Recent reviews by stupac

Its not a bad tech demo. Optimization is poor, even with an RTX 4060 I had to turn everything down to "High" and set DLSS to 50 quality to stop occasional stuttering, but that isn't too surprising. It is only 15-20 min (if you take your time), and most of my time was stuck in a room trying to figure out how to open a door where a tiny piece of debris was in the way. All that said, the gameplay was classic HL 2, so you can't go wrong. There are nice little hints about the Borealis and it is packed with little references. I'd like to see the team be willing to take a few more risks with innovating in terms of gameplay and aesthetics. But, I understand for their first gameplay preview, they are playing it safe.

Fallen Aces is an action-focused minimalist immersive sim with a hard-boiled detective pulp comic book theme. And it is wonderful and at the current price an absolute steal. I haven't had so much fun in a game in a while. Whereas many FPS games and immersive sims give you a big inventory of weapons and ammunition and gadgets, the magic number here is: 3. Just, 3 of everything is what you can carry, though some items are stack able, typically up to: 3. 3 shall be the number of the items, and the number of the items shall be: 3. 3 inventory items, 3 gadgets (essential items like a lighter, radio, etc), and stacks up to 3 (typically), that's it. If you want to carry a gun, you get what's left in the cylinder or clip, and if you want to be able to reload, you'll need to use up another precious inventory slot for ammo (which is already very scarce). This may sound tedious, but what it really does is force the player to concentrate on the action and the game and not on looting everything and managing a huge inventory. You are a man of action who lets your fists do the talkin'. This limited inventory prevents that grasping attachment to 'stuff' and particular strategies that involve particular items and makes you improvise for each situation instead. To take down the goons around the corner you may decide to keep that deli sandwich in case you get hungry, not draw your .38 special with 3 bullets left, but instead smash the nearby trash can, fling the lid at the nearest goon from the shadows then while he's suckin' wind, charge in with a haymaker for his buddy. Or, by all means, use the .38, and when the cylinder is empty fling the empty gun at the head of the oncoming reinforcements who heard the ruckus. Luckily your fists are pretty deadly in this game and the melee combat is simple, but a real pleasure. Since you heal a little on finishers, you are further less tied to maintaining a huge inventory of healing items. The atmosphere of the game is top notch. The stenciled shadows are moody (and make stealth easier), the art style is clean and beautiful, the music is subtle but fitting. Levels are huge and open, always providing lots of points of ingress/egress, plenty of secrets to find, and lot's of tactical opportunities for stealth and ambush. In its early access state, this game still provides a ton of content, high replay value, and is very well-polished though I encountered some minor bugs (like not being hidden in some shadows).

Path of Achra is a hardcore Roguelike that won't waste your time. Reminds me of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup but even more streamlined! If there is one potential "con" is that it can sometimes move too fast. Areas are small, enemies are fierce, and a lot can happen in a single turn. One false move you can go from full health with a seemingly great build to dead. That said, the game is simple and accessible (especially if you are familiar with Roguelikes already), it is definitely easy to learn but hard to master. But, the developer has done a great job laying out the games mechanics if you read the tool tips. As with any Roguelike, the key is to specialize and design a build around interactions between your equipment, skills, race, class, and god. Progression is very satisfying and you'll likely unlock something (or many somethings) each run, failed or not. But, you will need to learn the game, experiment a lot, balance risk and reward, and play very carefully if you wish to make it to the end of a run and achieve victory. What drew me in was the great art style, writing, and "sword & sorcery" setting, but I am pleasantly surprised at the satisfying depth of the gameplay.

Hammerfight (or Highfleet 0 now that that game is out :P) is one of the most unique games you could ever play. Its skill-based physics-based combat is utterly unique. Moving your mouse moves your craft on the screen in a 1-to-1 relationship. Your melee weapon(s) are attached to your craft but swing freely. So, to swing your weapon effectively requires you to move your craft in such a way to build up the momentum of your weapon swing. And it is extremely tricky for new players to get the hang of compared to just pressing a button to attack (attack is almost an art in this game, the mouse is your brush). At first you'll be flailing about waving your weapon like a novice fencer waving his sword like an ineffectual feather duster. But, if you keep at it, with time and training you can turn into an untouchable god-like whirling dervish of destruction so that no matter how many opponents or monsters the game sends at you, you'll be able to cut through them like a hot knife through butter with no wasted movements, just solid blow after solid blow cutting them down effortlessly.

