Nylige anmeldelser av Mankybus

UNLOVED is one of those game one could call a one trick pony, where it lacks in its variety it more than makes up for it in the small amount of things it does really REALLY well. I would also say it's what you get if you take Left 4 Dead, Doom and The Binding of Isaac and then cram them all together into one with a Warframe-like progression system on top of it. It's a brutally challenging horror FPS where you complete levels, get loot, upgrade that loot, challenge higher difficulties, repeat - it will take some time to grow on you but once it clicks, it REALLY clicks and you have yourself a forever game that's incredibly deep and will likely crush you time and again - mastering it will make you feel like you're on top of the world.

Pros:
- Satisfying, chunky gunplay with 5 excellent weapons
- incredibly challenging even when starting out on the easier difficulties
- Tons of build variety with lots of trinkets to use
- AI director like Left 4 Dead with unique greed and hatred systems that governs the enemies you face
- Dark, grimey and repulsive horror aesthetic similar to the classic Silent Hill games
- Co-op play with 4 people (even up to 5 with a glitch)
- A bunch of modes and challenges that changes how you approach scenarios
- Higher focus on skillful play with tons of opportunities to bounce back from bad situations

Cons:
- Perhaps a bit ugly and graphically simplistic for some people
- Not much variety will be a turn off for some
- Performance is pretty bad at times unless you use v-sync which has atrocious mouse lag
- RNG plays too much of a role in challenge runs, making bad starts almost guarantee a fail on harder difficulties

UNLOVED is a fantastic indie FPS and easily one of my favourite indie shooters, it's a real hidden indie gem that got unfairly slammed when it released. It's dirt cheap right now so even at full price you'll get hundreds of hours of gameplay out of it which is well worth the money, and I haven't even touched the Abyss difficulty yet but I'm willing to bet that's the end game where the of majority of play time will go when I finally feel comfortable enough to tackle it.

Here's to many more hours of loving UNLOVED, an unloved game that deserves more love!

Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem is a surprisingly lengthy expandalone for Serious Sam 4, except is perhaps more polished, more focused and more fun than the game it's based on. That's not a knock against Serious Sam 4 though as I'm one of those who absolutely loves it despite its issues so getting more Sam action is very much appreciated.

Everything the base game does well like the combat, this also does well and comes with some new enemies and weapons that are welcome additions to the action plus the crazy secrets we know and love are fully intact here. However there are some issues from Serious Sam 4 that did carry over such as the rocky performance, iffy animations and dated visuals so that is something to bear in mind before going in.

Honestly it's well worth the money if you're a fan of Serious Sam and want more but if you're new to the series and want to jump into Siberian Mayhem then I definitely recommend bringing a buddy along for the ride as this gets far more hectic than 4. If you end up liking it and want more then definitely pick up the rest of the series after you're done, even the indie spin-offs since they're all great fun and go on big sales quite regularly.

Niffelheim in my opinion is a massively underrated indie gem; it's basically what you get if you took a more traditional survival game, mixed it with Runescape and then squashed it down into a 2D sidescrolling dungeon crawler with base building elements - in my opinion it works superbly well. And of course you can never go wrong with the glorious Viking theme. However it's far from perfect with some glaring faults that need to be contended with throughout the entire game but the time I spent with it has been incredibly enjoyable.

Pros:
- Lovely hand-drawn art style
- Excellent soundtrack
- Tons of items and gear to craft
- Rewards grinding with great pay off but isn't completely necessary if you play well and do quests
- Time matters, day and night yield different resources and challenges
- Undead hordes and ultimatums on strict timers push you towards making the best use of your time and resources
- Difficulty is the right amount of relaxing and tough
- Hunger meter doesn't deplete insanely fast which is usually the case for most other survival games
- Has AI bots but is also 16 player PVP and PVE online - can also be played completely solo if preferred
- You can have pet hedgehogs

Cons:
- Can be incredibly slow for some people when starting out
- Animation is quite weak and basic
- Combat is perfectly serviceable where preparation is key but may be boring to some
- Inconsistent enemy attack telegraphing, some can be easily blocked while others nearly instantly hit you
- Dungeons all look the same and are visually quite boring
- Dungeon bosses are just stronger regular mobs with buffed stats and procs
- Not enough music tracks
- Final boss is far too easy even in solo if you have the best gear
- No endgame after beating the main goal despite being thrown back into the world
- Sometimes the game bugs out where cockerels and adult pigs don't spawn for a while
- Crafting menus have serious QOL issues where you can't filter between item types thus making finding the specific items you want to make needlessly hard at times

There is another review I read that said Niffelheim is "tranquil but with conviction" and that is a statement I wholeheartedly agree with - it's something you can really relax and get lost in while providing plenty of reason that constantly pushes you to achieve your goals. It's a game that really makes you think about how you tackle problems that could have very real consequences. Even after getting all the achievements in my first run, I can definitely see myself coming back to Niffelheim to get lost in this beautiful world once again in the future. If you love survival games and want something quite different then Niffelheim is a perfect choice, especially if you love the 2D Viking aesthetic like I do.

