Recent reviews by jetCold

Stoked for this OST and the game is secondary, to be honest.

Since there are no reviews and the description doesn't specify, this is a dual format MP3/WAV release. The WAVs are just your standard 16-bit/44.1kHz, but at least we get lossless files.

80's Overdrive is another Outrun-inspired arcade racer. It's not all bad, but could be a lot better.

Good:

- I really like the game's visuals. The pixel art is great.

So-so:

- The tunes are fairly appropriate, and they aren't bad by any means, but none of them really want to jump out at me or get stuck in my head. They feel a bit samey to me, and this game's peers are coming with some real bangers.

Bad:

- Opponents seem to scale with player upgrades?

- I really dislike the way that collisions register, and this also manifests in an extremely annoying bug. You start races at the back of the pack, and sometimes the vehicles ahead of you will burn out at the start. You can try to steer around them, but clipping the rear corner will cause your vehicle to get "stuck" on theirs, rapidly registering many collisions in the span of a split second. This doesn't just happen once in awhile, it happens constantly. And the damage/repair mechanic means that you'll be stuck grinding the very first race over and over and over to get your car repaired every single time it does.

I've had to spend probably 2/3 of my time on this game just repeating the very first race.

This game does have some potential, but I feel like even with all bugs fixed and everything polished up it wouldn't come anywhere near incredible titles like Horizon Chase Turbo and Slipstream. Go with one of those instead!

This is a fun little Audiosurf-style music game. Powerups and barricades populate a track according to the beat of the song you select.

My main gripe is that this doesn't support WAV files, so the majority of my music library is incompatible. WAV is the most basic and foundational audio format there is. C'mon! MP3, FLAC, and OGG files are supported. But if the game can read a FLAC file, why not WAV? I can't imagine this would have been difficult to implement, and if support gets added in the future I'll happily edit this to a thumbs-up.

Guys, this soundtrack is so good. Don't sleep.

These tunes are Blue Skies as ♥♥♥♥. Better than Outrun. Sorry nerds. Turns out this is the composer from Top Gear (SNES), so hey.

This version is in 320Kbps MP3 only, sadly. It's available in lossless formats from Barry Leitch's bandcamp.

My favorite real-time strategy game. I'll try to make this short and sweet.

This particular version of the game:

+ Includes both of the expansion packs. The description doesn't mention it, but both Core Contingency and Battle Tactics are here.
+ Includes the map editor.
+ Supports resolutions up to 1920x1200, though I find that the game looks and plays better after bumping it down a few notches.
+ Seems to run perfectly on Windows 10.
+ Is good old version 3.1, combatible with countless fan-made maps and mods. There are probably thousands of extra units available to add on to this game, though the game has a cap of allowing ~230 custom additional units to be installed at one time.
- Does not include any updated multiplayer lobbies or functionalty.
- Does not currently support the Steam overlay.

If you're not familiar with the game itself, go read a real review. And then buy it. This game kicks all sorts of ass and it's worth five bucks all day long.

Enjoy!

I love Raiden and I love the Raiden Fighters series. These games are among my favorite classic vertical shooters. This is, however, probably the worst version of them that exists.

DotEmu has already released one small patch, so hopefully there will be more. They are needed. If things get fixed I'll edit this review to reflect it.

The Good:

- Four awesome shooters for ten bucks. This includes Raiden, Raiden Fighters, Raiden Fighters 2, and Raiden Fighters Jet. These games rock and this is one more game (Raiden) than Raiden Fighters Aces for the Xbox 360 includes.

The Bad:

- Poor emulation. The games don't run at the correct framerate. This causes video stuttering, audio stuttering, and an overall poor experience compared to other versions of these games.

- Buggy. Menu settings often don't save. Simply accessing the menu (without changing any options) will sometimes change things such as autofire mode and music volume.

- No rapid fire. UPDATE: With their second patch DotEmu has added a Rapid Fire ability.

- Extreme lack of options compared to better versions of these games.

Conclusion:

You can get these great games many other ways, and Raiden Legacy - Steam Edition should be your last resort. If you don't have access to the original arcade boards then Raiden Fighters Aces for the Xbox 360 is a GREAT port with smooth gameplay and is absolutely overflowing with options. If you really want these on the PC then you should look to MAME or the GOG version of Raiden Legacy first, as it has been reported to run better than the Steam version currently does.

Pros:
- It's almost Crazy Taxi.

Cons:
- It's not quite Crazy Taxi.

