Recent reviews by Cat

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Video Review
https://youtu.be/5p8oJjuZ114

I simply couldn't get into this game outside of the story, people seem to enjoy it for different reasons. Personally, a lot of the music in this game isn't good enough to play on repeat for the next 100 tracks while you're exploring the biome you're presently in trying to find the next thing to progress the main story or being distracted by any number of long drawn out side quests and side locations you probably can't open yet because you don't have the stats for it, and there are a number of issues that have arisen as a result of their update, which changed everything from a seemingly seamless world to an instanced world, though this was before the launch of the game.

Dread Delusion has a lot of potential, and the story is what propels you ahead, but as you understand the combat is mediocre, and the songs start to get stuck in your head with the humming and choire-like tones, it becomes very exhausting. I want to point out that the game visually is awesome, the music at first is alright, but to go on just Story and Visuals alone isn't enough for someone like myself, I need physical gameplay that isn't me running through every location with max guile (cause I'm silly) and ignoring every single fight because you don't get anything worth while, no exp, no loot outside of knives and potions, so you try to rush through, get the content pushed forward, but then you are in the wrong location, you have no stats (might or lore) to unlock the secret locations to get Delusion Points to level up more of your skills, which really aren't doing much for you. So you need to leave and come back some other time if you manage to find the clothing to boost your stat and find enough delusions to unlock that secret location, which won't have a lot there.

I was enjoying the game until I wasn't, and I have put enough time in it that I felt compelled to continue on through the game to reach the end and complete the primary story, which was excellent, but I just couldn't pull myself to do so. If you enjoy games like Morrowind and other first-person instanced-open world RPGs, you might find something here, but my advice would be to look up a guide when you get lost to avoid the headache of the music, lack of combat, and overall gameplay outside of the story.

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Video Review TBD
https://youtu.be/QKv1uKZnB6o

Growing up, I never played Contra much, although I did dabble with it when my cousins were around. I appreciate how Iron Meat is actually what it is named. You are one of a few selected characters, sprinting and gunning your way through hordes of meat mutants who have taken over the earth.

It has that traditional arcade vibe, with the music, controls, and spawning creatures coming at you from all sides, as well as a touch of bullet hell that will keep you on your toes. The further you get through each level, the more difficult it becomes to implement new functionality. The design is minimalist, yet it is quite engaging and worth playing through.

Reasonably priced; can also be played with a friend via local co-op. Great heavy metal sound tracks that complement the gorey concept, and there's a lot of personality to enjoy.

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Video Review TBD
https://youtu.be/EWbKnuIhGY8

I don't think there have been many puzzle games out there that have been capable of making me sink into my chair and completely mellow out, while still compelling me to keep playing the game without feeling tired, bored, or overly stimulated in a frustrating way. It's really atmospheric and tough, but not in a terrible way; the type of challenge that makes you want to come back and try to beat your prior score the following time.

If you want to solve some tough riddles while feeling completely calm, this is the game for you.

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Video Review TBD
https://youtu.be/HOEQOnsOTd0

This is quite disheartening.

Andrew Gower, for whatever reason, has a resolve to revive the traditional progression style of classic MMOs like OSRS with, Brighter Shores. As somebody who has played Runescape and OSRS, for the last 20 years of my life, I believe that I possess a deep comprehension of that game, both from it's past and present states. There is a great deal I would like to discuss in comparison to Brighter Shores, as it truly does resemble a fleeting memory and a severe lack of regarding the desires and requirements of players in terms of what the next significant MMO design should be. If you question my hours in the game, know that in just the last 2 and a half years I put in over 16,000 hours into it mostly AFK, addicted to it. 20 years would have 175320 hours in the years, it's not unthinkable that one can lose themselves to addiction for that long, many sleepless nights, many low amounts of sleep, very unhealthy in general.

Runescape
As someone who is older I much prefer the AFK side of MMOs while I work and play other games; I do not engage in content directly when it comes to MMOs these days. If a new skill such as Necromancy were to be released again, I would likely not be interested in reaching level 120 on it in a matter of days, as I did on week one release.

