I know I'm recommending the game, but please read more into this review before buying.

What is Aneurism IV?

Aneurism IV is a multiplayer game inspired by a Garry's Mod gamemode, built on the Unity engine that's set within a 1984-styled authoritarian regime. You first start off as a Prole, a worker within the city of Aneurism IV governed by the Cortex. Your benefactors are responsible for maintaining civil control, that means curbing disorder and culling the rot. By working as a Prole, your work and each export advances the "sense" meter to gain one anamnecyte for each completion. Most either live long enough and gain the anamnecytes to become a merchant, banker, or die to reincarnate as another prole or different fate. This is assuming you don't do anything out of pocket against your fate's purpose that puts you in anamnecyte debt, otherwise you get enslaved in the next life to work off that debt. As for the atmosphere, Vellocet's developers did a fantastic job establishing Aneurism IV's gloomy, dark, and oppressive environments. Different fates see the world of Aneurism IV in different hues of color, specific fates see Aneurism IV through their own optics.

Part of the core gameplay of Aneurism IV:

Vellocet designed the game to where socialization is encouraged within the framework. You can make things happen, create friends and enemies. My favorite faction has always been scum; causing chaos on the surface to where killing cortex security provides sources of entertainment to neutral fate audiences. As scum, I would often play like it's Escape From Tarkov, scrounging up materials to craft a gun and ammo as scum before running up on the surface to see how it plays out. Ambushes are encouraged in Aneurism IV and direct combat is riskier. If you're scum, you can blow up neurostabilizers using crafted IEDs to raise rot levels. Taking out these large power plants can raise the rot to a point where the server resets. If you play on any server, there's always a chance of this happening and you have to be mindful of this.

What's the difference between Official and Community servers?

With the encouragement of socialization, you will find antagonists who betray their own identities. From scumbags who sabotage their own faction to cortex security members who wildly abuse their positions to incite petty conflict, these types of people are a given. There are community servers that will clamp down on this but official servers are more hectic, unpredictable, and situations like this will happen. Having played on both, I've experienced the pros and cons. Official servers are often self-regulating, unless someone or some group does something egregious enough to warrant administrative action from Vellocet. Yes there have been issues with exploiters, cheaters, and complications with server hosting in the past. Vellocet's administration has done good with cracking down on offenders. Community servers may have their own sets of rules, but might also modify the spawn rates of stashes to the average player's benefit.

Where did Aneurism IV stand before version 15c?

I enjoyed Aneurism IV prior to 15c, but it isn't without its cons. As of this review, the game is still being actively developed. As I've mentioned, while socialization is encouraged, various walks of the internet play Aneurism IV. You will come across stereotypical snowflakes and stereotypical edgelords in both official and community servers. These interactions are inevitable but there is a function that allows you mute players you don't want to hear. You are encouraged to have a microphone when playing Aneurism IV, rather than communicating by text. Scum and Cortex security factions get personal radios that allow them to communicate with their own factions. This personal radio is microphone only and you can't communicate on the radio through text chat.

Mouse look sensitivity is capped at a certain range so you can't have the true desired sensitivity value. Despite having both look and aim sensitivities maxed out in my options, looking around especially while in combat is still painful. Scrolling to select an option for what you want to do with a physical item in the world might be an inconvenience to you as it's been for me, you have to get used to it as I have. Melee combat from my experience has been anticlimactic, especially since you can't melee mid-sprint at your target. If you're on high population official servers, loot spawns will not readjust themselves based on player population. This means that you may or may not have issues with scavenging as cortex or scum if server population is maxed out. I've had these issues with Aneurism IV before Version 15c but even despite that, I found it to be an an enjoyable game.

Post version 15c critique:

Unfortunately as of this review, the Lung Puncher is no longer effective, acting more as a beginner's trap or an outright waste of materials. You will not be able to properly move & gun with certain weapons as intended, due to the egregious recoil of specific weapons like the Lung Puncher. There is an aim function used to mitigate recoil and spread but despite maxing out the specific sensitivity meter, it's difficult to keep the crosshair on enemies and turn towards them. If it's nearly impossible to properly control recoil while hip firing, it's also painful tracking targets while aiming in combat because sensitivity is also stiff. These are the tragic shortcomings of ranged combat in Aneurism IV. If getting used to combat pre-15c was difficult before, I would argue that most players are in a no-win situation for combat, unless you're a limitator.

Limitators are supposed to be these slow, tanky enforcers of cortex security. Limitators received a slight, unnecessary buff to health while nothing has been done to reduce the fate's movement speed for balance. The Limitator LMG's magazine size was already big enough, but then the developer adds 30 rounds to the 70 bullet magazine. I know the Surma's recoil and fire rate got increased, but the time-to-kill has dropped significantly. Aneurism IV's netcode is still iffy and if it wasn't as difficult to kill a single limitator before, it's just about impossible now.

With everything that I've needed to say, I'm hoping the developers resolve the game's problems and balance what needs balance.

