Recent reviews by [J7] Dsp21

Husk tries to put itself on a genre that already has a wild competition but it fails to deliver. It's a short game with an overly done storyline and very forgettable experience and plot. The aiming, shooting, reloading is janky, the game looks decent but that's about as much as the positive aspects go.

This could had been a fairly intriguing game but it's predictability ruins most of, if not all of it. It is obvious when an enemy is going to show up to scare or fight the character, everything on husk has been done multiple times, and that's why this one fails to be a pleasant journey.

It also took me 2 hours to finish, I would not buy this one, even on sale, I just don't think it offers anything new to the genre, the industry, or its players. Voice acting was way too forced and just non-believable, everything sounded like animated movie voices with how the actors deliver their lines, they sound somewhat competent, but the direction missed the mark by a mile, some other takes would be way better for the atmosphere.

Husk is pretty much a forgtettable game with nothing that makes it stand out, unless you want to see a cool lighthouse section at the ending but that's pretty much it.

This is a game that takes me back to the PlayStation 3 era, I loved the idea back then and it is still amazing today. I completed this game back then, then Beat Hazard Ultra on Steam including the Shadow Ops DLC. The sequel still shines with all sorts of music, and the new Open Mic features are very handy when it comes to playing songs you don’t have on your computer. Beat Hazard 2 takes the same formula of its past entry and improves it in almost every aspect. Given that, it is easy to recommend if you like the first game.

Starting with the positive aspects, it is incredibly addictive and it’s hard to stop playing it when the progression starts to ramp up when aiming for those high scores on Zen/Zen+ difficulty. The new randomly generated ship system works very well with the game, making it less tedious than having everything pre-built and stale. The perks system is also back, with new power-ups to purchase and all the familiar perks that were on the previous game. Unfortunately, I did not find these very appealing and sticked to the good old Ultra Beam and Reflective Shield.

While I enjoy the random weight values for bosses (making them bigger or smaller), having only two types of bosses was disappointing, a bit more boss variety would be great to see, like a big pile of Space Junk, maybe a random encounter with another ship, which was also randomly generated, and we could keep that ship when we defeated him, there's a lot here to explore, and BH3 would greatly benefit in more boss varitety. The Boss Rush starts to feel very repetitive after a while because of this.

Each ship now has randomly assigned missions to complete, and this is where I spent most of my time, a lot of these forced me to play songs I never heard before, which is a big plus. For example, if a mission says “Complete a song with the word Cold” it will let you browse your imported library for songs with that word in it. Other missions include surviving for X minutes on Survival, or getting to a certain wave in Boss Rush, it’s simple but it works. Another aspect of these is that sometimes they will block the usage of weapons or extra lives, so even if you’re very skilled, it is possible to be challenged even at a later stage.

With these missions, a module is unlocked to use on other ships, thus improving their stats with some trade-offs (like more speed, less damage dealt), this module also comes attached to the random ships we find while playing. Building a good set of modules is essential to the late-game and it was very entertaining to use certain ships, unlock their module, and further improve the rest of the fleet.

A new addition is the Lightning and Daily Challenges, this is where the Pros will be fighting for the top spot. These will test the player to their limits, giving everyone the same song, the same rules, and the same choice of ships. Going for the pole positions will require strategies, maxed out abilities and all the tricky methods to achieve the highest of scores. Perks help this a lot, but having a strong ship with Legendary modules will make a big difference. This was my last stage in completing Beat Hazard 2, and for a while it seemed impossible, due to the huge scores other players achieve. However, during the complete chaos of Zen difficulty, filled with enemies on every possible inch of your screen, multipliers to pick up literally everywhere, the points quickly shoot up to ridiculous levels. I’m not fond of the intensity of the visuals improving the scores, making it a requirement to play at 300% if you aim for the top, this feature could be tweaked or reduced, since it really hurts the enjoyment and gameplay experience.

