Recent reviews by neon_cacti

Lethal Company, the VLOG.

Just about unplayable, weapon hits don't register properly, things glitch in and out of existence, random models persist through the entire match after players DC, damage values sometimes show up to 600 damage on a single shot, getting headshots when I completely miss players, camera is bad, friendly fire is on no matter what, so you get killed by teammates, KDA seems to randomly assign numbers to you, leveling up didn't work, I'd get XP and coins but I was stuck at level 1 and no coins, free coins do not work for me, weapon sounds are random and don't match what you're using, keep getting kicked out of matches or bugging in the main menu, getting constantly instakilled by a katana-wielding Chimp flying at like twice my speed.

Overall, it's a meme, not a game. You get your haha and that's it.

Just like Avatar 2.

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A very amateurish attempt at creating a metroidvania game, charming you with the graphics, but quickly backstabbing you with poor mechanics and design.

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It's been a long time since I wanted to play Ghoulboy, as the trailers seemed very promising for, what appeared to be, a simplistic metroidvania game. Finally, the opportunity presented itself, I bought it and soon regretted it. There isn't much good to it. It looks fun, the barebones aspects are there, and thankfully I got it cheap, otherwise I'd be far more upset.

It's just not polished. The enemy and item placements are all over the place(pun intended), so you get a ton of ammo or health when you don't need it, then spend whole levels at extremely low health. I saw no purpose behind gold, as I soon had so much of it, it became redundant, much like the chests that drop it. Often I would die due to my own greed, only to get more useless gold. Ammunitions were also bountiful, so in most cases I could spam attacks, but I would often not have enough in specific cases where I simply couldn't telegraph or avoid enemy attacks.

Items switching upon pick-up can often be lethal, as you think you're wielding one thing, but the game swapped it out with something else. Like for example, you prepare a javelin jump, only to fall to your demise as you toss daggers into the void. Enemies also don't abide by the laws of physics and they may walk through some blocks that you can only push around, which often means you'll be getting stuck between... a rock and a hard place. :)

The map layout/design is lackluster. There are some segments during which you are forced to die, just so you could understand the mechanic, but this may mean a level reset. This would be acceptable, if it weren't for the plethora of instakill pitfalls, in places where you can't avoid getting hit. So, in an attempt to dodge things, you fall and die. In other cases you don't even realize these pits will kill you and you jump in willingly, expecting to survive. Timing platform jumps is virtually impossible, as not all of them seem to be on a set timer. They don't trigger in correct intervals, resulting in your death.

Buying the small healing in a store has the same effect as a big heal. Hit detection doesn't work correctly, especially on fast enemies. In some occasions I also died, but the game didn't register my death, so I was stuck there in limbo, forced to restart the game.

Overall, I'd say it's an okay cheap purchase, especially if you wanna support an indie developer. However, he seems to have some drama relating to the revocation of game keys. Take that as you will!

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It feels like a confused, soulless version of L4D. There isn't much polish or redeeming qualities in it, and coming from developers that mostly did car/silly games up to this point, it isn't surprising.

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The choice of gameplay for this game is a bit confusing. Melee attacks are designed as something fast-paced, as you can't equip the weapons (like in L4D), but rather you melee attack with a shortcut. Yet, all other actions in the game, like pressing a button, or picking up stuff, ALL take an arbitrary amount of time to do, which implies a slow-paced design.

The game is meant to be a co-op experience. That's what it is designed around. Yet the AI is a nightmare. They're entirely useless, don't pick up items, don't correctly swap weapons and come in melee range to get a special infected off your face, instead of shooting it as soon as possible. If you get downed while playing with bots, the game ends instead of letting the bots pick you up. Removing the bots also doesn't make the game any easier. They could've at least lowered spawn-rates. The next worst thing are the players. A lot of them just downloaded maxed out save files and don't know how to actually play the game, and you can't even kick them out of your own lobby. But hey, they let you kick out your own friends that you just invited.

I was thrown off by the fact that there is no jumping - or even a dodge button for that matter. So, when facing bombers or spitters that crept up to you, there's no other way around them, even if your reflexes are great. You rely on the game's vault system to get over some obstacles, which often just screws you over as it doesn't register that well. Map accessibility is made limited by the cliche "crate in the stairs" or other silly methods that could easily be jumped over, swam across, climbed on, walked to et cetera.

Movement isn't the only weak aspect of this game, however, as gunplay is.. not fun. Shotguns feel more like rifles, molotovs/explosives can only kill a limited amount of zombies per explosion/fire. Why? The core mechanic of the game is tearing up hordes of walking cadavers, yet you lock this potential fun behind a frag that blows up 5 of them. This also makes a lot of the heavy weapons feel like peashooters. It's sad. In the end, your best bet is just using the Slasher class, as it dispatches through a ton of enemies effortlessly by spamming your melee (regardless of the stamina bar).

