Recent reviews by Swizz

Sony has received the message and backed the hell up, and I can enjoy Helldivers with my friends once more.

And enjoy I shall, because this is an amazing game with hours' worth of content, made by loving devs who clearly care about the game way more than Sony does. Observing their devs flounder helplessly on social media trying to conduct damage-control while Sony was clearly forcing them into this, was honestly heartbreaking and I'm just as glad this fiasco is over for them.
Let's make no mistake: the community played a large part in Sony backing down, the backlash was clearly too big for Sony to ignore, but their devs definitely played a large part in the negotiations behind the scenes to make sure things went amicably amidst the panic. This team deserves this success for now; no doubt Sony will rear its ugly head once again at some point, but let's hope this is a lesson learned and it doesn't unearth quite as oppressively next time.

FOR LIBERTY AND DEMOCRACY!

The game was fun in some aspects. There’s not a lot to it, but it does present a tranquil environment to scavenge and survive in. Your only objective is to survive, and there isn’t a lot otherwise in the game to explore or find. It’s certainly in need of balancing in some aspects, however it seems the developers abandoned this one shortly after releasing, so it’s safe to assume whatever annoyances you come across aren’t going away.
Personally I ran into a few problems fairly early, and it frustrated me to the point I had to take a step back and ask myself what’s keeping me in the game. Usually I need motivation to push through frustrating gameplay; some sort of goal, or even a distant curiosity to reach and explore. This game doesn’t have anything like that, and I decided it wasn’t worth the frustration to persist with what I can only describe as a ‘Survival Grind’, and not much else. There’s about fifteen different kinds of edible mushroom in the game, maybe eight different berries or herbs, and each one can affect your condition in multiple different ways, such as satiating your hunger, warming you up, or replenishing your health. You can combine these together with a cooking system too, and from the offset this seems like an intriguing system to experiment with, but in the end you’re very likely to only end up using one kind of each food that gives you the most bang for your buck. The required fuel for cooking is somewhat a slog to grind up too, and it requires a lot of it, nor do fuel options improve either.
A few of the game’s more essential blueprints require materials that either don’t respawn or are already hard to find, and seem based on some level of RNG, so if you get unlucky then you might end up looking for Steel Pipes for no small amount of time. I personally ended up having to spend a solid portion of every day diverting towards rivers to drink water, because I couldn’t locate the necessary materials to make a canteen around me.
The game is unforgiving in a few key aspects that can leave you feeling like you didn’t stand a chance. If you just happen to get spotted by a bear while trying to sneak around it to acquire one of the game’s necessary blueprints (using the game’s less-than-optimal stealth mechanics imo), that could very well spell your immediate death. One hit leaves you with half health and you’re bleeding; you’d be lucky to escape the bearea before it hits you again and finishes you off (the thing moves like five times faster than you, and follows you until you’re out of sight). Heaven forbid you didn’t spend one of your very limited storage spots carrying a medkit with you, or it’s a mad dash home before you bleed out.
Having to manually save felt like an unnecessary requirement too, imo. It’s one thing that can cost you hours of work if it just happens to slip your mind at the wrong time, and the unforgiving nature of the game can even make this feel like a cruel decision. Even a toggle-able setting that turns on auto-save when you sleep would have been nice, for those of us who struggle with our memory. You can argue this was how games worked in the Good Old Days, but frankly there’s a reason we moved on into autosaving, and most games hold up just fine on their own merits otherwise.
Some form of modding support could definitely rescue this game from the stagnation it currently sits in, but again, all evidence indicates the developers were keen to drop it and move on as soon as the game was released, so I wouldn’t expect anything new to pop up anytime soon. There’s a fountain of untapped potential here that struggles to pull itself up above other games like it, and while I certainly feel like I got a few hours worth of fun and intrigue out of it, I felt like I’d found everything there is to be discovered about six hours in. The other two hours were likely wasted failing to manual-save, and is ultimately what led to my decision to move on too.
As this is a review of my own personal experience, I’m not going to recommend it. There are other games that achieve the survival aesthetic, while also providing some form of life to the world other than the bare essentials. That is not to say that they are inherently better games than Among Trees: What this game does, it does well. It just doesn’t have enough of a hook for me, doesn’t have that allure that keeps me coming back the day after. I closed this game after 8 hours of playing, and deciding not to play it again was actually relatively simple.

