Recent reviews by Arnust

After a long time looking forward to getting the game (despite my oomfs' derision) I finally grabbed it for my Deck.
While it was downloading, I took a look around the patch notes, surprised to see there was another just yesterday, only to get mystified by:

Originally posted by Update1.7.7:

Male/Female Body Option
In response to recent community feedback, players can now choose between ‘male’ and ‘female’ body types as part of the character creation process

(Before now, it was like in Elden Ring, where you just choose from "Type A/Type B")

Sifting through the even worse than usual Steam Forum discussion post, I learned of this "community feedback" having taken form as a poll on the CEO's Twitter, which turned out to read: "In a medieval fantasy action-RPG experience, what do you prefer to choose between? We will follow the final result." No note to LOTF or the idea that it could ensue changes in it, just in case it'd mess with the engagement.
Sure enough, "Body Type A/B" and "Neither" (?) lost by landslide.

What maybe merits mentioning, is that this was *immediately* after setting himself up as an Antiwoke prop upon the reporting of that CIGames would "reject DEI"-paraphrase (which I kind of let slide at the time when I saw it, on the basis that maybe it was some dope at marketing tokenly throwing their chips in) again after their original announcement flopped. On that same current in just the last couple days, he's gone through the whole playbook, with lazy "yeah! What they said" for Mark Kern, Elon Musk, "western uglification" and obnoxious reaction videos- in interval with news about the game.

It's just honestly embarrassing to see the game's marketing and reputation turn to hinging to this extent on transparent pandering to the worst, most willingfully ignorant people out there that (I hope) barely even represent much of the actual game's playerbase (which are getting this forced on, for how much CIG posits "Our players first"), just to get attention for 2.0 and the supposed next game in line.

I feel bad if the people at Hexworks had this forced on them, but still, do better.

(Just in case this would get reported as off-topic, an actual problem:) There is no UI scaling option and its default is both busy and small, it makes it really hard to read for me, especially on Steam Deck. (There.)

Lorn's Lure owns and you should try it! It's not without its frustrations, but near all I know of that were actively detrimental have since been adressed, only really leaving out the kind that work to compel you to do better and get further into the STRUCTURE

The demo was a great time with a lot of promise that the devlogs are delivering on, do check it out if you have any kind of affection for dungeon crawlers, immersive sims, or both!

Es genial! Content Warning es sencillito, pero muchas cositas lo distancian de Lethal Company. Aunque ya te sepas un par de trucos (gastarse todo el dinero antes de bajar para que no pierdas pasta al morir, entre otros) descubrir el nuevo set de monstruos, explorar los mapas predeterminados y experimentar con las herramientas, te da un rato estupendo.

Para los que llegan tarde, bien vale los 8 pavos si tienes un grupo con el que darle al menos un par de tardes.

Somehow, Risk of Rain has returned

If you like dungeon crawlers, especially those in the vein of Legend of Grimrock - and stretching somewhat, other real time, first person, 3D ones like King's Field and Shadow Tower, look elsewhere until you're positive you've got none more to play besides. I'd hate to learn that this (or Lockdown, with which everything points to absolutely very few meaningful lessons learnt) colored your impression of this incredibly small genre, and leaving it for dead last may even make you appreciate the deliberate, (mostly) well polished and creative experiences they can be.

I understand that that is harsh and that the development team is quite small, but I don't really see how that can excuse so many fundamental misunderstandings of what is appealing about these games, beyond maybe an attempt to stand out?

The much more explicit and wordy story just kind of flops in trying to ape Bioshock (recurring theme) and is almost purely conveyed through pretty poorly written text notes and worse acted audiologs, all to get across something very generic and that you'll call every twist on from having played Bioshock alone, with notes of the later parts starting to take way too much from Infinite.

That focus on story is also either a reason or an excuse to why you control a single character, which is fundamentally a direct downgrade from LoG's 4-man blobs when it comes to the amount and variety of equipment to gain, overall build options and plain just, verbs in the moment to moment. A big feature is the 'gadgets' that act as abilities/spells separately from your weapons' cooldowns, and while there's potential to them, a 'magic' build that actually goes out of its way to get all 4 slots will just throw them out on a cooldown for DPS and it doesn't feel like much of a choice compared to playstyles that will be able to use them less and less often in exchange of having to do even more circle strafing to get their damage in. Those same gadgets are very straight forward (bare a few late game ones that can be kinda neat, like a lure that breaks the AI, or a charm that breaks the AI) and all you find are higher level versions of the same ones, with very few getting an actual utility upgrade besides just %'s like the fire one does. This doesn't help the combat, speaking of-

The combat is significantly more frequent *and* takes up a lot more of your time in the game. There is just, very little to it, including enemy variety. It's pretty dire when one of the last enemies in the game introduced is a completely generic zombie with glowing bits.

The puzzles- I really am not much of a puzzle guy, and really struggle with more complex logic puzzles, skill/timing based ones and riddles. So I think it should be at least a little damning when I looked something up a total of Once, and that was for the Library's conceit, which was more because it was way dumber than I thought it was (and is where I left off after my first swing at Vaporum). The pacing and progression of the puzzle complexity is actually insane- you are doing some of the most basic Lights Out puzzles barely an hour before the final boss, and elements of puzzles barely if ever stack on top of each other for added complexity- and if/whenever they do, it's entirely arbitrary when in the overall game does that happen. Like with the library thing it often feels like actually thinking the solution through in your mind is punished when the actual depth of them will be so simple that you can just wail on pressure plates for a few moments until it solves itself.