I’ll be looking forward to the third game in the series, I only wish we got more boss variety and maybe an improved ship creation system and more modules, but I’m being unfair and not giving credit where credit is due, this is a solid sequel if you love music and bullet hell chaos. Cold Beam Games improved their formula, improved everything in it and gave us randomly generated content to keep the ships on coming, while taking the gameplay features of the Shadow Missions into the sequel. I do feel like this could be a little bit more that it is, but it is still a joy to play, and there is just something special in completing that one song on the highest difficulty that is simply indescribable.

Sally Face has been one of those games that has always captivated by how it looked in the Steam store, after numerous times of looking at it, seeing the trailers and thinking this could be a promising experience, I can finally say I have completed Sally Face and I couldn’t be more impressed. I can safely say that playing this game back when it was episodic must have been a pain because these cliffhangers really push you into the next episode right away, I can’t even imagine the waiting game to see what lied ahead for Sally and his friends after each entry.

There’s a huge sense of connection and clues that all felt planed from the beginning. Sally’s story is by no means a simple one, the rabbit holes multiply and expand upon themselves. I would had never have guessed the places this game goes, and that’s a very positive thing. While revisiting the first couple of chapters it is indeed crazy how some of the things that I did not pay attention to, end up having a much deeper and darker meaning later on. The first chapter is merely an introduction of what’s to come, and I personally think it serves as a nice demo for people to try out, but it is FAR from what ends up happening all together. As I had mentioned previously, the sense of continuity and progression of the story is well executed as we see everyone growing physically and mentally. I can safely say the ending to chapter 4 was something else, anxiously and gut-wrenchingly intense.

The distinctive art style of Steve Gabry really shines throughout the whole journey, being somewhat cartoonish, somewhat amateurish but yet really creepy to look at, it strikes a balance that fits the universe like a glove. I do wish the songs were a bit higher quality since they sound very bitcrushed in a lot of places, however I ended up getting used to it, since a lot of these songs are really catchy, especially the main menu theme.

One of the strongest aspects of Sally Face is that it never truly reveals itself to the player, it is possible to find clues or hints to some of your doubts in terms of the lore, but most of them are hidden away in secrets which are directly tied to the achievements. I thought I knew some things, until a later reveal completely turned that upside down and everything changed once again to something else. The best example I can give is that my very first doubt when starting the game, was literally the last thing that was explained to me. Revealing any details would really destroy the experience, so I recommend everyone to go as blind as possible if this one captivates your interest. There’s a lot here to enjoy inside this little gem, and I think it stands out as one of the best 2D side-scrolling thriller/horror games in the genre, just like The Cat Lady, Distraint and Bulb Boy.

A tale of psychological dread, supernatural presences, demonic possessions, nostalgic moments, loss, gore, weird tasting meat, friends, enemies, frenemies, a completely normal 5th floor, a friendly lady living in 101, delicious tea, weed, and how a group of friends fall into a mystery bigger than they ever imagined, however, fate is in their hands, or is it?

Enter the gruesome lands of the Roman Empire, become a lanista of your own ludus and train your gladiators to fight in the arena. Domina is mostly a management game than a fighter, but it manages to be enjoyable being both.

It takes a matter of seconds to start your journey, you're presented to your ludus, 3 starting gladiators and there you go. From now on it's your responsibility to train them, please the Legate and the Magistrate, hire up to 3 employees for your ludus and make sure resources aren't missing. The game isn't too overly complicated with what you have to do, which I enjoyed. It's easy to learn and not that hard to master, within a few battles and maybe some unwanted deaths, you'll start to rise and become the best lanista the Romans have ever seen!

You have exactly one year to train your gladiators until they are ready for the final games, hosted by The Emperor himself. Purchase slaves or already trained gladiators, upgrade their skills and equipment and keep their mood up high. When men are upset, they will ask for their freedom, and for a lanista, freedom is expensive. The skill tree is a set of abilities taught by the Doctore, while being a huge monetary investment, the improvements on the gladiators are drastically needed.