Outer Wilds is a fleeting experience that, due to the nature of the game, is difficult to officially play more than once. That has not, however, hindered its ability to set itself firmly in my heart as one of my favourite games of all time.

I can't go into detail about why the game is difficult to pick up and play through again without spoiling the game, which I don't intend to do in this review. All I can say is that it makes sense, and in some very fundamental ways, one playthrough is all you really need to experience everything the game has to offer you.

At the beginning, you're introduced to the game's core mechanics through a light-hearted tutorial area (that you can simply run straight through, if you so desire) that also presents a premise to you, a shallow insight into the adventure that lies ahead. Then, right from the get-go you are offered an open-world solar system and you're expected to simply go wherever you want. Pick a planet that looks most interesting and blast off straight there; there's really no wrong direction. Most locations will contain enough clues and hints of other locations worth exploring, and if you come across a location that seems inaccessible, you can be sure that a method of accessing it can be uncovered in some other relevant location. Ultimately, all these clues hint back to the fundamentals of the narrative this game presents, and will smoothly lead you to every corner of the system doing so.

That's not to say the puzzles are always simple. As the mystery of the universe unfolds, and your path becomes more clear over time, you get those moments of realisation that you're going to need to plan carefully to get to some of the game’s more obscure breadcrumbs. You most likely will die here and there, but thankfully the game is not very punishing in most cases. The world does have its tense moments too, especially the DLC's mostly insulated content, but the DLC is very much its own experience and is absolutely not necessary to getting the full proper Outer Wilds experience. It simply offers more to see and uncover in the universe in its own way, and while that might be more horror-oriented at certain points, it does not impact the main plotline in any significant or fundamental way, and can therefore be skipped if that's not your cup of tea. Nevertheless, it's still very worth considering, its brand of horror doesn't necessarily hold up against games more designed for that, and might end up being worth solving the horror segments if just to experience everything the wondrously curious and aesthetically majestic new area has to offer.

If you have read this far, you've most likely decided if this game sounds like one you'd be interested in or not. If certain game elements are holding you back; you haven't been one to enjoy singleplayer experiences, for example; then just know that there’s a healthy mod scene for this game too. It doesn’t use the Steam Workshop, but a community-made modloader easily found via a dedicated, easy-to-google site makes this process as simple as it needs to be. Mods range from accessibility to mobility adjustments, camera functions to straight-up cheats, but the most notable and popular mods include a fully-functional VR mod complete with motion controls and VR menu adaptation (the kind of interface that feels like the game could have been designed for it), and multiplayer mods (ranging from 2-4 player cooperative, to a full-blown MMO-style server). While many would argue that the game is best played singleplayer, it’s key to understand that some people just don’t have the attention span or focus to stay committed to solo experiences for any number of valid reasons. As such, if multiplayer is enough to keep someone interested, then it can’t be discredited as a viable alternative. Besides, more heads are better than one for figuring out puzzles, and in the end while an extra couple pairs of eyes may help discovering everything there is to find, all players in a session will still have to get through the game together too. The clues still need to be analysed enough where solutions to puzzles can be gleaned from them, so the experience doesn’t have to change that much.

I said before that the game can’t really be played through more than once, yet for me once was enough to ensure I’d be remembering this game and the significance of its message, for years to come. I first played on another platform, and re-bought the game on Steam when the DLC ‘Echoes of the Eye’ released, which gave me a chance to get all the achievements too, as I so often do for games that mean a lot to me. I’ve had to come to terms with the fact I can’t erase my memory of the game and play it from scratch again, but this has not stopped me recommending it to anyone who will give me the time of day about it. Sharing experiences with them and even watching them stream it, has provided me an elating form of connection that I’ll be happy to share into the future. I recently even introduced my little sister to the game and watching her explore the universe in her own ways has been a really bonding experience for us. The game is relatively easy to play and is quite accessible for those with any idea of how to work their thumbs around a controller, for the most part.

