Recent reviews by Nao

Great atmospheric horror game with a very immersive world and a rich philosophical story. The story is told with minimal cutscenes and is left up to you to explore and find out what is happening. The underwater world is breathtaking and excellently designed - it feels like you are in a real underwater city that was carefully planned out where every building and room has a purpose. Just bear in mind there is A LOT of walking and not doing a whole lot, your encounters with anything hostile aren't particulary common or engaging. There is puzzle solving but most of it is pretty straight forward.

It plays like a walking simulator a lot of the time, but a detailed and immersive one with plenty of suspense to keep you on edge.

Awesome game if just for the singleplayer campaign. This isn't really like previous DOOM games but has more in common with the first two than the 3rd. You won't be slogging through jumpscare ridden hallways but rather you'll be smashing the faces of vast demon armies in huge levels full of secrets and multiple routes. All your old school weapons are back but can now be upgraded - Ever wanted exploding shotgun shells? Machine gun that fires rockets instead of bullets? Tweak and upgrade your weapons to your hearts desire. You can even upgrade your suit, enabling abilities like double jump or blasting away enemies when a powerup runs out. You even have grenades at your disposal and new weapons such as the sniper-like gauss rifle that fires out a massive bolt of electricity which absolutely melts demons in half!

If that sounds like a lot of stuff, well that's cause it is. There is a lot of variety, however all the upgrading can take you out of the game just a bit too much, especially with the runes. Runes grant you abilities aswell but to earn them you have to find a rune stone somewhere in a level and then you get tp'd out into a minigame where you have to do sometihng like destroy 30 barrels with a pistol in a set amount of time. This really breaks the flow of the game and would of been much better if you just had to find the runes and optionally chose to do the challenges in-between missions.

But you don't need all the extra fluff, you can happily rip and tear through demons with a minimum amount of upgrades it's really largely up to you how to play. At least that is true for the first half of the levels. In the second half of the game levels for the most part break down into monster boxes where you kill a bunch of enemies in a locked room and then move onto the next room. It's a bit dissapointing as the first few levels are huge expansive levels with multiple floors and routes to them - quite like the old school DOOM games!

The multiplayer on the other hand, imo, sucks. You spawn in with two weapons of your choice and that's about it. It's a mindless simple deathmatch with little else to it. There is also snapmap for custom content, but it's not very good either and does not make up for a complete lack of modding support, something which has make the old games sitll relevant today. But despite some minor flaws, the campaign is great with plenty of fast paced action and awesome music that will really make you feel like a badass marine spewing the blood of your demons. Highlyrecommended for FPS fans!

If you enjoy punishing games with permadeath with the sole objective being to survive as long as you can and getting the highest possible score, this could be for you.

The gameplay and mechanics are solid and I can definitely see the appeal of it. However for me the game is just far too frustrating. I find it very difficult to aim since there's no crosshair and the very low resolution art style makes it difficult to see. I understand that's on purpose and adds to the challenge but to me it just adds frustration. There's no hp or lives so one single hit from any enemy will have you instantly killed and you have to start over again with the same set enemy patterns which only change in initial spawn position, and after an hour I find this gets really repetitive. I also find the visuals very drab and uninsteresting, but that's just personal taste. If you like very monotonous, lovecraftian themes you might enjoy them.

I am an avid FPS player, I love old school FPS like DOOM and Quake and even monster boxes like Serious Sam but those games offer much more variety and are nowhere near as punishing as this. It's not a bad game and you may like it, but it is a niche game and you'll know whether this is the type of game for you or not.

This is a "Thumbs in the middle" review:
This is quite an underrated game imo. I've been a fan ever since the 2008 IGF demo and still keep coming back to the game every now and then. There are certainly better rhythm games, some of which are free, but there's plenty worse and few are as unique or as visually stunning as this one is.

