Recent reviews by Useless NPC

Among the Whispers: Provocation (AWP) is the successor to Conrad Stevenson's Paranormal P.I. (CSPPI). Fans of the first game are going to feel right at home with AWP since the gameplay loop is essentially the same; 1) Do research on the ghosts at a headquarters / basecamp 2) Locate the ghost 3) Learn about the spirit through use of ghost-hunting equipment 4) Release the ghost once you have sufficient evidence about who the ghost was in life and how they died.

AWP takes a separate approach to the atmospheric, lore-intense ghost hunting from the first game by being more of a replayable sandbox where new ghosts are generated each session in different locations of the mansion. For those that find it satisfying to identify and release ghosts in quick-succession, this game will give you that experience; it is kinda like CSPPI: Arcade Edition.

The 4-story mansion you investigate is enormous and meticulously decorated so that every room has its own identify and is memorable. When I was a completely new player, I struggled to realize that the East and West wings are only connected at the ground floor and attic (as of 5/26/25); but other than that, I always knew where I was going There is now a connection from East to West wing through the 2nd story balcony catwalk as per my Request in Discord! This is even better as of today where the map was updated so that the player can inspect all floors of the mansion map at any time. Very fun rooms to investigate in, everything is gorgeous.

The most fun part of the game for me is becoming more efficient at identifying and releasing ghosts and unfortunately this is also one of the downsides of the game as well. For all of the different types of ghost-deaths in the game, there is only one associated death newsclipping for each, therefore, it gets stale reading the "Fallen Apple" obituaries and needing to memorize the article name or else you will need to read the same stories over and over again. When releasing a ghost, Stephanie, the main character, will always give the same eulogy per death type, so you will hear it over and over again. I wouldn't mind if the Fallen Apple outright labeled the death attachments by the cause of death (i.e. strangled, drowned, poisoned, etc) directly, so that players can choose to read more, or get the information they need from a glance. I would suggest at least 2 or 3 minimum stories per death type so that there is more variety.

Progression in the game is handled by drip-feeding articles of lore throughout the map that you can catalog and read through at your leisure, it has no effect on the gameplay. I think it would be awesome that as you collect these articles, you unlock more of the mansion. This would have 2 effects: 1) give the articles more purpose in the game 2) gradually give the player access to more rooms as they investigate.

The game features a nerve meter which determines how close Stephanie is to panicking and fainting. The only penalty from fully fainting is that the player respawns back at the basecamp. It seems like there could be an optional hardcore mode added very easily by prematurely ending the investigation, counting the players progress up to that point, if the player faints. This would add tension that I feel is currently missing in the game. Fully releasing all ghosts in the map without fainting could provide a reward, which leads me to a suggestion.

Bring back the S.L.I.M.E. shop, this kind of game begs for this type of equipment progression as seen in CSPPI!

Among the Whispers has been fun to play, and I hope to see more features get added because right now the game hits the right notes, but is missing the carrot-on-the-stick that is needed for long-term play. I will continue to play this and try to get all the achievements, but I can tell that some are definitely a bit of a grind. Overall, a solid release of a more casual ghost-hunting game that I see great potential in expanding its replayability with some added features.

For $0.99, this is a good deal. I love the music (classic Runescape vibes), and the combat feels simple and fun. The procedural generation is nice. It does start to become challenging with room having more and more monsters, but the game is always fair. Great for watching a younger family member play.

I played it for 5.6 hours as of review time so that's about $0.18 per hour lol. If you are even looking at the store page for it... just buy it.

Oozing style, very short, but worth the money. El Paso, Nightmare serves as an FPS appetizer to the main game: El Paso, Elsewhere (which is third-person and appears to be much more Max-Payne inspired).

It's horror-themed, but not scary. The first half of game you spend avoiding monsters by running away while running an errand to collect some ice in a bucket for what was supposed to be an uneventful evening in a hotel room. Before it overstays its welcome the game switches gears and throws the player into a large sprawling arena where they now get to gun-down the monsters they were helpless against just before.

The meat of this game lies in the wave-based "nightmare" mode. Enemies spawn in set locations and the quantity and frequency of spawns is determined by the wave the player is on. The waves progress time-wise (or it seems) and the player has no control (afaik) when the game gives the player a breather before releasing the next onslaught.

There are some weapon balancing issues, and spending the majority of your time reloading while kiting monsters can feel arduous.

