Senaste recensioner av Voodoo Pork

"Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet" is a charming, if not lightweight, Metroidvania with a minimalist but interesting art style. You play as a little guy in a little ship and you traverse through 5 biomes to unlock new weapons, abilities, upgrades, you kinda know the drill.

It doesn't exactly reinvent the genre, or do anything particularly mind-blowing, but it's a decent 2012-era Xbox Live Arcade game with some creepy-cute art and moderately engaging gameplay. A good "I'm home sick over the weekend" game. A slight thumbs up.

Pros:
- Hard not to like your main character. He's a little guy in a little ship!
- Lots of upgrades (but you'll only really use 3 or 4 on the regular).
- Map is very clear about where to go
- The music is by operatic death metal band Dimmu Borgir? How? Why?

Cons:
- No fast travel means there's way too much time wasted backtracking.
- Bosses aren't exactly hard, but can be frustrating due to weird hitboxes.
- Enemies respawn way too fast and fighting them can be repetitive.
- Certain upgrades are a PITA to get, I will wage holy war on that stupid ocean current loop thing.
- Dead multiplayer

One of the best Space Marble games, sort of a cross between Super Monkey Ball and Marble Madness. A great speedrunning game with a great selection of levels and challenges. Recommended for both casual and completionists.

Pros:
- Runs amazing even at high speed and max settings
- Slick, smooth controls
- Nice 90's Trapper Keeper aesthetics, great screenshot game
- Some nice EDM that's not too distracting
- Tons of unlockables and bonus levels

Cons:
- Physics can be... interesting at times.
- Camera is not always your friend, especially during loops and certain puzzle levels (Tesseract is a war criminal for this)
- Some truly atrocious levels stink up the place (Newton's Anything, Siege, Tesseract, any Mario Kart multiplayer level where you just collect gems)

Have you ever wanted to fly through one of those 1990's Trapper Keeper designs for exactly 10 minutes at a time? Well, now you can!

"Exo One" is a very odd, surreal space exploration and flight game that put you in the cockpit of a spherical ship that uses gravity to launch itself into the air. You travel from planet to planet learning How to Train Your Space Marble and meet up with some old friends. Easy to pick up, great for a chill out evening. Play with headphones.

Pros:
- Immaculate vibes, enjoy this for the ride
- Smooth, easy to pick up flight mechanics with a lot of emergent "ah ha" moments
- Very cool planets to zip around on, some amazing art direction going on
- Great for speedrunners, great movement tech

Cons:
- Unless you're in the pipe 5 by 5, it can be annoying to get moving again.
- Some levels are way more confusing or obnoxious to navigate that they should be.
- Feels like there's a lot of mechanics left on the table
- Very short, there's even an achievement for beating the game in less than 60 mins

"Anodyne" is a little Zelda-like that has equally some charm and 8-bit creepiness mixed in. The plot is hard to follow, and if it's a parody or send-up of something, I'm not sure what. You're a little dude and you wander around and do some small dungeons in a semi-open world,collecting cards of monsters and characters,

It wants to be a Zelda clone, but lacks what makes Zelda interesting: polish, fun combat, and design. A slog. Not recommended.

Pros:
- Some interesting puzzles that require real thought to solve.
- Black and White Town is an unnerving reference of the famous Pokemon Lavender Town. I really liked this section.
- Every dungeon has its own unique mechanic, keeps it fresh.

Cons:
- I have no idea what the plot of this game is. What am I missing here?
- Awful combat. You can easily get stun-locked and hurt by wonky hitboxes. Enemy design is bare bones and bosses are either a joke or a headache.
- Very minimal map. You do a lot of backtracking, can get lost easily. Needs to indicate more clearly what that screen contains (such as a blocked path) and where exits are. At least fast travel is here.
- Way too easy to get completely stuck and have no clue where to go. Not fun.
- Navigation in dungeons can be a chore. Lots of one way paths, dead ends, and with a lackluster map you tend to wander far more than you should.
- Levels are thematically chaotic with no clear sense of progression. There's a circus next to a zombie maze. Okay?
- Music is very repetitive and since you'll be wandering a lot, you get to hear it constantly repeat.

Another prime candidate for the "maybe recommend" rating. A soft yes.

"Super Adventure Hand" is a goofy, sometimes frustrating, physics-based puzzle platformer starring possibly the most unsettling protagonist of any game of this type. You play a sentient, talking disembodied hand that skitters around like a fleshy spider and makes me feel genuinely uncomfortable. The way it stretches its fingers will haunt my dreams.

Pros:
- Silly sense of humor while also being oddly gross
- Satisfying movement and traversal
- Great sound design on the hand!
- Good length considering the simple mechanics
- Correct price point for 3 hour puzzle game
- Yes, you can flip the bird.

Cons:
- Camera can be a hindrance sometimes
- Flicking objects can often cause you to buy it an engagement ring and you'll fly off with it to elope
- Repetitive, meh music
- A really annoying boss fight
- Runs out of ideas after tiny hand mechanic is introduced
- Little replay value. Needs a custom level editor.

"Gris" is like a living watercolor painting about nothing in particular. It's abstract but pretty, doesn't last for too long, but doesn't have a ton of staying power. It's not very mechanically deep or compelling from a gameplay perspective, but it's not trying to be. It's a lovely little chillout game you can complete on a slow evening. I've heard "Gris" might make gamers feel "emotions" as I've heard them called. Remember those? From when you were a kid?

