Recent reviews by Zensuu

Fun with friends. Needs polish, but with early access that's to be expected.
The major complaint I have is that you can't burn huskies on sight.
My first online experience was the party running into a husky, me instinctively, as a fan of the inspiration, trying to burn it and it being immune.
Sure enough an ally approaches it, gets bitten, and infected. :/

I get you want the risk of taming a dog in the game, and I love dogs, but I deserve the right to murder them on sight. :P

Paying customers have been scammed.
I have played this game for over a decade and, despite what my steam time says, as an offline player I have put in hundreds of hours.

Removing content from a paid product sets a bad precedent for the future of gaming, and the people supporting this are beyond denial to the point of zealotry. Supporting censorship means you are in opposition to freedom of speech and expression. The most recent update and the treatment of the playerbase by the developers is completely inappropriate and unacceptable behavior. At most this should have been a toggleable option, not a forced removal.

Hiding feedback from the playerbase by abusing steam's offtopic review system creates an uncomfortable and biased environment that defeats the purpose of reviews and hides the truth from potential paying customers. Over 5000 reviews have been hidden from sight unless you enable the "Include reviews from all Steam purchases in Review Scores" setting in your account preferences. The vast majority of players are against this change, as you can clearly see on the official forums, and labeling their feedback as "review bombing" is grossly disingenuous and insulting. Steam's review system is broken to the point that pointless copy paste meme reviews get more support than legitimate praise and criticism, and a handful of people can abuse the report system by spamming reports to hide the valid opinions of those they don't agree with.

If you provided negative feedback during the period of "off topic review activity", your voice has been silenced.

If the censorship to the game and Digital Art Compendium is rolled back, I will gladly change this review to a positive one.

So sad they sold out to Gearbox :(

As a long time supporter of Risk of Rain since before the release of the first game, I feel disappointed and betrayed.
I recommend both this and especially the first game but I warn you that the future of the series doesn't look great at the moment.

Great games. They've done a lot to improve it since release.
However there is more to be done.

They promised splitscreen. It's been years. We are approaching half a decade at this point. When it was one of the most requested features on their forum they said they were "surprised" that it was such a requested feature. How can you be surprised that fans want a basic functionality that has been absolutely central to the popularity of the series since it's origins? They also promised splitscreen for Halo Infinite and they never followed through with that either. Splitscreen is arguably the most important feature and is an absolute requirement for the full Halo experience. Every year that goes by I question how much 343 understands Halo more and more.

It is manipulative and dishonest of 343 to promise splitscreen in order to improve sales at launch just to cancel it quietly. Not only have they lied repeatedly, but they have even deleted their old blog posts on their website which promised splitscreen over and over again at launch. This is extremely shady business practice, using false advertisement to secure sales and then attempting to delete the evidence. The true reasons they have dragged their feet on this issue is because they want you to have to buy multiple copies of the game to play with your friends and because they want players to be constantly online so that they can collect more data from said players, something Xbox Game Studios has consistently pushed on many of their modern multiplayer titles. They would not hesitate in making MCC online only if they could get away with it without major backlash.

Requiring a Microsoft account to play when you are connected to the internet is ridiculous, this should be changed immediately if they have even a shred of respect for their players. Just like Age of Empires Xbox Game Studios is sticking their grubby fingers where they don't belong. It's one thing to lock online play, but locking single player and LAN play behind a third party account is atrocious. At least you can bypass this by playing offline.

To allow for the complete official future preservation of these games I also think it is important to release the dedicated server binaries, as well as the ability to edit the master server of your client. Halo started as an offline LAN game and it should end as one, without any unnecessary fiddling required by it's users.

Also, we need a classic version of CE based on the actual original Bungie version.

A less important feature that I think would also be very nice for preservation purposes is to add offline bots, I'm not trying to say they owe us this feature like the aforementioned ones, but it would be a nice addition for sure.

Thanks to the Splitscreen Dreams Community, you can play Halo MCC splitscreen unofficially using Nucleus Coop.
:D

I love these games and I'm very happy to see them finally exist on PC, but I can't help but feel like 343 is purposely avoiding adding crucial features such as splitscreen, perhaps simply because Xbox Game Studios doesn't want them to.
It is times like these I wish steam provided a third option for reviews, a mixed option. If I could give something in between positive and negative I would, as they have made a constant effort to improve this collection since it's disastrous release. I do think this effort deserves respect and appreciation. That said, I cannot in good faith recommend this title when it is missing official support for a feature as important to the series as local multiplayer.

Tight and responsive gameplay complimented with quality artwork and music. Lots to do and unlock. Near endless difficulty scaling. An absolute insane amount of character interactions.

Received it as a gift from a friend, played over 100 hours in less than a week and permanently damaged my hand.

Remember to take breaks XP.

Fun game with friends. Been in alpha forever but not abandoned so that's all that matters.

