Oh, hey! I didn’t see you there, as I was too busy playing Cyberpunk 2077 by CD Projekt Red (henceforth referred to as Cyberpunk 2077). First of all – you probably don’t even need convincing. Heck, it’s almost a guarantee you own this game already! But if you’re looking for a factually supported opinion reaffirming your own purchasing decisions – you came to the right review! Now, let’s get started!

Graphics
There is no better way to start this review other than by telling you to look at the official promotional material and marketing screenshots. It looks stunning and breathtaking. The visuals are absolutely gorgeous and they are by all definitions ‘next-gen’. That, combined with the impressive sound design of Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City really takes you there and makes you feel like you’re there. The crowds are massive and the most populated areas of Night City look exactly that – full of life. On the screen there may be close to a hundred people, walking, talking, smoking, doing their own things. Each person gorgeously rendered and painstakingly animated. It was hard to believe that CD Projekt Red could ever achieve the graphical fidelity they’ve shown in the trailers. I was shocked to see with my own eyes that not only did they reach that level of graphics – they might have even surpassed it. All of this is no doubt the accomplishment of NVIDIA RTX™ Ray Tracing technology. It’s turns the already unbelievable visuals to as close to photorealistic as possible. In all ways, Cyberpunk 2077 is the game that brings us all to the incredible future ̵͓̭̓̂a̸͍͘h̴͎̯̉̌ė̶̤̭̀ä̸͓́̓ḑ̸͖̇̀ ̴̫́̚a̴͇̯̐ṅ̵͖̐d̷̞̏͊ ̷͖͑t̴͙͒a̵̻̓͊k̸̺͚͌͑


~~~P̸̢̆s̷̞̉́s̷̤̈́ṫ̵̼͓…̸̘̂ ̵͙͝H̴̜̏e̶̐͌͜y̵͖̎, you, reader, can you see this? I managed to get past the ICE of this corpo shill review and inserted my own comments. To avoid detection, I calibrated my algorithm to only show these comments to those that aren’t fully brainwashed by the marketing of this product. That means if you’re reading this – there’s still hope for you.

Sure, the graphics are pretty, but what the marketing drones will never tell you is what hardware you need to achieve at least half of what was promised. Even with DLSS (Nvidia’s proprietary AI-assisted rendering which is supposed to boost framerates) on, Ray Tracing cuts your framerate almost in half. I have a pretty hardcore netrunning rig (ranks in the top 1-3% in various benchmarks) and it’s incredible how poorly this game runs even on my machine. It should never struggle to reach 60 FPS on 1080p, even with Ray Tracing enabled (not to mention DLSS boosts the performance even further). C2077 is probably one of the worst optimized games this generation, and it does not look half as good as it’s supposed to if it’s cripples even the strongest hardware. Case in point, the best GPU in the world cannot run this game in 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. Absolutely insane.
Speaking of insane, the number of bugs and glitches here is staggering. Objects floating in mid-air, NPCs melting into the environment, me or straight-up T-posing. Game locking you out and forcing a save reload when you do mundane tasks. So much of the game is technically broken. I’d much rather have a less pretty but better optimized and stable game, than w̶̗̐ḣ̸͉̀á̶̹͘-. Damnit, they’re onto me. I’ll send you the next m̵̦̒̊e̶̠̫̐͌s̷͔̿ś̷̥a̷̜̽g̶̣̘̉e̷̚͜ ̵͖͉͘o̵̹͖͗ń̸͇͊c̴͈͙͌̅~~~

Story and world
The Night City is a living, breathing place, filled with thousands of people, each with their own lives and stories. There’s the game’s story, which takes you all over Night City in a wide variety of imaginative scenarios – from corporate heists to detective work in virtual strip-clubs and more. The deep and interesting characters you meet along the way aren’t just thrown to the way-side. In fact, it’s quite the opposite – they will contact you with side missions, that writing wise are just as nuanced as the main story. Completing these side jobs and main story missions will not only increase your level, but raise your street cred, allowing you access to more content in shops and side gigs. Of course, if you want simpler action, there’s plenty of gigs that have your fixers offer you simple jobs in exchange for cash and rep. Still, these gigs are far more fleshed out than your average side-quest: instead of slaying ten boars or helping out a settlement, you will solve problems for people, all of them having their own stories, making it feel like even the smallest mission has its place in the world. And there’s a large variety of them too! Speaking of variety, you can customize everything about your character – from their face to their gender to their origin story, all the while picking different dialogue options depending on how you want to roleplay V! Not to mention there’s hundreds of lore-filled datashards for anyone interested in the world! Night city is different people, different missions, d̸͔̒ĩ̶̬̕f̴̗͌͊f̶̤̀̋ͅê̸͜r̴̨̈́̃e̴̫̬͐ň̶̲̬͝t̷̙͙̃̆ ̴̛̛̮y̴̫̋-

~~~O̷̯̖͆K̸̢̹͂͝,̸̺̩̅ ̵̗̩̎c̸̛̘͠õ̷̢̇nnection reestablished. Sure, variety is great… Too bad there is none in C2077. The game is great at fooling the player has variety, that they have a choice, when if fact it couldn’t be further from the truth. Picking one of three origin stories was painted to be a decision that will make players return and restart the game multiple times, but all it amounted to was having a unique dialogue option every now and again. Dialogue options in general awfully remind me of the Telltale method – making them feel important prioritized over making sure that they lead somewhere interesting. You can hardly ever fail only due to your poor choice of words and while some missions do branch out, there is no difference in the extremely linear story – no matter your choices or which missions you choose to do first, you will arrive at more or less the same conclusion.
Customization in the game is really a joke as you can only do so once in the character select – incredibly ironic for a setting that’s all about expressing who you really are and changing how you look. And the setting itself only shows promise of cyberpunk, without any interesting points to make. Corporations are evil, punk is cool and that’s it. The setting itself practically crumbles under any amount of scrutiny – you mean to tell me that literal immortality through technology is possible, but everyone’s driving around regular cars on regular roads and listen to regular radio? That I can view someone else’s feeling memories and emotions in a video-editor style timeline but people use showers that are identical to the ones in the year 2020? It’s unbelievable that a setting about 57 years in the future (I know, it’s alternate history, but my point stands) is based so much in today’s age. There are a lot of missed opportunities, both in the setting and the choices a player can make. Right now, there is no reason to replay the game more than once if you’re interested in the world or its characters, unless thę̶̲̅̕ ̶̝́ǵ̷̝̀å̸̭m̴̞̅ḙ̴̎͊p̷͇̗̌̎l̵̲͖̏̓-̶̤͇̾̃~~~

