Mount and Blade is one of my favorite games of all time. It does such a good job bringing Feudal Europe to life, it has a diverse and historically accurate group of different factions with unique combat, and the feeling you get when you go from having a small rag-tag group of mercenaries to having a massive (for the standards of the time) army is unbeatable.

I would say its biggest two problems are how wonky/difficult to understand some of the deeper systems like alliances/relationships are and how it's this awesome sandbox without a clear goal or quest system. A more classic story mode would have been a nice addition or at least a clearer pathway towards getting castles and becoming a bigshot would be nice.

Having said all that, it's fun as ♥♥♥♥ and it has the feel of a strategy game while being surprisingly accessible, so it's great for a smoothbrain like myself

It boggles my mind that this was made in GZDoom. Excellent shooter with tons of content (and it's still in EA!), weapons that feel very punchy, and shockingly good enemy AI. It's also a breath of fresh air to have a shooter that's more military/tactical as opposed to Quake/Doom style. Sometimes I wanna headshot soldiers with an AR, dang.

The difficulty spikes can be frustrating, and enemies often feel very bullet spongy, but you eventually learn to stay mobile and use cover effectively. Excellent shooter overall.

THE GOOD: As many other reviews have pointed out, this game's gunplay is insanely detailed. At first it'll feel like a giant hassle to take out a mag, load it up, chamber a round etc (and if it is, you can just do classic reload) but after you play BC you'll wonder why more games don't do it. It adds a layer of challenge and complexity to it. Guns all feel very satisfying to use, and there's a nice kick to every weapon. Additionally, all the locomotion options you unlock make fights feel very frantic.

THE BAD: Kind of everything else if I'm being honest. There's a decent variety of enemies but the AI felt pretty basic. Some of the enemies have different qualities but 3 or so hours in, encounters feel pretty samey. Environments are insanely barebones, and levels are fairly basic. The soundtrack is all over the place (some levels have generic rock music and others have like elevator music). The developer tried to switch things up by adding different bits like a vehicle section and a level with lots of platforming, but the game's physics does not always play nice.

THE UGLY: The anime girl ♥♥♥♥ is just weird. Like, why are they all anime girls (presumably the lore addresses it, but it's still bizarre)? The gore and whatnot makes it feel kinda edgelordy (I will admit I occasionally pummeled corpses well after they were a bloody pulp, so it's kinda fun) and the story just felt odd. There are some good ideas in there like the holy war themes, but broadly speaking the game's presentation isn't great.

Having said all that, it's $15 and its very barebones indie-ness doesn't take away from its insanely good gunplay. I will most likely finish it and end up on a government watchlist because of the number of scantily clad anime girls that are appearing on my screen.

Very fun game. No bugs and issues, ran like butter on my fairly old i3/1070 PC. Fast, frantic movement, class system that has some variety but doesn't overcomplicate it, and lots of destruction. Get it!

Is it on the shorter side? Absolutely. Could they have fleshed out some of the ideas more. Probably. Is the story incredibly cookie-cutter. Yep. Is it insanely fun? No doubt about it. Very few games with this level of action and adrenaline. For all its little flaws and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, Trepang2 is one-of-a-kind.

I'm almost done with Episode 1 but I feel like I have enough of a handle to write a review.

THE GOOD:
* Fast, fluid movement: Dashing, double jumping, bouncing around - you have a ton of options for locomotion. Very fluid motion and some fun jumping puzzles
* Lots of content: Good amount of levels for Early access
* Decent enemy variety: Mix of squishy enemies and big baddies with some interesting twists

THE MEH:
* Weapons: Some standouts, like the heavy machine gun, but otherwise it's your bog standard Doom weapons list. Additionally, the shotguns lack oomph and they always stiff you on rockets
* Navigating the levels: Maybe it's to encourage exploration, but the levels look kinda samey and it's not always clear where you need to go.

THE BAD:
* The chainsaw leg: I know, I know, it's a chainsaw leg! What's not to love. I like the idea on paper, but it makes combat against the vast majority of squishy/fodder enemies trivial. It has no limitations like a cooldown or a fuel meter or whatever. You see a bunch of squishies and you just dash right through them. For all the talk of fun, I didn't find it all that thrilling. It's not like the glory kills in Doom 2016/eternal or chainsawing an enemy in old-timey Doom. Also it recharges your health so that detracts from the challenge. There's just no risk/reward element to it.

* The wide open spaces: Making the levels massive arenas with totally unrestricted movement means the gameplay loop becomes a simple process of dashing around with a ton of space and whittling down the health of the 2 or 3 big baddies while totally ignoring the squishies, who you can just wipe up later. It never feels like you're trying to keep up with the action and switch between weapons/dodge. If/when a fight gets too hectic you can just leave the arena and get to safety to find some health/recharge

I'm not Mr. Elden Ring bring the pain gamer - hell, I avoided The Old Gods because everyone talked about how hard it was. But if I had to sum up my problem with Turbo Overkill, I'd say it's that it lacks challenge

Even with just 5 really big levels (there are 10 more that have been promised, but it could be a while), there's a lot of content here and it's a really, really good shooter. Out of all the boomer shooters (of which I've played a ton), Wrath is a definite stand-out. It takes a ton of cues from Quake but manages to do its own thing

PROS:
* Amazing enemy variety, with a good mix of flying, ambling, and running enemies
* Brilliant level design with a ton of verticality. Again, just 5 levels but each one is huge and sprawling
* Creative artifact system that mixes up gameplay in a fun way
* Challenging combat. Far too many boomer shooters forget that old-timey shooters used to be ♥♥♥♥-kickingly hard, and Wrath does difficulty well
* Fun platforming - there's a dash move that you can use to traverse the maps, and it's done very well


CONS:
* Overuses some gimmicks; more specifically, it loves spawing enemies *behind* you when you enter a room.
* This is relevant to the fact that it's in Early Access, but there are only 4 weapons as it stands, and only one is really good against some of the tougher enemies.

Having said all that, it's far and away one of my favorite modern boomer shooters

Surprisingly solid shooter. I agree with a lot of the issues that have been mentioned in other reviews (inconsistent difficulty etc) but on the whole very enjoyable arena fights and well designed in terms of combat, level-design, etc. While there are some bits of the humor that are smile-worthy (using a crack pipe for health, for instance), the jokes are pretty stale.

EDIT:
My initial review of Dusk was negative, but I've come around on it. I think it doesn't take a ton of risks as a shooter, but it makes up for it with some really strong level design that emerges as you play on and good gunplay. It's a solid boomer shooter.

So, let's start with the obvious:

PERFORMANCE:
It's not unplayable, but you will have lots of stuttering here and there, especially when doing things like scanning, collecting minerals, using your laser (i.e. most of the game). To add insult to injury, the game looks like it belongs on the PS3. The graphics, even on highest settings, are really mediocre.

There's just so much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mining and crafting. Despite the $60 price tag, NMS is pretty similar to most survival games on Steam. Every little thing you do takes resources.

Wanna fly your ship? Go get plutonium for fuel
Wanna keep your life support active? Go get carbon
Wanna mine more ♥♥♥♥ to do the above? Go recharge your mining gun
There's just so much busy work, and to add insult to injury the crafting interface is actually kinda clunky. This aspect definitely wasn't shown as much in the marketing, as the focus seemed to be more on fun exploration.

As for the controls, the game has terrible flying controls

50% of the movement you do in this game is based on flying. How the hell is it so bad? Mind you, it might be because I'm playing on PC, but I can't even swap in a controller because the PC version has no controller support.

So far, the game is underwhelming and the performance is in need of some serious fixing.