I really wish they would bring back the old exp mechanics, when it worked like Elder Scrolls (the "learn by doing" mechanics, back before Skyrim's perk trees). Imo the old system was much better, and it could easily be re-implemented using the current perk system.

I want to get better at mining by mining and better at killing by killing.
I shouldn't be able to become an expert lockpicker by digging holes.
I find the old system much more immersive and enjoyable.
Just my opinion.

My only major complaint is that the old save corruption bug still exists! After years! No reason this should not be fixed yet, I have to manually back up my saves every time I play to avoid losing progress in the rare event this happens. This is completely necessary because not only does it corrupt your player save but also the back up player save the game makes automatically! To me there is no excuse for this not having been fixed yet, just add more automatic backup files! I don't care if I lose some progress from an older backup, better to have lost some progress than ALL progress.

Please add back vanilla offline LAN multiplayer, like the older versions have. It's complete BS that the join menu is locked when steam is in offline mode. Thankfully I can play offline mp through other means..

I love this game but I really hope they fix these two issues or I might be unable to recommend this title in the future.

You can't play your single-player save when you are offline, unless you use an unofficial version.
Pretty silly to make a single player save online only.... It's downright obnoxious.

The fact that the pirated version's singleplayer functionality is superior to the official version's is nothing but sad. Why limit your paying customers in such a stupid and intrusive way?

Please remove this ridiculous limitation.

Don't buy this if you plan on playing your save offline.
Otherwise, this is a great game that is very much worth playing.

Taking after the likes of Nuclear Throne and The Binding of Isaac, Dead Estate wears it's inspiration on it's sleeve.

Including a jump button and an isometric view, Dead Estate switches up the gameplay and adds its own flavors to the mix. This isometric view does cause a bit of a learning curve, but once you learn to dodge with the jump it becomes a crucial aspect of your survival (you can jump over vases, enemies, and other obstacles!). Some enemies bob or fly up and down and you'll have to learn how to jump and shoot accordingly.

Tons of free content on the way, as this title is still relatively new at the time of writing.

There is one thing that may turn certain roguelike fans away from this game, as it did me.
It has that mechanic of limiting your exploration by introducing an "invincible" chase sequence once a timer on each level runs out. As a player who prefers to explore, take my time, and min max everything I can, this is often a tiresome and boring mechanic I almost never enjoy. In fact this put a bad taste in my mouth when I tried the demo before release. I was quick to judge, and say "nah this game isn't for me". However having now played the full release I must say that the mechanic is actually done well in this case. Most of the time Chunks is not as invincible as he seems. He is easily avoided and easily knocked out. There is multiple mechanics in place to defend you. Far from the ultimatum of other games, Chunks encourages you to explore the floor quickly, but once he spawns you have the option of avoiding him and continuing to explore the floor, which I very much appreciate.

While much of the pixelart is very well crafted, in my opinion some of it looks unappealing and low effort in comparison to the better examples. I can't help but feel that some of the art in this game deserves to be touched up to the quality of other parts.

Overall a solid experience with everything you expect from the genre that inspired it.

UNMET POTENTIAL

I recommend this game if you are a big Oddworld fan who wants to support the developers, otherwise you are doing yourself a great disservice by playing this instead of the original. This is a good game, but only because the original is a great game.

New 'n' Tasty is an adequate remake. You can tell a lot of love and effort went into the project. A lot of thought and care to try to recreate the original game. Unfortunately it falls far short of the best aspects of the original. In my opinion, the most important aspects of the gameplay and art direction did not get anywhere near the amount of attention they deserved.

I tried New 'n' Tasty when it came out. I was extremely excited for it's release, only to be disappointed immediately upon entering the game world and moving my character. Upon revisiting the old games recently (saving all Mudokons :p), I decided to pick this up and give it another chance. I'm sad to say that my experience has not been any better. I will do my best to describe some of the many reasons behind this experience.

GAMEPLAY

Abe's Oddysee is often described by certain players as being "clunky" and "dated". This makes me question just how much these people actually played, because fans of the series know it is anything but. In reality the game is precise and deliberate. You have complete and utter control of your character. Every action, every button press, is completely dependable. You know what to do, you know how to do it, and you know what will happen when you do it. When you fail it always feels like your fault. Your movement is binary, that is to say it is on a grid, meaning every movement will always cover the same distance without exception. You know you can jump over exactly 2 spaces, and run jump over exactly 3. You know you will catch that ledge, you know you will dodge that blade, you know when you will be safe or in danger. You can trust your character will do what you want them to do. Every puzzle is perfectly designed for this system of movement with thoughtful specificity. The puzzles require the movement and screen separation mechanics in order function as intended. It could work without the screen separation, but without the movement almost everything completely breaks, this is the main issue with New 'n' Tasty's gameplay.