Convict Team Tactics is a simple, turn-based gamemaker RPG but with a focus of mercenarism through the usage of convicted criminals. Become the United States rendition of Executive Outcomes as you assemble a company of convicts. Pick one of three modes, hire soon-to-be war criminals into your team, gear up, and jump straight into the action when ready. With CTT's simplicity, it was easy for me to get used to within the first 30 minutes. Depending on how you play, most fights are going to play out based on trial and error.

In Campaign mode there's multiple different endings and you're free to approach most situations in Africa with select responses. Certain convicts and characters might have choice words for specific events. One might express satisfaction at the outcome of a battle, another might get you into some trouble, or a war criminal might offer some lore. The tone of the game can shift from unserious to serious in an instant (specifically nearing the end), but the game will still manage to keep its dark humor.

Freelancer has a focus on individual missions throughout the world, some missions are more challenging than others.

Guerilla is if you combined the Campaign and Freelancer modes into one, with a focus on random events from the start of a raid to the end.

By the fifth hour of playing CTT, I was commanding doped up convicts high on drugs on a hard mode Campaign. Nothing could stop my squad from destabilizing the Burkan Republic to accomplishing the mission. If you're expecting sophisticated AI, remember the simplicity of the game as enemies will only move to attack the player. For what the game is worth, I'd say it's worth it if you're familiar with the creator's previous works on the source engine or if you have time to waste.

HOLE is a cheap First Person Shooter developed in Unreal Engine. It's excellent for what NEGAFISH advertises.

It shares features from games such as TABG for its damage physics, Receiver for its liminal space environments, and SUPERHOT for its surreal, select instances.

As a lone combatant in one of three contested environments, three different factions engage in a never-ending firefight for dominance. Depending on how long you survive, the conditions met, or the amenities you purchase for your den, the three factions may not be the only threats you will face in HOLE.

There is no story according to NEGAFISH but the game has its own universe no matter how small. I'd say the story is what you make of it and HOLE is worth playing.

Helldivers 2 is a fantastic cooperative game especially with friends. Drop in and work together to kill bugs or robots as you complete objectives. Going through the progression system allows you to unlock new weapons and tactical options to take out the enemy. I love the game's immersive qualities and you can tell that the development team put a lot of time and effort into creating their game.

BattleBit Remastered is a game developed in the Unity 3D engine by three independent developers.

Go into the chaos as one of five classes, engage in fast paced, large scale firefights with over 200 players as the map is torn apart by war. Explosions can destroy parts of buildings to where you can breach in and flank enemies. As your squad racks up points, you'll be able to set down HESCO blocks, barriers, and sandbags to fortify and block off positions against the opposition. Hipfiring inside of buildings feels fluid and aiming is on point. In these large scale matches you'll meet all sorts of people along the way and with VOIP as a major part of the game, hilarity ensues! There are many guns currently in the game and there are many more which the developers are planning to add!

The only issues I have are often with going prone and changing seats, sometimes hitting or holding down the respective keys aren't responsive on the first try. I haven't had any game crashes and the game runs extremely well on my PC.

In comparison to many games such as the Battlefield franchise and Squad, Battlebit Remastered holds up extremely well despite being in early access. The developers were experienced with multiplayer FPS games and very conscious of what the player base wanted. It didn't take a deadline set by a major company to create a well-crafted multiplayer FPS. The game offers an amazing community with amazing gameplay. I would recommend that you get this game and if you can't buy it at its current price, be on the lookout for a discount sale featuring this game. You will not be disappointed.

Synthetik is a challenging rogue-lite shooter which can either be played singleplayer or multiplayer. A friend introduced me to this game and I bought it during the steam spring sale. There is no saving mid-run so any run you begin has to be completed in one sitting. If you abort or die during a run you start all the way from the beginning but you keep both your class level and class-based upgrades from every fifth level up to level 25.Synthetik released in Early Access and it shows for quality with the support of the community. Synthetik ironed out a lot of its bugs with the community's support. The rarest bugs I've experienced consisted of small graphics issues, a couple of improper player-to-environment collisions, and getting stuck in the environment after dashing. There are a total of eight classes to choose from and as you level up with each, you unlock additional perks. My favorite classes are the Raider and Heavy Gunner. Raider gives you a knife on start and allows you to start with an extra dash. Heavy Gunner allows you to start with a machine gun and gives you access to an Onslaught system that will allow ammo regeneration, recoil reduction, and can fire rockets once upgraded. The items you find from level to level are randomized and can either be acquired through the shop or through a random crate. Heavy Gunner is absolutely amazing, one of the best runs I've ever had involved cutting down groups of enemies with a high-tier LMG while under the effects of infinite ammo and the onslaught module!The game will test you depending the modifiers allow you to scale the difficulty to wherever you want. Another neat function is that the game adapts to the player. Overall, Synthetik is worth playing if you want a challenge.