I do dispute, however, how direct the game is about how it ‘plays better with a controller’, presented on a screen upon game launch. The game is an FPS, as such how it plays is entirely dependent on what you’re most used to playing FPS games with. For myself, I can’t stand controller-aiming so playing the game with a keyboard and mouse was really the only viable option. The game plays absolutely fine with a keyboard and mouse; even the ship controls work just fine (though one could argue that controlling any kind of ship could be simpler with a controller, I feel the control adaptation for keyboard is more than sufficient in this case) so it feels like far too subjective and individual a preference to definitively state either way. I’ve encountered a number of people who have felt obliged to use a controller simply because the opening screen pretty much states it’s the preferred method of play, even if they were more used to keyboard/mouse controls otherwise. I’d personally want to emphasise that this statement be taken as more of a suggestion, probably influenced by the fact Outer Wilds was probably designed as a console game first, where controllers are not really optional. Play the game however you want, no way is better or easier to control.

Overall this game has taken a rightful seat among the top five games ranked together that I’ve ever played, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Every time I hear or watch someone make their way through its universe in their own ways, I simply can’t help contrasting it against my own progression, and it prompts a fulfilling individualistic sensation that’s hard to replicate from most other games. It’s a humbling story from start to finish that simply promotes carving your own path and finding your own way to uncover a mystery laid out and ripe for discovering. If you get the chance, please play it.

Just so you guys know before buying: the pigment change only affects the white half of the tail. The tip has to remain brown. Wish I'd known that before buying this, because I wouldn't have bought it knowing that.

Also on a lesser note, it replaces armour on your waist, leaving it bare save for plain black shorts while equipped. This is not optional.

No other platform is catching up to VRChat at this point. They've put a lot of effort into implementing the kind of accessibility mods once provided, and it's clear at least the devs love this game. So let's just enjoy being funny fuzzy aminal people online.

This game is pure awful. I couldn't believe, after 3 hours of slogging through this, that it wasn't some Alpha early access build, Let alone v1.2!
Here's how my experience went.
Loaded the game. Was midway through forging a sword when the cursor disappeared and I couldn't continue, forcing me to close the game. This is when I found out the '5 minute' timer I set for autosaving is complete nonsense. The game saves when it feels like it, usually only when you're in the mines. I had to start over.
Loaded the game again. I made a sword successfully this time. I tried to temper it, then I realised I hadn't sharpened it yet. Took it to the grindstone and, for some reason, the sword decided to multiply 20 times in size. It didn't even fit in the one single building the whole entire game is confined to. I could only interact with it with my tongs, despite having been cooled down already, and it cut through the entire house. I couldn't do anything with it in my house, so I exited game (through the official menu exit option, which, by the way, doesn't save either). I lost that save too.
The third run was the most successful. It was by no means actually fun, but I didn't hit any gamebreaking bugs at least. Just a few major annoyances:
The game is so glitchy and poorly made that you'll just, lose tools to the nether for no good reason. The game lets you buy these tools back from the shop, but I don't really know why I'm paying for stuff the game needlessly *makes disappear* anyway.
There's random holes in the mine that don't really serve a purpose. They don't kill you if you jump in, just teleports you back into the base. Anything you mine, or your tools, don't come back if they fall in though. I was digging alongside one of these holes at one point and, for some reason, the game respawned ground I'd dug out already, all around me. The game gives me a 'reset position' in the options to free me from that earthy hell, but I really don't know why that happened. At no other point during this run, did it ever respawn other ground, so it's not like it's trying to refresh resources as far as I can tell.
The game's actual mechanics involve timing your clicks correctly, lots of waiting, getting some ingredients the correct order, more waiting, hitting something in the right place the right amount of times, and more waiting. Rinse, repeat. It's not fun, it's not engaging, it's uninteresting. I strained to stay focused on the process enough to try out Damascus patterning, and I couldn't will myself any further.
We're selling swords to 2D anime characters, by the way. Sometimes they'll play dice with you, if you bought the dice table. I tried it out, rolled dice on the table, and one of the dice rolls clean off the table. The game doesn't tell me what it rolled, so I just had to hope it was a good number. It's not like this was a fluke either, because another dice from the following round also rolled off. I had no idea what I was betting on by the end of it, which I definitely lost, it should come to no surprise. That's right, they can't even get their minigames right.
Which leads me to my conclusion. This game is a minigame HUB disguised as some epic blacksmithing simulator. It's incredibly broken, monotonous, repetitive, boring. It gives off an unfinished air about it everywhere you look. I wouldn't spend any money on this garbage. The only reason I have it is because it was in the Humble Bundle's monthly subscription, and this game actively convinced me to unsubscribe until some actual quality assurance is presented.