The basic principle of the game is that not only are you playing a rhythm game, but you are also playing a shoot em up (in reverse!) which means you have to dodge enemy bullets coming from behind you at the same time as trying to hit the beats in front of you. This forces you to play different as you can't always line up in advance to hit the next beat; you may have to swerve around an incoming bullet. Sometimes there are sections of the song entirely based around avoiding enemy bullets giving you a slight break from all the chaos whilst still keeping you on your toes. It's a simple addition which adds a lot of depth and challenge to the game.

For me the difficulty felt just fine. It starts easy enough and steadily progresses harder. You are afforded plenty of mistakes and you can even rewind so it's very forgiving. There's two modes: Story mode and challenge mode. Story mode is just a straight progression through the game's 10 levels whilst challenge mode offers over 100 challenges with various stipulations such as playing at a faster speed or playing the track mirrored. The problem is that progress in one does not affect the other; story progress does not unlock challenges. If you complete the story, you'll have to start from the very beginning with very easy challenges for a long while before you can unlock challenging ones on par with the last mission.

And while it looks beautiful, the visuals are sometimes a bit too much especially with songs that use all 5 lanes. Even with beat lines enabled it is sometimes hard to tell what's going on. However I find using the mono cheat which changes all the beats to one color and enemy bullets another significantly improves visibility and I would highly recommend it if you have issues. And the music is well composed but it's not very exciting and there are only 10 tracks.

But it's still a lot of fun. It's very mechanically solid and well polished. It supports pretty much any controller including a Guitar Hero or Rock Band guitar. An awful lot of work was put into this game and for the most part it shows. For what it is and considering all the free rythm games out there, $10 may seem a bit steep for what you get, especially if you're not into the music. I'd love to see a sequel but sadly due to how poorly this sold I doubt we'll be seeing any.

For what it is, it's a decent pro wrestling game. However its succesor WWE 2K16 is absolutely a better game and I would highly recommend that over this, if anything just because playing online is far better. Absolutely skip this and buy WWE 2K16 instead, this game is practically redundant now.

I just found out that the servers have been shut for this game, and were shut since the 31st of May, just one year after release of this game. There is no way at all to play online anymore. I highly don't recommend purchasing 2K17 either, as they will do the same with that game and no DLC is included with it either. So sad to see 2K become such greedy ♥♥♥♥♥ and completely ruin this franchise.


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Original review:
Last year we finally got a WWE licensed wrestling game on PC in over a decade, but it was a fairly mediocore game. 2K16 is a huge step up from that - It reintroduces many features that were missing, has a much larger roster and online is greatly improved.

In fact this is one of my all time favourite pro wrestling games. If you're a fan of the old school Smackdown or N64 games then beware that this is a much more simulation focused game. It's a lot more slow paced and more unforgiving but that allows for more strategic gameplay. With stamina you can't endlessly run away, and you may have to decide to rest a little following a big move rather than hitting another with no stamina left for a quick pin. There's also limited reversals this time and THANK GOD. FINALLY matches aren't just an endless chain of reversals anymore.

If you dislike any of that then everything can be customised; turn off stamina, reversal slots, adjust finisher damage etc. Also this year's game brings back features like Create An Arena and a much improved Create a Wrestler. (You can create females again! Yay!) The roster is massive and includes past and current wrestlers including some from NXT. Entrances are the best I have ever seen and are now completely seemless which allows you to interfere during your opponent's entrance! Awesome!

It still suffers from Yearly Franchise Syndrome™ which includes plenty of minor bugs and glitches and some strange roster ommisions like Sasha Banks and Charlotte even though Blake and Murphy are somehow in the game. And for some reason you can't use your own entrance music even though you could do it in the last gen console games. Commentary is also as bland as ever and feels like it hasn't improved since Smackdown Vs Raw 2006.

However it is entirely modabble! There was tons of great mods last year from updating wrestler's attire and entrances to entirely new arenas, and this year is no exception. Check out Smacktalks[smacktalks.org] for tons of great mods including tutorials on how to mod the game to use your own custom entrance music.[smacktalks.org]

It's a good game but the price is not super hot.

There's less than two hours of content here, unless you love the game so much that you want to spend the time getting better scores in the challenges and endless modes. There's even less value to be had here if you've already played the free prototype released two years ago as the full game adds so very little ontop of it. It seems all the full game really adds is a $25 price tag.

