Recent reviews by Snake™

For a lot of people and myself included, FFT is the absolute gold standard for tactical games. The visual enhancements, fantastic voice acting, balance updates, and quality of life changes in this remastered version are icing on an already delicious cake. I've put hundreds of hours in the original on PS1, another hundred or so in the War of the Lions, and fully expect to put hundreds more into the Ivalice Chronicles. FFT is just that good.

Yes, it's early access so things are always subject to change, but the game is built on good bones and already feels fun to play. Optimistic for future patches, content updates, and roadmap milestones.

Already fun out of the gate, with lots of potential as it continues to develop in early access.

I backed the game on Kickstarter and it was worth the wait.

Mandragora is a fun, tense Metroidvania style game with great world-building and a cool aesthetic. The gameplay feels good, the map is fun to explore, and the plot is interesting enough to want to see it through to the end. I haven't tried every build type in the game yet, but the ones that I have messed around with all feel good and strong in their own way. While the "main" bosses are enjoyable and challenging, my biggest gripe with the game is the fact that the mini-bosses in between are mostly just variations of the same 4-5 ones that can make those encounters feel extremely repetitive. Mandragora has other small missteps here and there that prevents it from truly feeling like an instant classic, but it's still a good game overall.

Helldivers 2 is one of the best four-player co-op experiences out there, with fun and snappy third-person shooter game play, hilarious moments thanks to ragdoll physics and friendly fire, and a galactic conquest narrative full of jingoistic satire. Plus cool sci-fi weapons and ordinance to obliterate bots, bugs, and sometimes your fellow 'divers on accident too.

AND it's also a game that bucks the trend of weaselly FOMO season passes in favor of premium content that sticks around forever, with premium currency that can also be easily earned in-game.

Armored Core VI deserves all the accolades. It's been 10+ years since the release of the previous AC game, and FromSoftware really came out swinging with this one. The game is excellently designed with cool mechs, a fantastic atmosphere, an engaging plot, and memorable characters. The game play is the tightest and best its ever felt in the series. There's so much build variety, where many (not all) of the available parts in the game feel like they have a use and don't simply get replaced by better versions and straight stat upgrades as you progress.

And as important as builds are in the series, glamming up our big murder machines has always been a big part of player expression as well. So of course, the customization is also as good as its ever been too. The decal editor in particular deserves a special shout out, since it allows players to go wild and add so much extra detail to their ACs. It's no surprise for the series itself, but it's still quite frankly a huge breath of fresh air in this day and age when so many other games tend to monetize the hell out cosmetic options in some form.

Beyond all that, I think it's important to note that Armored Core VI is also by far the most difficult game in the series. Some bosses will feel like absolute brick walls at first, but every single one is designed as a puzzle to solve. Beyond learning boss attack and movement patterns, the game very directly encourages part swapping and build experimentation, with every boss having a counter or solution. For all the speculation and discussion leading up to its release about whether this game would have any Souls-like elements, the skill check bosses are probably the one main thing that Armored Core VI has in common with FromSoftware's other titles. Armored Core still stands as its own franchise beyond that, and I for one am definitely glad that is the case.

If I have one tiny, minuscule gripe with the game, it's that there are no co-op missions to play. PvP isn't really my thing personally. I'm glad it exists as an option, and I'll dabble in it out of curiosity and check out what meta builds the playerbase comes up with, but that's about the extent of my interest in it. So not having co-op mission as another multiplayer option like in a couple of the previous installments is a bit of a bummer, but by no means a deal breaker. The story and mission structure is set up in a way that the balance would be completely thrown off with the addition of co-op so I definitely understand why it's not present in the game. It just would've been nice to see. But again, definitely not something that really hurts the game at all. It just would've been the cherry on top of an already incredible title.

Overall, I couldn't be any happier that one of my favorite series is back after a decade. When's Armored Core 7?

Fun game, great soundtrack, delicious pizza.