If the nightmare mode was procedurally generated (which it isn't) and had better weapon and ammo balancing (e.g. pistol one-shot headshots everything less than the elite monsters, shotgun has very poor firerate, rifle feels like it should have penetration, uzi is always out of ammo etc.) then I could sink a decent bit more hours into this little game.

Oh the game's difficulty is completely customizable, so that's pretty cool.

I'll be keeping my eye on the main release of this one, should be sweet.

If you really enjoy Quake-1 style bhop then this is a great game for you. The global leaderboards and replay feature are very useful to learn from and keep motivating you to try to shave an extra few hundredths of a second off your next attempt.

This game does not do well to serve as a tutorial for bhop, so be warned. The beginning stages of the game expect the player to already have a working knowledge of the mechanic. You do always have a speedometer present on your HUD, so you can quickly see what increases and decreases your speed. Some of the maps do not have 1-pass player completions yet, these stages can get very difficult (and I honestly think they should be broken up into smaller individual stages).

A large variety of maps are available to keep things looking interesting while you hyper-focus on perfectly air-controlling your way through the stage. Maps are listed by difficulty, which primarily effects the length of the map, the spacing between landing pads, and the size of such pads. There are checkpoints in the larger maps, but the timer continues rolling if you reload back to one; this incentivises the player to try to complete the stage in one go for the lowest time.

The game has solid performance, so high frame-rates are consistent. I have not tried the multiplayer, so I cannot speak to it. The mouse look feels great and the auto-pogo allows you to focus on just air-strafing.

I would like to see Quake 3 styled strafe-jumps added, a tutorial for players wishing to learn the mechanic, and more popularity of this game since you can race your friends online, or offline using ghost-player recordings (like Mario Kart).

Very fun if you are into this type of thing, it's not for everyone. Happy Hopping!

I'm a fan of the Carnivores series and can definitely respect the developers literally remaking the entirety of Carnivores Reborn on Unity Engine (as opposed to their own engine) so that updates are easier to push out. I think the majority of folks overlooked the reason why this game released.

That said, Reborn is fun if you simply want to hunt some dinos and aren't looking for much complexity. This is definitely something to play if you desire to unwind casually.

I supported the developers by purchasing the Cretaceous terror pack, here's to hoping for more future content!

I had the joy of playtesting Town of Machine which gives me a bias I recognize. Most monsters are very DooM-like and the game has inspirations from Resident Evil's inventory-management and basic puzzles. Primarily action with lots of secrets littered around, classic shooter fans will be right at home here. If you enjoy shooter combat served raw, you will enjoy this; otherwise beware that this game leans much more on gameplay than story.

Some critical encounters and later parts of the game lean on very high monster density, which is very fun if you enjoy the idea of kiting while fighting; these areas can be interpreted as a difficulty-spike, so pacing is a notable issue in this title.

If you are a secret-hunter then I dare you to try and find all the hidden followers, some of them are absurdly hidden and will take a good deal of creative thinking to uncover. Take it from me, being the first person to find Fiona had me pulling hairs until it all clicked.

The weapons can be upgraded with secondary-fire modes and the character's abilities enhanced. If you want to upgrade everything and play the whole game with the full weapon arsenal (I recall more than 10 weapons) fully buffed, then you can do so in the New Game + modes (multiple New Game +s each with more challenging enemy arenas).

This game is underrated (no advertising) and is definitely worth picking up if a combination of DooM, Resident Evil, and top-down shooters sounds appealing to you. It regularly goes on sale for $6.50 and is definitely worth the price for the experience you get.

If you enjoy this game, you will also enjoy Action Commandos I & II as well as Unloved, all from Paul Schneider (Blue).

For anyone who had a lot of fun playing through the challenge modes of the classic Timesplitters, TimeShifters will provide a similar experience despite being rough around the edges. The missions definitely follow the original Timesplitters formula: Enter level, grab key item, leave map while enemies spawn in.

A considerable portion of the sound effects are lifted straight from the sound library of Timesplitters, so there will be nostalgia inbound.

Good fun for the price tag. Would recommend.

Unloved is truly special to me, although I have done pretty much all that there is to do in this game, I keep coming back to it just because of how well it delivers on the horde-shooter with diverse player-build system (not to mention the one-of-a-kind enemy spawn mechanic called heat). In fact, I'm not going to leave that topic in parenthesis, it is worth talking about a bit (see pinned steam discussion regarding "heat" for detail), but here is the gist of it for a player unfamiliar with this game.