One of these skills is Mind Control, which is where the player steps in. This gives you the ability to control your gladiator and fight on the arenas yourself. The controls and gameplay are fairly simple but it surely feels good to decapitate someone with your overpowered fighter. In the midst of these upgrades, two of them include brand new fighting styles (or classes) for your servants. The default is always the Thraex - standard shield and sword fighting. Then we have Murmillo and Retiarius! The first is a dual-wielding making the shield absent. The latter uses long weapons, a shield and a net. When the 2 skills are explored through the Doctore, you can train your gladiators with whatever style you like the most.

Throughout of these 365 days of surviving assassination attempts, facing regional champions, behemoths and even lions, there's random events that can be outright funny, benefit you or really damage your progress. They're presented as text with multiple choices. These usually are connected to your relations with the Legate and the Magistrate. Displeasing these two isn't that wise of a move since they organize most of your fights.

Personally, I thought Domina was great. It's well-thought and simple, but it may punish you when you're reckless. It's all about learning what to and what not to do, and make your mistakes serve as lessons for your next battles. Believe me, you won't want to cover up a plan to assassinate the Magistrate... Believe me. Despite some minimal bugs and buggy achievement progress, it's definitely a game to play at least once if you're interested in the history of the Roman Empire. Special thanks to Chris Fifty-Two for the gift, it was a spectacle of violence indeed.

I wasn't aware of SEUM up until I had played its demo (now removed from the Store). In less than one hour, I was completely convinced that this game had immense potential, so I added it to my wishlist and waited for a sale. Six months later, here I am writing a review for it.

SEUM is a first person platformer where you have to complete each level as fast as possible. Featuring a leaderboard system, you can track your times, your friend's and the worldwide records for every level. The scores are reset on every season, to make sure the top scores are fair without fixed exploits. It is technically an incentive to come back to it once in a while in case being on top is something you love.

Running on the Unity engine, the game does not look spectacular or revolutionary but what matters is that it plays wonderfully. Controls are simple but tight, and movement feels perfect for the genre. All controls are rebindable in case you want to customize them. Graphical options are very limited which is disappointing, but you can adjust the FOV from about 60 to 140, which in my opinion is a crucial option in a game like this, despite the max value being a little too much!

The first levels are fairly simple which mostly serve to introduce you to the mechanics, but the difficulty surely starts to increase on the third floor. With an impressive variety in level design and level variety, every level feels completely different from the others. That said, repetition doesn't feel frustrating in this game, it is the only way to learn and progressively get better. In total, there's about 150 levels on this game to be beaten, about 25 of them added in expansion packs (labeled as Extended Plays), completely free of charge! If you even want more levels, SEUM features Steam Workshop support and has a level editor to create your own demonic creations with ease! Within every level there are 2 different times to beat, and a beer hidden in it. Obviously, to get 100% completion all of this criteria is required. These beers do get very challenging to find on later levels! I have to admit the Steam discussions and guides surely gave me a hand. There's just tons of content in this game to discover and play through. About 10 secret levels, 12 bonus levels and 10 rituals to complete, which unlock 10 more secret levels.

The music in this game despite being very short and limited, is great! The tracks are either rock or metal songs with no vocals, that will have you humming along while dying over and over again. At the time I did the Hardcore Speedrun, I had it turned off to listen to my own music, but bear in mind I had about 25 hours clocked in at this point. There's some great tunes in this title, definitely a game to NOT mute while playing!

Five powerups may be present in the levels: Teleport, Anti-Gravity, Split, Spawn-Platform and the Booster. The last one is just a temporary speed boost so it's not like the others. You can have one powerup equipped at a time, and this means you have to plan your strategy on levels with various powerups. Bear in mind you spawn with no powerup, it must be picked up every time. There's definitely a learning curve in each of these powerups and it will take a while to master them.