A major problem is that the game recommends too high of DPI settings. You'll want to bottom this setting out at 100 almost guaranteed regardless of your mouse. This will enable you to make small movements with your mouse to affect big swings with minor loss to precision.

Hammerfight uses a gorgeous, pre-rendered graphical aesthetic with multiple parallax background layers and subtle lighting that, much like Highfleet, gives the game a unique and oddly realistic appearance. Smoke and spark effects and plenty of gears and mechanical details sell the diesel-punk atmosphere. Koshutin really has crafted a unique and immersive world, obviously influenced by Dune and other sci-fi mixed with ancient human myth and legend.

Again, the game is very hard for new players because of how unique it is. Even coming back to it years later after putting hundreds of hours into the non-Steam version, there are early story missions that I've had to repeat many, many times because of how difficult they are. But, games don't get much more rewarding than this IMHO.

Its sequel, Highflight (which was originally planned as Hammerfight 2), is a very different and very worthy animal. It is higher-tech and trades a melee emphasis for big guns, ability to design and build new craft, and a rogue-like submarine-like mini-game arms-race strategic meta game. Mad respect for the developer creating such unique games, that while extremely challenging, have so much depth and replayability.

Now that the game is free, you have no reason not to try it. Especially if you've played the excellent sequel. Just be aware that it takes time to get good at this game. Also, take frequent breaks and do wrist stretches/exercises or this game will give you really bad RSI (repetitive strain injury) in your wrist.

OFP: Dragon Rising I believe fits the definition of a hidden gem. In many ways, it sits comfortably between the true hardcore MilSim, ArmA, and more mainstream military FPS action games like Battlefield and Call of Duty. Much like Squad does today. The controversy regarding OFP vs ArmA is one of the big things that killed this game. ArmA won the war, and justly so as the superior MilSim that the community sided with. But, does that make OFP: Dragon Rising a bad game? No, it doesn't. Overall, it has a more enjoyable campaign than many of the ArmA games. Console support forced the PC version to make compromises. But, it has console support which means it is an easy pick up and play with the controller. Personally, I prefer to play this game on my PS3 (the keyboard/mouse controls are usable, but a bit clunky, especially when it comes to the command interface). And in that regard, when my hands are hurting from RSI from work but I have a MilSim hankering, this game foots the bill. Sadly, large scale online multiplayer is dead at this point with the servers shutdown. But, TBF, ARMA was always superior in this regard. Where this game shines is the campaign which is well-designed and fun to play solo, and I imagine in 4 player co-op.

The user interface and controls in many ways are more polished and well-designed than contemporary ArmA games. Movement isn't nearly as clunky as in ArmA, while still feeling realistic. Having just started another playthrough of this game after so many years, I'm surprised at how good it feels and how ahead of its time many of the features are. If you have played Squad, it'll almost seem like a single-player version of that: the effects of suppression, artillery and heavy weapons hitting close by feels earth-shattering, the feeling of the movement and weapons, the user interface (down to the color and appearance), the use of bandages and healing. You also have hit locations for damage, like if you get tagged in the leg, even if you bandage the wound you won't be able to sprint. You can throw grenades overhand and underhand, something only recently seen in many tactical shooters. Many actions have detailed animations, like for example switching to the SMAW AT weapon your character will seamlessly place the weapon on the ground to assemble it before shouldering it to fire. Dragon Rising is also a product of its time. In the early "HD" era of gaming developers experimented a lot with post-processing effects and Dragon Rising suffers for this a bit, with washed out colors and too much bloom. In daylight the game can appear that everything is just a yellow haze. Also, the story and setting isn't as fleshed out as say ArmA CWA, 2, or 3. And lacks the nuanced commentary on the nature of war and the memorable characters.

