Скорошни рецензии на Zemecon

Cube World. Yeah, Cube World.

This game has gained quite a bit of notoriety from much of its former playerbase. But I am rating it up. Performance-wise, it is quite polished. No framerate issues. No excessive demands on your PC's hardware. There are apparently a few start-up issues on some PC's but I haven't noticed any performance issues on my PC at all (I am using Windows 10). Despite running on an engine that the developer designed himself, it runs better than a lot of Unity and Unreal games that have gotten a lot more popularity and love from their playerbases.

There are bugs. Not a whole lot of them. Not any that you would notice unless you sat down and thoroughly examined the way some of the mechanics work. For instance, the artefacts you collect in each Region are supposed to raise a certain stat once you collect them. Well, most of these artefacts don't actually do that. This is a bug. And apparently there is a bug with the way the Warrior class deals damage. But then I wouldn't know much about that because I don't use Warrior characters in the first place. It is the more obscure issues like that which some players have picked up on.

There are also a few balancing issues with hostile humanoid mobs and particularly with bosses. In particular, enemy mages have a beam attack that uses aimbot tracking so you cannot dodge it. Those are the only balancing issues I've found. With many bosses you can exploit your surroundings to cheese the fight. You can dodge attacks and use potions. So there is no unreasonable amount of difficulty as long as you have the right gear.

Now, I wanted to be as fair and impartial as I could toward those members of the playerbase I happen to disagree with but disagreements have been and will continue to be had and this is where the actual review starts.

First off, Cube World is not a difficult game. I may not know about every other player's first few experiences in-game but I saw no immediate difference between what I experienced in my first hour of this released version of Cube World and the older pre-released alpha version. Within minutes of spawning I would inevitably aggro a nearby hostile mob, the mob (or multiple mobs) would chase me all over the place before outright ending me in a few hits. I would respawn and the same thing would happen again. Over and over again. This is the quintessential Cube World experience, no matter which version you play. As quoted from a YouTuber I once saw covering Cube World in a stream, "You are gonna die." This will happen. A lot.

You have options for acquiring better gear. You can craft it or buy it or find gear as treasure or even just lying around somewhere. You are guaranteed to be able to use what you get that way. Making these sources of gear available to you is also not difficult. Combat scenarios are colour-coded to match your level so pay attention to that. Once you become established in a Region and have a reliable source of the highest level gear you can get for your class, all you need to do is visit every weapon and armor shop in your Region and buy what is known as "Plus" gear. Basically, gear with a "+" behind the name. Once you visit a nearby region, you can use that gear there and give yourself an advantage.

See? It is not that difficult to do. The most difficult times you will have in Cube World will be when you are starting out. Then everything gets easier.

Cube World can also be a very rewarding game to play and region-locking does not need to get in the way of that. Yes, that does mean the gear you acquire in a Region can only be used in that Region. You will need to re-acquire new gear in each new Region and will probably die a lot in the process. You will also need to re-acquire all of your special items (these are listed in a separate tab in your inventory). You don't need to fight any hostile mobs in order to acquire these items and you don't need any one of these items in order to acquire any of the others, either.

Just to show you I have gotten quite a fair bit of rewarding gameplay out of Cube world, to my current character's name I now have 24 artefacts which means I am at level 25. I have visited 8 Regions and have gotten most - if not all - of everything there is to acquire from each Region. Screenshots for proof purposes are below.

https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2585685058
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2585685214
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2585685444
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2585685745
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2585686170
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2585686330
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2585686563
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2585686824

And what the stats for my character are now:

https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2585687275

So, as you can see, it is very much possible to get quite far in this current released version of Cube World. And it is very possible to have fun while doing so. I would not have gotten this far in the game and would not have spent as many hours on it merely to show that I did not enjoy any of it.

In terms of gameplay, I have found Cube World to be tough and relentless and at times it does seem almost unfair but I've also found that if you approach every confrontation with a hostile mob or boss thinking "there is a way through this that I haven't considered yet" then you start to get more involved with how I believe Cube World is trying to make you play. And once you grasp the concept then you understand the game itself more. While at one time I felt hopeless upon encountering my first ranged boss, once I found out I could strafe their attacks and preoccupy them by making them climb jump across pillars to reach me, they became that much easier. Likewise, the more I found out where special items and treasures could be located after having found them before, everything became more and more intuitive and I was finding things more easily and more quickly.