If the clock ticking on each level isn't enough for you, there's also an Endless Mode that randomly generates an infinite hall with traps with a deadly machine right behind you to make sure the player doesn't slow down. Run, Marty, run! And if the Endless Mode is still not enough, you also have a Speedrun mode where you can speedrun entire floors at a time... or even the whole bloody game from start to finish! Not to mention that there is an option to enable the Hardcore Speedrun mode in which you have to complete the whole game without dying. It was a tough and lengthy challenge, but completing felt overwhelmingly satisfying. Still not enough content to convince you? Well then... just go find the secrets and Easter eggs scattered around!

It took me 35 hours to complete everything in the game, including the Hardcore Speedrun. Of those 35 hours, none of them were tedious, I cannot find a section of this game that I utterly hated or despised for being too hard, too frustrating or just boring... except Level 70 - Lamb of the Spit, of course. It is safe for me to say that SEUM: Speedrunners from Hell is a formidably astonishing gem in the gaming industry. That said, it's completely worth getting it even at full price for it's excellent blend of platforming and fast-paced action.

Abzû is a great experience that a lot of people wouldn't consider to be an actual game, just like a lot of people don't consider games like Journey or any walking simulator as games, but instead a sort of interactive experience. That's fine by me and I agree to an extent, but even if you don't think Abzû is a game, it's still great in what it delivers. This is an ocean exploration adventure game set in colorful waters full of diverse fish to meet. You can grab yourself into bigger fish to get a ride and even discover new species as you go through different areas of the ocean. It is even possible to find Relaxation Statues and just sit on them to observe the places you discover. Just like these statues there's other sorts of collectibles to find which do help in stretching out the game's length a bit if you're interested in them.

The main aspect is the relaxed nature of the game, there's no challenges or hardly any difficulty in the game at all. It's not a survival game like Subnautica is or a rogue-like of any sort. It's a game where you sit down to relax and chill out with the visuals, encounter new species and explore the environment. In what it does, it does it right.

Needless to say, the music is simply wonderful. Great orchestrations with operatic vocals that fit the sections as you progress. In case you do play Abzû I recommend you play it with headphones at a high volume, so you listen to the music in detail and you let it sink in. Personally I found the last chapter to have the best musical pieces which made the chapter so much more powerful to play, with a big sense of a climax in the game. It's amazingly composed and deserves a mention on it's own.

Do not buy this game if you're looking for difficulty, you can't even die in it! However, buy this if you're looking to relax, explore, enjoy a simple (but vague) storyline with beautiful music. I'll have to give a shout out and personal thanks to Danii for the gift! As a completionist, Abzû won't take you more than 4 hours. As someone simply playing the game, it'll last about 2 hours maximum. It's a short game, sadly. Seeing this is Giant Squid's first game on Steam, I hope there's more of these to come. Despite being a work of art and featuring such well composed music, it's still a short game that could had been bigger with some more gameplay variety. 7.5/10

Cube Runner is a very simplistic platformer, dodge whatever's red and reach the finish line. The cube only goes forward, unless you go over the "power-ups" that change your direction or even invert the gravity. Another thing that's interesting in the game is that the platforming is not just 2 dimensional. You can shift between the blue and orange platforms by teleporting. It does seem confusing, even on the trailers but while playing it feels pretty natural. The real problem with this mechanic is that you will die a lot while the camera spins,

There's 75 levels to complete, however the difficulty scaling felt weird, some later levels felt too easy compared to some earlier levels of the game, although this might just be a personal thing. Being completable in 1 hour and despite it's music that I do not enjoy very much, it's actually a decent game that could end up being way worse. What really matters is that it ends up being fun for an hour, unless you start dying so much like I did on the final levels... But hey, that's part of the challenge! 6/10

From the developers of Limbo comes INSIDE, another platformer from Playdead studios which features some horror elements and fantastic gameplay. This is a videogame that you won't forget for a while, not for its innovation in terms of gameplay, but for its innovation in terms of subliminal teaching and visual storytelling.