Pros:
- Gorgeous art style and animation, feels handmade
- Wonderful music, add to your "sleepy piano" playlist on Spotify
- Short but sweet length, about 4 hrs, which is exactly how long something like this should be
- Ambiguous but wholesome atmosphere of healing and rejuvenation, hard to feel anything but warm fuzzies

Cons:
- Not much to it, what you see is what you get
- Lack of narrative context makes the emotional impact feel a bit hollow at times
- Some annoying platforming sections
- Slow player movement makes backtracking a real chore

I really wish Steam had a "kinda recommend option", because I am truly on the fence with this one. "Returnal" is a dark, surreal, punishingly difficult 3rd person shooter whose story gets more interesting the less literally you take it. Think "Groundhog Day" meets "Aliens" and recommended mainly for its menacing, melancholy world and excellent combat.

Pros:
- Stellar atmosphere and world-building. Atropos is a hellworld worth visiting just for the sights.
- Tense exploration, sprawling maps
- Real risk vs reward gameplay, some choices are real devils
- Brutal and vicious combat, insanely fast, genuinely puts you in a panic sometimes
- A bizarre story about grief, regret, and being trapped in your own past
- Just enough cowbell

Cons:
- Too much neon vomit particle effects + dark atmosphere = can't see what's happening. Easy to lose your character in the bullet hell.
- Bosses, while visually spectacular, are mechanically boring, save one mid-game fight that's a highlight. They stay put and you pump them full of bullets and dodge nerf balls. Underwhelming.
- Roguelike aspects undercooked. You'll see a lot of repeated rooms.
- Many weapons and items are just garbage, throw them in the trash.
- Final world is a slog. It really sucks.

One of the best retro platformers ever made, an immensely charming and goofy story in a very silly world. Tight platforming controls with lots of little secrets and magical relics, along with 3 full other campaigns with their own stories and main characters with unique movesets. A fantasy-style Mega Man with Earthbound writing. I really dig this one. (Get it? GET IT?!)

Pros:
- Charming, colorful world with a goofball sense of humor.
- Excellent platforming and creative level design.
- Stellar, memorable music. In-game jukebox is fun!
- Great pacing, levels aren't too short or too long. Single campaign lasts around 5 hours.
- Tons of optional content, 4 characters to play as that change up how you need to approach levels.

Cons
- Money loss on death is lame considering how important money is to progression and you can basically grind for more anyway. Death mechanic just really wastes your time.
- Some late game bosses can be annoying and spam hard to dodge projectiles. Some are way, way easier than others. Plague Knight is especially bad to fight.
- Main Shovel Knight character moveset a little dull. Other characters radically change up the formula to much better results.
- Some mechanics are downright terrible (the rainbow horse platforms in later levels are particularly awful). Our favorite platforming annoyances, instakill spikes and wind, also make an appearance.

An odd, lonely, but mostly confusing narrative game about a guy walking through an old, surreal city. Some interesting imagery, but mostly bewildering vibe offset by an overly talky, pretentious narrator. Sort of feels like you're wandering through an empty FPS game server. An inexpensive but short game that really doesn't pan out the way it's supposed to.

Pros:
- Great looking environments! Looks incredible for a 2014 game.
- Solid framerate and performance.
- Enjoyable score and sound work, genuinely sounds and feels like an ocean town.
- Some fascinating and surreal imagery (a giant whale interior, fantasy creatures, stone hands emerging from walls).

Cons:
- Confusing and abstract plot in a bad way. Some sort of religious war is going on? The narrator is having a philosophical crisis? Something with a kid? Completely unclear as to what's going on.
- Narrator's dialogue is overwritten, college freshman philosophy essay-style.
- Lots of long, long notes around, an ineffective way to deliver a more concrete narrative.
- Movement speed is PAINFULLY slow.
- Unclear as to whether or not you're going to move to a new map or a new room, no way to go back and explore. A confirmation would have been appreciated.
- Subtitles for accessibility need to be shorter and more concise since the reader has to physically read the dialogue. This game has paragraph long subtitles, a poor implementation. No options to change subtitle size or add bordering for visibility.

A gorgeous, impeccably well designed Metroidvania platformer. This followup to "Ori and the Blind Forest" is better in possibly every way and sets a gold standard for narrative platform gaming. It's got beautiful art, vibrant level design, a fully orchestral score, the works. It feels like you're playing a lost Pixar movie (including the schmaltzy story) and you're missing out on a classic if you skip this one.

Pros:
- Platforming and movement are masterclass in design. Smooth and snappy. Controls like a dream.
- Probably the best looking platformer out there. Looks incredible at 1440p and 60+ framerate.
- Some of the best character animation out there. Truly outstanding work here.
- Movement abilities are fun and varied.
- Tons of secrets and collectibles without being overwhelming.

Cons:
- Combat is better but still not great and many combat abilities are borderline worthless. Spam X to win.
- Bosses can look great but don't offer much challenge.
- Forward path can be a little obtuse at times, backtracking can be a chore.
- Lots of particle effects and detail can obscure puzzle clues (like levers) or confuse platforming (teleporters are especially a problem).
- Story can be corny and overly predictable at times. Really sappy stuff.