Recent reviews by Terak

A very fun puzzle game with charming presentation and a mischievous premise. The new concepts and mechanics are introduced gradually. The difficulty curve is very smooth, and I didn't have to use a guide once. Some puzzles could take some time and experimentation to figure out, but overall I'd say the difficulty is almost perfectly balanced. The optional bonus levels are harder, but they're also the most fun and satisfying to solve. The game also has a good sense of humor, with a few joke levels thrown into the mix. The fairies are cute, and the toads are indeed pokable. The perfect Steam review score is completely justified.

An unorthodox City Builder game with elements of roguelite and 4X. On paper this might not look like a functional formula if you know how city builders usually work, but in reality this blend proves to be almost perfect the way Eremite Games realized it. Usually in city builder games I stick with one town and rarely start a new one, as the town grows bigger, the bigger your attachment becomes. In Against the Storm, however, the cities you build are essentially staging posts and supply links to reach the bigger goal before the Storm resets the cycle. This means you don't get attached to the settlements as much. You are also incentivized to build them efficiently and fast, and on higher difficulties you need both careful strategical planning as well as making the most out of the hand you've been dealt. Like in Roguelites, there are global upgrades that carry over across all "runs," and they do make subsequent runs easier, but the game never gets too easy, and there are enough difficulty levels if you want a challenge. However, I personally found prestige difficulty just straight up not fun. The game also features an interesting world and lore behind it. Oh, and remember the maps from Warcraft 2 and 3 where resources are gated behind the forest walls? Yeah, there will be a lot of that. The soundtrack is incredible.

The developers over the years have provided many major feature updates completely free of charge. There are also paid DLCs that add new races, but they're completely optional and not critical to experiencing this game.

Overall, Against the Storm is one of those games where the "Overwhelmingly positive" Steam rating is completely and fully justified. A true labor of love.

If you love Amid Evil, you wouldn't be reading this. You already played the original campaign and Black Labyrinth multiple times.

Not gonna lie, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Far from perfect, but it's more Amid Evil, which is always welcomed. New weapons rock, especially in Soul Mode. It's a shame there are only two. But you can use them in the main game after finishing the DLC. Some of the new levels aesthetically are okay (like Dread Swamp), and most are great (Dark Coast, The Chamber, the Fortress), but they all have great level design and are fun to go through. New enemies are decent. F the shield guys, though. At some point I got tired of their s**t and just started switching to gauntlets and pummeling them while circling around them whenever they appeared. New boss fights are a big improvement over the original game IMO, quite mechanically memorable and visually spectacular. The music and sound design didn't disappoint. Many secrets hidden across levels, including a secret boss

If you want more Amid Evil, don't hesitate. You won't be disappointed.

A very solid and fun fast-paced old-school shooter in the cosmic myth setting. You are the Champion, traversing 7 cosmic realms with a goal of saving them from evil. The game has incredible visuals and aesthetics. Despite being fast-paced, I often slowed down to appreciate amazing and varied environments of this game. Each realm has it own unique aesthetic and atmosphere making them memorable. All accomplished on Unreal Engine 4 with low-poly aesthetics. This game is also one of the best showcases of good Ray Tracing implementations that does not tank performance. But even without ray tracing, the game's lighting is absolutely beautiful. After finishing the first 2 realms, the rest could be tackled in any desirable order until you unlock the final one. Some of the levels are sprawling and lopped, while other are expansive and big, but all are very meticulously designed, with many secret areas to discover. As the game is set in an unorthodox setting, the weapons match it: instead of pistol you get the Azure staff; instead of shotgun you have a Saber shooting energy slashes; instead of grenade launcher you have a claw that shoots planets at your enemies and so on. You can also enter the Soul mode after collecting enough enemy souls, giving your weapons new powered-up features for a brief time. The said weapons are rendered as beautiful normal-map sprites instead of 3D models. Each episode has their own set of enemies and culminate with a bossfight. Unfortunately some boss fights could be a bit dull for the most part and probably the weakest part of the game (one of the big improvements in the DLC IMO). The soundtrack is great, composed by Andrew Hulshult and is unlike many of his previous works, this guy has a range! My personal favorites are Time Vacuum and Aetheres. The sound design does not lag behind, the audio cues for enemies are clean and crisp, you can easily identify when the enemy is dead just by the sound alone and move to the next target. The Champion jumps with a familiar yet distinct "umph", and chuckles sinisterly after acquiring a weapon. Brilliant!