The player indirectly controls how many monsters spawn on the map by the number and significance of their interactions with the environment; a player can make the game more or less hectic with monsters by either grabbing lots of items or being more meticulous, which is fantastic for setting one's own pace.

This game is sold as a horror game with coop and player builds, but I almost completely forget that the game is horror. Someone buying this should expect a DooM-like game in terms of monsters and weapons with a spooky atmosphere.

The builds become wacky and hugely differentiated in late-game. Players choose to be tanks, glass-cannons, possess nearly infinite-ammo, move at incredibly fast speeds, leach health by melee, cause in-fights just from being seen, grab items from like 40 feet away, reload at insane speeds, and mix and match traits like this to form immensely fun and diverse combinations (I did not list all the combinations like, armor-regeneration, change weapon accuracy, etc... there is A LOT below the surface). This doesn't mention the temporary bonuses players can acquire through weapon mods and totems; irregardless, there is so much more than what a view at the steam store tells you.

A note of warning: this game is niche and can be difficult to find coop-partners mid-way through the games progression. The main player progression loop which can be finished in ~120-150 hours as of this review if you are going solely for achievements, or 1000 hours+ if you want to max out everything trinket-wise, and let's not talk about rings... you will ALWAYS have something to work on in this game if you desire. Multiplayer latency can be extreme (200+ ping) in instances where players are located across the world or if there are more than just 2 players (Blue [the only developer] seems confident that this will be partially remedied in his next major update Yay!)

For players who want to know where the community is at, join the official discord group that is pinned on the steam discussions. Almost all the veterans reside here as well as other players just entering the basement for their first couple times; we come from all different parts of the world and are very friendly, say hello! We even have the developer himself in the discord (and I hope he stays!)

Unloved also features demon-speed, which allows enemies to move at supernatural velocity to surprise players. This is definitely one of the major sources of this game's difficulty. It is something the player must get used to or they will find theirself constantly getting attacked from behind. It's not unbalanced, and it adds much more fun to the experience even if it sounds 'cheap' in the written word.

The game has its fair-share of bugs, mostly multiplayer related, but these will not inhibit someone from having a blast with this game.

I've been meaning to write this review for a long time, and to be honest, there is a lot that I left out... but this game goes on sale all the time very cheap, and is worth every stinkin' penny of it (and more).

Noah, clenching a Super Feeder 5000 in a deathly-grasp, anxiously peers around the corner. “My Lord, why are there so many Godforsaken doors on this ark?” “NOAH, YOU ARE DRUNK, I INSTRUCTED YOU TO INSTALL ONLY ONE DOOR!” Noah then turns about-face, immediately catching corrosive buckshot with his despairing visage. The 950 year-old man throws himself upon the floor, rolling in agony as Carl the Camel, his perpetrator, begins to “be fruitful” with Noah’s convulsing body.

Fading in and out of conscientiousness, Noah realizes that he has been stripped of all his assets and is once again at the beginning of stage 3-5. “Fornicators! Thieves!” Noah shouts while shaking his maimed arm. Kneeling like the humble servant he is, the elderly man initiates in great and wholesome prayer, “Please almighty God, the animals aboard the ark have become increasingly unruly. I need your strength to assist me in my endeavor! I ask of you in all sincerity: LET ME PURGE THE BEASTS UPON THIS VESSEL!” Spontaneously, a BFF9000 (Big Freakin’ Feeder, for those of you less holy) materializes before Noah. “Thank heavens above! With this,” *equipping the massive culinary cannon,* “I can finally prove my worth to you as your steward and remorselessly PURGE ALL THE ANIMALS!”

Noah rises to his feet and charges audaciously into the silver key room. As the pneumatic door seals Noah inside, sounds of hitscan saliva and pellet-spam resonate from within; dolorous cries of both man and beast clash together in wicked melody.

…Then Silence emerges… A heavy ‘thud’ of flesh reports the battle’s closure followed by a chorus of hissing and bleats. Just one more bandage, one more food crate, one more extra life; any of the three could have circumvented Noah’s brutal demise, but this is how Lady Level-Design desired things to be.

Perhaps Noah should have considered save-scumming?

It’s too late for that now…

***This short tale accurately depicts my epic voyage to complete Super Noah’s Ark 3D 100% (Achievements and All). If this sounds like the suffering you’re looking for, you’ve come to the right place to enjoy your personal purgatory!

~Useless NPC