Recent reviews by Pankotenders

This "sequel" removed much of what made Overwatch fun and groundbreaking, made some existing aspects worse, and what it did actually improve could easily have been a minor update to Overwatch. They also added a virtual store where gamers with more money than sense can spend 20 dollars on an in-game cosmetic that used to be free.

What a joke.

hello
freenis
my name is captain ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Addictive and engaging at first, but the community will get on your nerves fast.

Building your first house, crafting your first set of gear, and exploring the area for the first time feels great. The initial steps are rewarding and fun, but after a while you'll realize that you can't escape the fact that this is a PVP open world game. In terms of success, you get out exactly what you put in. And the average Rust player is putting more in than you. If you're picking up Rust just to play casually, you will get steamrolled by groups of people whose only source of enjoyment is in annoying other players.

I have a hard time connecting with anyone in game. I don't know if it's kids or just people who aren't the brightest, but you could even be giving stuff away and people would still try to kill you with a rock right after spawning in. The chat is a nonstop stream of slurs and posturing (e.g. "i just killed two geared f****ts with bow headshots kill yourself n****r"). I don't care what language people use, but it's symptomatic of a very immature playerbase.

The two observable goals of Rust are 1) Prove that you're the best, and 2) Make sure no one else is having fun. Two people once spent at least half an hour clicking on the wall of my hut. The chest I had inside was worth less than the 50 metal pickaxes they consumed breaking in. On another occasion someone waited at my doorway, staring at their screen for 20 min, until I came back from collecting resources. They didn't even end up getting anything, but it didn't matter. The real prize is undoing other people's progress. Clans will have people taking shifts so that they can raid people as they go offline and not get raided themselves, which makes casual play impossible.

You might think I don't recommend this game because of the toxic community. In part this is true, but ultimately I just didn't find a worthwhile goal to keep me playing.

I loved playing Shovel Knight. It's one of the most beautiful combinations of retro and modern gaming that I've ever seen.

The controls come right out of your standard platformer. They're simple; an NES controller has enough buttons to get you through it.

Gameplay
Shovel knight is difficult but fair, and it's actually more forgiving than any of the games that inspired it. The player doesn't have lives and you can't actually get a "game over." Rather, Shovel Knight uses a similar formula to that of Dark Souls: when your character dies, you lose a chunk (not all) of your in game currency and respawn at your last checkpoint. If you can defeat or bypass the enemies in between the spot you died and your last checkpoint without dying again, you can recollect the money you lost.

Levels
Each stage works like those of the early Mega Man games. There are themed stages with a variety of creative elements that fit into the theme, and each has a resident boss at the end. The level design is excellent. Whenever a new mechanic is introduced, the player is taught through visual cues (e.g. an enemy's weak points look like weak points) or through the level arrangement itself (e.g. destroyable walls hide secrets, but the first level includes an area that cannot be passed without destroying a wall). The stages employ vertical progression as well as horizontal, much like Mega Man does, and most stages feature ladders to climb and holes to drop into. There are also a number of secrets that reward careful play.

Overworld
The overworld is so similar to that of Super Mario Bros. 3 that covering each feature would be a waste of time. The map is pleasantly non-linear to a degree. The player is allowed to choose the order that a set of stages are played in and can visit optional areas and replay stages that have already been beaten. There are two towns that are reminiscent of Zelda II's in which you can buy upgrades and equipment from NPCs.

Graphics
They're awesome. Imagine all of the mistakes retro games often make with their art, then imagine a game with precisely none of those mistakes. The designers of the best 8-bit and 16-bit games worked to make their games as visually attractive as possible within the restrictions of the hardware they were developing for, and Shovel Knight's artists achieve this with self-imposed limitations. The graphics are incredibly detailed using a consistent pixel size that seems to match the NES's. The game's color palettes are perfectly chosen. The sense of depth is spot on; foreground elements are easily distinguishable from background ones and vice versa.

Audio
The sounds of the game are quite satisfying for the actions they accompany. Menu/overworld interaction chirps work well and so do the in-game sounds. Run through a pile of gems and you'll see what I mean. The music tracks are also very fitting. Boss tracks match the fast paced action of what's happening onscreen, etc. There are also a whole lot of them.

TL;DR
Superb level design, challenging gameplay, incredible art, and subtle humor all make Shovel Knight worth playing.

It's a good game.