tl;dr: will rewrite soon but I heavily recommend. Please spread the word about it, the devs deserve it.

I am going to edit this review later to further elaborate on it but this is a game that is made with a lot of love and dedication and it needs as many eyes on it as possible, so I am posting this now to try to help get the word around.

Cyber Knights: Flashpoint is a game that I wanted for a long time. I played shadowrun on mega-drive/genesis (yes I am old) and after playing xcom reboot I really wanted both combined, I finally got it and its glorious. Not only the gameplay is on point but the support the attention the developers give is phenomenal, I been playing their old game Star Trader: Frontier and the rate of patches they do to both is astounding, even after all this years the game still get some small additions and I am sure this one will too.

Thumbs up from me!

Tl;dr: super fun grindy co-op game, heavily recommended to play with friends.

Advisory notice: Any Deep Rock Galactic review that does not contain the words “Rock and Stone” and/or “For Karl!” are automatically null and void. Immediately ignore them for being the work of leaf-lovers.

I heard about this game on its steam debut but only decided to risk the early access title one year later in march of 2019, when it had more content and refinement. My initial impression was quite underwhelming due to the way the enemy waves initially either barely showed up or would have too many. That quickly went away a few matches later and with friends, the game became fun and so interesting. And now that it is finally released I got to say this is one of my favorite co-op games ever, and I played a lot of them.

So… what is this all about? You and up to 3 friends (and don't worry if you are solo, you have a trusty companion that can help you) explore huge underground system beneath eight hundred meters (for americans: 2625 feet or about three fiddy) or more for the glory of Deep Rock Galactic corporation, your honest and compassionate benefactor who will spare no expense to outfit you with the best weapons, armors and machines in existence and do their utmost to help you in your quest and keep you safe except the total opposite of what I just said.

You will do main and secondary objectives such as collect alien eggs (for omelette maybe?), escort a drill dozer for it to work on a hard to mine crystal, build and protect a refinery, salvage old mining equipment, hunt down some annoying space fleas or collect some fossils. All while digging and mining plenty to find new passages and materials to upgrade your gear, and trust me, you will need a lot of them.

Most of the cave structures are usually straightforward with a few notable and very annoying exceptions, navigating through them is usually fun, and they have plenty of details depending on the biome such as radioactive crystals or lava spitting formations. To brave the depths you have four characters to pick from: The driller who excels in digging tunnels and almost no path will be an issue, the gunner who shines at fighting and can use a rope to help him and his allies to navigate around, the engineer who can set up turrets and make platforms to help everyone reach hard to get places and the scout who ignores everything I just said and simply slingshot himself around like the selfish clown that he is just kidding I don't hate scouts they are pretty good

The game offers plenty of enemies who will amass in hordes to zerg-rush towards you and try to ruin your da- LOOK THEY ARE BUGS THAT WHAT THEY DO, OK? But each of the miners are their own battle fortress who pack enough punch to dispatch them with righteous glorious fury, and after the carnage you call for resupply and say “never felt better!” to go at it again. Never, ever…. Ever dare to mess with an underpaid dwarf.

After completing a level your work is hardly done, new and more difficult missions show up yielding plenty of rewards from gun modifications to nifty cosmetics such as more beards, hats, pickaxes appearances and victory animations for you to collect. The game is quite grindy, especially if you plan on playing with all four characters to level them up. But honestly that didn't bother me at all.

All in all this is simply a fun game and you won't regret buying it, and never forget: If you don't rock and stone you ain’t coming home.

ROCK…. AND STONE! TO THE BONE! FOR KAAAAAAAAAAARRLLLL!

tl;dr: While it's an enriching tale I am glad to have experienced, only play this if you have plenty of patience, else it might be better to just watch a let's play instead.

I am very torn about recommending this game. While frankly it feels like a glorified walking simulator padded with repetitive puzzles to extend the duration and generic combat that was added just to justify it being called a game, it's an experience that I never felt before and it's beautiful and emotive.

This game tackles the rarely talked about subject of mental illness and psychosis in a way that hasn't been portrayed in most media, bringing it to the spotlight and being the core of the game mechanics. You get to see and experience the demons and twists in reality that are in Senua’s head in a unique and fascinating way, be it constant patterns she must find to progress, portals that alter the world so a previous blocked path is now free to traverse or broken shards of pathways that she can focus on and restore with her mind. The world is absolutely stunning and twisted and ranges from ruined villages and castles to the underworld with pools of blood filled with corpses or hands stretching out of walls to grab you.

Senua often struggles with multiple voices who either help or hinder her in her journey, whispering insight and advice or demeaning and inspiring doubt. It's a delight to have them with you across the entire game, and the frequency and amount rises and lowers as the plot progresses.

I rather not talk about the story since I feel it’s best experienced blindly, but it's very well told in the confines of her perception and changes as she changes due to it, the ending initially seemed wanting but as I reflected more on it I understood why it was told this way.

The combat is passable and revolves around basic and heavy attack, guard break, dodge and block/parry. While serviceable it feels somewhat basic and doesn't add much to the game. I became tired of it around midway, and while the game features three bosses only one felt interesting. Since there's no directional indicators you rely on the voices to know when an enemy will strike you from behind which I found to be a very nice touch.

Exploring the world starts great and turns into a chore eventually, the locations are amazing and while there is some variation in a few puzzles, many revolve of the same mechanics and I wish were trimmed a bit to make the pacing more amenable. A few also overstayed its welcome like having to run in a labyrinth. While going forward in your quest you can find lorestones, collectibles that tell more of the story of the world and Norse mythology, they are really enjoyable to listen to but since I don't have patience for object finding I just watched the few I missed on youtube.

Overall Hellblade is a better tale than a game, and you need to weigh if the pros outweigh the cons, it definitely did for me.