Continued in the comments

An awful server-browser and a lack of any matchmaking completely ruin whatever potential this game had - even if you get over the 480p graphics and terrible controls. Lack of a real tutorial (several slides and "Go play by yourself in Freeplay" don't count as a tutorial) hinders the accessibility factor of such a small game, even if otherwise the game is fairly accessible. The idea of it is like Werewolf/Mafia, but with the addition of tasks, which makes sure the survivors are moving towards one place or another. In reality, however, the tasks are fairly meaningless in the grand scheme of things. I suppose it'd be a fun game to play for a bit with 5-7 friends, but that means all of them have to buy this game. The main "selling point" of the hidden role games online is the fact that they are free. Unfortunately, playing the game with randoms online is awful - no matchmaking means you have to browse the server browser (filled with racist names), hoping to get into a game that hasn't filled up yet. Since you can't group up beforehand, you have to join half-empty games and hope that by the time you tell your friends the code they don't fill up. By personal experience, neither me nor my friend could host a game successfully so that the game would be visible on the server browser. Finally, there is no incentive to keep playing with randoms, so people quit all the time, especially right before a game starts. I've seen games start with 10 people and before the loading screen finishes, only four of them are left - half of them impostors, meaning the game is finished. Due to this rampant leaving, after an HOUR of the game, I had only ONE five minute game fully last from start to finish. The premise is great, the execution is awful. I cannot recommend this game for any amount of money, as there are better games in the same genre that are free.

Summarizing Iceborne in a few words is easy: disappointing. It's an expansion with promising ideas, great effort put behind it and so many infuriating flaws, that it's hard to recommend it to anyone who isn't a huge fan of the series already.

Tommy was a great student, who finished his high school with an honor's diploma. Although he had some stranger tendencies, he was liked well enough that people overlooked them. Due to his volunteer work and perfect grades, Tommy entered a prestigious college, to the joy of his parents. In college, Tommy started to hang around with the wrong crowd and eventually started doing drugs. Tom is 37, he's unemployed and nobody can stay within 10ft. within him due to his terrible odor.

Iceborne is Tom. You are his parents.

Few things to get out of the way, since you'll find them in almost any review. The expansion and the new area is gorgeous. The expansion also runs awfully.

Now onto something I found mentioned less often. The expansion promises a whole lot - almost double the amount of monsters, double the amount of quests, new armor, the clutch claw, weapon moves and so on. These promises are pretty much why I cannot recommend the game, as just like Tom, Iceborne doesn't exactly end up in a good spot.

The game boasts the absolutely new monsters front and center, and the first monster you fight is Beotodus, a reskin of Jyuratodus. The absolutely first new creature you see in the brand new expansion, which touts 30+ new monsters, is the same forgettable fish-like monster that you killed thirty minutes into the original game. But this new one has a horn.
Surely the next monster in the new area will be... a reskin of Barroth with one new move.
Well... maybe they opened up with the fan-favorite palette-swaps (though, who honestly likes the forgettable fish-creature?), surely the next monst-
Three old monsters in a row . Red Toby-Akatsuki, Black Paolumu and Orange Pukei-Pukei. They are literally the same creatures with a different color. They changed up their elements, which does make the fights different... until you equip a charm that nullifies their new element. At least the original game lured you in with original monster designs for around five hours until you saw the first palette swaps. The expansion just bursts out all the colors without any of the foreplay of the original. How fitting that the expansion's final boss is just a different color second-to-last boss of the original game

The first brand new design (although some similarities can be seen in the model with other monsters) is Barrioth - a sabretooth tiger dragon. Sounds cool? Tommy sounded cool too, until he spent all of his income on cocaine. And the cocaine in this weird metaphor is the difficulty. Barrioth reveals an incredible flaw in the entire design of the expansion. It was made to appeal to those, who have already spent hundreds of hours in Monster Hunter World. The short of what I mean is that people, who finished MHW and spent a lot of time on it's endgame had literally the best gear the game could afford. So if the new expansion had weaker gear, it would be dead content to those players. So the new gear HAS to be much better than the best old gear. Still, strong new gear would destroy those poor new reskins monsters, so they have to be much stronger than the strongest old monster... See where I'm getting at?
Now imagine someone just finished the game and they see that after they buy the expansion, they get a whole new story and monsters. Of course they aren't going to replay the same old content over and over for hours just to get some gear for the new content. So they jump in and get bodied.
It's fine, you can fix this. Just ask a better-geared friend to take down the new monsters. Or just pick up some bones. New armor made from some bones you picked up from the ground is multiple times better than the end-game armor from the original.

If only it would stop at that... Remember Barrioth? The cool saber-tooth dragon? It's impossible for an above-average player to kill him with end-game gear from the original. Apparently it's also incredibly hard for a group of players to kill it with the best gear from the expansion available up to that point. It's a monster that, although is pretty fun to fight against, has so much health people struggle to kill it within the time limit. 50 MINUTE time limit! Trust me, if you fought a monster with a group of friends for 50 minutes and still fail to kill it, you'd write an overly long rant of a review too.