(P.S. No, getting this game in the Humble Monthly does not mean you got it for 'free'. You pay money for the subscription. It's up to you to decide if it's worth that money ultimately.)

(P.P.S. If you're wondering why your thermometer won't read your metal's temperatures accurately, it's because it doesn't check the temperatures at your cursor, rather some arbitrary stick part that's *completely* obscured from view by the thermometer itself. Took me a while to figure that out because the game itself doesn't indicate that whatsoever, surprise surprise.)

95% of people I've recommended this game to have had a blast. It's dumb fun, intriguing puzzle-solving, up to 8-player co-op, yet somehow never feels too chaotic in spite of that. The control can be a little frustrating sometimes, but it's easy to work around once you've gotten the hang of it.
The developers seem to continue releasing updates on their own still, not to mention the game has a very active workshop for user-made maps and characters! Curve Digital also, as of writing this review, are actively holding competitions with cash prizes for those who make the best workshop maps, which then get uploaded to the base game as 'Dreams'. There's literally no end to content here.
If you can get this game on sale, then great, but I honestly would hold no qualms paying the full asking price for a game that has entertained me way more than it ought to have. Get it, you won't regret it!

Thank god this game is free; it's just a compilation of 8 newgrounds minigames slapped together into a wholly uninteresting and uninspired plot. What you see in the trailer on the store page is *exactly* what you're getting, and very little else. The dialogue is bland and riddled with punctuation and spelling errors, and doesn't motivate me not to spam the continue button instead of reading it, in the hopes I might stumble into something interesting for a change. The only semblance of difficulty this game portrays is in a minigame which the game literally gives you an option to skip by hitting the F key. As such, I have deemed this game a children's game, which is a genre I wish I could reinforce if not for the game's choice use of curse words and references to simulated eroticism throughout.

For example, 'Cabe what the f***' is a focal humour point midway through the game, and overdoes it in what little time it grants the joke. It also likes to make fun of other infamous indie game developers; while I'm not discrediting the slander is usually expected and in most cases deserved, they could have been a lot more graceful about it. I suppose I could be far more convinced the slight mockery attempt made towards bronies was actual mockery, if the developer hadn't put so much more effort into the pony segments of the game.

I want to emphasize that my major complaint is that this simply wasted my time. This is the sort of game you expect to find on Newgrounds, not on Steam. If I wanted to spend time playing minigames, I'd be there, not browsing my steam library. If this game had charged more than dollar to buy on here, it would have been a major problem to many potential customers.

If a game's free-to-play on Steam, it's usually for a good reason, be it microtransactions or a general failure to profit with an initial release price. I suppose if the Dev's willing to put down the $100, anything can get up here, huh?


See 'Citizen Burger Disorder' for a far more simple, engaging, enjoyable and free game.

Divinity: Original Sin returns to the old turn-based RPG gametypes, honouring old favourites like Baldur's Gate with the familiar fantasy RPG setting.

A group of adventurers, titled 'Source Hunters', do exactly what their their titles indicate; a special type of magic known as 'source' has a particularly bad habit of corrupting those who use it ('Sourcerers', HAH), and often these Source-users end up going crazy or mad with power, and becoming more trouble than the locals can handle. That's when these guys step in and relieve the world of this blight. On your band's first assignment, a seemingly routine case of 'hordes-of-undead-threatening-to-take-over-town', they get pulled into circumstances far greater and more disasterous than they could have imagined. With the very fate of Cyseal depending on their ability to find out what's going on they need to stop it from taking over everything...

The most notable part of this game for me is the customization. Not only do you have 11 preset classes to play, ranging from Warrior to Wizard, from Ranger to Rogue and everything inbetween you could expect in a fantasy RPG, but you can tweak each class right down to its core starting skills, spells, abilities and traits to suit your preferred playstyle before embarking. The character creation is a little bit lacking in one or two areas; you have a choice of three voices for each gender, all six of which are clearly caucasian, and all sound like the same person pitching their accents and tones to sound either more intellectual, rugged or righteous, depensing on which one you choose. This of course makes playing as any race other than caucasian, somewhat immersion breaking, but this may come to change; it seems the developers are certainly not finished polishing the game, so to expect more to come is fair at this point.