The item placement is also tricky. It relies on some sort of RNG, but since it's pure RNG, you may end up with a ton of equipment charges or defensive kits in areas where you don't need them, only to then run dry where it's most crucial.

Speaking of defenses, you may only place them in predetermined locations, which isn't too horrible for stuff like fences, but sucks for turrets. Said turrets also have a horrible range of motion, meaning in some cases you're just a few pixels away from being able to shoot the rest of the horde. Mortars are super delayed, so it relies on you timing your shot beforehand to actually hit something. This is often pointless because hordes are inconsistent, and chances of you timing it right are very low.

Loading screens are long, there's no suicide button when you're downed, XP for guns only counts for that specific level. Meaning if you go over the 100XP for a level, the gun won't continue leveling until you buy the next upgrade for it. The atmosphere and zombie layouts aren't great, animations are pretty bad, especially in some cutscenes. There were random disconnects which meant I would get no rewards for completing levels. Finishing levels with modifiers doesn't count towards completion, and this isn't pointed out anywhere. While playing online both my partner and I had issues with invisible zombies that would almost instakill you, and mission objectives like "defend X/Y", for which the timers were broken. We'd either clear all the zombies and it would still fail the mission, or we'd kill a few of them and we'd be in the green immediately.

Every time I played this game, it would ruin my night. Finishing it on the highest difficulty was a nightmare and was not one bit fun or challenging. Just unfair. Where did Epic's money go towards? Definitely not the improvement of this game. I don't understand how people can worship WWZ and praise it, when it's mechanically worse than a game that released a decade ago.

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A fast paced doom clone with roguelike aspects. Stays entertaining but loses steam when you start working on the remaining achievements.

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The game starts off quite simple, with fairly easy enemies and a single "class" - the starting weapons are solid, but as you progress you'll learn to avoid some and favor others.

Movement is enjoyable, as it is quick and responsive, making running around very fun. Gameplay gets modified as you pick up scrolls, which randomize a reward that is in most cases positive, in others it can be a run-ending curse that you cannot drop. But! They can be purified with a lucky scroll. Sadly, I wish I at least had better insight/specifications on the stats of scrolls and weapons, it all relies on a guesstimation of whether something is better or not.

With the use of various favors from Egyptian gods, you get to select, what's effectively, your loadout. They come pre-equipped with a set of weapons, and passive + active perks. Unfortunately, some of these feel completely useless in comparison to others. Another issue is that I don't understand how/when some of these favors get buffed. By completing a pyramid, you keep your buffs, lose them if you die. If you die with some, the others don't seem to get buffed, neither do they get buffed by beating a pyramid.

I appreciate the attention to detail as you rise up through the pyramids, the levels get smaller, corresponding to the pyramid shape, and each pyramid turns more "technological", although some of the old enemies still get reused.

Some major complains I have is that the Phoenix and Bats are so horrible that they should be avoided entirely. They can't track enemies correctly, they're already hard enough to aim to begin with. Sometimes they straight up just crash into the walls on purpose. If they clipped through geometry it would benefit these greatly.

It is also annoying you have to scroll through favors often since the game shuffles them around. If it had them all laid out like cards on a desk, it would save me some hassle. The speed at which enemies spawn (progressively, instead of instantly), can sometimes induce a state of un-life if you're wearing the Plague Medallion, as an enemy might pop up behind you.

The saddest aspect is that the game's length is just fine, but it grinds down to a halt thanks to the.. grind. I still haven't gotten the 100% just due to the amount of time it demands so that you can complete those tasks.

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A game so entertaining I failed to realize it was in Early Access. For the price, it offered plenty of hours of fun for me, and kept me engaged with consistent updates.


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The first thing that hit me once I opened the game was the very arcade and retro look and sounds. I wasn't sure if I liked it, but soon enough I began to love it and appreciate the attention to detail.

Gameplay is simplistic - you avoid enemies and build up an arsenal to prepare you for the incoming waves that grow larger and stronger with time. But this didn't deter the game from being enjoyable. There are many weapons and equipment you can choose and, once maxed out, you can then evolve said weapons (so long as you have the necessary equipment), turning them into extremely powerful and satisfying weapons of mass destruction.

Scattered around the map there are objects you can destroy, which may drop varying amount of gold, or very fun power-ups. Stuff such as the food that makes you breathe fire, or the magnet that picks up everything on the map are super satisfying.

I was slightly annoyed at having to stare at chests opening up for too long, until I realized that pressing ESC skips to the end and shows you the loot immediately, so I was really happy that function was added. There's also small puns/jokes that I appreciated, which you may understand if you know Italian.

This game was one of the most enjoyable experiences I had in recent times, and I totally forgot it was in Early Access. It's really affordable, and it made me re-live the nostalgia of actually being excited for the next update.

The developer is very responsible and competent, delivering periodic updates that add new content and achievements consistently, meaning you can continue to return to the game from time to time to catch up with new items and characters.

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It fell short of the base game, and kind of spoiled the experience for me. Lacks any real substance for the price.


