Hot Lap League is the skeleton of something that could be great but without any of the true aspects to push it beyond that limit, leaving just hollow disappointment. At it's barest bones, it is nothing more that a time trial grind game that has been frequently compare to games like Track Mania. Mechanically, driving feels excellent, consistent, and perfectly deterministic. The same inputs in will always result in the same racing line. The track's assembly system on the front end has no geometry issues and every track has an optimal line. You can have fun racing through every track and pushing your time higher, honing your skill, but after that, there's nothing left.

This game constantly and wrongly gets compared to the Track Mania series, specifically the Nations games (ESWC and Nations Forever) but those games had one thing this game sorely lacks and such a huge missed opportunity of wasted potential:
A track editor
The track editors of Track Mania are what MADE those games such long mainstays, fostering communities of creatives to create the most depth defying, roller coaster-ing, technical, and spectacular tracks of any racing game with a tile grid based system of interlocking parts. This gave all the Trackmania Games infinite replay value as the community could build, share, and compete of tracks of the players designs.

The framework of such a system is visible in the track design of this game, but nothing of the sort has been implemented. Once you beat all 150 tracks, once you get times to satisfy the rewards you want, there's nothing else left. No incentive to keep playing beyond cheap daily challenges and un-engaging tournaments. No additional tracks come down the pipeline, no true creator content to engage players, not even a rivals system.

This is NOT a Track Mania clone. This game is the equivalent of a early gen mobile game devoid of Micro Transactions, or a Flash Game with a fixed number of levels. Once you experience the start to end, that's all there is.

I wish there was more to it, because the driving is really really solid.

A fun little free game that definitely was made using old school make your own game engine code. While it's definitely someone's final thesis in a game making class, you can tell there's real dedication put into it, from dynamically mixing music getting more frantic each lap, to little visual touches that give it a rather uniqe style.

Gameplay wise, the controls are tight, although not all inputs are supported on certain models of controllers, and you may need to rebind the defaults. Steering feels like you are controlling a hovercraft with actual weight an inertia to fight, with the airbrake drifts giving that extra edge. The difficulty curve is rather steep and keeps you on your toes as the first lap will prove breezy but each one requires tighter maneuvering and quicker reactions. The pool of roguelite elements is limited but does provide just enough variety to keep things interesting.

Overall It's definitely a pick up and play, but difficult to master experience, with a limited scope. But hey, it's 100% free so no reason to pass it up. Give it a try!

Disfigure is one of those roguelites that doesn't hold back. You can try hopping in and just going for what sounds nice, and maybe reach the end of normal difficulty, but if you wanna go for those high scores and glory in going further beyond, you gotta plan ahead, pick the right weapon, work with it's strengths, and manage your perks. Spray and Praying will only get you so far, manage your timing of attacks, movement, and learn to keep track of what's coming and you will find that what starts as a simple click to attack becomes surprisingly in depth with every upgrade. The de-saturated pixel style might not be for everyone, but it all melts away when you're mowing everything down!

Performance note: This game's limiting factor will be your CPU as you reach beyond the end game in certain runs. Prior builds of the game would suffer outright crashes when calculations became overwhelimg, but this has since been rectified and any spikes in number crunching will simply cause visual lag spikes but the game will continue.

A silly game with a simple goal and a great community to boot. While it may be still in development, the pick up and play nature of this game ensures you can come back to it and drop it off at any moment. Excited to see what the devs have in store for future updates!

Halo Master Chief Collection has had a rough development over it's many years, but thanks to the right team coming to right the ship, this has become The definitive way to play the legacy of halo games on a modern PC. Work to restore and maintain the vision of the original graphics as close to their console releases shows beautifully the intended artist visions of CE and 2 while updated graphics provide new eye candy for those looking to re-experience the classics.
Massive workshop support and extensive support for creation tools for all versions of the original BLAM engine make this an everlasting center of single player entertainment while a wide spanning option of multiplayer game modes across all 6 titles, and unlock catalog that you can work on at any pace, gives you the freedom to hop into old school or newer school lobbies of your choice with no worries of missing out on the latest content.

This is a fricken Diamond in the rough, taking fun sometimes janky physics, music synced visuals and action, and insane sense of speed to the next level!

The physics feel like what you would expect from default unity physics, and that is not a bad thing. Steering is responsive and twitchy, which means the controls take a bit of understanding. Once you realize that the steering is full sim racing style, where you have the full range of turning the wheel unlocked at all times, you can quickly learn to use soft adjustments of the joystick to make good corners and hit what you need.

The music system seems able to open any audio file I throw at it, even playing a modtracker XM file! Games with this sort of support are so rare that when you find one, you just have to say "AWESOME!!!" Grab your favorite jams in any common format, or rip them from a video game, and enjoy playing while the action revolves around your blastin tunes. The more intense the beat, the faster you go, the more intense the storm!

Graphically it looks a bit unpolished but for a free game, can you really complain? What is here is impressive in its own right, with reasonable amounts of bloom, reflections on surfaces that deserve it, and realtime mirrors that give you awareness of the cops and other racers behind you. Car models are well detailed, and the environments, the few there are, are polished enough that it would fit right in as an Arcade cabinet game of the early to mid 2000s. not to mention the simply impressive rain graphics that put most sim racers to shaaame!

Gameplay is simple and to the point. Make it as far as you can with the time alotted and try not to crash. May sound simple but breakneck speeds make this a more about the journey ordeal. You'll be flying down the highway so fast that you would swear one crash would result in a game over, but the generous damage system ensures you get to keep driving until the corner reads 0%. And with a wide selection of unlockable vehicles and the ability to paint your ride in any colors, you have some incentive to keep playing and unlock the next set of wheels.

Multiplayer might be rather dead for jumping into a random game, but just grab some friends on discord or other social media of choice, have them install it, and get some chaos going in a server. More than likely you'll have the time of your life with a round or two. The tight Peer to Peer netcode and availability of private lobbies makes multiplayer easy to set up!

So what are you waiting for? Its 0 dollars and a simple fun time!

A good concept in need of a lot of spit and shine to be ready. Wait for a sale otherwise hold off.