Recent reviews by RISEMittens

There's a good game hiding here, but it's not here yet. All of the overwhelmingly positive reviews are strictly member berries level nostalgia for the games of Genki past, not the game that came out on Jan 22, 2025. Your skill does not matter, your car does not matter, your car's tuning does not matter. Progression is a facade locked behind a perk system that won't matter as you get gapped by Kei cars while somehow flying by cars that should theoretically be 100-200 horsepower higher than your own. Forza Horizon is a soulless husk of itself, but it sells for a reason. These two games occupy the worst polar opposites of the racing game progression spectrum. In Horizon you're handed cars and money like Halloween candy whereas in TXR 2025 your perks and upgrades are only in spirit while you watch a 63 horsepower (stock), 0.66 Liter Suzuki wagon take you to Gapplebees in your 220+ horsepower dedicated sports coupe. There was a need for arcade racing games, but this leans too much into the unbelievable, coin eating machine type races of literal arcades in the past. I don't care if TXR was like this when the franchise went into hibernation in 2005. As of this review, that was 20 years ago. Since then Project Gotham Racing has come and gone, Gran Turismo has had seven releases, Forza has had thirteen (non-mobile) games, and entirely new IPs have popped up. This game needs work. Thankfully it's in early access, but if from what I've gathered is correct, the current game systems will remain relatively unchanged. The big problem with difficulty in TXR 2025 comes down to outdated design philosophy. Your skill, your tuning, your reaction times - none of them matter. After you reach chapter 2 (and even towards the end of chapter 1) you encounter other cars that you should theoretically be able to beat or at the least challenge, but the AI and value tuning over-matches you into the ground. Imagine if you will a Fromsoft game. Now imagine the hardest bossfight in it. That could be Malenia in Elden Ring, Nameless King or Midir in DS3. Now imagine if they were literally impossible to beat. I don't mean that you can power through mechanically, or have to practice to fight them in your peak performance with peak reactions. I literally mean impossible to beat as a player. You can't hit them, you can't dodge them. Now imagine that there was one, very slim way to beat them. Imagine if, when you pass the fogwall, one out of twenty times there's a banana peel on the floor Malenia can slip on. It won't always happen, it won't be guaranteed she even walks over it if it spawns, but there's that slim chance it's simply there. Imagine that's the only viable method to progress through that bossfight. That's what the bossfights in early access TXR 2025 are. They are physically impossible to beat mechanically, reflexively or narratively. The only slim chance you have to defeat some of them is literal luck. Not slick reactions, not building out your car - Luck. You can either hope they accidentally fly mach 10 into a family of four in their minivan, or, in extremely rare circumstances, somehow overcome their power-lifter strength into some obstacle. That's all you have.

Years have long since come and gone after the franchise went dormant and it's time that some of these bullheaded cartoon design philosophies change. The racing genre has had hiccups and consolidations overall but it's still kicking. With Night Runners around the corner at some point in the future I see tough competition for TXR, especially if it refuses to budge in the river of time.

If I could I would crush this game into a powder and snort it.

Procedural generation gives it a lot of variety. The game needs a lot of work, especially in regards to weapon/character animations, models and audio, but the effort put into overall attention to detail is stellar.

The weakest factors fighting against SDiF are
1, Price
2. Population

The sale price of $29.99 is acceptable, the standard price of $39.99 is not. For the amount of content available I'd say the sale price (or even lower) should be the early access buy-in. You also NEED friends to play with you if you're getting into the early access period. There are no friendly AI soldiers in any mode as of writing (it's planned) so you should get at minimum two other people in with you.

I recommend the game but there's no review score between positive and negative, I'd say get it on sale if you enjoy the genre, avoid at full price for the time being until 1.0.

Pickles! Ȃ̸͉̟̹̱͙̪̱͇͙̃̓̾̐̃̆̆̅͠Ȧ̴͈̖͘̕À̷̭̩̹̩̻̗͓͓͓͚͗͂̄͛̽̈͘͜͜͜Ą̴̛͎̘̙̈́̎͌̇̎̓́̕͝͝͠Ḁ̴̡̡̩̞͂͘͜ͅẦ̸̛̪͇͓͙̩͇͊̉̀̃̓͒̎̏̽̍́̊̚͘͝Ã̷̤͕̼̭̘͕̓̌̀̈́͊̈́̈̚̕̚Ǎ̷̡̢̢̛̞̙̮̖̘͉̮̭̭͇͚̮̩͇͈̌̌͑͑̈̃̆̂̊͋͒͂͑Â̵̛̬̖͉͙̆̑̆̂̿͆͊͌͛̉̃̐̽̚Ă̴̗̗̻̪̻̩̮̓̊̎̐̀̈́̓̃͌͒͒͑̀̄̾̅͝A̵̜̖͗̄̾̂̓̊̂̅̍̍̎̾̑̚̚A̵̛̗̤̽̆́͋̓͒̋̽̈͑̄͊̓̀̇̈́͌A̴͈͔̳͇̓̔̓̈́̚Á̷̧̨̨̻̗͚̦̙̙͍͙̩͕̰̘̹̥̈̈́̾̔͋̊̂͜͝Ȃ̵̩́̀͌̌͐̓̀͌͗̑̏̄͑̕͘͘̕A̴͎̙̜͖̦̦͖̪͖̝̝͌͊͊́̊̉̓̀̿̎͑̈̕͜͠͝Ȃ̴̟̙̭͐͒̎̀̀͝͝Á̶͖̼̟̠̭̓̓͊̃͜͝ͅ

You play as a post-human Ubereats courier delivering air strikes and artillery salvos.

Not quite Battlefield but neither is Battlefield anymore

but this is kickboxing?

This barely qualifies as a tech demo, let alone a game or sandbox. I understand there's only one person developing this and there's potential there, but what's currently being sold isn't worth your money. The UI is hostile to your time, the setup for any basic sandbox is so obtuse you're better off attempting to script in ARMA 3, and your frames will suffer more than an overzealous ZEUS campaign. In fact, until far more has been done with Warbox, stick to ARMA 3 for the time being. There's a very good chance this eventually blossoms, but until then save your time.

Age only affects appearance, and has no bearing on ability.
Gender has no bearing on ability.
Everyone has imperfections.
Prejudice birth malcontents.
Become a dark spirit.

Time for crab.

Video game fun in the purest form. Simple enough to play casually, deep enough to play with friends for hours on end. This is the sort of complete content you could expect back in the day and, yet this is still somehow early access. Incredible. There's more fun and variety to be had in Wobbly Life than even AAA multiplayer experiences. I can only hope other studios making coop/multiplayer games take note.

I yearn for the mines.