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The new set of parts didn't seem to be that useful, however, once I had to play through the last bits of the DLC I found true purpose in the Godzilla blast. (this being: nuking the fodder irradiated sharks in a few seconds, cutting those boring fights short)

This DLC is boring. It's way too on-the-nose about previous hints/jokes/references, turning the conspiracy theories into actual plot/truth. While the transition of the narrator into a conspiracy freak was kinda funny, it lacked the nuances of the base game.

This DLC is also barren. There's a ton of padding and re-used mission ideas. Other than the few "original" segments in the new area, you are then forced to return back to the old areas and do the same thing over and over. Some racing, kill some sailors, kill the same irradiated shark, follow the trail of the Apex. At least the final boss was kind of fun... and then they decided to throw the same (previously original, now re-used) enemies you fought to collect the irradiated parts.

For the entirety of the story the map, or any menu for that matter, took seconds to open. Going back to the previous area would allow me to open stuff normally, and this was seriously annoying to deal with.

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A fairly humorous yet exciting "collect-athon" that reminded me of classics such as Feeding Frenzy. It isn't perfect, but the flaws can be easily disregarded.


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The thing I didn't expect from Maneater, was for it to be presented like some kind of fishing show you'd watch on TV, ala Deadliest Catch. To top it off, the narrator is funny and there's a lot of small references and originality scattered all throughout the early stages. Especially enjoyed the Lovecraft references.

There is a lack of polish, however, as I ran into bugs and frame-drops/stutter during the entire playthrough. Some animations (not limited to your shark, but everything), are very janky. In a few instances I got stuck in geometries and was forced to quit and load. The mouse in my UI wouldn't always be able to click on the things I hover over. Near the end of the game the narrator started skipping sentences or just cutting them short. Audios overlapped, and it was a mess in cutscenes. Restarting seemed to fix this, also. To top it off, there were periodical crashes, especially when alt-tabbing.

The gameplay itself was fun. It took a lot of adjusting and getting used to, but it soon became simple, although aerial controls are quite a mess and I hated doing it. The best way to grow quickly was to collect POI's and caches - with this method I found leveling up to be fun, instead of grindy. There's a decent amount of mutations/parts, but not all seem very useful.

I love the fact that eating animations don't slow you down or prevent you from acting, and there's some neat indicators for things, such as the red cables leading to the grotto, or orange corals marking exits and such. Unfortunately they don't have any indicators to track stuff such as stacks of poison or other effects, and fast travel is horrible because it keeps telling you you're in "combat" - and by the time you're out of it, you've already gotten to your destination by "fin" (heh, get it?).

It feels like there's a huge hole in the variety of edible critters. It's really unfortunate they didn't add anything like large crabs or lobsters on the sea floor to change things up. Perhaps some rare jellyfish as well, and big birds like pelicans, or even seagulls, as edible creatures on land/bridges. With such minor additions it would've truly brought the game to life.

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Despite its likeness to Terraria, Starbound just couldn't reach its heights. To me, it felt unrewarding, quite shallow and often confusing - even unfinished at times.


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Where to begin? It seems whichever part of the game I look at, something just doesn't sit right with me. Initially the randomization of enemies and loot seemed like a great feature. Soon I realized I'm better off avoiding fights as they don't yield anything of value, nor are they a worthwhile method of making money. At some point I concluded that quickly raiding dungeon chests and selling the gear (which was very plain) was the best option. (especially to later obtain the buffalo eggs to create the Perfect Armor)

The food management became tedious, as I'd often have a full inventory of scraps I'd have to go through one by one to find out which one will expire first. Had I known that fridges are functional, I'd perhaps use them more, but even so they don't seem worth the hassle.

Movement isn't as clean as I'd like it to, especially when you're unable to double jump while sprinting for example. The grappling hook also doesn't feel nice, which is unfortunate. Finding a sense of direction (both spatially and in the questline) is also a nuisance, until you find out about flags (which are a cheap teleporting device, never even built a proper portal), or that you can easily track which planet quests are on.

It didn't take long for everything to become repetitive. The quests feel pointless because the rewards are not worthwhile, you quickly get all the upgrades you need for the mining tool, so that's out the window too. Companions and pets are utterly useless and weak, just like vehicles (which you can destroy with your own attacks by accident). The only half-decent thing was the amount of variety between races and their decorative items.

Once I learned that you could build the Perfect Armor from cubes, nothing else mattered. All the late-game items were redundant and not worth the hassle. Even the final boss was a letdown. It felt like they focused on the decorative aspect of the game, so, making villages and such look pretty. Then ensured there is a somewhat decent main quest, and left the rest to your "imagination". Free to do whatever. What exactly, I don't know.

Periodical crashes weren't too much of a problem as the game would auto-save, but honestly it felt like it was just interesting enough to finish, but not enough to be enjoyed. Worst of all, the achievements are also horribly grindy and RNG reliant.