I've tried doing this on other MMOs, such as Guild Wars 2, by just having it on the right screen while working, tabbing in every few minutes to replenish some items, and watching that number rise, only to be banned repeatedly for no reason. It's as if we were never wanted, I get bots, I get abusing some things, but it's just once again so depressing as someone with ADHD. I need my fix, and Runescape is the only game on this planet that actually can do this, because of it's design.

RS3 and OSRS are divided in two, RS3 is primarily populated by older individuals who are playing the AFK game with a lot of micro transactions and other ways to boost your skills. It's mostly being played in the background, while the only community left is with OSRS which isn't the community I grew up with as it's not the same game I played growing up.

This is hard to explain, you know if you know. It scratches that itch that most people don't understand, we're wasting a lot of our time and that is perfectly understanded by us, but we're having fun in a weirdly twisted way.

Freedom
You're being forced to play in a highly linear manner doing any number of activities which are the same, I have to stay at the screen constantly clicking multiple times every couple of seconds to continue moving and doing specific things to gain more EXP and then head to the next location, to guess what? Do that again for a handful of hours with nothing rewarding to show for it.

Gear & Items
It's like adding a new Ironman restriction to yourself with OSRS, locking yourself in Lumbridge until you get a level total of 50 and then unlocking Draynor and continuing the grind but each time you unlock a new location you can't use any of your items, skills or bring anything with you from those previous locations making it feel like the Ultimate Restricted Hardcore Ironman, this game is tailored for that kind of experience but with none of the community or creative fun.

Skilling
Every single skill is the same skill. You're doing the exact same thing, in the exact same way, with a different equally slow animation and clunky feeling controls with a mobile interface that is really not doing the game any favors. People already have maxed out skills, a few days after release. It may appear somewhat hypocritical to state that I am actively wasting my time here, given my prior experience with Runescape with multiple 200mil skills and all 120s. I'm just being honest.

Once you hit level 20, that grind you get really starts to get drawn out, when the EXP decreases significantly and this is where they push onto you the next prospect.

These are accumulated in any chapters that you are actively participating in, you will play doing whatever it is you're doing and eventually be granted a point that can be put into unlock bonus EXP, AFK content and silver, and wouldn't you know it. It's locked behind levels, so you'll use a good chunk of them on EXP boosts rather than content unlock. This basically means, you are rewarded for both casual and sweaty game play. But it's just another way to keep you grinding and coming back for more of that pointless grind.

Having spent an unthinkable amount of time with Runescape while also making a lot of fond memories, spending countless long, cold, and dark nights passed out at my chair before school and well past my bedtime... The world of Brighter Shores is devoid of any sense of a community, you can see all of these players moving around each location while they are playing but it gives off the impression that they are all bots even though they are actively playing, making it feel very weird.

This isn't open world, it's like a puzzle piece of multi-instanced locations where if you said something in a previous piece, nobody in the next piece can see your message and you're probably never going to actually be able to communicate with anyone out there. It's just so saddening. I don't have much faith for the future of this game, I wouldn't say it's because I am biased towards the idea. I have plenty of old Runescape friends that are actively playing this for hundreds of hours and even spent money on the monthly fee, but I don't see the real point now or later on down the line.

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Video Review TBD
https://youtu.be/NAlUIXTLqpM

Okay, so listen up. Are you a fan of Pokemon or turn-based creature collection in general? Wishes Unlimited is a very outgoing developer that strives to make things work, no matter how strange the concept may appear.

If you thought to yourself "Turn-based game play mixed with Sports & Pokemon," you are correct, but unlike all of these other superficial clones that don't do much with their attempts, aside from being sued by Nintendo for obvious reasons, BeastieBall actually tries to be unique, and not just in one aspect; everything about this game is so charming and wholesome.

Beastieball is packed to the brim with endless possibilities, whether it's potential mini-games, online PvP, farming, metamorphosing your creatures into really cool designs, or simply being a wonderful family friendly game about doing the right thing and supporting your local town / world to the absolutely fantastic soundtrack that keeps getting MORE and MORE upbeat, when you thought there was no way it could possibly get any better!