Battlefield 2042. The only games in this franchise that I have played were Battlefield 4 and some of Battlefield 3. Battlefield 2042 is going need more patches and bug fixes for it to be anywhere decent. Almost three hours in playing this game and I have encountered multiple bugs, most of them visual. I have seen numerous reviews, videos, issues, bugs, and glitches that plague this game within. I haven't bought it yet and neither should you. I had almost 3 hours on record during the free weekend while writing this review. I feel bad for anybody who has purchased this game on launch day and within the first few weeks of its release because they might as well have just paid a fee to beta test a game. This game should not have been released in the state that it was. I have no idea what EA was doing or what they were even thinking by having this game released in the poor state that it's in. I couldn't hold DICE responsible because there are other game franchises that have crashed and burned under EA. $59.99 this game costs. I've encountered many issues. I played about four matches and the second match I joined midway was completely one sided, it was around 32 players up against 48 or more. I played the fourth match from the beginning and opened my map while sprinting and the game crashed, hanging on the screen, forcing me to open up task manager just to end the process. I cannot count how many times I have been buzz-killed by an attack helicopter. I use the FXM-33 AA but it doesn't work properly most of the time because the target flies so fast or distances itself far from you and the rocket bugs out.It forces questions into my mind because I know that the writers, developers envisioning and creating this game wanted Battlefield 2042 to compete with other franchises like Call of Duty. Where gaming is a competitive environment, so is the gaming market. But there has to be a line drawn when it comes to the quality, functionality, and performance that these games should have. This release could've been so much better had it not been pushed out as fast as it was just to compete with another franchise. Either we have to sit with this until the issues are ironed out through patches or until another game arrives and delivers.

Apex Legends is Respawn Entertainment's popular free to play battle royale-esque game set within the Titanfall universe. If you're coming here from Titanfall, it's painfully obvious that the game mechanics are going to be radically different from Titanfall's. If you haven't played Titanfall or the sequel, this doesn't apply to you.

Every legend you play as will have passive, utility, and special abilities which can alter the course of combat and assist your team. Guns have bullet drop and each one has to be modified with its corresponding attachments. I have played this game for as long as I have and I still can't seem to get used to the weapons and legends.

This is a game that is fueled by its massive community and it takes patience to learn each playable legend and map. If you're not playing with friends and you don't catch on fast, you will most likely take flak for it. This is especially true in competitive as your teammates expect you to know what you are doing as with any competitive game mode. Three days of competitive arenas and some of the matches that I have played (including one placement match) at least one teammate had issues with me over something. People in voice chat aren't exempt from this. If you find yourself in voice chat with someone who is calling you out for a mistake or a play they didn't like that resulted in a loss, you'll probably get into an argument with them over who is wrong and most likely fail the match. It doesn't matter if the other team is better than you or if they've been playing longer, it will be your fault regardless. It happens less in casual game modes but this will mostly happen within the competitive game modes.

Good luck.

Team Fortress 2 is a Valve game derived from Team Fortress Classic another game from Valve's legacy classics. Back in the day, this game had a thriving community and still does today. There is learning curve with every class you play and sets of weapons to master. From custom maps to the community servers that would host them, Team Fortress 2 grew in popularity. New cosmetics, weapons, and taunts were added for players to earn, buy, sell, and trade to other players. Back in the day, a majority of servers were compromised of various communities running custom maps and there were servers which even had maps which served as trading hangouts. Eventually Valve made TF2 free to play for everyone, but this didn't come without drawbacks and a new set of problems.

Cheaters and script kiddies were a rare sighting, aimbotters and spammers did exist but not in the capacity back in the day compared to how they do now, with casual servers a thing. In 2021 TF2 you are more likely to find yourself in a casual server full of bots using cheats than you did when community servers were in full swing. The votekicking system exists and works, but only for so long since they would just join back and resume aimbotting and chat spamming. Even worse, these bots have evolved and will now votekick the players that attempt to get rid of them and some players even report being faced with mass reports by these bots and subsequently banned as a result. VAC has existed for a long time and dealing with cheaters and script kiddies is a war of its own and the question I asked was "Which developers in Valve will step up to this rampant problem of cheating?"

Valve finally stepped in and dealt with the bots en masse.

The game is better than before, though I still have issues with the decisions made. Autobalance is the impossible enemy to beat in the game, because you get autobalanced to the other team that's about to lose. If there's any need for an autobalance, it should be at the start of the round, end of the round, or not at all especially with the players connecting to the server. The scout's shortstop has a shove, I don't know why this is in but melee in source games have always been iffy, more so than with the gunplay. The shove animation in viewmodel doesn't look like it'll connect with the enemy. I am more likely to die to ranged enemies as a scout, more so from melee than have any chance of making use of the shove alt-attack. Enforcer got its general damage buff removed in lieu of it only when disguised, now its conditional.

All I can hope for TF2 is that the game mechanics and functions improve, along with the hitreg. There are some classes that I just can't play because my shots fail to register, like spy and sniper and the moments I play scout and demoman are when I seem to get headshotted the most. Runspeed and sticky jumping doesn't matter because somehow I'm almost always getting headshotted by snipers. When I played old TF2, I didn't have this issue. I don't know if it's P2P hosting or not, but I hope for a fix or some resolution.