Unfortunately, Barrioth is only the first of the rest - all other monsters apart from the first few - have so much health, the fights always drag on to over half an hour. For some - that's only a benefit. For others - doing the same attack moves against the same monster in the same pretty environments for forty minutes only to get 1/4th of the items you need just to progress through the story feels more like work. Don't know about you, but I don't pay $40 to get more work.

To summarize - the new monsters are mostly old ones with a filter over them, while even the new monsters are a slog, because your old gear is garbage and the new gear kills them after fifty thousand repeated strikes.

Other promises: New story quests? Literally all of them tell you to watch a cutscene and then hunt a monster. New armor? The new monster sets look pretty neat, but all of the old monster sets in the new expansion have the same look as in the original. The Beta sets even lost the alternative look it had, so there's technically less choices from the same monster. The clutch claw? More like crutch claw, since some encounters drag on for even longer if you don't spam it. New moves for every weapon? Most of them have something to do with the clutch claw. Otherwise, they're already in the base game, so you don't even need the expansion.

Not only Tom does cocaine and he can't run jack, but he also has rotten teeth, his clothing is tattered and he's carrying a dirty a dead raccoon his left hand all the time. At least he learned how to smack someone with the raccoon.


If you liked the original game and hoped that the expansion will be a breath of fresh air - keep out. If you loved the original and want more of what you liked, you will probably find it here. However, recommendations shouldn't be given to diehard fans - they will buy the expansion regardless - and to an average person I cannot recommend spending $40 or even half that for this expansion. It's bought me more frustration, disappointment and high CPU temperatures than fun or excitement.

Tl;dr: One of the best fighting games in the decade. A weak launch had its problems fixed in less than a week.

Genre: 2D Fighting game
Developer: NetherRealm Studios (known for: Injustice 2, Mortal Kombat X, Mortal Kombat (2011)).
Additional monetization: Able to purchase earnable premium currency, that allows to buy a chosen item from a random pool, that rotates every few hours. All content is earnable in game. Season pass that includes early access to DLC characters.

Mortal Kombat has a lot of great things goings its way. The graphics are simply jaw-dropping. The environments are dynamic, as each stage has some-things going on. The spectators in the fight club are cheering the violence, while the gladiator pit features a giant, that mindlessly goes to feed a monster. Although quite a few stages have colors mostly from the Mad Max series, several more interesting environments are also present, like the black void of Kronika's lair or the terrifying Sea of Blood.
Speaking of blood, gore, a distinct feature of Mortal Kombat series, is ever-present and certainly not toned down. The fatalities are incredibly messy at best and vomit-inducing at worst. Keep away if you're squeamish, since there is no option to turn the gore off.
Character design is solid, although a couple of the facial models are on the weaker side. If you dislike the way some characters look, you can customize most of the things about them, such as making the Revenants (undead warriors) look like human beings, or making the veteran characters look like their incarnations in the earlier titles.

NetherRealm studios have seemingly perfected how a fighting-game story should look and feel like. The cutscenes are done in-engine and look stunning. The cinematography alone is worth playing the story, as the game often shows scenes that are film-worthy and uses camera cuts found in most action movies. The writing, although not amazing, was done to show off plenty of cool moments, one especially important to long-time Mortal Kombat fans. It does get convoluted at times and some characters feel like they've been forgotten by the end, but it's still a solid story, certainly more memorable than the studio's previous attempts. The story mode also plays great, as fights are no longer stacked against the player, like it was in MK X. Almost all fights in the game are fair for both sides, which makes the difficulty of the final boss that much jarring.
The story mode lasts around 4-6 hours. Few of the missions can be replayed once, by picking a different character. If you are looking for a more traditional arcade approach, it is found in Klassic Towers. By beating a set amount of enemies and the final boss, the chosen character gets a unique ending.

The music is good, but ultimately forgettable. Although it is a shame, it arguably isn't the most important part of a fighting game. The sound design, however, is amazing. Hits feel satisfying, the tense music before a fatality and the muffled screams after it are great and special moves have their own distinct sound effects. A shoutout goes to Jax's bionic arms, that have a "Clang!" sound which makes the character worth playing for that alone.

The fighting itself is incredibly solid. Combos feel good and are fairly simple (although not on the level of Skullgirls), movement is intuitive and fixed from the floaty-feeling Mortal Kombat X. Although NetherRealm fighting games are much slower than most 2D fighters, the combat system is complex enough that it brings enough of a challenge. A highlight of the combat system for me is how special meters work in this game. Instead of a special meter that is earned by hitting or getting hit, it re-fills automatically, making it more satisfying to use, especially for newcomers. X-Ray attacks, renamed Fatal Blows, now don't cost meter and can be successfully landed once in a match, but only if you have less than 30% health. Instead of new players avoiding to empower special moves in order to save up for an X-Ray, now they are incentivized to enchance their specials all the time. This is also due to the fact that there is a second, defensive meter, used only for defensive maneuvers, like rolling while down or stopping an opponent's mid-air combo. To summarise, the fighting in this fighting game feels great and it fixes a lot of problems from earlier instalments.

There's a lot to find in Mortal Kombat 11. Each character has dozens of skins, different gear and augments to keep players busy. The highlight of the game is Towers of Time, which is similar to the Multiverse system in Injustice 2. By completing challenges you can earn skins, gear and other items. All items are unlocked in the Krypt, which takes the player to the dynamic and interactive Krypt, full of surprises and secrets. Although most of the chests in the Krypt are random, ultimately I feel like it is a great decision, giving the game that much replayability. Instead of players unlocking everything for their main in a few hours and forgetting about the Krypt, they unlock items spread more or less for the whole cast, meaning there's more options for players to try new characters out when they unlock new things. Gear is now wholly cosmetic, only offering re-rollable augment slots. Augments are incredibly weak, as compared to the gear bonuses of Injustice 2, so they are more like a bonus than a necessity, as it was in the IJ2. Besides, players targetting gear for their mains can open that character's heart chest and beat specific character Towers of Time.
The game is certainly generous with the currency, and personally I found no shortage of Koins and Hearts to unlock chests with. Most players will have a majority of items unlocked within the first couple of weeks of gameplay, if playing for a couple of hours a day.
Playing Towers of Time is actually fun, and although the AI can bring unfair modifiers into the fight, the players will have no shortage of consumable items to even things out. If push comes to shove, and the player is really stuck, there's an option to let the AI fighters play with the loadout you can customize beforehand. The AI is one of the better ones I've seen in fighting games (rivaled by Smash Bros Ultimate) and certainly stomps the Towers with ease.