Progress-wise, Cube World is both a compartmentalized game and a foundation-based game. Since it is made up of regions, you need to think of each Region as almost its own world. You confine yourself to it, getting everything there is to get, and then start again in a new world. But your overall progress adds up because once you've become established in one Region you can then shop in town for Plus gear and use that in any neighboring Regions you want to enter. Your progress in each new Region will speed up with each neighboring region you become established in because you have more places to shop for Plus gear in. Or fight bosses for Plus gear in. Or find Plus gear as treasure in. There is an RNG factor with boss drops but it can still work. I was able to enter a new Region with a Legendary (level 5) boomerang. I could destroy everything in the new Region and I blazed through it. If you are going to call me a hypocrite (because shopping for Plus gear can be a bit of a grind), it is really no different from grinding hostile mobs for EXP. The only difference is that you can always still go back to being less powerful if you want more of a challenge. Progress is entirely flexible with gear-based leveling because you can increase or decrease your stats at will.

Aesthetically, I've found a certain charm in Cube World that I haven't found in any other game. It is clearly high fantasy but it has an otherworldly flair that makes you think "This is something different, something unique."

As it is right now, Cube World is a fun game. Check it out. Give it a chance. You may like it or you may not. But look at it for what it is and not for what it used to be.

And thanks for reading this long-as-heck review.

This game is about mining. All about mining. Mostly. There is a fair bit of building as well and you can do quite a lot with it. Or, atleast, more than you probably thought you did, unless you've been binge-watching LunchboxEmporium on Youtube.

Junk Jack is quite simplistic in game mechanics. The pixel art is very simplistic. I mean, most passive mobs only have one frame. I used to make similar animations in Mario Paint back in the day. But I think due to its similarity this is one game you can easily get into. It is one of only a few games - besides Terraria and a few others - that I can leave for a few weeks or even a few months and get right back into from where I last left off. Yet if you are into these 2D sandbox Metroidvanias where such a large part of gameplay is involved with heading deep underground, seeing what you can find, and hauling it all back up to your homebase on the surface.

If I had to sum up what Junk Jack is right now, I might compare it to what Terraria used to be like back in its 1.0 days because back then mining and building with limited materials was pretty much all there was to do. Nowadays most other 2D sandbox Metroidvanias that are near or past completion are much more combat-oriented. That doesn't mean you can't mine in them and have fun doing it but at that point most of the playerbase considers it to be a chore. Mining is what brings me back to Junk Jack. Simplicity is what brings me back t Junk Jack. Simplicity that is balanced with a lot of depth. Did I mention you can build portals and teleport yourself to different worlds? It's great for a change of scenery and some of the worlds look really cool.

My only real quibble with Junk Jack is that it doesn't have any teleportation items to let you quick-travel back to your home base or back to the last portal you constructed, which - if you were smart - you would've built the other end of right beside your base. Terraria had the Magic Mirror. I wish Junk Jack had something like that.

The music for this game was produced by James Primate, the same guy who produced tracks for Gnomoria and Rain World, and for a chiptune ensemble it is phenomenal. Even if you don't buy Junk Jack (which I recommend you do), atleast look into James' content. You won't be sorry.

All in all, I fully recommend Junk Jack. If you are like me and are also a fan of 2D sandbox Metroidvanias then head on over to the Store page and see if it is something you might like. Enjoy!

It is a short game. I would refer to it as a hybrid between 2D top-down survival-builders like Wayward and Adventure Craft and manufacturing/automation games like Factorio and Zachtronics' Infinifactory where - once you are established - you get supply chains going that do all your work for you. In fact, I would call Forager a hybrid game precisely for that reason, because it starts out as one type of game and then transforms itself almost completely once you've gotten everything established. The whole point of the game seems to change as well.

Like I said, Forager is quite short, relatively-speaking. If you look at the game world as a grid, with a new island per tile, you come up with approximately 49 islands, each with a task like a puzzle or a dungeon to complete. There are 4 dungeons and 4 puzzle towers contained in each of 4 biomes, each belonging to one of 4 elements excluding the biome you start out in at the center. There is a huge tech tree, also displayed in a radiating grid pattern, and it will take you a while to get through everything. So in conclusion, the exploration aspect of Forager can be quite short, hindered only be the increasing cost of each island the further you go out. The mix of expansion and automation seems well-balanced to me, with my only quip there being the uneven balance between the grind at the beginning of the game and the comparative ease of doing everything once you've progressed further.

