nice change of pace from the usual gameplay loop, the story itself is not really anything to write home about. The survival aspect of the game easily makes up for that though.

Especially when playing with friends you can spend hours just exploring randomly generated islands, collecting resources and turning your raft into a swimming home. There are plenty of cool additions to your raft you can unlock and craft. Some of the most useful ones unlock a bit too late at a point when you're already getting close to the end of the story but there's still always new stuff to find and look forward to.

If you and a friend or two are looking for a survival game that's more on the chill side but still keeps you busy you really can't go wrong with this one, you'll definitely get your money's worth.

As someone who doesn’t own a console and only ever considered getting one to play Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare I was super happy to learn that there’s another game that might scratch that very itch of mixing a 19th century setting with zombies.

Hunt: Showdown delivers an incredible Southern Gothic atmosphere and pairs it with exciting high-stakes PvPvE gameplay and very deliberate, satisfying gunplay.

The goal of the game is for you and up to two friends to collect clues all over the Louisiana Bayou and eventually pinpoint the location of one of the map bosses, kill it, collect its bounty and extract. All while a bunch of other players compete with you and will be more than happy to kill you in the process.

If you don’t make it out alive your hunter alongside all their weapons and acquired traits will be lost permanently. This might sound harsh at first but you’ll learn quickly that this mechanic is what makes the game so exciting. Your hunter’s life, equipment and progression being on the line every game in combination with the fights you’ll have requiring a lot of strategising, smart decision making and patience will result in countless moments you’ll remember for a long time to come.

If you die though it only takes a handful of more successful rounds to level your next hunter back up and on top you have an overall account progression unlocking new weapons, tools and traits your hunters can acquire so you never feel like you’re not making any progress.

For me Hunt hits that sweet spot between being high stakes but not to a devastating level à la Rust, a game where you lose everything you built up over weeks within a few minutes and being a bit more “hardcore” than your average shooter while still remaining a lot more accessible and easier to get into than a game like Escape from Tarkov.

A quick note about the game’s monetisation: All DLCs for Hunt are entirely cosmetic, there’s no way of getting any gameplay advantage by throwing money at the game.

Tiny Lands is a fairly simple, very chill spot the difference game with adorable little worlds full of cute details. The difficulty level is just about right to not be too easy nor too frustrating. Some of the colour differences might be rough for people with colour blindness though. The amount of content you get is fair for the price tag. I'd actually be happy to pay a buck or two for a small DLC with more worlds.

Pro tip: Stream it to your friends on Discord to play it together while you're waiting in queues in other games to pass the time and you might end up with them enjoying Tiny Lands more than the game you're queuing for ;D

Deep Rock is a very polished and extremely charming co-op PvE game that offers a very fun and laid back experience with friends but, thanks to its wholesome community, works just as well when you play with strangers.

The devs are committed, always have an open ear for community feedback and keep the game fresh with consistent content updates.

I literally can’t think of a single bad thing to say about this game, 10/10.

THE GOOD:

* Very fair price for the playtime you'll get out of it
* New cars, hats, maps & game modes on a regular basis
* Ethical MTX system (cosmetics only, used to fund tournaments)
* Devs listen to the community & fix things accordingly

THE NEUTRAL:

* You do have a slight advantage if you have a controller
* Some maps are kinda so/so, not a big deal though
* Like in every competitive game the community can be meh

THE BAD:

* You can but you really shouldn't play without friends. If you search for games alone you will end up in matches that are already running with your team being behind several goals about half the time. And if you manage to get into a fresh game you'll have to deal with not-so-great team mates.
* The matchmaking in the casual mode is almost non-existent. It pretends to look for people around your rank but you'll almost always end up with opponents that are 2 or 3 ranks above you and that is a pretty big deal in this game.

OVERALL:

The game is definitely fun and pretty addictive, as long as you have friends to play with. The skill ceiling is rather high if you're into highly competitive gameplay. If not, the game also has several game modes (like Rumble with silly power-ups or Snow Day where you play hockey instead of soccer) that work well for more casual players like me :p

The devs being nice folks who make an effort to stay in touch with the community and pumping out additional content for free will make sure that you won't regret spending money on this game.

After playing Episode 1 I worry a lot less about this series than before because it seems the story and atmosphere stay very true to the source material -- with all ups and downs that come with getting yourself involved with it. The graphics do look a bit wonky but the writing makes up for that, no doubt.

If you're a fan of A Song of Ice and Fire you won't regret giving this a try as long as you don't expect a video game in the classical sense; it's more of a Choose your own Adventure episode of Game of Thrones. You'll spend about 2 hours with each episode, putting the game at about €2/hour which is twice of what I usually aim for. So if you have the patience it might be worth it to wait for Episode 2 and the inevitable price drop coming with it.

Path of Exile is the game for everyone who thought Diablo 3 was too casual compared to its predecessors. It offers a crazy amount of possibilities when it comes to item & character builds, a huge skill tree, the freedom to combine active skills with an incredible amount of support skills and many exciting unique items that open up entirely new play styles.

It may seem a bit overwhelming at first but it's easy enough to figure out all aspects of the game on the go if you played other ARPGs before (especially with the recently added help system). The developers try to keep the replay value high with a constant influx of new leagues, events and content updates and the micro transaction system they use is actually fair and not pay-to-win.

Pros:
- Free to play
- No pay to win
- Active community
- Devs listen to feedback
- Regular content updates and patches
- Great depth
- Lots of character build options

Cons:
- The depth can be overwhelming for new players
- Game mechanics might take some time getting used to

Type:Rider is a platformer that has you play as a pair of dots who jump, swim, and solve environmental puzzles to progress. It’s also an educational game that teaches you about the history of typography as you play. And it looks fantastic. So if you’re a word nerd, a history buff, or a platforming fan, this is a game you’ll want to play.

The art style is downright gorgeous, the music is great and the map design is amusingly clever. Occasionally the controls can feel a bit mushy but it never gets frustrating; the game is very unique and just fun!

It's fairly short but if you can get it in a sale or bundle it's definitely worth it!

Rust is often and probably somewhat accurately described as the love child of Minecraft (gathering resources, crafting, building bases) and DayZ (looting towns, trying to not get killed before you even see your enemy).

Surviving and thriving in this game is hard; the environment and especially the people playing it tend to be harsh and you will die a lot at first but once you found some helpful people to team up with (or even better, convinced your friends to run around naked on this apocalyptic island together) you'll have a blast. Between hilarious encounters and sheer panic you'll live through many memorable experiences.

So far the game is about 10% complete according to the developers but it's already very playable and a lot of fun. Patches with new content are coming out about every week and the community is having a visible influence on design decisions made in them.

Bonus points for fantastic music by the Swedish Dark Ambient legends Atrium Carceri!