A dream come true for long time Halo fans like myself, it's finally all on PC! Getting to play all of the mainline games before Halo 5 as well as two of Bungie spin off games wrapped up in a pretty great package is nothing short of excellence. Despite some minor weirdness and some rather entertaining visual bugs, especially in CE and 2 Anniversary, all games run like a dream, are highly moddable and are incredibly replayable. And can all be played in co-op.

Though I've still yet to play Halo 2 Anniversary's multiplayer, there's a flavour of Halo multiplayer for everyone. From CE that's perfect as a party game with friends, 2 for high skill competitive play with the use of buttom combos and high level tricks, 3 and Reach that's fun and approachable for newcomers and veterans alike and Halo 4 if you're looking for the most casual experience in the series if you don't mind the huge lack of depth. And of course ODST and Reach firefight return in all their glory and are even better than their OG counterparts. Oh and forge and theatre too, this thing is drowning in nonstop content.

Even at full price for £30 or your regional equivalent, it's absolutely worth even full price with hours of fun to enjoy. Even more so now that there's tons of really cool unlockables that weren't in the original releases, it's not the best system as I preferred OG Halo Reach's credits but the fun weekly and seasonal challenges can drown you in the unlock tokens you need to get you what you want.

Hours of fun and no matter how much time passes I will always come back to this series that I grew up on, and still adore to this very day.

It sucks that I have to give this game such a negative review because I was holding out hope for Isles of Adalar, but the truth is, is there's nothing here. Zilch. And what IS there is not very good and flat out broken, even the introductory tutorial island they have is woefully unfinished with a broken questline and tons of dodgy geometry. The dungeons are completely borked as you cannot save your game in them nor can you leave when you enter - it's an absolute shambles even a year after its initial early access release.

This hurts to write this review because the base of an excellent game IS here! Fully co-op supported, indie Elder Scrolls type of game with a proper built-in game editor? That sounds perfect for me and if this game was being worked on full time then I can see tons of improvements being made - however since the developer is working on the game part time and the asking price is incredibly steep I simply cannot recommend Isles of Adalar whatsoever especially when the updates are so glacial it will likely never get finished or even get past this initial starting point.

If this was a completely free and open source game where anyone can work on it and contribute similarly to games like Veloren and Sauerbraten, then I can see this really taking off in making lots of progress and gaining a decent following. But as it is now it's incredibly stagnant. I might continue to play around with the game editor and make a small little questline to get a little more out of Isles of Adalar as a creative tool rather than a game since it seems there is a lot to play with but considering how unintuitive and buggy that is, I'm unsure if I'll even stick with that.

There IS potential here for an absolutely amazing game but there's no way around it, this game is still nowhere near ready for release. Honestly if the devs are just gonna work on this part time then they should never have released it on Steam to begin with, rather they should have delayed it for several more years or even a full decade to get it to an acceptable, playable and enjoyable state where there's actually something to properly sink your teeth into. Because right now it's a load of broken nothing.

This game took me years to get up and running simply because it does not run well on modern systems out of the box; going from garbled graphics one year, no sound the next and then just refuses to boot after that - I had given up hope trying to get it up and running. But thanks to the wonderful work of the Killing Time community and the fan patch they have been updating for years; I can finally play and enjoy the game and I'll confidently say that this game is a real hidden if very flawed little gem of a classic 90s boomer shooter! Time may have forgotten it but after discovering it for the first time myself, I really hope more people will give this game a try.

You can download the fan patch here: http://cubanraul.altervista.org/kt/index.htm

Pros:
- Satisfying gunplay with a pretty fun roster of weapons, molotov is especially fun but takes a lot of practice to use
- Wide variety of enemies with charming designs
- A really big semi-open world with lots of variety in areas
- Nowhere near as confusing as people say, it's a game that encourages exploration
- Final sequence of the game is excellent
- Tons of completely optional story and lore
- Very odd but interesting and funky soundtrack

Cons:
- Enemy hitboxes are often smaller than their sprites
- Constantly getting stuck on walls like you're made of bubblegum
- Jumping mechanics and physics are awful, often requiring strafe running to get enough speed to jump small gaps
- Sound glitches
- The only confusing element of the game is a key behind pillars, the game has no sign saying you need to mash use to open one of the pillars up to get said key
- The outdoor "wilderness" areas are too long, too big and too full of samey enemies
- Ammo placements are either too abundant or too scarce depending on the area
- FMVs have been massively reduced in video quality compared to the 3DO original
- Vessel powers are just combat buffs and aren't used in interesting ways to solve puzzles - the game also doesn't tell you this mechanic exists, even in the controls
- Some certain annoying sections go on for way longer than they should