So, if you're a fan of the classic Infinity Engine games such as Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale then you're bound to feel at home here. A self-proclaimed spiritual successor to those titles, Pillars takes from them an enormous amount of what is good and familiar and applies a sleeker, modern veneer alongside a multitude of quality-of-life improvements.

You probably know that already, though.

So I'll just hit on a few things that I think worth mentioning:

- Even though I was expecting something very familiar, the similarity to old IE games surprised me still. It really feels like they went out of their way to re-create that experience piece-for-piece.

- The game took me just over 50 hours to complete, including all 15 levels of the Endless Paths of Od Nua and most (not quite all) side quests. This isn't bad, but it's not quite up to Baldur's Gate 2 in sheer scope of content, either.

- The storytelling and art compliment each other well. The game is dark and atmospheric with a story that generally feels quite heavy while managing to avoid many fantasy RPG cliches. As far as the quality of narrative goes, this is one of the best in recent memory; better, I'd say, than nearly all D&D games.

- I encountered a bug or two, but as of the time of this writing, nothing game-breaking.

- I played on Normal for my first run through, and the difficulty seemed right on-par. Some encounters were challenging, many were not. The bosses weren't overwhelming, but didn't feel like complete push-overs either. Options exist to scale the difficulty upwards quite steeply, for those who do want an extreme challenge.

- Many people are saying that the stronghold feels tacked-on. They're right, for the most part -- building it up doesn't feel terribly useful or rewarding. It's still neat, though. I'd rather have it there than not.

- The way that combat experience works, you're awarded experience for killing new creatures up until a certain point (once the beastiary entry is completed). This is an interesting attempt to balance passive and aggressive play styles. It does seem to accomplish its goal, but I still think I would have preferred a traditional 'kill a mob, get some exp' system with a higher level cap. I hit 12 before the end of the content, after which fights began to feel a little more tedious.

Overall, this is my favorite new game that I've played in a long time. It was great to be able to take (most of) the things I love about my favorite classic CRPGs and experience them as applied to a modern game and a new, awesome story.

Path of Exile is the most faithful successor to Diablo 2 that you'll find, including Diablo 3. While D3 took the approach of World of Warcraft's evolution, focusing on becoming more streamlined and more accessible than its predecessor, Path of Exile leans in the opposite direction. It's difficult, it's technical, and it's awesome. Truly, if feels as if everything that Diablo 3 did wrong, Path of Exile does right.

The one area that PoE really diverges from the classic Diablo formula is in the active skill system. Active skills are granted by gem items. Skill gems gain experience and level up independantly of your character, and by combining active skill gems with "support gems" in equipment with appropriately-linked sockets, the combinations are vast.

And that's what's really great about this game. The enormous scope of build variety and character customization. PoE's passive skill tree has hundreds and hundreds of nodes, and over the course of your character's career you'll have over 100 passive skill points to allocate in any direction and combination you see fit. Want to build a huge, muscle-bound Marauder that casts spells and holds wands? Want to create a Witch or Ranger that uses a Cyclone melee attack with a two-handed axe? Go for it. If you enjoy theorycrafting, you're bound to love this game.

It's the most technical hack-and-slash ARPG out there, and likely the most unforgiving. The path to 100 is a long, long road, and once you're on the second and third difficulties you'll start losing experience with each death. It might get frustrating, but this is not a bad thing. The challenge and longevity this game presents is a breath of fresh air.

And, somehow, the game is entirely free. There is -zero- "pay to win" here. You can buy extra stash tabs (though it's not at all necessary, they start you with four for free), but all the rest of the offered microtransactions are for purely cosmetic items. There is no way to get any sort of in-game boost or mechanical advantage by spending money.

As a huge fan of the genre, PoE really feels like the most compelling offering as of right now.

I like it!

This game is very short (I beat it in about two hours on the Normal difficulty), but it was also only a buck-fifty, and there's definitely some replayability here. Trying to use a PC keyboard is just awkward enough that I'm not particularly compelled to go back and master the tougher difficulties, but if I still had a little USB MIDI controller, or something similar, I'd definitely be there. Something like this would be perfect for playing this game (and, I assume, the sequel): http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/LaunchkeyMini

There are a couple boring tunes, but for the most part the tracks were done very well. Classic music with a modern touch (think Boom Boom Rocket for XBLA, but taken down a notch or two). The art and cutscenes are fun and amusing, along the vein of (and, I would say, surpassing the entertainment level of) Elite Beat Agents for the NDS. I actually enjoyed watching them and never particularly had an urge to skip ahead.

It's not the best rhythm game out there for the PC, but if you like the genre and catch it on sale, it's definitely worth a try.