Recent reviews by HowDoUAim

That describes Spelunky in a nutshell. It's a platformer with randomly generated levels. It is brutal and unforgiving at times, but the controls are spot-on, and the gameplay ensures that 99.9% of the time you will blame yourself for your deaths. I would go as far as to say I love this game. I've owned it much longer on Xbox 360, so don't let my 4 hours on Steam fool you.

Pros: Graphics? They're good for the genre, but who plays 2D platformers for graphics? The controls are solid, as previously mentioned. The difficulty goes from tough to, "How am I still alive?" over a series of regions. Each region also has its own unique ecosystem of monsters, traps, and other fun things. This gives enough variation that you will have to reconsider how to proceed with the best chance of survival once the environment changes. To make the trip a little quicker, you can unlock checkpoints along multiple runs, skipping entire regions. The downside to skipping is less money and items, which are key to surviving later levels, so it's a gamble really. Last but not least, replayability: this game kept me tapping the quick replay and saying, "Just one more run."

Cons: I only have two complaints about this game. First, there is no online co-op mode. So unless you have a real friend who is willing to play this masochistic game with you (I did on Xbox, but he liked trying to kill me more often than not, so over half our runs devolved into deathmatches), you're out of luck on any multiplayer co-op, which is really fun. Also local co-op means only one person can control the camera, which makes it tougher in a way. Second, the progress you make in multiplayer co-op mode doesn't matter. Unlocking new areas and being able to revisit them is only possible if unlocked in singleplayer mode. This makes it more challenging to complete the game, but makes multiplayer feel mostly pointless.

Sure there would be a lot of trolls, but I would still love the ability to play co-op with people online in a sequel, if there ever is one.

TL;DR I would never pay full price, but for what I paid ($10 Humble Bundle for almost every Sonic game) I feel it was a fun and frustrating few hours spent. But this recommendation barely gets a thumbs up even at that price, which I will explain below.

First and foremost, the options and settings are a joke. The resolutions don't go above 1600x1200, and you have to manually change an option just to use a controller, otherwise it simply won't work. There is no way to remap what few buttons you need to play the game, which still would have been nice. In addition to that, this feels more like a remastered version of the first Sonic game, rather than it's own standalone sequel.

There are a few improvements however. They have included the targetting system which is a nice addition over the Genesis counterparts. I personally felt the graphics were quite nice as well. Also as in the original, the Casino levels are by far my favorite levels in almost any side-scroller.

However, this game gave me a frustration that I haven't felt since I was a child playing SNES/Genesis games. Sonic is nearly invincible as long as you keep a few rings handy. As in almost every Sonic game, they counter this by adding many one-hit kill traps and pitfalls that feel really cheap when you first come across them. In addition to this, you have to be completely still to do a dash, otherwise you'll jump like an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ all over the place. Also, the final version of Eggman took me about 20 lives in trial-and-error before I was able to take him down. But overall it was satisfying to play and beat, and it felt frustrating just like the old-school games. However the Chaos Emerald levels are more luck than skill, and I won't be bothering to complete them.

All in all, it's worth a few bucks, but at full price, I'd stay away.

This game is fun as your typical lane-based strategy game. It does nothing wrong in the gameplay department, the characters remind me of the artwork from Final Fantasy Tactics, and the leveling/promotion mechanics make it fun to grind your newly earned units, and watch them become more powerful.

So why am I giving it a thumbs down?

Because despite this game being enjoyable for the most part, there is one glaring flaw for anyone who wants to enjoy some fair, competitive PvP: the PvP. This game is either cross-platform with the mobile version, or there are some people dropping insane amounts of cash. I started the day this game released on Steam, and have played it quite a bit. Yet in PvP I lose most of my fights to people with lots of 6-star (the best I've seen so far) units that are also twice the level of my units.

Logically, the most likely situation is that I'm playing against a bunch of mobile players who have been invested much longer than I have been (this game released in Nov 2014 on mobile). I suppose it's also possible that people are paying to upgrade quicker, but either way it makes the game less fun for those of us who don't want to dump lots of cash to catch up or keep up with those players.

Also, the servers aren't that populated. In a PvP season that just started today, I have a record of 0 wins, 2 losses, and I am still somehow ranked 62 with 0 points. To put this in perspective, the top 100 people to rank automatically win rewards. I have finished a prior season, which typically lasts 3 days, with less than 10 points and still took 150-ish overall (and I believe a win is worth 2 points).

Overall, the game is fun as a singleplayer/PvE game. But the PvP is often lopsided, and no amount of strategy will make a difference in the outcome of the battle. Seeing as PvP is the game's major draw, I have to consider this fairly heavily against the PvE elements of the game, which are mostly for wasting your energy and making you grind for units and items to level and promote them. The PvE is there only to complement the PvP, but the PvP is just a well-designed paywall.

Awesome game. Cross-platform is basically a lie though. Sure you can queue up against opponents from Xbox Live (XBL) or Playstation Network (PSN). But can you party up with any friends you have on those platforms? Nope. So now my brother plays on XBL, I play on Steam, and all we can do is watch each other's games and think, "Why is there even cross-platform if we can't play together?"