Every puzzle in INSIDE must be deciphered by you, the player. A lot of puzzle games start with a tutorial of the controls and the mechanics, INSIDE starts by basically being simplistically intuitive and builds up the difficulty and complexity over the course of the 67 chapters. It never goes out of its way to teach you or show you something useful, you must do that on your own. This lack of hand holding, makes the game feel good to play and more rewarding when a challenge is completed. This is an aspect I've always preferred in terms of gameplay although INSIDE isn't the first and definitely not the last that does this.

One of the first things I noticed in this game is the animations. They're absolutely stellar! The movements of the main character, how well everything moves and its motion are greatly designed even if the characters in the game are faceless, you can still feel emotion from their body movements, that's quality animation right there! It also adds to what I've already mentioned in terms of visual storytelling, there's no dialogues and there's hardly any voice lines throughout the game, this meaning that the whole story must be told with imagery and animations only.

The look of this game really strikes as unique. The constant use of lights and shadows, the outstanding background scenarios and the constant moody and upsetting mood of every single chapter that adds to the tone of the game and its ambiguous but seemingly bizarre storyline all add up to a very memorable looking game. On a quick note I also need to mention that the chapter select is really well done, while picking the chapter you see pictures of them, but the moment you pick a chapter to play the picture changes to gameplay quickly and smoothly, great touch.

In terms of sound design, I really have nothing to point out. The almost absent soundtrack adds to the sounds of the surroundings and these same sounds end up sounding like they belong to the soundtrack too, they're both kind of in sync with each other. INSIDE's silent approach is meant for the tone to be darker, if not dreadful, which it captures really well.

I'm all for ambiguous stories and being left surprised, although a lot of people may not like that. First thing I did when I finished the game was to get the secret ending (of course). But then I spent at least half an hour trying to find an explanation of what I've played. That just means that INSIDE, although it doesn't explain a thing, is still a good videogame. I'm not gonna spoil anything for the game obviously, although I'll just have to say the ending will leave you shocked, and that's all I'm going to say.

Everyone could be wasting 20€ on whatever they want, but speding 20€ on INSIDE is money well spent albeit it being a very short experience for this price range. I have 4.7 hours clocked, so even if you're playing it real slow and dying numerous times, I doubt you'll get more than 6 hours of content. I'm not the one to question the value aspect because I did not actually buy INSIDE, it was a gift from my friend Kappa (that's her online name, not the twitch emote) thanks a lot, Kappa! Comparing INSIDE to Limbo is a tough call, they're both platformers where you can jump and drag things back and forth, that's about it. They're both unique in terms of artstyle and gave us a breath of fresh air for their genre. 9/10

We could call it the generation of the 3 REs. The Remakes, The Reboots & The Remasters. We can only expect some of them to be worth checking out. When I read that a new Wolfenstein game was being made I was not only surprised to notice the franchise was coming back, but also fearful in terms of what to expect. Wolfenstein 3D created a genre on it's own, it was a sub-type of First Person Shooters that has gone under the radar for the last 15 years or so (sadly). The now called Old School Shooters were more focused in killing stuff without much of a story, and relying on the player to find secrets scattered through the levels, a vital point to survival since these often had health items or new deadly weapons.

As it turns out, MachineGames were able to craft a game that feels so good to play, while having elements from the old-school FPS formula that results in a perfect blend of old and new. I did mention that the storyline on older games weren't the focus, but as it turns out the story in The New Order is actually very decent and enough to keep you playing! It's full of interesting twists and charismatic characters.

Gameplay on The New Order is an achievement in itself. The HP and Armor has made a comeback at last. You can overcharge your health just like in the old Doom games too! The flow and satisfaction of killing every Nazi soldier never gets old! I never found myself ignoring one of the weapons because it was too weak or boring to use. Wolfenstein may have a limited arsenal but the weapon upgrades you find will make the arsenal triple the size without having new weapons at all. One of the most famous features in this reboot is that you can dual wield EVERY. SINGLE. WEAPON. It is crazy, it is silly, it is amazing and most importantly, endlessly fun. There's also a quite amount of unlockable perks (Stealth, Assault, Tactical and Demolition trees) which vastly improve the gameplay based on your playing type. Me being a Stealth player unlocked all of the Stealth perks first, which made stealth way easier. They're not hard to unlock nor very intrusive. Yes I did say stealth, in a Wolfenstein game. The player can choose to play silently or go guns blazing if he wishes to, having the option for both routes is what makes it so well crafted.

