Recent reviews by Stone Cold Stavros Flatley

A truly great game.

Under the old school, Dwarf-Fortress-esque presentation is a deep build-crafting game where you pick a race, a class, a God, then throw your character against the eponymous Path of Achra, a slowly flooding one-way gauntlet of enemy encounters through desert plains, ancient citadels, slime bogs and even the stars themselves as you kill, level up and loot many pieces of gear to enhance your character. The visuals are very well done, with a wide variety of creative enemy designs complimented by descriptions and behaviours that gives the game a real sense of cataclysmic struggle as the world of Achra approaches it's grand finale.

Want to make an agile Ape Monk that teleports between enemies with blasts of thunder? You can do that.
Heavily armoured Cyclops wielding two shields that reflects all damage? You can do that.
Shape-shifting hedge wizard that mauls and blasts distant enemies with streams of fire and ice?
Nude goblin barbarian wielding curse-spreading dual great-axes?
Skeletal knight that floods the screen with ravenous undead?
Blood-mad zealot vomiting blood and poison everywhere?
Oozemancer?

You can pretty much craft any fantasy character conceivable in this game, the only limit being a cap on how many skills you can choose and how far you conquer before potentially meeting an untimely end at the hands (or feet, teeth, tentacles, eyes, starbeams, voidblades) of enemy legions that stand in your way.

A successful run rewards you with a randomised endless mode you can bring any of your victorious characters into to see how far they can get, an optional difficulty increase (so far I'm on the 17th "cycle") and a full paragraph of lore on whichever advanced class you were successful with, in a library reachable from the main menu.

Speaking of which, the game is extremely rich with lore; every enemy, race, class and God has a full breakdown of stats and skills, various bonuses they might have, with snippets of lore sprinkled generously over the top.

If a low fantasy cosmic horror Diablo-esque gauntlet with deep and complex build variety sounds good to you, this is THE game for it.

Excellent first person dungeon crawler á la King's Field / Shadow Tower. The Fromsoftware inspirations are clear, from a loose story threaded together via descriptions and visual storytelling to relatively simplistic gameplay, with a surprisingly large collection of spells that range from typical damaging spells to enviromnental manipulation, transmutation, temporary self buffs, summoning familiars, etc.

With many secrets - most hidden behind walls, some outright obscure - lurking around winding dark tunnels, deep inside labyrinthine catacombs, or nestled behind locked chambers atop vampiric castles, there's a lot to explore and discover. There are entirely optional areas that are only accessible with either shrewd observation and puzzle solving, or spells that allow traversal of seemingly impassable obstacles, that can be missed completely.

Lunacid is more than just a "fan game" based on old school dungeon crawlers, it's an excellent game in it's own right; I only wish it was longer, and that there were more games like it.

Great parkour & climbing game where you explore vast underground spaces, freely platforming around an environment ranging from run down machinery, natural floating islands, rocky crags and ravines to the many mega-structures that loom in the distance, covered in scalable walkways, pipework and jutting detritus.

Progress is recorded by a checkpoint system, returning you to the last "safe, flat area" when falling to one's death or falling foul of the environment. The game could stand to be more liberal with checkpoints, particularly the last few levels that are filled with more challenging platforming. There is a dedicated key to instantly restart from the last checkpoint, which comes in handy when either stuck or inevitably doomed.

With no enemies to speak of, the game can be either be played at a relaxed pace* to explore the various locales, or studied with sections repeated in order to learn efficient speedrun routes and shortcuts. Completed levels can be replayed at any time from the main menu. Upon completion there is NG+, with the option to play using all unlockable upgrades in any chapter.

Chapters are filled with hidden lore to "scan", and bright blue crystals that can be collected. Great for completionists.

The game relies mostly on the environment to tell the story alongside a cutscene at the start of each chapter. Despite the world appearing desolate and empty, it is not without it's inhabitants. There are limited NPCs to interact with, which is a shame as they could provide specific, detailed lore compared to the visual storytelling of the environment.

After seeing it on Alpha Beta Gamer's channel I knew I had to get it, and I was not disappointed. Recommended!

* There are a couple of stressful "chase sequences", one being particularly brutal and unforgiving. Your skills, reflexes and patience WILL be tested!

A pleasure to play, no crashes, glitches, bugs, or even frame drops on release.

As a fan of pretty much any "soulsborne" game this sits up there as probably the best non-From Software take on the genre.

The only real downside is areas are fairly linear, though that also means you rarely get lost and with plentiful shortcuts and fast travel you can revisit almost any area you've been to in a few minutes.

Combining weapon hilts and heads is genuinely fun to experiment with despite there being a few obviously stronger early game choices.

Genuinely great game.

It's as if I'm a teenager again, getting excited about EA games... let's hope they learn from this sublime addition to the Star Wars franchise and start giving us all the games we're asking for with open wallets, starting with bringing 1313 out of the void!

Not bad, not bad... not perfect, though.

The switch to open world hurts the game as much as it helps it, with larger set pieces (infiltrating a train silo, exploring a flooded terminal, assaulting the rusty ruin of a ship) taking the spotlight from what is pretty tiresome, empty stretches of land.

The final two chapters feel rushed in comparison to the first two because they're very linear, with little to no exploration.

The weapon modification system is excellent, with plenty of options to suit any playstyle.

An overall good game, though I sorely missed the focus and claustrophobic combat of the metro.

7.5/10

Combat is the only thing I enjoyed here, everything else was surprisingly tiresome.

(I don't want to hold "Interact" to climb a ladder!)

Refunded and re-downloaded Mad Max instead, a much more fun game.

Recommended on sale.

An excellent remake, and an excellent game in it's own right.

Whether young or old, if you like the concept of survival, horror or both, you're in for an absolute treat.

Fingers crossed for a RE3 remake of this quality!

Ignore the low playtime on Steam, I racked up many hours when the game entered early access two decades ago.

Cracking stuff; think survival horror meets cerebral puzzler, wrapped in a warm, gooey coat of death and panic. Truly excellent.

I was going to say something along the lines of "if you like Diablo and Warhammer 40K, this is a no-brainer", but this game manages to be nothing like Diablo despite the clear influences. Diablo doesn't have a cover system, lasguns or chainswords.

The game's not perfect, but if it reaches the heights it clearly aspires to it could easily become "the 40K game" people have been waiting for.