The sandbox aspects of the battlefield are present much like in the ArmA series, but appear more constrained and predictable. Practically anything can and does happen in a given ArmA mission with how the AI seem to be far more random in their behavior. Or perhaps the missions scripting is just better in Dragon Rising. That said, you'll still run into plenty of frustrating mission replays where it seemed you did everything right but still lost due to some bad luck. But, you'll have far fewer of those occasions where you get popped by an enemy you never saw. You'll often have some warning with enemy fire getting more accurate the longer you stay exposed. Stealth is fairly fun and not as frustrating or unpredictable as in ArmA (if you pay attention to your squad's dialogue to know how aware the enemy is of your presence on stealth missions). And generally you'll be provided with enough assets to reasonably complete your mission, but have it be balanced enough that you will be the deciding factor between success and failure (unlike in some ArmA missions that complete themselves without you, or where the odds are so heavily against you that it becomes frustrating).

Dragon Rising suffered by not being Battlefield or ArmA, leading to the PvP experience being substandard, but it did provide a worthy and unique singleplayer and co-op experience. Maybe if it had managed to attract a larger player base and a more dedicated mod community, history might have been different. As it is, it is interesting to play as a curiosity, and it is well worth picking up for the singleplayer and co-op experience, especially at the low price tag. For a similar PvP experience, Squad or Project Reality are currently the answer.

Astro Port is a developer of boutique doujin arcade-likes. They obviously put a lot of love and care into their games which are always replete with gorgeous details, excellent stage and enemy designs, epic bosses, and fun gameplay mechanics. I see folks complain about their games' difficulty. Are they hard? Yes, certainly by today's standards, but compared to the arcade games they pay homage to, they are tough but fairly designed. Are you expected to clear them on your first go? No. Game overs, just like in the arcade games of yore are expected. There is an easy mode if that really isn't for you, but normal is for those interested in building up skill and who want to earn their victory. And the nice thing is Astro Port's formula of customization and level exploration with branching paths and approaches ensure that repeat playthroughs are not boring as you'll have an opportunity to tinker with different combinations of weapons, tactics, and level paths. SATAZIUS has multiple primary weapon options which couple together with 2 sub-weapon slots that can be powered up along with a powerful charge attack (which is your first option of insurance if you get in over your head). The game is further generous with lives, shields, checkpoints, and continues (a full 9 on normal). Despite how many bullets are potentially on screen at a time, I never found myself having a hard time recognizing what is going on on-screen. As with any shooter, you develop skills of pattern recognition as you play, but familiarity with shmups will make this an easy pick up and play. I suck at shmups, but on my first few playthroughs I had little difficulty clearing many of the levels. One of the biggest flaws is the lack of d-pad support (seems to only work with the stick). But, at least Astro Port fixed this for their later games like Gigantic Army which support stick and d-pad. Personally, I find it not terribly difficult to play with an analog stick and the added precision for getting right up against obstacles to grab power ups without crashing is helpful.

This game set a new standard for milsims. I have a physical copy of it somewhere back when it was Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis. It is a stunning achievement by a small Czech developer (back when there was hardly any Czech video game industry). At its core it is a military sandbox that is fully functional. For any scenario squads are assigned objectives to complete, leaders of those squads will automatically give orders to their squad members utilizing vehicles and heavy weapons at their disposal. Squad members will call out enemy sightings with direction, range, and enemy type information. Squad leaders will react to this information prioritizing targets and squad members will engage enemies based on orders and assigned ROE. The fact that all this works pretty well is amazing in and of itself. Sure, as expected there are bugs. The AI can be stupid at times. But, this creates a level of unpredictability that makes the game endearing and highly repayable. Gameplay-wise the singleplayer campaigns are well done, have a good story and atmosphere, and generally are well designed. But, some missions are real bears where too much can be expected of you (not given enough resources against a strong enemy) or the sandbox nature of the AI can lead to frustrating results. There are times where you can breeze through a mission hardly lifting a finger, or due to no fault of your own the mission will be a failure because of your squad-mates incompetence (or enemy's sudden superhuman powers). But, when it works, you'll end up with a unique war-story that feels realistic, win or lose.