Amid Evil takes many inspirations from games like Hexen, Heretic and Quake 1-3, but it does not stay a mere imitator. Instead, it brings many sensible improvements to the formula and successfully forges its own identity, through memorable locations, level design, unique weapons and enemies, music, and becomes Champion of Evil and one of my favorite boomer shooters.

This my favorite SHMUP. There are many SHMUPs, but this one is for me.

Blue Revolver has a beautiful visual presentation with bright art style and detailed yet clean sprite work, great soundtrack (both original and DA remix). Three playable ships with different styles of shots and additionally multiple special weapons for each ship, enabling multiple play styles. Unlocks like screen filters and palettes, ship recolors, alternative music tracks. Many customization options.

But what really sold me on this game and got me hooked for dozens of hours is the scoring system. Basically, with regular shots you build a multiplier up, and then you can use special shots to "cash out" so to speak, making enemies killed by special weapons drop "coins" amount of which is dependent on your multiplier, and greatly increase your score. And certain special weapons may force you to adjust your playstyle to "cash out" and maximize your score. However you have a limited supply of special weapon ammo. And ammo sometimes drops from enemies, and also bomb kills always reward you special ammo. Certain score milestones give you tangible bonuses, for example reaching 5,000,000 gives you an extra life, which will certainly help you until you master the game enough to 1CC it (I'm still working on it). It's a very engaging scoring system that motivates you to be strategic, git gud and eventually compete for high scores. And a lot of challenge missions also utilize this scoring system with great success.

In addition to that, mini bosses and bosses have a Break mechanic, which basically gives you huge score bonuses for destroying certain parts of bosses in sequence or under certain conditions, (like for example, destroying small turrets before the main one).

All this makes Blue Revolver Double Action's scoring very engaging and extremely satisfying to pull off.

There are many little things you could discover constantly replaying the game. Like for example sometimes you might want to sacrifice extra life on purpose, because respawning will refresh your bombs, and bomb kills drop ammo for your special weapons. But for that, you need to get extra lives by scoring high. You see where this is going?

All in all, it's a great SHMUP. As someone who was never big into nor good at them, this one finally clicked and made me understand the genre in general. And also became my favorite SHMUP.

Brigador is a fantastic game for mecha fans, combat vehicle enthusiasts, and real-time tactical action enjoyers. While the appearances could be deceiving, and at first this game could be mistaken for a twin-stick shooter, don't be fooled. The early levels of the campaign could be a breeze, but later on the game demands careful ammo management, smart positioning, and quick tactical decision-making. The final levels of the campaign will test you on everything you learned from the early levels. Don't think you're done once you finish the campaign, however. The real meat of the game is in the freelance missions, where you get to choose your vehicle, be it mecha, tank or anti-grav, outfit it with your weapons of choice, choose your pilot, adjust your difficulty and test your skills or just chill and contemplate the beautiful destruction you cause to the banana republic planet of Solo Nobre. Oh, how I love the smell of laser-struck loyalists in the morning, accompanied by an incredible synth & electronic soundtrack.

Big selection of vehicles, weapons, adjustible difficulty, variety of play styles, great mecha/vehicle combat with amazing graphics and fantastic soundtrack and massive repolayability. What else could you ask for?

>SWORD saint Isshin
>pulls out a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ gun and shoots you point blank
10/10 Miyazaki is a genius would buy again

Just try it

Randy Pitchford‏
@DuvalMagic

"I was just told about a reckless story about Battleborn going F2P that is false. There are no plans to convert Battleborn free to play."

6:02 AM - 30 Sep 2016

-----------------

Good Job, Randy!

Lets be honest, we all bought this game for TF2 items