Visually, the game is stunning. It takes an old and tasteful gameplay style and throws great graphics into the mix for an experience that makes you want to explore every inch of the world. Every detail is thoroughly implemented, not only on visual levels, but can also affect your gameplay! One of the game's selling points is the ability to combine environmental elements for reactive results. For example, if it's raining, chances are everyone gets wet, which makes them easier to freeze with ice spells, or stun with electricity. It also forms puddles on the ground, which can be shocked to form a stunning field, locking everyone who touches it in place for a few turns. Even impressively intricate combinations can take place; douse some burning ground with water to create a steam cloud, and zap it to make a stunning storm-cloud! Just make sure you're not in the area of effect too, or else you may suffer from your own devising...

The above seems far too complicated for a real-time combat scenario, which is why the fact it's turn-based makes it a reasonable tactic. Anyone who's partaken in Dungeons & Dragons (and enjoyed it) can respect turn-based combat for what it is; giving you ample time to plot and devise your character's move, around your teammates' and enemies' own. You get 'action points' each turn, which you can spend on various abilities and actions during your phase, and reserve for the next turn if you're not quite ready, or don't have enough action points to pull off that big hit you want. This makes combat slow-ish, but with friends controlling the other characters, communicating with them what the best course of action is, and combining efforts and elements with each other to overcome your opponents, is one of the most fun experiences I've had with an RPG for a while. Outside combat is real-time however, so don't worry about those points inbetween being boring and sluggish!

Another aspect I love about the game is the loot and crafting system. The game presents a large array of base weapons and armour, and throws some random modifiers in the mix to make sure your rewards are never quite the same. Item discoveries are also random too; you can get any kind of item anywhere, no matter if you grabbed it from a loot chest, stole it from a town-house or picked it right from someone's pocket. The crafting system is huge and diverse; you can literally craft anything from the start of the game provided you have a high enough crafting level, and know the recipe. You can find recipe books dotted around town that will give you hints as how to make this and that, but they are not required to unlock any crafting you want to do.

At the time of writing this review, the maximum amount of players is 2. You can pick up a couple of followers in town to match that party up to 4, but officially only 2 players can actively be in a game session. There is a 4-player mod, that requires two additional players to take over the two additional followers, but the mod is so glitchy and crash-prone for myself, I've chosen to give up on it. Why? The developers have openly stated that they're finishing up the official 4-player mode, they're just not ready to release it until it's properly polished. I would rather wait for this release before attempting to play with more than one other person, and avoid crashing and losing save files, altogether. The combat is just too difficult and time-consuming to humour losing progress through battles as anything but a waste, especially if the battle went well and with little cost.

Overall, if you're a big fan of Dungeons & Dragons, and you've enjoyed games like Torchlight or Diablo, you ought to give this a shot. This is as close as you get to video-game D&D without actually playing D&D. There's literally hours upon hours of content if you want to get everything out of the game, but if I could suggest anything, make sure you're in-call with the person you're playing with; communication is important in this kind of game.

Addendum: With the release of the game's Engine development tool, users can create their own campaigns and mods with relative ease. Expect to see a lot more content from the game's more creative players, especially when the Steam Workshop gets opened for it!

Here lies a good review for this game. I literally selected the whole review and just deleted it. Didn't back it up, don't care.

I consciously decide not to support this studio any more. The reason?

Microtransactions.

I'm not just throwing a ♥♥♥♥♥-fit either. Here's a little forum-post made during PD2's beta, a word from Almir himself;

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=34451580&postcount=1

If you can't be assed reading through all of it, I'll quote the highlights;



"We've made it clear that PAYDAY 2 will have no micro-transactions whatsoever (shame on you if you thought otherwise!)"



This was one of their selling points to us, their valued userbase, during the beta. This was an admission of trust. It took them breaking this promise, for me to really realise all the DLC they've been excessively releasing are just microtransactions in disguise. I guess, now, they finally don't care enough to hide it anymore, content on just hoping we all won't remember the promises?

'Shame on those who thought otherwise.' I bet they're pretty smug right about now.