If this ever has a large discount or you get gifted it then it's absolutely worth playing. Otherwise, play the free prototype version in your web browser and get largely the same experiance for free.

It's a very simple game. From the trailer, you should know if this is the type of game for you or not. Personally it isn't for me, but I can see the charm and I think there's potential fun to be had. I think with a few changes it could be significantly improved:

1) The cannon shoots in a fixed position meaning the levels are straight forward and simple trial and error. If you could choose where to fire, such as in an obvious inspiration for this game Peggle, it would make the game more involved than simply dragging lines, clicking a button and hoping for the best.

2) A back button. As it is if you make a mistake you have to reset the level or precisely click on an individual band which is a little tedious. Furthermore, it would be nice if you could hold and drag left mouse to connect multiple points, rather than having to click each time.

3) More levels would be nice as you can finish the game within 2 hours. There's only 60; 30 standard and 30 anti-gravity levels. There's also a "Trixball" mode which is very much so like Peggle but as it is always played on exactly the same level it gets old very quick.

While it is cheap, there's plenty of other games that are also just as cheap or even free that offer more involvement and replayability than this game, such as (you guessed it!) Peggle. As a result it's tough to recommend. But it's not bad, and it's still probably good for kids or to waste time at work but just don't expect to get much out of it.

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME!
This is a very fun game, far better than Ghosts and has potential to be better than Black ops 2 HOWEVER there are NO DEDICATED SERVERS at this time despite the fact one of the devs said that they would be available. https://i.imgur.com/mgiRbRq.jpg

The lag is horrendous. I attached several videos showing this below. Sometimes you'll boost upwards and apear to fall, only to magically be warped onto a ledge. Often you'll get hit markers on your screen but on the enemy's killcam they didn't register. Sometimes they won't register when you're blatantly shooting an enemy right in front of you. I've even had matches that failed to start and the odd host migration. It's a shame because the multiplayer could be great if there was dedicated servers. So for now don't buy until it gets fixed, if it ever gets fixed...

Examples of lag in multiplayer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHzMHi2eUto#t=8
0:08 About a whole second delay before the hit registers on the second kill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1nLaYiOpJ4
He clearly shoots at the other player, but on the killcam he isn't even facing him yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muBmBEK2ckA#t=56
0:56 Almost empties an entirely clip into the enemy before hit markers appear even at point blank.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K39whbroQAk#t=35
0:35 Again clearly shoots the player but not even facing the other player killcam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZYrhe_MAKs
This whole video is a pretty extreme example, but this kind of lag happens occasionally too...


Note: I've played many more hours than what the review actually shows because the singleplayer and multiplayer are listed seperately in your steam account. I have 30+ hours clocked already, check my profile if you don't believe me.

It's a fun, fast paced and challenging game that's like a mix of Megaman and Contra on crack! It has lots of enemies that respawn if you backtrack, lots of powerups which can significantly alter the behaviour of your weapon and you even come equipped with a jetpack. Powerups are also randomized so you can't beat the game strictly by trial and error making skill and reflexes key. The presentation is absolutely spot on right down to the segmented health/energy bars and achieves the retro 8-bit style perfectly -- it looks, sounds and plays just like an NES game. The sprites are large and easy to distinguish and they explode into colorful 8-bit pieces!

My only issue with the game is that the controls aren't as tight as I would like them to be. Sometimes when I try to move in the opposite direction it doesn't register particulary if I do it too quickly. Furthermore you can't remap the controls and the only controller it supports is the 360 gamepad, and it's not very playable with it because the controls are significantly delayed however the developer is working on fixing it. The options currently don't save either and be warned: This game is ***VERY LOUD*** when you first load it up.

But all in all, it's a great game that does what it sets out to do very well. It took me an hour just to beat the first stage and there's 6 in total. So make no mistake it is hard, especially unforgiving in hardcore mode. If that's what you're looking for, then for the price you really can't wrong with this.