New 'n' Tasty, at least to players coming directly from the original as you can see from the many negatives reviews here, feels like the broken clunky game people think Abe's Oddysee is. The movement is no longer locked to a grid and there is no separate screens, yet many of the puzzles are almost 100% faithful to the original. This is a major issue that causes it to feel like a mess that doesn't know what it wants to be or how to be it. Many of the game is much easier by design, which I can forgive, but for some reason specific aspects are much more difficult for no apparent reason. Saw blades are way too fast and much shorter, you can no longer jump, walk, or run past them. Instead you must roll with a roll that is much slower than the original, causing you to have to creep up as close as possible with the analog control and just pray you make it though. Toggle mines are way harder to time, they no longer beep dependably each flash, they only have a single green flash and a single beep that is again much faster than the original. Due to a bug that has existed since launch, the higher your fps is the faster the traps are, even to the point of impossibility. Why make so much of the game easier if you are going to make those parts more frustrating? It makes no sense to me. It is clear little to no thought went into the accuracy of these traps, and they were poorly imitated in order to focus on other, and imo less important, priorities of the project. No classic control scheme at launch, and even now the anemic options available are clearly an afterthought as to this day you still cannot play New 'n' Tasty with the original controls. As a remake this should be unacceptable. What you must realize is when classic players start this game up, the first thing they are going to do is choose hard mode (classic health) and set their movement to the dpad. This is a recipe for a horrible experience, as it is clear New 'n' Tasty was developed with a focus on analog stick controls with the "normal" difficulty setting (more health). The dpad is useless without dependable movement, and the classic health that used to be rewarding and exhilarating, is now just a boring session of save scumming using the newly added quicksaves just hoping you will make it past that trap this time. It feels unfair and cheap when these traps kill you, it does not feel like your fault. It is the worst kind of punishing, the kind that is not rewarding. Ledge grabbing and dropping looks/feels wonky and unnatural. Instead of the clean and natural animations of the original, you jerk up and down like a magnet. When you run off of an edge and/or fall in the original, you keep your momentum depending on your speed. In New 'n' Tasty, your jerk unnaturally to a stop and fall straight down as if you are immune to inertia. It feels unimmersive and looks awful.

What used to be smooth, thoughtful, fun, and challenging puzzles are now an unpredictable mess of incompatible mechanics roughly sewn together in a way the looks recognizable but no longer feels fun. Depressing when you realize that this has been and will be many people's only impression of Abe gameplay, a first impression that sadly supports the myths of clunkiness and unfair difficulty.

ART

Abe's Oddysee has this brilliant and concise art direction I have never seen before or since. Each and every background, sprite, sound effect, animation, and musical score is meticulously crafted with a loving passion to fit perfectly within the look and feel of the vision they were trying to create in an impressive level of accuracy and quality. To the point the designers had a literal list of commandments that everything had to follow, no joke, look it up. When I start up the original games, I immediately feel immersed into this world completely alien to my own. Often it does not look like a game at all, it feels like a real world. The expertly crafted story, ambiance, and atmosphere is unforgettable to those who have dove into it's world. It's the type of game that leaves a lifelong impression on it's players.

New 'n' Tasty looks like a typical 3D unity platformer with shiny graphics. The dark gritty factory is now glaringly shiny and new looking. What used to be torn posters are now blinding billboards. Subtle checkpoint indicators replaced with giant glowing signs. Dark night time scenes are filled with obnoxious amounts of distracting light sources. Rust is replaced with shiny and clean futuristic metal. Characters no longer die in the same hilarious realistic ways they used to, they now die like janky ragdolls. The game just can't wait to remind you that it's a game any way it can whenever it can. I sadly have yet to feel even a fraction of the immersion I feel with the original. Rupture Farms used to be a dark place where you were shot without question for even trying to talk to another slave, now the slaves repeat the same dumb jokes repeatedly and often with no repercussions. It's funny hearing a slave complain about not getting paid once, but 10 times in the same level? Not so much.

I am in love with the world of odd and have been for a long time. New 'n' Tasty at best misrepresents this amazing setting.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Despite my passionate disapproval, I don't hate this game. Nor do I hate the developers or the players that enjoy it.

I want you to buy this game, I planned on recommending this, because I want Oddworld Inhabitants to make more games. I have hope for their future works. However, I cannot honestly recommend this title when such a vastly superior version exists for much cheaper.

Way too good. A dungeon crawler's dream come true.

The level generation is some of the greatest I've ever seen, if not the best. Every run is a totally unique experience, Dungeons are unpredictable and you never know what each level will be like.

This is the closest thing in existence to a "real time traditional roguelike". This concept is beautifully executed and I can't imagine it being done any better, the gameplay is just as deep and engaging as ever. Just about all of the classic mechanics are here and little is lost in the transition to real time, the combat is simple to understand, fun, and responsive.

Please check this out, it deserves more exposure and has a sequel in development