Ideally in an automation game like Forager I would like to see the actual accumulation of resources progressing you further into the game because each new resource should take longer to acquire due to involving more and more additional steps in order to acquire it. With Forager's game world being relatively small and the means through which to start accumulating loads of resources very quickly only being available later on, you find yourself spending the first half of your gameplay actually exploring the game itself and the latter half doing nothing other than increasing the level of automation you have in order to acquire more and more resources for pretty much nothing that you haven't already gotten earlier on through grinding. You go through this transition between meaningful exploration and discovery to meaningless mass production for the sake of accumulation in itself, and putting more and more stuff on your islands that don't do much aside from increasing productivity and looking pretty, and I am not really sure I am a fan of that, which is why - in my current and only playthrough yet - I tried to drag my productivity on as much as I could, minimalizing automation to things I could use for further exploration of my game world. No droids, no mining lasers, etc. That seems to have extended the amount of attention and investment I've put into Forager thus far.

But there are lots of things Forager does do well, which was why I made this a positive review. I loved the idea of having something new per island to discover and solve, and I loved that I had to work for it step-by-step. The random location of each island within its own biome makes it even better because you never know what you'll get when you purchase a new island, though I would make two additional suggestions here: 1) make each of the peripheral biomes randomly-generated as well, and 2) have the puzzles you get not be limited to a given biome. Aside from that, though, I can see the random generation contributing to the replayability of Forager.

I like the quirky characters and writing, too. They really do add to Forager's style as a light-hearted comical game that should not be taken all that seriously. The art style is simplistic yet pleasing to look at, the controls are simple, intuitive, and easy to use. The music is nice, non-repetitive, simplistic, and reflects Forager's quirkiness.

Forager puts gameplay above pretty much all else, it seems, and I think this is an underrated feature that - if you are unable to fully understand its importance - will make you wonder how and why there are small graphically-minimalistic indie games gaining more of a following than some big AAA titles that tend to rely more on superficial features like graphic realism and lore in order to sell. Minecraft showed us this. And so does Forager, I think.

The developer, Hopfrog, is also very devoted to his game. He is active in the community, he listens to his playerbase, and has made some sacrifices along the way in doing so.

Do I think it could do more and go further? Yes I do. But whatever it is already doing, it seems to be doing that well. So I highly recommend picking up Forager and giving it a try.

Thanks for reading!

Very interesting game. I tried it for a while and it does have that addictive "one more try" aspect. Though it would be nice if the top platform would stop pushing you over...

Overall, a 3/5 for me.

This has been one of the few games I have ever bought on Steam for full price without the use of a Steam gift card (me being as cheap and frugal as I am) on the very day it came out, after eagerly following its development online. Earlier today, after more than 70 hours spent on it, I finally completed it, and let me tell you it has been worth the wait, the time and every penny spent on it. Crashlands has shown me to be a game of incredible vision and as enjoyable an experience for me to play as it must have been for the team at Butterscotch Shenanigans to realize that vision. As simple as it may seem, this little game holds a lot of depth and character within it. And I love these games that surprise you when you play them and find out you've just gotten more than you expected when you first laid eyes on them. Even better, it is those games that leave their own creative mark and make themselves so unique - so them - that make for such a memorable experience. Because that is what Crashlands is. It contains the heart and soul of those who created it. As every work of art should do.

But let's turn to the technical stuff now, shall we? Though I am hardly qualified to judge how well the team at Butterscotch Shenanigans handled their flagship product, I can atleast provide an estimate of how well it payed off. And I personally think it payed off quite well.

First off, the attention to detail was incredible. I mean, every single description for every single crafted item, workstation, resource, creature, even the planet and biomes themselves in the game have their own unique slice of the humour of the developers and character of the game world.

Secondly, this game is flexible; you can now play singleplayer, multiplayer or local co-op. You can use your device's internal storage or the game's own Cloud storage. You can play with only your mouse or a fully-customizeable combination of the two that includes separate WASD configuration for movement, or you can use a controller. It is available on Windows or Mac on your PC, Nintendo Switch and on your Android phone. You can even play Crashlands across platforms, starting a game on your PC and picking up where you left off on your mobile device.