The game definitely stumbles in places but this is without a doubt superior to the 3DO version in almost every way and is in general a really fun time. Especially if you're the curious type who loves to explore as the game will reward those who have that wanderlust. It is definitely nowhere near as confusing as people say it is, apart from that one section I mentioned about the key blocked by pillars but that is the only thing that stumped me personally. Honestly if you like the Hexen and its very unorthodox approach to exploration and puzzle focus to level design then you will probably love Killing Time, especially since I feel it has Hexen beat in those aspects.

I feel both PC and 3DO versions of Killing Time would massively benefit from the Nightdive treatment so it can be a much more user friendly pick up and play experience, as well as ironing out some of the issues I've mentioned. But for now, this version along with the fan made patch I linked is the best way to experience this game - just be prepared for a good amount of jank! It's most certainly a great little game that is perfect for KILLING TIME during a relaxing evening :)

Run, jump, kick and punt your way through to blow up the titular Serious Sam! This time, YOU are the AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA and it's good fun. Not really much to say here other than it's a short and simple little runner game that is great fun as an afternoon distraction since it's beatable in an 1-2 hours, though it does have plenty of replayability in trying to get those perfect scores, unlocks and to test your reflexes in the endless modes.

For the incredibly cheap price, it's absolutely well worth a buy if you're itching for some simple runner action with an appealing, almost child-like art style.

As a very short and small little indie game that was clearly made in a VERY short span of time, it's honestly quite a lot of fun! It took the heart and souls of the classic Serious Sam games and made those elements work mostly very well in the form of a turn-based RPG. Charming aesthetic, nifty music and a fairly interesting style of play make this a good play, but only once.

The game is sadly plagued with some very nasty issues that are impossible to overlook. For one, launching the game and quitting it in any way does not considered it closed by Steam thus forcing you to restart the client every every time you quit. I also suffered a hard crash that locked the game up completely for me right at the final boss and was a nightmare to close via task manager - however either that crash corrupted my save game or it simply didn't save my progress at all through my entire session thus meaning I had to restart the entire game again to have another stab at the final boss.

I of course wasn't going to do that and called it quits right there. It's great that it is so incredibly short, if it was much longer I would have given it a hard no but even as it stands those glaring flaws are still bad enough to make me not recommend Serious Sam: The Random Encounter.

Town of Machine is a pretty good little game that I do recommend despite the issues I'm going to mention. While it didn't quite stick the landing for me on my first run, it did finally click with me on my new game plus run. But while I enjoyed it a lot more the second time around, there's no ignoring my gripes that was especially prevalent in the first. Don't get me wrong because it's a fun isometric shooter that has a very appealing aesthetic and some excellent level design but the game and its mechanics feel completely at odds with themselves as it tries to be a mix of the Alien Breed reboot, Doom and Resident Evil - on paper that sounds pretty great but it just doesn't gel together as well as I would have hoped.

Pros:
- Satisfying weapons and gunplay with plenty of oomph and feedback
- Very nice and appealing aesthetic with a mix of synthwave, Silent Hill and some adorable character designs
- Great level design with areas flowing in and out of each other seamlessly as you unlock more of the map
- Likeable if shallow characters
- Tons of cool secrets to find which are hidden in devious ways, I still yet to find them all
- Excellent new game plus with harder encounters, new items to find and areas to explore

Cons:
- Isometric view is angled too low, making it easy to get your view block by walls and objects, also less visibility of any direction that isn't north
- Far too many small objects constantly getting in the way ruining your movement and causing you to suffer cheap hits
- Completely useless melee attack
- If an enemy is above or below you in elevation then they can still hit you but you can't shoot up or down to hit them
- Companions are simultaneously too strong in damage output and too weak in health points
- Enemies, especially gunners, love to shoot you WAY off screen where you can't see them let alone fight back
- Inventory management is cool on its own but feels too limiting for this game's hectic combat
- Performance is lacking, uses 100% of my GPU even on medium and hitches occasionally
- The swamp is long, boring and needlessly insanely tough
- Absolutely awful final boss that's ridiculously hard combined with enemy spam and yet a certain secret weapon in NG+ makes it a total joke

As a pretty big fan of the developer's previous game UNLOVED, Town of Machine is honestly a pretty big disappointment for me - even more so knowing it takes place in UNLOVED's universe with its stronger focus on story, lore and a more handcrafted campaign experience. There are some great things this game does, especially the new game plus mode and the fully interconnected map design, but I feel it would have been much better if it was a more slower paced survival horror type of game; it has the mechanics and level design to support that style of play. Sadly the focus on high enemy counts and hectic action works against the game in so many ways.