My only real issue is that the game is relatively short, I really hope they add more content throughout EA or mini-games and the PvP mode. I particularly loved Wishes Unlimited, tiny collection of games from Chicory: A colorful tale to Wandersong, literally everything they create is fresh, unique and wholesome in so many different ways.

Here, you don't even beat up, harm and capture beasties; instead, they are inspired and cheerfully come to you themselves to ask you politely if they can join your team when you fulfil their prerequisite as long as you have a jersey to give them.

How cool is that!?
I'm not really into Pokemon; I prefer games that strive to be something other than another game, such as CassetteBeasts, which was another hit similar to this one. Seriously, grab this game; maybe one of these days we'll run across each other when they add online PvP!

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Video Review TBD
https://youtu.be/P7GN4vdf4Qg

Sulfur was one of the most popular games during Steam Next Fest, and for good reason. It's both tough and enjoyable due to the amount of depth contained within such a simple design. Combining Extraction Shooters and Dungeon Crawling features in a single player game that challenges and risks hours of progression due to your own stupidity and underestimating of your foes' damage and swarming ability. There are over 150 crafting combinations for consumables, powers, and buffs, not to mention the numerous weapon upgrades, attachments, and costumes that may be found and combined to provide strong bonuses.

Frame rate tanks hard at times when looking in a specific direction for some reason; it feels like the type of frame rate drop you'd get when looking at a lot of particle effects somewhere or when spawning in a lot of things that a game engine can not handle and then goes away when you look away from it; it's killed me a few times when I should have had no problem surviving the few encounters with low volume enemies. Definitely needs to be fixed, it happens mostly in caverns.

If you enjoy roguelite elements in which everything is pretty static, such as your progression through a specific set of stages that are always the same, with different monsters strewn about and treasures to find as you become more powerful, greedy, and at risk of losing everything, then Sulfur is definitely the game for you. I actually hate extraction shooters in the general sense, because they are often times always PvP, it's nice to see some more casual, even if it is still brutal difficulty for single player.

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Video Review
https://youtu.be/4K5urFxLRUs

The demo I played when the game was featured at a prior Steam Next Fest was quite interesting. It was similar to playing Risk of Rain 2, but with a different camera viewpoint; it didn't feel as interesting, and the game was rather simple to farm through to unlock characters and relics.

Come Early Access, I played for around 2 hours, but there were no sensations from the game play, music, or progression; everything felt stale, dull, boring, and worthless. Add to that the fact that the game scales so quickly while retaining the under geared idea behind your relics you get each and every stage, then unless you get the best relics right from the start and legendary ones that give you a ton of damage, you're kind of stuck fighting bosses for quite some time with insane amounts of HP and resistance, making it quite a chore to play through.

If you want better relics, you have to play for quite a long time to unlock them manually and it kind of felt like I was playing a game like WarThunder in terms of progression. I know, wild jump in terms of genres, but this doesn't have any rewarding feeling behind anything. There are better games out there that offer what Risk of Rain does, with better progression.

You never feel powerful or in control.

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I don't believe a horror game is supposed to be stressful and amusing with no horror aspects. The game itself consists of entering a location, accomplishing a series of objectives, and then departing with or without completing achievements on steam that may or may not be among the most laborious tasks available.

You can play alone, with friends, or with some of the individuals who are sitting in the lobby waiting in their rooms, and you can even play Chess and other mini-games with the players in this waiting area until you are ready for more exhausting work. Again, this is supposed to be a horror game, but with such clearly moronic AI that can't even track you for more than 2 seconds when you run into a room and back into the one you just left, making a lot of noise, it's simply not fun.

Do some objectives, you don't have to worry or really sneak around, just go get the thing, do the thing and you're done. Pretty difficult to die and pretty difficult to mess it up.

A horror game is supposed to be frightening, leaving you anticipating things and terrified as you approach a new location while being pursued by something you can't see. The AI can't really see you, and when they do, they can't keep up with you; the hallucinations are simply bothersome, not particularly scary or an enjoyable aspect of the game.

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Video Review TBD
https://youtu.be/x3GzjcS8lR0

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy has a fantastic story, but I want to clarify that I am not, and have never been, a huge fan of Marvel, DC, comic books, or superhero movies so my look into this game is strictly on how it carries itself through the gameplay and presentation for someone not familiar with everyone outside of some memes and references.