UPDATED REVIEW:

It took nearly a whole year to get there, but with the latest class overhaul and very many other patches, as well as a handful of key content updates, the game is finally at a place where I can actually recommend it. Darktide was essentially in early access without officially being labeled as such, with the PC player base practically helping to test the game for Fatshark ahead of the Xbox release. But as of the 13th patch it finally feels like the game is worthwhile.

To address my previous criticisms from my negative review: crafting is fully implemented, earned currency is account based rather than for individual characters, penances are far more reasonable with more cosmetics tied to them, and the game feels so much more stable now. My fellow crew of rejects are able to play without the game frequently crashing or one of us disconnecting from the server because of random errors.
Many of these things were addressed prior to the class overhaul patch, however I (like many others) were waiting for a big change like what patch 13 brought about in order to give this game another chance. So it's nice to see the game finally turn around.

It's still a flawed experience in some aspects, however.
Mission selection still largely features maps and their modifiers/difficulty on a random rotation rather than outright letting players choose which mission they want to play. I personally think it'd be better to simply allow players to tackle the mission they want (like in the Vermintide series) but it's not a deal breaker. Private matches exist but require at least two players in party, and the CPU controlled characters are simply not at all reliable.
And while more cutscenes have been added to add a bit more flavor to vendors/NPCs, the story itself is still very simple and surface level. Normally for a co-op shooter I can give this a pass since the gameplay is good and that's what we're all really here for, but for a game based in the lore-rich WH40K universe it just feels weird to fall short on that.

Overall though, the game is worth playing now and should (HOPEFULLY!) continue to get even better over time.

ORIGINAL REVIEW FROM DEC 3 2022:
Darktide is just simply not ready yet. I am not sure what happened during the development of this game but it is clear that SOMETHING did, because so much of it feels like it needed more time in the oven.

I am enjoying the actual gameplay; it's co-op centric horde shooter fun in the grimdark world of Warhammer 40K. The weapons for the most part feel great and the characters are all fun. I have very few issues with the gameplay itself beyond some minor balance complaints, but those are really not a primary problem. The visuals are also quite good, the soundtrack is stellar, and Fatshark has nailed the 40K aesthetic in just about every regard. But the positives unfortunately end there. This game might as well be labeled as an early access title in its current state. There's loads of issues with Darktide in so many regards that I can't comfortably recommend it to anyone yet.

On the technical side, there's poor performance optimization, a multitude of server stability issues, and plenty of bugs to be squashed to the point where the game is receiving hotfix patches at a furious pace. The developers are trying to fix things as quickly as they can and I have no doubts that Darktide will be a much more stable experience eventually. Just not yet.

As far as game features go, the crafting system is not fully implemented, and there were no plans for private lobbies until the player base complained so now it has to be added post launch. Some of the character-specific achievements (called penances in-game) are so bizarre and hyper-specific that they clash with the co-op focused gameplay design. Gear, currency, and timed weekly challenges are not shared between characters, which is a departure from Fatshark's previous 'tide game and arbitrarily increases the grind for players that want to have multiple characters leveled up and properly geared. The story cutscenes are also so simple and surface level that they make the game's plot feel incomplete as well. Fear not though, the microtransaction cosmetic shop with a FOMO timer is fully functional!

It truly is a fun game to play overall...however it's in such a rough state. It'll probably get there eventually like Vermintide 1 and 2 did and I'll gladly update my recommendation when it does. For now it's a thumbs down.

The best way to experience Inscryption is to go into it without looking up anything beyond what type of game it presents itself to be.
It banks on a strong narrative to keep players hooked alongside a fun and easy to understand card battling system that has a surprising amount of depth to it, with interesting puzzles and secrets in between. The twists and turns might not click with everyone but I think this is a game that is worth experiencing at least once.

The recently released Kaycee's Mod adds an endless mode for those that crave a more "structured" roguelike deck building gameplay, but the real meat of the game comes from it being a narrative puzzle game first and foremost, and a zany card game second.

Deep Rock Galactic is genuinely one of the best co-op experiences out there. Dwarves, mining, alien bugs, and sexy beards all packaged into a wonderful co-op, objective-based FPS.

Rock and stone, brothers!