It pains me to see such an incredible game have such a low review score on Steam, but it is certainly the developer's/publisher's fault. The launch had so many problems, including missing game executables, servers crashing, tower AI having 3 times more health and absolutely broken fight modifiers and the game giving terrible rewards. All this was capped off by the PC version being three patches late and having different moves and combos than PS4/Xbox versions.
All of these problems are now fixed, and the game is definitely worth the asking price. Normally I'd add "for veteran fighting game players", but the tutorial is almost better than tutorials found in Arcsys games. It is comprehensive, detailing and explaining many new and old concepts found in Mortal Kombat 11, as well as some of the most important fighting game lingo, like frame advantage, that was usually left to obscure forums.
Some people are also complaining about FPS locks, and some of the complaints can be warranted. All of the game (menus, intros, cutscenes, Fatal Blows, Fatalities, etc.) except the actual fighting part, is locked to 30 frames per second, which is definitely terrible. There are ways around it, but I will leave finding those ways up to the reader. Another FPS lock complaint is that the fighting portion is locked to 60 FPS, which is laughable, as it is the norm in every single modern fighting game and cannot be changed due to how fighting games work.

• Solid turn-based strategy core
  
• Fantastic animations
  
• Filled with great dark humour
  
• Races are unique in feel and gameplay

• Difficult learning curve
  
• Mediocre story mode
  
• Few races in the base game, requires DLC purchases

Everyone that has ever seen me boot up Blood Bowl 2 has given me the same reaction. A smirk and a curious look asking:

"So what, is this some sort of turn-based American football?"

Yes. It is also the best sports game ever made.

Set in an alternate Warhammer universe, Blood Bowl 2 (ref. as BB2) is a turn-based strategy game, pitting two players (local or online) or a player and an AI controlled opponent against each other. Each player has their own team, with unique players, each packing their own strenghts and weaknesses. Like in any American football game, the goal is the same: get the ball to the endzone.

"Is that an orc there? And why is a dwarf beating the duck out of that guy?

There's plenty variety in BB2, with the game and DLC totalling 14 races, possibly more to come. Each race has some customization options in how many of each player will you want. For example, the Human team will always have some number of cheap, expendable linemen, but they can also buy some Blitzers and an Ogre for a more aggressive approach or they might forego the latter and get some Catchers and Throwers. The Orcs might want to trade in their giant Troll to a fast snotling and a backup lineman, etc. Finally, extra rerolls, apothecaries and more can round out your team. This leads to a player having many, many playstyles, which differ wildly from one another.

"Holy cricket, is that a Yeti? Did... did that Yeti just kill your player??"

From the name, it's pretty obvious that Blood Bowl isn't just about gently taking the ball on a stroll to the opponent's endzone. Combat makes up for a lot of the game, whether your team likes it or not. There, you can see the carefully crafted animations for each unique unit. The visceral thrill of seeing a goatman ramming into an elf so hard he backflips is unforgetable. On the same note, the animations for moving, standing up, even running that extra distance is different for each race and each unit, and that shows how much work was put into this game.

"Oh, okay, so the bigger percentage means you'll more likely to succeed? Wait, why did your guy just fall down while running?

Chance is a huge part of BB2, so there goes my first warning: if you hate not having complete control of the consequences in a strategy game, stay away. The chance aspect of the game isn't just your Pokėmon hitting theirs for 38 damage and not 40, and it also isn't a "fun way to tell stories" like in Hearthstone. Chance is an integral part of the game. A wise player said: Blood Bowl 2 is about managing risks. So if you can't handle the game failing you on a roll you had 87% to succeed thrice in a row, stay away. Don't bother claiming the random number generator is broken, don't bother claiming the other player cheats, it's just chance.

And it's amazing.

The chance management and trying to use risks to your advantage makes BB2 sort of unique in my eyes. It's fascinating as much as it is frustrating. And the Schadenfreude from seeing the enemy absolute wreck themselves right in front of your endzone is captivating.

"We can play together, right? Let me get my controller, then. What do you mean I won't need one?

Blood Bowl 2 has an online mode with an active community. I'd recommend it if you have previous Blood Bowl experience or just want more challenge than the AI can offer. Which isn't exactly awful, and is actually my prefered method of playing BB2. Playing in a league is fun, since I can manage the team, level up the players and eventually replace them once they die. The game also features a decent-size story mode, which acts like a glorified tutorial that barely does its job. You will still likely need to read up on the game rules or watch some videos online. So there goes my second warning: stay away if you dislike complex rules. This is a strategy game first and foremost, and quite complex as well, so if you aren't willing to put in some work to see a carefully managed team of blue lizards stomping the everloving duck out of pale-skin pointed ear people, you should reconsider buying. If, however, you don't mind to put in a little work before digging in, then you're going to love your stay. Keep in mind that it is pretty easy to learn once you see someone play this game, which means that playing local-multiplayer with hot-seat is simple. There have been several instances where I just invited a spectating friend to play against me and we both had a blast.

"That was a great match! Let's play again, I want to pick the Undead!"