Adding on to that, and maybe some of the most frustrating moments of realization in this game are when you dare try to find its secrets, detail your map and so on. The game is so dark (and blinding when your flashlight is directly aimed at a metal surface in front of you, which is most walls in the game) that it feels like you're squinting for off-pattern details rather than always having an eye out, and the overdesigned but still boring tilesets make that even worse. All that, for what is usually going to be incremental upgrades to your gear, some inconsequential lore (all the stuff the game considers crucial to the story is unmissable) and precious little else. I guess I'll stay spoiler free, but finding the "Super Secret" was one of the worst instances of this, and it relates to progression when it happens to be where they stuffed every final armor upgrade for all the playstyles, as if there was nowhere else to put them.

I can't think of too much more off the top of my head, and it feels awful to feel like I need to be this harsh to what is, what, 20% of this niche genre by itself? I really wish I could give it what has to be maybe a 3/10, but it's kind of unbelievable to me to come out with something this uninspired so long after Legend of Grimrock 1, let alone 2, or a number of others.
If the developers are planning another shot at this I will absolutely play it (I am far too burned out by the repetitiveness here to think of playing Lockdown), because as forementioned there really ain't much for choice- but they seem to currently be making a boomer shooter instead, and I wish them luck, for what it's worth.

please stop using the shotgun

The game's got huge potential and very well might be one of the best assymetric multiplayer games out there with some proper support but for god's sake fix the matchmaking by at the very least allowing 5-man lobbies

DEADBOLT may be my favorite out of the games inspired by Hotline Miami, partly on virtue of also taking away a lot from Tom Francis' Gunpoint. As that implies, instead of being a top down twin stick shooter, it's a 2D stealth/action deal instead.

Visually, the pixel art style will probably echo the devs' previous game if you've played it, Risk Of Rain, but it's a bit more interesting. If you've seen any screenshots, it'll probably look pretty low key, but it never really feels uninspired or boring to look at, and the urban fantasy style will make the more fantastical elements really pop up when they do show.

Which on that, let's go on the premise real quick; you're The Reaper, but rather than the universal depiction of death, you're a dude with a skull for a head on a trench coat, with the only real supernatural advantage of being able to turn into smoke and travel through vents. You're on a quest to make the undead rest again and drive them away from this strange, purgatory-like city, as asked by a talking fireplace.

The story will probably not blow your mind, but it's engaging enough to be soaking in the tidbits of world building of a not as generic as it would seem setting. Pretty quickly you won't only really be doing pest control but hampering drug traffic operations, taking down gang leaders and being subtly lead to what's the "real" plot.

The soundtrack, by Chris Christodolou, is excellent, as to be expected. It's very varied in styles and instruments while not feeling disconnected, as you go from the funk-hip hop sound of the Zombie levels, to the disco raves of the Vampires, to the rock of the Dredged, everything broken up by the understated jazz of your apartment and the shady docks you buy weapons from Charon in (?).

So we're on the actually important part, the gameplay. First, the structure; it's mission based, and you linearly go through them in three acts with nine each, each with a miniboss and a final boss encounter. There is a ranking system which I frankly do not comprehend and a set of achievements, and you can replay missions as much as you want. Completing them will reward Souls, which you can cash in at Charon in the break for weapons to start missions with (which you can carry two of at a time), most of which will be unique to you; silent shotguns, derringers, twin revolvers, a flashbang, or even a scythe. The overall arsenal is actually pretty extensive and varied, but with how an amount is locked behind Charon's inventory and another is very contextual, you'll hardly get to see it all in a single playthrough. However, it does make stand out the moments when they're part of a setpiece.

A pretty important notion is that guns have a really limited ammo pool and melee weapons will get stuck when thrown, so in the sequences to beat levels you'll really have to consider how you'll be cycling weapons. Unlike in Gunpoint or HM, without weapons you're completely defenseless, other than for a really weak but spammable punch, with which you might as well be. On top of that, Reaper is actually pretty slow and will die in any one hit. To make up for that, as mentioned earlier, you can turn into smoke to move through vents and flank or escape from enemies at a significantly higher speed, take cover behind objects, and perhaps most importantly of all, you can see in the dark and only alarm enemies from them seeing you.
Everything combined makes for a really engaging stealth action blend, and really sells the concept of the Reaper being stronger in his element. All that said, there's a couple of verbs that you don't really get to use much, like that you don't take any fall damage and can fall from any height, or some intricacies of the smoke form. Another pretty big problem can be the frustration from just failing to complete a sequence properly over and over when you've already figured it out for. However, Normal mode is lenient enough in approaches and resources that's really rare to really happen other than in handful of levels.

The game is about 4-6 hours long for a run of the campaign, but on completion you'll unlock Hard mode (you then can stat new games on it directly), which is a pretty welcome and well done addition, and should take you about another 4-6 hours. I believe nothing changes except enemies being added and shuffled around with some extra weapons to make up for the fact, which with the kind of game this is, is fantastic. For instance, a Cerberus is added to the tutorial mission, making the sequence way less lenient. It can be a turnoff of course, but it's even more satisfying to ace levels, especially if you've got the previous run fresh.

Lastly, there's a mission creator and the Steam Workshop page to share them in. I haven't really tinkered with either much, but there's some fantastic ones out there and every week the devs highlight and review one that caught their eye, so you could keep coming back.

Overall, it's pretty much a glowing recommendation from me, if it wasn't obvious yet. Hopoo proved with Deadbolt (which btw is an ass to google) that they didn't just fumble into mild success with Risk of Rain, and are on record of willing to expand this concept eventually, for which I'm very well looking forward to. It's an utter steal on even a minor sale.

Would get ruthlessly impaled by spikes or crushed by boulders again, 10/10