One thing is for sure, you will have a hard time being a one-man army. There is a weight to movement that feels awkward at first, almost like you are controlling a puppet on a string instead of the snappy, natural feel you get playing a standard FPS. It reminds me of the first few times I went out to play paintball. It feels weird moving and manipulating a gun, you feel awkward, exposed, vulnerable instead of the usual action-hero power fantasy you get from playing a standard FPS game. But, as you play you gradual get used to the movement and it becomes more natural. It discourages run n gun style gameplay, you won't be bunny hopping around the battlefield, zig-zagging dodging enemy bullets. Instead, you'll find yourself running from cover to cover, hitting the dirt when the bullets and rockets start flying, and frantically trying to lay down fire on the enemy to kill them before they can kill you. Piloting vehicles is actually pretty decent too. While not on the level of a dedicated vehicle sim, commanding a tank or Cobra gunship is a good mix of accessible realism and fun.

The series has only gotten better with time becoming the premier milsim for anyone seriously interested in the genre, but this was a great start for the series and well-worth playing (recommend starting with Cadet difficulty so you aren't as lost). And it often feels like later iterations of the series, ArmA 1-3, expect you to already be acquainted with the core mechanics of the series that this game eases you into. I like to think of it as a tutorial for the rest of the ArmA series in game form.

Short but sweet game. It is like Half-Life and Metal Gear Solid had a baby. But, that doesn't do this game justice. It really is something all its own with a great, sort of personal story with lots of little details to uncover if you pay attention. It oozes style with the retro 70's vibe, think Prey 2017. The gameplay isn't bad either. I don't enjoy stealth THAT much, but at least it isn't overly challenging in this game once you have nabbed a few power ups. Early on when you are weakest it is a bit of a chore at times. It Comes In Waves is still my favorite game by Antonio Freyre (I prefer a straight fight to all this sneakin around), but this game is fantastic and well worth the short playthrough. It feels way longer than it is, the quality is densely packed.

Freedom Planet is a beautiful, incredibly fun action platformer. It incorporates so many cool ideas in terms of combat and level interaction and exploration and enemies and feels great to play. It'll immediately feel like a throwback to Genesis action platformers like Sonic, Ristar, and Rocket Knight/Sparkster, but without the crushingly hard challenge while keeping all the fun. Some have said the characters and voice acting are the worst part of the game, and they can definitely put off some players. Its a mix hammy humor, sassy sarcasm, and overly syrupy sweet (borderline creepy?) dialogue at times that'd make the campiest 80's/90's kid's show cringe (think My Little Pony or somethin). All the same, there is a kind of coziness to the characters and their relationships that could make you a lil lowkey jealous that life isn't so carefree. And this is a bit at odds with particularly violent villains who enjoy beheading people. Honestly, it just makes me laugh with how silly it comes across especially since I can't decide how seriously it is taking itself. All this make up a must play for anyone interested in this retro action platformer genre.

It is amazing when you find a game that seems it was made just for you. I have often dreamed of a strategy game that focused on the softer parts of war, hearts and minds and politics and logistics, rather than the obsessive focus games have on violence and destruction. Vietnam is a great example where the US won the battles but still lost the war. This game gives you the opportunity to see that in action and succeed where the US failed. Few games that can portray COIN operations in a realistic fashion. This game succeeds and I think it draws an excellent line when it comes to complexity vs accessibility. It is a matter of focusing on logistics and intelligence to support regional security and win hearts and minds of the populace (while balancing politics at home). Some may disagree, saying the game is far too simplistic and once you figure it out lacks enough depth to keep you interested long-term. Fair enough, this game is much like a puzzle at first. Once you figure it out, the custom settings offer some replayability. You can complete your uniform for achievements. But, that may be about all that'll hold your attention. But, for the price you pay, you'll get a lot of mileage out of this excellent, well designed game. I have played this game offline a lot (which is why my hours are low). But, I'd estimate I've put at least 30-40 hours into it and still come back to it from time to time to play a campaign. The developer has made a sequel with greater depth, Afghanistan '11. And Angola '86 is on its way. But I recommend starting with this game. It is a great introduction to this unique 'series'.