By design, Blood Bowl 2 was never intented to appeal to mass market audiences. It mixes two fairly niche genres - American football videogames and Warhammer - inside a bowl of turn-based luck dependant gameplay. But if this strange stew interests you and you wouldn't object to learning this game for a bit, I would definitely recommend you this purchase.

There are some games, which you can easily describe in a sentence. Army man shoots another army man, the team of Russia, Aztecs and Rome gets destroyed by the sneaky Gandhi, survivor walks for an hour, finds another survivor and drinks bleach. Yet, as much as I try to put FTL into a single sentence, I keep failing. A space-ship commander simulator, which lets you relive your captain fantasies of Star Trek? An easy to pick up rogue-lite, which will make you scream as your three hours’ worth of upgrades are blasted into junk by the final boss? A story, with an outcome almost entirely the same every time you play, but with a journey worth an entire sci-fi novel by itself? All of those things and much, much more are present here.

FTL stands for Faster Than Light. A term usually used in various science fiction works. Just like this game. You might command a ship consisting of a bunch of humans and a slug, going through the Rock homeworlds and getting ambushed by space pirates. You direct all your power to the weapons, blast them a few rounds and then masterfully evade their gigantic missile by activating your cloaking device. After the pirates beg for mercy, you ponder for a minute about how much scrap and fuel can you get if you’d leave them or destroy them. Moments later, their orange-and-purple ship is obliterated into thousands of tiny pieces in spectacular 2D graphics. Your crew has just finished fixing the oxygen bay and you’re ready to move out. As you’re about to engage your FTL Engine, you take a second to admire the gorgeous scenery, I mean, space. Space can be really beautiful too, you know. Three minutes later your whole crew dies to killer Rock-men, who boarded your ship. Time to start again.

FTL stands for Flying Till Losing. Because once you lose you can’t fly. Unless you restart the game. But why would you restart such an amazing run with a space-monk Zoltan Cruiser. They might be weak in melee combat, but their super-shields disable enemy boarding systems, so killer Rock-men aren’t a problem now. Navigating through the map, you see a distress signal left by someone. Great, people in distress always mean there’s some money, err, scrap to be found! Bah, another pirate ambush. Oh well, all you have to do is send all power to the guns and… BOOM! Your ship is nigh-unstoppable. Oh man, in space nobody can hear you scream, but the sounds of explosion and lasers shooting are so amazing, almost as awesome as the battle music! The themes are just great, they accompany, but not overshadow what happens in the game. Well, time to move on. Six minutes later you find yourself unable to escape the pursuing rebels and clash against one of their giant ships. Your super shield is gone almost immediately, and you meekly Zoltan crew dies from the engulfing flames. Let’s restart.

FTL stands for Failing To Leave. Basically, this is one addictive game. Yes, frustration might get you, since it’s almost inevitable that your game will end up as a loss, this game is that hard. However, various unlockable ships and layouts help give some sense of progression, as this is a permanent-death game. Still, after a break, you will want to play more. Boot the game up, maybe choose a different ship. Yeah, the Engi Layout B seems cool-enough. Different ships not only change the visuals, but essentially the way you play. Standard ships might use the “blast-and-away” tactics, but horrible space-bugs Mantis usually try to get their prey by boarding. Space-human-robots (seeing a pattern here? SPACE!) Engies love to use drones and that means that they rarely do all the fighting themselves, instead, relying on autonomous robots to protect or attack. Alternative ship layouts take it one step further, in Engi case, there’s only one crew-member on board, rest of them are drones. That would be extremely problematic, however, various updates and even mods help the game get even more complex. For example, Captain’s Edition mod allows the sole Engi create new crewmember holograms. With an army of holo-friends, my Engi is ready to win this game. Twelve minutes later, the Engi ship runs out of fuel, getting lost in deep space. We will try again.

FTL also stands for Flailing Through Levels. Your Rock cruiser finally manages to reach close to the final stage. Take a moment, go ahead, and reflect what a run was that. You saved a space station from an outbreak, helped the Zoltans reach nirvana, beat the mighty Mantis pirate KazaaakplethKilik and even unlocked his ship. You fought countless pirates, saved a defective rebel and helped lay off a siege of a friendly space station. One last foe until you’re ready to fight what awaits at the end of the game. The huge rebel space-ship proves no match for your skills, as you seamlessly transfer power from guns, to engines, to clone bay, all while choosing which parts of the opposing ship should be destroyed. The dream scenario: a victory against a worthy foe with minimal losses. You take a deep breath, time to see what lies in the final level. Eighteen minutes later, you enjoy the final moments of a Rock cruiser, little flaming bits of it flying in space. The boss was so close to defeat, yet you still lost. We are ready to win next time.

