Recent reviews by BusterBeachside

"haha blocks go brr" - Solitaire
"Super Plexis is a good game." - TaymanND
"Surprisingly not as unplayable as I thought it would be!" - CardsoftheHeart

Hey, you! Do you like... "Tetris Attack"? Or perhaps you played a lot of... "Pokémon Puzzle League" as a young pup? Mayhaps you've seen that fairy Lip in your copy of Super Smash Bros. and ended up enjoying... "Panel de Pon"? Well, it's your lucky day! Wowie zowie! That's right, Super Plexis is all that and more! *Twirls curly ringmaster mustache, takes off top hat, and beckons you inside*
Inside, you'll find only the topmost quality panel swapping action! Gone are the days of Panel games with inconsistent block physics and which cannot properly detect your skill chains. Super Plexis has been fine-tuned to play as smooth as butter! Challenge your friends in thrilling ONLINE MATCHES, complete with full-featured ROLLBACK NETCODE! So, you think you're pretty good? Hop into the matchmaking queue to duke it out with players 'round the world! You can even play 4-player Free For All matches or 2-versus-2 team battles! And while you wait for an opponent, hone your skills in the single-player Training mode.
But that's not all! With a wide plethora of features coming down the pipeline free-of-charge, you may soon be exposed to the wonders of original characters, block skins, even a story mode and ranked matchmaking! All of this and more in... "SUPER PLEXIS"!
But beware of becoming overconfident, as while you may be on a winning streak now, hubris cometh before the fall. Once you're ready to join the ranks of pro players at the top, it's time to enable Max Pressure and crank that gravity setting to 30! If you can handle that, then you may be well on your way to stardom. But woe to those who become matched with one of the Four Heavenly Kings of Super Plexis: Thursdayism-Sama, Shinigami FFR Pro 21, Troy Daimaoh, and Kami Neinfer. According to legend, any who come against these shall be demolished and deleted from this world with the speed of a bullet, yet with the grace... of a gazelle. I myself have come up against Troy. He is the self-appointed protagonist of the Super Plexis anime, and so he has Plot Armor. He may actually be the villain, but a powerful opponent regardless. I... I still hear the phrase "got 'em" in my sleep... *Shiver*

You're still reading my meme review, eh? How about, instead, you buy the game and then 1v1 me!? I'll happily crush all your hopes and dreams before slowly building you back up in the image of a warrior. You will join the Dojo with the others, and together, we can take on the Four Heavenly Kings and their henchmen.

It's fun if you stick with it and plan out the decks you'd like to build before spending gems on packs. Plenty of single-player content to grind through and earn gems from, such as completing "stage" missions (In all 5 Duel Worlds that exist at the time of writing), unlocking new characters, and leveling up those characters, all of which can provide some actually pretty good rewards (Gems, rare or even exclusive cards, etc.). There's always some kind of login event going on that you can get that little bit extra from. Ranked Duels may seem intimidating, but there are some good rewards for playing them, whether or not you win. And even so, most players in Rookie rank have decks that are so trash that you could beat them with your eyes closed assuming you have a competent deck. TIP: If you don't have enough cards of a particular "archetype" to build a good deck with them, just load up on level 4 or lower monsters with the highest attack you can find (Luster Dragon, Sabersaurus anything with more than, say, 1600 ATK), one or two level 5-6 monsters (Summoned Skull, Trance the Magic Swordsman, stuff with over 2000 ATK) and some overall decent spell/trap cards (Look for things that can screw with your opponent during the battle phase, things that can "negate" monster/spell/traps, and things that can raise your monsters' ATK. Wall of Disruption is a wonderful staple if you can get a copy or two, Banner of Courage is a decent early option for F2P, as is Magic Jammer. Go easy on Equip Spells, as they can easily make you go -1 in card advantage if the equipped monster gets taken out). As soon as you can, duel Seto Kaiba at the gate at level 30 or 40 to get two copies of Enemy Controller. This card is so versatile and generally good that Konami has placed it on the Semi-Limited list, which is very impressive for a F2P card! It is important to note that the limited/forbidden list works differently in this game than it does in the TCG, so that's worth reading up on at some point once you get to a place where that matters.

If you enjoy Yu-Gi-Oh but are intimidated by all the crazy Pendulum/Link shenanigans, games taking forever, having to learn the entire game's history to play, not being able to use your old Pot of Greed because you didn't know it's banned now, etc... You just might enjoy Duel Links!