With all that said, I do wish more games had new game plus like Town of Machine that adds new gameplay elements, harder encounters and new stuff to explore because I am frankly sick of bare bones NG+ modes that do absolutely nothing to the game which makes you completely overpowered or simply buff enemy stats. After playing Town of Machine's NG+ I decided to try out the Action Commando games where I feel the developer really improved on this game's issues and is a significantly more fun and better designed game thanks to those changes in my opinion.

Ultimately I recommend Town of Machine if you're willing to put up with the game's headaches because there is a very fun and satisfying indie shooter here despite all the game's stumblings. And pick up UNLOVED while you're at it, it's great and cheap even at full price.

Not doing my usual review format, since this game is a special case for me. Originally I left a very negative and scathing review for this game very shortly after release, ranging from some severe issues like performance problems, broken graphical elements, game design flaws and save issues - the game felt like an early beta at best on launch.

Thankfully most of the severe issues have been ironed out after updates and patches but a lot of my time throughout my finished playthrough was still plagued with the awful taste that first initial playthrough left me, some of it for good reason as a lot of other problems still exist, even discovered a couple more issues that I never noticed before.

But I suppose I'll start with what I liked about Industria, and the biggest pro this game has is its world and its bleak but beautiful atmosphere; as someone who really enjoys slower shooters that focus on exploration this game has plenty of that in all of its levels, with just the right kind of music and vibes that perfectly fits what its going for. It has some wonderfully gorgeous vistas and with some unique sights that really helps the game feel beautiful and surreal. The world of Industria just hits so many of the right notes for me that it alone was enough to keep me playing. And that's not even mentioning a couple of genuinely emotional and poignant moments the game handles really well, thanks to the characters Nora and Brent who have a really great chemistry in their interactions.

However, the game's issues can really dampen the experience shortly after those great moments. To this day performance still leaves a bit to be desired, with certain areas dropping more frames than they should and thus makes the play experience very inconsistent. The game's levels still have some huge presentation problems with some elements looking off, holes in walls that go into the void, props floating above nothing, windows and door frames sinking into the city streets even in bounds and the game having openable draws and cabinets and just about all of them having nothing to find. A lot of issues I had since day one have not been addressed unfortunately and likely never will be.

Some new issues I've noticed is difficulty seems to be all over the place, originally I played in Hardcore mode and found it to be a reasonable challenge but now it seems the difficulty has been heavily skewed in weird ways as the melee weapon now seems entirely useless against enemies even the extremely weak kamikaze bots. Enemy hitboxes feel like they've been overtuned to such a crazy huge degree that it feels impossible to avoid melee attacks. All of that wouldn't be an issue if typewriters were properly placed, but are often placed behind doors that have "End Scene" marked on them, meaning you can go through an entire 20 minute section of game filled with enemies and combat and multiple objectives, but with no way of going back to that typewriter to save because the End Scene door is now locked. This means you'll repeat whole sections if you die, very easily in two hits, when it would just make more sense to have that typewriter accessible after the End Scene door.

Another problem I noticed is with the combat, namely reloading weapons. When you reload in most FPS games you can't interrupt said reload animation apart from changing weapons, however in Industria if you empty your magazine in your pistol and you're caught in combat by having to reload, trying to fire during your reload will reset that reloading animation which means you have to wait longer for that reload to finally finish. I have never in my life seen another FPS have this problem with reloading but it affects both the pistol and the SMG but the shotgun seems unaffected by it. Again the game just seems to have these kinds of really bizarre and extremely amateurish issues and mistakes that most other indie FPS games seem to avoid.

However the silver lining is Industria seems to have done well enough to warrant a sequel and I feel it is a series that absolutely deserves a second chance. I find its world intriguing, fascinating and mysterious and so little of it was ever explored and explained in Industria - making me think this game was meant to be a much bigger project originally and we only got the first act that sets up the world of the Industria universe. The ending alone just left me with far more burning questions than answers, and I want to see what will happen next.

I am very much interested to see where the development team goes with this story and world, and I'm hoping they've learned to correct the huge and small mistakes they've made with Industria, so they can make Industria 2 into something that can truly live up to the massive potential they have clearly demonstrated with the first game.

So with all that said, I give Industria a soft recommendation now that it's a much improved experience. If you're like me and you want to see what the devs will do with this story and this universe, then I think Industria is well worth a shot if you're willing to put up with a very flawed experience that is still quite fun in its own right.