Let's start this review slightly differently. This is an amazing game and you should be ashamed you're not playing it right now.
I think many of you will agree that there are very few genres that can compete with fighting games when it comes to a local multiplayer experience. While RPGs, FPSs and RTSs are usually played alone with headphones on, it's the fighting games that not brings the whole circle of friends together. And the neighbours as well, since they're jarateed off that you are still shouting for several hours straight. Street Fighter, Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Skullgirls - these games are the first ones that come to mind whenever you think about playing together on the same couch with your buddies. Hell, even on the Wii, that's notorious for being the best console to play with your buddies in the same room, the best selling game that's not Sports or Mario is... Super Smash Bros. Brawl. A fighting game. The sheer competitiveness of fighting one-to-one or two versus two is already thrilling and excitement-filling, but the possible moves, combinations and strategies can leave an incredible impression to anyone.
And Nidhogg, well, is a fighting game. Kind of.
Truth to be told, it's a fighting game in the purest form. No different characters. No varied movesets. Perfect. Symmetry.
Both players get to play as a diffent-colored fighter. Part stickman, part pixel-man(?), he wields a sword of sorts. It's probably a rapier. I mean, you stab the other part stickman, part pixel-man with it. The stages are perfectly symmetrical as well, meaning that the only advantage you can get is the one you build yourself.
The gameplay isn't traditional in fighting game sense: two players try to stab/divekick/rip-spine-off one another. Such actions result in an instant-kill. Although this is not quite near the Divekick level, where one touch means someone is dead already, the fights rarely last more than a few seconds. Once the morbid deed has been done and your opponent is bleeding all over the place, a huge GO! arrow appears in the direction where your opponent should be. If he was alive, that is. You run towards the arrow, the screen moves slightly and now your opponent has respawned, standing a few meters away from you, weapon ready. Kill him, see the arrow, run towards the arrow, move screen even more. In a way, this might remind you of those classic beat-'em-ups, where you have to punch down all the guys in the screen, see the GO! arrow appear and then move the screen slightly, getting yourself an inch closer to victory. The process in Nidhogg is pretty similar, except that in the way of killing>running towards arrow>killing, you will most likely be pierced like a kebab and left pouring blood all over the carpet.
If such an accident happens, and it will, a GO! arrow will still appear. This time, for your opponent. If you fail enough times and get killed more, the screen will move to the final stage. Dying here will usually mean that your opponent wins. As he runs towards victory, you block his initial lunge, jump to the air and land on his head. The bastard manages to roll back and pick up his rapier. However, this time, he is on the defensive, while you are free to run towards him, roll just under his blade and swipe his feet, knocking your foe down. It all culminates with a glorified spine-rip, with extra crunchy sound effects as a bonus. You run towards the arrow, the screen moves and you feel a little bit more relieved, knowing that you managed to push away your fate slightly farther away.
Such is the beatiful fencing of Nidhogg, where you use the responsive and fluid control to out-skill and out-wit your opponent. Fights last mere seconds, but they are just as exciting as a whole round of Street Fighter. You'll never feel cheated if you die, since you were not out-gunned. I mean, who the hell picks Chun Li while playing with your friends, anyway!? Erm, sorry. The whole game can be controlled by 6 buttons - 4 for movement and 2 for attacking. It's incredibly simple and easy to pick up, but just like the aforementioned Divekick, this game is immensely complex. With a few button combinations, you can jump, divekick, roll, cartwheel (!), taunt, throw you goshdarned rapier into the unsuspecting victim's face and more.
Not only the fencing is beautiful, however. The arenas you fight in are as well. There is some variety and creativity here and there, but not too much to distract you from the true goal. To appeal to the mighty Nidhogg. Oh, forgot to mention him! Reader, meet Nidhogg, the giant pink nordic dragon-snake-thingy that eats you once you win.
All jokes aside, this game is filled with incredible design decisions, even if some of them are accidental. Even the mere fact that the whole point of the game is to get EATEN with a loud *CRUNCH* sound following makes this game perfect for parties. Sure, your opponent won after that hard match and he might have been using his cheap running technique, but he got eaten. The silly Nidhogg's eyes are enough to soften up even the sorest losers. And the awesome design doesn't stop there.
The sound effects are great to cheer people up as well. Alongside the general rapier sounds, you also get a whole bunch of *slash*, *slush* and *GWEAAAARRRRGHHHhhhh...* as well. After your opponent misjudges his distance and divekicks right in front of your rapier, impaling himself, it's hard for both to contain laughter after the poor sod releases a complimentary *Erghhwgghhht...*
This game also has flaws, as hard it might be to confess. Single-player is pretty much a glorified training mode (aren't most fighting games like that?) with an easily exploitable AI and online-multiplayers suffers from latency issues. However, playing anything but local multiplayer on this game is just a crime against it. Still, the number of stages is underwhelming and Steam Workshop support could help it. Another minor complaint would be that you can't pick your own color during offline multiplayer, only tournament mode.
Nidhogg can create new friendships. Nidhogg can strenghthen existing ones. And most likely Nidhogg will. Dueling with a buddy, be it you two are playing for the first time or this is your fifth hundredth match, is just simply a blast, filled with laughter, joy, shouts and pixelated blood. But it's even more fun to play with even more friends. Up to 8 player tournament mode is incredible (and the winner gets something more awesome than being eaten by a worm) and while two are locked in an intense duel, the others can shoutcast, cheer or pick favorites. It's an incredible party game. Tim is strategic, trying to roll under your feet and disarm you. Mike is wrong in the head and he thinks that throwing your only weapon in vain hopes to kill is the best way to win. He's probably right. Johnny? He's an arse, trying to run around the opposition, instead of fighting head-on. Steve is good at dive-kicking. He'll dive-kick when he has the upper hand and when he doesn't. He'll dive-kick anytime. Oh, there's also me, the sick bastard, who rolls around the floor using the same move he calls "Cartwheel assassin" trying to sneakily stab you once you're distracted.
All of these strategies work. All of them are viable. All of them can win games and they HAVE won games.
There are no tier-lists in Nidhogg. There are no combo sheets either. Just pure fun. If you, dear reader, think that this isn't a fighting game, you're probably right as well. But all I care is that Nidhogg is the best local multiplayer game you could ever play.