It's Harvest Moon meets Rune Factory: farming, mining, fishing, fighting, leveling, skills/more leveling, marriage, kids, crafting, building, tons of upgrades and things to collect and do. You can support a town's local economy, or a giant corporation attempting to take over. Also, while it isn't available yet, I trust that the developer will fulfill his promise and implement up to 4-player co-op, which will be amazing.

If you enjoyed Harvest Moon, Rune Factory, or even Animal Crossing, buy this game immediately. Another contender for 2016 GOTY has arrived.

As someone who has never played Disgaea until now, I have to say this game is pretty awesome. It's heavy on the grinding, but it's so over-the-top with the skill animations that fighting is still fun. I'm about 8 hours in, and despite the cap for levels being 9999, I'm at level 10 with the main character, Laharl. I was half expecting to level fairly rapidly at first, but surprisingly this hasn't happened.

The grind is further welcome by the deep systems in place in this game. There's a political system that I haven't dealt with yet, but once you make stronger characters there is voting involved. Also, there are a lot of classes and monster types to add to your party, and the cost for specific monsters is reduced as you kill more of them. You level up your items and equipment by visiting a place called Item World, which are randomly generated battlegrounds that you progress through in order to make your equipment stronger, your potions heal and buff more, etc. Even the shops upgrade as you buy/sell, and the hospital as you pay for healing.

Lots of depth and play-time. If you enjoy turn-based strategy games in the vein of Final Fantasy Tactics (and who doesn't?) you should play this game. Or replay this game, if you didn't wait 12-ish years like I did.

This game is a love letter to the point-and-click adventure games that made Sierra a household name for us older people. Even the title of the game, Heroine's Quest, is a reference to Hero's Quest (later renamed Quest for Glory due to copyright issues with the board game HeroQuest), which is clearly the game's biggest influence. If you were a fan of Quest For Glory, King's Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest, or even Leisure Suit Larry, you owe it to yourself to install this game immediately. If not, it's free, and I still recommend it for anyone who enjoys adventure games.

Awaiting the long-time-coming update. As is it, there's not a whole lot to this game yet. I still enjoyed myself for 7 hours despite the bare-bones content currently: I ran around exploring areas and a bunch of randomly built towns, helped and watched a town grow, then finally tried my hand at building my own town. Building your own town is currently a bit buggy. I was unable to complete quests to build housing for my townspeople, so they'd always just sit around and do nothing. The game itself is also a little buggy. If towns are not built instantly upon generation of the world, including your own, gaining population is a slow, if not impossible task. Also people tend to sleep underneath the floor of their home.

However with some time, and implementation of key features such as town battles, town politics, and improvements to city building, I think this game will entertain me for many more hours. It seems to be aiming at a singleplayer experience that simulates a survival MMO-like Rust environment, mixed with roleplay elements to give it a slight Mount&Blade feel. This game has a long ways to go, but if it gets there, it will be worth the wait.

For the sake of sanity in this review, I will be covering the Classic gametype played in the game, since it's the most popular. Keep in mind there are other gametypes that add additional roles and chaos to the town of Salem.

This game starts with up to 15 players picking names, then receiving roles at random that dictate their objective to win within the game. There are many roles and 4 alignments/teams - Town, Mafia, Neutral, and Serial Killer. The Town is the initial majority of players, whose objective is to find out bad guys (mafia and SK) through investigation, interrogation, and any other means possible. The Mafia is a team of 3 who will try to kill and frame people at night until all town/SK is dead. The Serial Killer (SK) is a one-man team who only wins when all town/mafia are dead. Neutral roles add chaos to the mixture, because you have a Jester who is trying to deceive people into hanging him (if a Jester hangs, he wins and gets to kill one of his guilty voters that night). You also have someone as Executioner, whose goal is to try and get his target (who is always a townie) hung.

Town of Salem is appropriately named, because there will be many accusations thrown around in attempts to get people killed. And you rarely know if the accusations are legitimate until you start hanging a few people, since people's roles are revealed when they die. Thus, Town of Salem lives up to it's name. This game is quite in-depth and I could go into great detail about each role, who is immune at night, strategies that are common for each role, etc. But instead, I suggest if this game appeals to you, visit the Wiki and learn the classic roles. It will make lying as a bad guy much easier at times, and give you a better understanding of potential liars/motivations within the game.

There are only a few drawbacks to this game I can think of. First, because it is free-to-play, you occasionally get the trolls that intentionally throw games, or just act like idiots even if they are town (idiots are normally Jesters being way too obvious, but not always). Also, the Mafioso just takes orders from the Godfather, and risks getting caught by investigative roles. It's a horrible role, unless the Godfather gets killed somehow, then you can kill whoever you want. Also, the Jester is a boring role. The best way to get yourself hung is to just afk and hope the town notices and hangs you. It's the only role where the best way to play it is to not play at all.

Overall, a great game with lots of fun to be had. You can play it with friends too, but I find that the best way to play with friends is to randomly pick a name and not tell each other your names/roles until after the game is over. If you know your friend's role, it's actually cheating. Plus enough people collude with their friends already, and help them even if they're not on the same team. Don't be one of those guys, please.