Recent reviews by Eelface

I can't believe it's taken me so long to play this game. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles is my all-time favorite game, and anyone calling this game a spiritual successor to the classic Sonic franchise is dead-on accurate. Games like Sonic Rush, Sonic the Hedgehog 4, and other similar titles fall short by placing too much emphasis on speed and not enough on fluid level design, which is where Freedom Planet truly shines.

I haven't seen a game with level design this stellar since the classic Sonic games, with immeasurably branching pathways, hidden bonuses, and boss fights that for their part far exceed anything even Sonic could achieve, in terms of action gameplay. The creators wisely crafted stages where you CAN get all the little gems, but there is no pressure to do so, and the experience is more about blazing your own unique trail through rolling hills, loops, and floating platforms full of clever baddies and grabbing all the treasures along the way than it is about following a set path and scoring a perfect on your report card at the end of the run.

The story is unique and engaging, if sometimes hard to get invested in, and although the characters are a bit childish and the voice acting clearly amateur, none of it is phoned in. Where the characters feel simple, they still avoid cliché, and where the voices sometimes sound studio-ish, they are still urgent and compelling.

A few last things to cover:
-The controls are tight, and take very little getting used to.
-Phenominal sound design, it sucks you right into the action.
-The music I've encountered so far hasn't been as memorable as anything in, say, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, but it is very solid. It works well to the level, especially the boss fights.

Heartily recommended to any fan of platformers or Sonic.

Payday 2 is by no means a perfect game, in fact playing it alone borders on one of the most tedious and frustrating experiences I've had in recent years. But getting three friends to join you and running in to rob a bank touches on one of the purest joys that exists in us all - taking things that don't belong to us. With a good balance of greed, gun porn, panic, and just a touch of dark humor to remind us everyone gets what they deserve in the end, the game satisfies that want very well indeed.

Not a bad game, but nothing that really sets it apart from the countless free tower defense games available online and on your phone.

Having played several tactical games before, I was very disappointed after playing this one after many users described it as being on the cutting edge of the genre. In truth, it comes down to a rock, paper, scissors blend of wits and guesswork.

Frozen Synapse is actually rather well-balanced. The variety of weapons, random placement of objects, and high amount of control over your actions add a lot to consider when taking your turn. But once you learn the rules, the game actually ends up very shallow. The simultaneous, locked-in turns limit the player to faking out his opponent rather than actually creating a strategy to suit the environment and adapting it to his opponent’s actions. In this way, the game is less about using tactics and more about being cheeky. Strategy, i.e. a plan of attack, is still important, but that is more about getting used to the game’s meta than actually developing tactical prowess.

Frozen Synapse is very stylish - it has a very entertaining sense of humor in its dialogue and narration, and the music is well-composed and nice to listen to, but the gameplay itself falls pretty flat. I do not recommend this game at all.

An awful attempt by the makers of Killing Floor to reproduce the marvel of Portal, made worse by the inclusion of a pitiful combat system. Nothing in this game managed to invoke wonder, excitement, or even manage to resemble anything resembling the genre it attempted to capture: a puzzle game.

Hey, so that was pretty fun. A few hours spent goofing off in a silly, alternately-stylized Katamari Damacy. How much is this game going for anyway? ...TEN BUCKS? Yeah, save your money people.

To get the most out of Amnesia, you shouldn't even be reading recommendations. Forget everything you have heard, don't try to critique it, and immerse yourself, and it will surely scare the pants off you.

Probably a better jumping-in point than Civ IV, but something of a step backwards for the series. This game improves in some ways and fails in many more others, but a good game for those less interested in thinking and planning than Civ IV.

While Dead Space was a clunky, yet spooky game full of creeps and freaks, Dead Space 2 is a full blown horror flick that manages to put you in extreme peril more frequently than James Bond, and with cooler action sequences.

If only Isaac could learn to stop taking his helmet off when people attack him...

Oops unplayable