Time to review a hyper-popular free-to-play on Steam, Warframe (referred as WF in the review). WF is a third person PvE shooter (the camera is over the shoulder), which means that the majority of the time you will team up with a group of friends, or strangers if you aren't as lucky, and blast off some AI controlled opponents. To jump ahead the review - Warframe is a GOOD game, however, some of it's flaws force me to give this game a negative rating. Well, let's begin from the start.
WF is a free-to-play game, that uses the microtransaction system to let the developers get some money. Personally, I have absolutely no problems with micro-payments, when they are done correctly. Dota and League of Legends proved that a free game with well done microtransactions can easily bring much more profit than a full priced AAA title. Now, the question is, whether or not the micro-payments in WF are done good, is this game a pay-to-win or can you get all the necessary equipment yourself. The answer, however shocking, is yes. The real money system in this game is actually surprisingly decent. Almost any non-cosmetic items in the game can be attained without spending a dime. Although some may argue that Warframe and Weapon slots (about these later) are really necessary to the game and must be bought with Platinum (the curency attainable with real money), the developers Digital Extremes are unprecedently generous and give out over 25$ worth of Platinum for free to every player. So, basically, you can get any non-cosmetic item in the game for free, and the aferomentioned vanity items or slots can be bought with the free Platinum every player gets. And this brings us to the main problem of this game.
Wait, what? Isn't the fact that you can get everything for free a good thing?
It is, but the problem is with how FAST do you get anything. But enough about this, lets see how good of a GAME this is.
WF runs Evolution Engine, used in Dark Sector and The Darkness II, to power up some of the best graphics in a free-to-play game yet. The game is visually stunning and the graphics really deserve the praise. Since the game is set in a futuristic sci-fi world, the world is free for the artists to explore and reveal incredibly beatiful environments. The missions set in open spaces, albeit theres only a few of them, look incredible. The enemy design isn't something super novel, but still not horrible to look at. The weapons and Warframes themselves look decent, the dark, gritty sci-fi mixed with anciet ninja feeling all over them. Some of the effects are a little bit overdone and you might feel your eyes moving away from the screen since there are so many brightly colored flashes, but they don't ruin the game experience a lot.
The sound and music are alright, again, FUTURE screaming and written in all-caps. There are some catchy beats, but nothing too memorizing. Music changes acordingly to action and some of the best tones in the game are the combat music, which is filled with eastern culture inspired electro notes.
The shooting itself is fine, not really revolutionizing the genre, but not ruining it either. The powers each Warframe (the costume your character resides in) are usually decently made, flashy and useful. Each player can choose the way they want to complete the missions: a stealthy approach might be better in spying mission, a run-and-gun in extermination and assassination while crowd control specializing "mage" archetypes - in infestation and defense. There is a HUGE variety of missions, each forcing the players to adapt to new rules. The variety isn't lacking in Warframes, there are 16 of them, each with four completely different abilities, so pretty much everyone is happy. But the thing that made my jaw drop was the amount of different weapons. There are so many of them it's beyond counting, and not the Borderlands type of "16 gajillion weapons" which differ only by name. Each weapon looks different, plays different and most importantly FEELS different. Whether it's a standart automatic rifle, a gun that shoots sawblades, dual western-style revolvers, an electro-chainsaw-giblet-whip thingy, a set of kunai knifes or A FRIKKIN' OLDSCHOOL BOW(!), WF got you covered. The weapon system is really worth applauding for, and I'm glad the developers took the attention into a feature most games overlook.
Another thing I also want to give praise to the developers for is the randomization factor. Even though you might have to replay a lot of missions several times over it won't get too frustrating solely because the map will be slightly randomized. You might start the mission from the other end, or maybe the assassination target is on a different spot, the map changes slightly each time you play.
The PvE aspect is also pretty well done. You can go into a group filled with strangers, queue up with buddies or go in solo (not recommended, as the enemies are pretty darn tough). A teammate guarding your back isn't just someone who adds in damage or works as a live meatshield, they also can revive you when you fall, incredibly similar to Borderlands system, where, if you've fallen, your teammate can get you up back on your feet. Since all loot is visible to everyone, and taking an item won't make it disappear to your teammates, this game won't ruin your friendships as well! So, what's the bad part, doc?
Oh, it's bad alright.
What made half on my online games unplayable was huge LAG. Now, don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with WF's servers. BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ANY! Yep, the game uses the ridiculous Call of Doody's hosting system, which means that if the game chooses a host who's internet has the speed equivalent of A DEAD SNAIL, the rest of the party is going to lag hard. And the game chooses a wrong host way too many times.
But my biggest problem with this game is the one I briefly mentioned in the begining. The way you aquire items. Warframes and weapons are aquired through grinding. And I don't mean the League of Legend's type of grinding, where you play and play and play to get a champion. It isn't even the Korean free-to-play MMORPG type of grinding, where you have to get 10 wolf pelts and each wolf has a 0,7% chance to drop one. This is grinding in it's finest. Or worst. Probably the worst.
Basically, while playing missions you will find various ingredients. All of them make no sense, but since this is the "future" I will let it slide. Those components are used for a huge variety of items, but most of the time, to craft new Warframes and weapons. So, you have the necessary ingredients for a Warframe, some of which took more than few runs of a mission, you can add some virtual currency and craft away? Nope, you need to buy an expensive blueprint from the store. Well, makes sense, we have the blueprint and the materials, can we get going? No, no we cannot. We must get blueprints for EACH INDIVIDUAL PART. Three extra blueprints. Alright, how do we get them, you might ask? By fighting overpowered (or underpowered, I've yet to see a decently difficult but not impossible) bosses. Okay, so we kill the boss three times (each taking from 15 to 30 minutes) and start crafting? Only if you're extra lucky. Most of the time, you will get DUPLICATE blueprints, meaning more runs. Usually, you're gonna have to beat the boss about six times to get all three unique blueprints. Alright, NOW CAN WE GET OUR HARD-EARNED WARFRAME? Nah, man, you gotta wait 72 hours. Wait, what? How much? SEVENTY TWO HOURS?? THAT'S THREE DAYS!!
Oh and don't get me started on the more difficult blueprints. You have to craft up to six materials, all crafting 12 hours each, so you can craft the item you want. So, you craft ingredients, to add them to other ingredients and buy a blueprint to craft a blueprint to add to some other materials so you can wait seventy f*cking days for an item to craft? What is this, COOKING MAMA WITH NINJAS?!
Continued in the comment section.