Don't be fooled by the "old school" graphics or the release date. This game has aged like fine wine. 100% worth buying at full price. Otherwise, if you're here in search of "that one awesome theme park building game from years ago", rest easy; your search has ended. :)
I recommend Googling OpenRCT2 if you purchase this. It's a fan-made upgrade that runs on the original install and it runs much better on modern computers. It also includes a plethora of extra features like HD resolution, plenty of cheats (Which are most helpful for building cool things that you normally can't), online multiplayer with multiple players building in the same park, and lots more. OpenRCT2 has managed to singlehandedly revive the RCT community, which is pretty cool. :)
If that doesn't tickle your fancy, you have an alternative in RCT Classic, which is also available on Mobile. It's also an updated version of the game, but it doesn't boast as many features as OpenRCT2 and isn't being updated anymore (Although it is an official release). But it's there if that sounds better for some reason. ;)

If you'd like to see some gameplay, I have a Sandbox Mode series on my channel, Buster Beachside. I've also got a tutorial for how to make your own sandbox scenario to play. :) There are also channels such as Deruklink and Marcel Vos who are objectively better YouTubers than me and have some really cool videos showing off both the technical side of the game and plenty of cool building tricks you can do using the cheats in OpenRCT2. You should check them out if you get the opportunity!

Context: I am an expert Panel de Pon player with a focus on speedrunning. I currently have competitive times in a few categories and am actively looking to add my name to a few more leader boards (This game has one, too!).

This game is based on the gameplay of Panel De Pon/Tetris Attack/Puzzle League, which itself is one of the most enjoyable Competitive Puzzle games out there, and my own personal favorite (In the vein of modern Tetris and Puyo Puyo, though it shares a lot more similarities with the Meteos series). You play by moving around a cursor (Or using mouse/touch controls) to move blocks horizontally around the field at will. Matching 3 or more blocks either horizontally or vertically will clear them. There is gravity, so any blocks that end up suspended in the air will fall down. If these falling blocks make another clear upon landing, it starts a "chain". You can still move your cursor while blocks are popping, so it's possible to build chains for as long as your own skill will allow. In single player, doing so earns you tons of points towards a high score. In multiplayer battles, a larger chain will drop more garbage blocks on your opponent. The stack will rise from the bottom of the screen slowly, which is how to gain new blocks. The stack rises more and more quickly over time, making it harder to keep yourself from topping out and losing the game.

I really love the music and visual/sound effects in this game! The animations are smooth, large chains and combos are met with bombastic fanfare, and every match feels like an EVENT. Panepon is known for having dynamic music when a player's board is almost full, but this game takes that concept even further with multiple different variations of the music to fit different situations, and they all flow into each other seamlessly. I'm a real sucker for aesthetic like this, and I LOVE it.

This game does NOT stay entirely accurate to the specific mechanics of Panepon, although the basics are exactly the same. For example, as long as you're quick, you can drag blocks across gaps or slide blocks underneath other blocks in ways you couldn't in a Panepon game. As a long-time player, these changes took some time to get used to, but for me they were a fun change of pace rather than a source of frustration in the end.

As for competitive modes, note that there is no online multiplayer at the time of writing. There IS a leader board for the best scores obtained in the game's "Endless" mode, and of course there is always speedrunning, but not much to do after completing the story for players who aren't already close to the top level in skill. However, the dev is active in this game's discord server, and has expressed that he is interested in the idea of adding new game modes, so stay tuned. This game is also on Switch, in case you would prefer it there! Do note that due to Nintendo's system being slow, updates usually appear on Steam earlier. The Score Attack leader board is not shared between the two versions, though, so there is no need to worry about someone gaining an unfair advantage because of what platform they're playing on.

TL;DR: Super fun puzzle game that beginners can pick up and play, although the current version may appeal more to seasoned/hardcore players. I highly recommend this game, although it is not quite the definitive Panepon experience on PC that we have been waiting for. At this price, though, it's really great for what it is! I'll see you on the Score Attack leader boards. :)