In terms of how good the game looks, I'll choose a word for it: Fascinating! It looks gorgeous from beginning to end! There is screenshot worthy content in every single level. The developers outdone themselves with the level design and different landscapes. Despite TNO having what is to me the weirdest Graphical Settings menu I've ever seen, it is still a beautiful game even on the lowest settings. Sadly, there's some optimization problems since I was able to run the game better on Ultra than on Medium settings, but it ran on 60 frames per second 99% of the time. Some drops could be noticed, although nothing notable.

It seems that Mick Gordon did work on this soundtrack, I think it's the weakest aspect in this release. Most of it is played at a very low volume and isn't there to stand out, it's there to just be there. There's no remarkable themes from this game, nor even an official soundtrack release to listen to like Doom 16 has, I would had like to see more unique music from Gordon in the game like we got on Doom 16.

I think it's safe to say that Wolfenstein: The New Order is probably one of the FPS I enjoyed the most in the last few years. 35 hours of pure fun in the alternative universe where the Axis have won the second world war. That being said, you have a ton of Nazis to slaughter with your duel wielded weapons, is there any need for more reasons to purchase this masterpiece? I wouldn't think so! A lot of the dialogue from your enemies is in German which I found to be really neat. I even learned a few new words like Achtung! The New Order is 20€ and it is totally worth it. I did not pay for it however, thanks to my mate Phantom who gifted me the game back in June 12th, 2015 and I am ashamed it took me 2 years to play it, thanks bud! Wolfenstein: The New Order is a game the old-school shooters fan should be fond of, it has secrets (like Nazi gold!), tons of Nazis to kill, Mechs, crazy scientists, amazingly designed weaponry and enemies, a huge retro easter egg that I'll never forget and the return of B. J. Blazkowicz. 9/10

What made The Room so good in it's great formula of mystery and puzzle solving is back yet again for an outstanding sequel! If you're unfamiliar with the series, The Room firstly came out on mobile platforms, and was then fully remastered for PC. The original Room was released back in 2014 and The Room 2 released in 2016. The game's quite simplistic in it's concept. You have a safe, a box, or just a lock, and the player is supposed to open it. To do so you're gonna have to solve all of the sub-puzzles before cracking the big one.

While I do get frustrated a lot of times in puzzle games, I feel the difficulty for The Room games isn't too hard but also not too easy, it's perfectly balanced and is able to be satisfactory throughout the entirety of the game. It lasts about 3.5 hours total if you don't rush through it, just like the first one. While some people may not like the short length, I think a short game fits the genre better than a longer one. There are 6 chapters in this sequel, one of them lasts a minute and another one is a tutorial, so in the end we have 4 chapters with challenging rooms to crack.

I was quite surprised by the creepy atmosphere in The Room Two, it certainly felt darker than the first game while the main objective is pretty much the same between the two. However, there's a slight difference in this installment, instead of being focused on just one safe or table, now there are multiple places in the room to explore, so moving around with the mouse is possible now.

The port is really well made but I did have some slight annoyances. Sometimes I wanted to move a drawer and the game decided to move the camera instead. Also, it should be possible to type on the typewriter with the keyboard. It's nothing game breaking or too frustrating, just little details I'd like to point out.

The Room Three is already out on mobile, but I do hope it is ported to the PC just like the first two games have been. This is two of my favorite mystery/puzzle games of all time and having to pick between which one is the best is a tough call, they stand on equal ground in terms of quality, challenge and entertainment, two phenomenal games I'd recommend anyone to check them out, even if you're not into point & click / puzzle games. 9/10