Thirdly, there were a number of decisions put into game mechanics that seems so simple yet made a big difference in how you play the game. For instance, yes, you have an infinite inventory. What that means is that you no longer need to worry about inventory management, and what that means is you can change the way you play when you come across resources. That may not seem like such a big deal until you start thinking about it. I had to remind myself of this when I played. And in combat, evasion and attack patterns are not reduced to RNG numbers.or calculations. You actually affect the way you play in the way you move. There are a lot of other little details you will notice when you play Crashlands that you may not notice until you find out about them and then start asking yourself why merely knowing about them changes how you play.

Fourth, as Crashlands is still a simple 2D top-down game, there are some obvious limits it has that - say - a 3D first-person game or even the more finely-rendered isometric top-down games doesn't have when immersing you into the game world. But with what it has, it does quite well. Four distinct environments in Crashlands use graphics and a mixture of colour to look considerably different from one another, and a stellar (pun intended) soundtrack by Fat Bard enhances the atmosphere of the game world to appreciable detail. You won't just see these environments, you will feel them. It isn't a lot considering the game's capabilities, but it illustrates what Crashlands was capable of. And reaching a game's full potential is a huge part of what makes a game good.

Finally, I would be doing a huge disservice if I left out the quirky humour that abounds throughout Crashlands and can often catch you by surprise. As a science fiction fan myself - and one who is often more interested in settings beyond Earth than Earth itself - I have to say I love the rather unique and outlandish perspective-taking accompanying the various situations that has gone into this game. It does add to the atmosphere, but more than that, it reminds you that this isn't Earth. This isn't home. Furthermore, while dialogues, tooltips and descriptors may seem outlandish (and sometimes downright outrageous) at times, they remain just grounded enough to avoid completely breaking your sense of disbelief. Or atleast that is what they did for me. And I think that is important.

That, and the humour itself is really top-notch. Especially in a number of areas I won't mention specifically. You'll just have to play Crashlands yourself to find out.

So to wrap up this already quite lengthy review, I just wanted to say Congratulations to all of the folks at Butterscotch Shenanigans for providing me with such an enjoyable game to play. It exceeded my expectations, and I think it will exceed those of other players as well. Great job, guys, and have an awesome new year!

This game is...hard but exhilerating. Extremely simple controls that you use to maneuver through some complex mechanics like wind, gravity and actual flight mechanics. I type this review even though I hardly have any time in the game because I find myself wanting to go back and get better, so it would only be a matter of time before I put up a review with more hours put in, albeit saying the same thing.

The miniature "worlds" you fly through - while looking like something out of Minecraft or Cubeworld in their simple cube-based aesthetic - look absolutely beautiful when you soar above them or dive through them with the speed of a rollercoaster or freight train. The way Superflight has been marketed make it look like a casual game but I can assure you it is not. Not until you get the hang of it, anyway. And even then the whole aim of Superdlight is to get more points by passing ever closer to the surrounding landscape. So while this game can be casual, while playing it you find yourself going against that goal and in doing so you become more and more of a daredevil every time you play. It is a brilliant concept, really. A very steep learning curve but with an addictive quality that balances it out.

Kinda makes you wonder how birds in real life manage this sort of thing.

With its current price I highly recommend picking up Superflight and trying it for yourself. And on sale it is even better.

This game...is very deceptive. On the surface it looks like a basic cookie-cutter Hack n' Slash that will take no time at all to win but it is actually quite extensive, rather difficult, and very addictive. It is (or used to be - the most recent update seems to have slowed things down a bit) one of the most fast-paced Roguelikes I have ever seen, and that is the rub because you need to play it in order to know what it is really like so I am not surprised that it doesn't get mentioned very often. I found this game because I wanted something cheap that I would only play every now and then but I keep coming back to it and that is saying something. Again, nothing spectacular or mind-blowing here, but Overture is definately a very underrated game. Roguelike fans will appreciate how intense and sometimes downright futile the levels can be and newcomers will enjoy how well Overture teaches them about the genre straight away. Nothing fancy; no elaborate opening or intricate plot. You just choose your character and go at it. The graphics are clear-cut (which I think is important in 2D games) and the soundtrack is fantastic. Simple mechanics and absorbing gameplay. Black Shell Games knows how to make a game that does nothing more than what it is supposed to do.

Two thumbs up.