TL;DR: Left 4 Dead but aliens. Shall not disappoint.TIP: This game doesn't render correctly on a few systems. Personally, I run an Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti, and it doesn't work well on it. There is a solution, though! In the "Betas" tab, switch to the "Classic" build. Despite the name, using this build doesn't mean you're missing out on content. It just runs on a legacy rendering engine which seems to have better compatibility. Hope this helps someone. 👍Earthfall is a 4-player co-op FPS in the same vein as Left 4 Dead. True to the name, Earth falls after an alien invasion wipes out most human civilization. Now it's up to your band of four comrades to join the resistance and take it back.You can absolutely play single player with bots. In fact, you might want to at some when trying to unlock the Skills, as a couple of them require you to do things that "Have the highest amount of kills in X amount of games". Those sorts of things are easier to do with bots since they always let you take point, just like L4D bots.When set to "Masterful" AI, they hold their own well enough. Although they will occasionally stand in fire while drinking tea and saying "This is fine" as their health slowly depletes. In general, though, they are good at shooting at the biggest threats and will actually prioritize saving pinned/downed teammates, which is something I always felt like the L4D bots were really bad at.Things I like about this game:- Dual-wielding Deagles- Customizable skins for characters and weapons- Use a Stimshot and an EF18 shotty. You can hold left click to auto-fire and then reload at lightning speed.- Unlockable "Skills" that give you extra perks like carrying a second grenade, faster reload times, ability to escape pins from certain Specials, etc. These are especially great if you are a goal-oriented player like I am because they give you something to work towards!- Story is actually kind of interesting IMO. The devs went hard on this aspect, with a ton of extra lore to unlock, too.- A few Specials that are unique compared to L4D; For example, the Blackout and Enrager. Even some of the common drones can sometimes be threatening thanks to having a couple of different variations.-- Arc grenades demolish Blackouts, BTW.Things I dislike about this game:- As mentioned above, the default game has rendering issues on some systems and requires a workaround.- Doesn't seem to be receiving any more updates- Best with friends. ...But this game is a couple years old by now, and not a lot of people are still playing regularly.- Has outdated references to Mixer which I'm only listing as a con because it agitates my emotional wounds. xD- The voice acting is sometimes a bit over-the-top ("Agh! GAAAAAWD, I HATE this stuff!" "I'm dying! Things are getting blurry!!!"). Might be mostly thanks to the token comedic relief character, haha.Overall, this game comes highly recommended. It doesn't have quite the same "feel" as Left 4 Dead, but it definitely fills the void for me! Goes without saying, but if you can get a few friends to pick up the game too, you'll be in for hours of fun.

*Sees brother playing this game*
Me: "Huh, looks cool, I'll try it out when it goes on sale."
Game: *Goes on sale*
Me: "Hey cool, I'll grab it. Time to boot it up and see if I like it!"
*Approx. 400 hours of game time later, plenty of which was gained by leaving OP automatic money farms running overnight*
Me: "Yeah, I think I like it a little bit."

And yes, before anyone asks, I'm the same way with Minecraft. Which this game is very unique to, by the way. 👍

This is a really fun Puzzle Battle game in which players drop colorful crystals onto their boards to create larger gems. Eventually, a spark crystal appears which can break any adjacent gems or crystals of the same color. The larger the gem you break, the more garbage you send to your opponent!
If that sounds familiar, you may have played Puzzle Fighter before. This game is essentially a spiritual successor to PF with the exact same gameplay, plus a few added features and gimmicks.
The presentation is cool, but personally tends to come of really cheesy most of the time. Like, the entire story mode revolves around the Red McGuffin that is barely explained before we are thrown into a battle with characters whose motivations for finding said McGuffin are never explained. Despite all this, the game takes itself SUPER seriously, to the point of having the most edgy-sounding narrator they could find reading everything (In English, while all but one character has Japanese-only voice lines, which many won't mind, but I find it really jarring, lol).
Luckily, that doesn't bring the game down much at all, as the real meat of the game is the puzzle gameplay. The skill cap is comparable to Tetris, Puzzle League, Puyo, etc. in that there's almost no limit to how good you can get! That makes the competitive nature of the game that much more appealing.
That being said, I should really mention that not a lot of people have bought this game, and many have reported that the online is basically nonexistent. I haven't personally even bothered with online yet since I want to take plenty of time to get better at the game first so that I don't get absolutely destroyed by the pros online. Don't let that deter you from trying, though... After all, if everyone stopped playing online because they thought nobody else would be, there's no way it would be able to become active again.

TL;DR:
- Gameplay is solid and worthy of your time if you enjoy competitive, fast-paced puzzle battle games
- Story/writing is a little cheesy because it takes itself way too seriously, but it's passable and gets the job done.
- Online may be a bit barren at first, but keep trying.

My favorite Need For Speed game among those I've played, and so far, my favorite realistic racing simulator out there (And I've played Burnout Paradise; Apparently, that's saying something). I play on Windows 10, and haven't had any issues with the game whatsoever, except that the game freezes for about 15 seconds whenever you plug in/unplug a USB controller to your PC. Which is honestly not even an issue as long as you don't have a faulty controller, haha. I completed this game 100%, and am considering starting a new game just so I can play it more! Still looks great on modern PC hardware with the graphics set to max, awesome open world gameplay that sadly hasn't returned in recent N4S games, and police chases that leave you legitimately scared that your fancy, expensive Bugatti that you spent hours upgrading and decaling is going to get impounded. 10/10, would impound again.

Also, hint: When the cops are searching for you (But before they've found you, and are simply non-blinking red arrows on your radar), drive into a safe spot and just watch the show. Thank me later.