In this review, I will try to do things a bit different. Since there are hundreds of reviewers praising and glorifying this game, if you're STILL not convinced by their almost-religious following, I'll give a glimpse of how a below-average player would play this incredible game just up until the first death. I'd do three, but honestly, this game is so epic, I'd just roll over the word limit in my second go.
I start my journey in a well lit mine, with a few pots down below. Careful not to fall down and break my neck, I descend to the pots. I pick one of them up and slam it to the wall with all my might. Spiders hiding in pots, man, gotta be careful. The first pot was empty. The second pot is also slammed, containing an extremely small gold nugget. A hundred bucks, score! Even though a hundred bucks is basically a dollar at a Ford dealership, you gotta start somewhere! I then find an arrow trap right in front of me a tile below. Arrow traps are nasty things - they shoot a bolt at the first thing that moves in front of it. I would be super careful around it, but I see there's a yellow utility box right in front of it! Yay, I can jump in front of the trap and the box will stop the arrow!
I have never been so wrong in my life.
Pierced through my stomach, I roll on the ground, dizzy from the pain and the bloodloss. From 4 hearts to 2 in a second, yipee... Hey, at least the yellow box broke and threw some grapling rope out! Well, you get some, you lose some. Near the trap I find a ladder with a blue sapphire at the top. I hastily climb the brown ladder, snatch the sapphire and see a pushable stone blocking my path. I can either push the rock down the crevice or throw a bomb, eliminating any need to push whatsoever. But hey, what kind of an idiot would waste a perfectly good bomb! I start pushing the block, pushing, pushing until I see a bat just behind the block. There is only a litte shove left to push the block down. I can either finish pushing the block and hope to whip the bat fast enough for me not to get damaged, OR just throw a bomb, destroying both the block and the bat. But bombs are valuable, man. So, I push the block down, only to see my face mutilated by the bat's claws. I immediately whip the bat, abolishing it into tiny blood circles. Speaking of blood, I only have one heart left. Any hit from anything will kill me. Seeing as a yet another pushable stone blocks my path I decide to play it safe and carefully shove it little by little in hopes of not disturbing the local vampire, I mean, bat population. I push the block all the way through and jump down a little hole to see myself surrounded by two least dangerous static enemies in the game. A spider hanging on the ceiling in my left and an arrow trap down below on my right.
Since going right will only throw me in front of an unpassable wall, I decide to go left. The spider hangs on the ceiling and drops down whenever an unlucky spelunker like me passes by. It would kill me instantly, since I have only one life. Obviously, I could try to RUN past the spider, but if I am too sluggish, I drop dead from the spider bite. Yea, better not risk it, better to jump slightly and whip the spider dead. Remember, good spelunkers are always careful. Careful, careful, careful. Careful, as touching the spider would also kill me, I slightly jump in front of it and whip. My whip was an inch too short.
Well, gotta climb a few blocks and try again! I jump up them in haste, trying to get revenge on the arachnid bastard. Time for round 2, spider. I jump up, slightly more now, whip and...
...still too short. Damn, gotta get up again. I start jumping up the blocks two at a time now, I REALLY want to kill the spider this time.
Except that I jumped too high on the last block, fell down the pit to my right, got shot in the head by an arrow trap and was lying down in a pool of blood, dead, with an arrow in my eye.

My incredibly stupid adventure, full of mistakes in my life took me about fourty seconds, but was the most fun I had in a while. I really laughed out loud while playing and writing this review (which I actually did at the same time) for my idiotic mistakes and quickly pressed the "Play again" button.

9/10.
Recommended to buy.

And coming in from the sinfully cheap indie game corner, comes another contestant, which tries to mix the awesome Carmaggedon formula with horrible graphics, annoying throttle sound and physics worthy of a japanese cartoon.
The game looks really great. And by really great I mean someone took FlatOut, smeared lip vaseline all over it and then sprayed twenty boxes of neon graffity on the mess. It is almost painful to look. It doesn't help that the main menu looks like something you would get from a happy meal.
The music is... Well... Give me a second... Erm... Is there any music in this game anyway? Sorry, I won't bother turning it on for the sake of writing a recommendation, but if there IS any music, it is bland, uninspiring and almost annoying - the type of "music" you would make by mashing two metal dumpster lids together while shouting: "Old MacDonald had a farm" out of rythm. The fake sound of engine on full throttle doesn't help that much either - it sounds twice worse than a four year old immitating a F-1 engine sound - and six times as annoying.
The gameplay is so much FUN! Well, it WOULD be, if you wouldn't get bored after three minutes. There are like 8 or something cars, with 4 more if you are willing to shell out cash. (Please don't. Please. Give the DLC money to charity or something, just don't buy the DLC). The cars differ visually, sure, but SLIGHTLY by stats, and really little by abilities - instead of yellow waste, you shoot green booze, omigosh. Although the idea of anything-goes wipeout racing is really great, this game manages to eff it up anyway. There are 4 powerups in the game - your front attack, your back attack, your side attack and nitro. You get those in kind of a Mario Kart principle. And that's it. There is literally 0 depth here. Like, if you look at the game's storepage for four and a half seconds, you MASTERED IT! Congratulations. There won't be any cake. You might think that the if you manage to cross the finish line first, you win. But no. You need to get the most KILLS! Sure. Next time in the Olympics, we will cheer for the sprinter who stabbed the most athletes in the neck. Basically, it all comes down to stupid, no strategy involved carnage. And not the good type of carnage, where you kick a table into a window and break the window, the table AND a poor passerby in slow-motion. This is the type of carnage where you and seven other freaks on a 7 year steroid-only diet have a race to punch a brick wall and the first who breaks his arm completely wins. A free trip to a hospital.

Please, don't even consider this game. It's painful to play (figuratively), it's painful to write about (literally, my arm has been cut and every single word I write is out of the sheer willpower that this game must not reach the hands of fellow citi-gaaaaaaaaaaaah. Sorry. I'm bleeding. I should stop now). The idea was good, but it's burried somewhere in between the lipstick-smeared graphics, ear-bleeding noise, fatally boring gameplay and all the blood that's coming out of my arm.