This developers clearly shoves it down your throat, the concept that they most likely spent millions of dollars to obtain the rights to use Rick Astley and other great soundtracks such as Black Sabbath and Mötley Crüe for the majority of every song displayed throughout the copyright album. I bring this up because the game concentrates so much on the music for fighting, powerups, scenes, and moments, while building on it and the story, rather than feeling like the game was properly worked on and thought out when you take that out of the mix and focus on the gameplay and story without any music.

What I mean is, the longer you play through this game, the more you will see the usage of many unfitting songs for specific situations with very long drawn out scenes that you can't skip through the first time around making the music a stand in for the lack of things going on, as the gameplay and the bugs and issues start to really become worse and worse until you're literally flying into the sky, spawning back in once you hit the edge of the world, guardians not working, and having to reset the game completely to keep playing. Despite all of these issues, which do become a problem, the story itself manages to keep you interested and occupied, bouncing in and out of cringe moments, hilarious moments and heart felt moments.

I purchased this as part of the Humble Bundle, so it was not a bad deal in comparison to the standard price, which is completely unjustified for what you receive. You're paying for the Marvel brand, not a good, gorgeous, well-designed game with immersive fighting and other features. It's a very long drawn out story of how the Guardians of the Galaxy save the galaxy. You have choices that will slightly alter the story making it easier or more difficult if you managed to convince someone to help you later on, but that's about all there is to it to the non-linear portion.

The late game consists of you standing around directing your guardians to use their unique powers and skills while watching them not fight, as you're waiting for them to come off cooldown so you can kill the elites faster, while blasting them and dealing no damage at all unless your element guns have also come off cooldown to stagger enemies.

I liked and disliked this. It was entertaining, with a nice story both good and terrible, but sitting through so many hours of drawn-out missions would have been unbearable if not for the quantity of dialogue you get to experience, which makes the effort worthwhile. You're getting to know Drax, Gamora, Rocket and Groot a bit more, more than going on an adventure.

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Video Review
https://youtu.be/P3QLtqDpnkU

I've never played Metal Slug, so I'm not familiar with the characters or the connections to past games. It is a turn-based tactical RPG that requires you achieve particular objectives of a variety of difficulty, such as killing foes and reaching a destination.

It has a classic arcade vibe to its presentation, the music is wonderful, and the sound effects are good. The main issue, in my opinion, is that the difficulty can be a little too high at times. When you have to save units from mummies or chase down a target, and mummies will kill them in one turn while spawning right next to them at the very start, usually while you are on high ground and cannot reach them down below or vice versa, ending your whole run right then and there. But then other times you'll have the same mission, but it doesn't matter if the units you're protecting get killed, it bugs out and lets you succeed. But it's still a bit weird to have one objective being "Kill 4 enemies in 1 turn" and then "Protect all these units for 5 turns, or it's game over!" and not even work properly.

The bugs in this game are game breaking. Your units that downed and you revived? Now they are stuck in their downed state or their downed transformed mummy state with no normal skills, unable to move or attack. Save and Quit, those units are now somewhere random, out of bounds, in a much dangerous location and also their turn is over? These become more and more common the longer you play, wouldn't be so much of a big deal if not for the fact that it will ruin your run.

I didn't enjoy having limited ammo since it prevented you from using your special weapons when you truly needed them while you were attempting to salvage all you could before entering the final fights against the bosses. Since you can't just spam your strongest weapon, you have to focus on setting up synchronized combo effects (being in sight of the enemy when engaging) to really fully utilize your ability to win each stage, which felt boring. Especially since it's limited to once per turn against bosses, add on top of that the layers and layers of bugs, glitches and other issues and it's just a disaster.

It had the potential to be entertaining, but it lost its appeal after about an hour of reaching stage 4 and losing since there was no hope of preventing the units from bugging out, units being killed on the first turn and sometimes ending the run and sometimes not, the softlocks, the reloads, the teleporting units and multi-layered boss fights are really cool with awesome designs, but just like the Steam Next Fest demo they provided a while back, unpolished and needing a lot of fixes.