Recent reviews by ugly_robot

Fantastically delicious roguelike - every second-to-second detail draws you in further. Pure arcade bliss, a wonderful follow up to the original game, perhaps the only successful example of such a paradigm shift. Adding a whole a new dimension, and doing it perfectly. Fun DLC too - well done team

The best writing I've laid eyes upon, hands down. I frequently screenshot dialogue, and saved it on my computer for no reason at all - no reason other than I was overwhelmingly compelled to possess and remember when this game spoke to me.
I will hear the echos in my mind until the day I die, probs.
So a thumbs up from this guy.

Long time souls fan - had an absolute blast. Easy to pick up, a little 'lighter' feeling than their souls games (not just in movement - the more chip, splash, and granular damage means you will be playing less for perfect dodges and crits, and more for keeping the pressure and avoiding big hits)

Gritty and enigmatic lore and bombastic fights against a lonely, melancholic, brutal backdrop. A lovely and thoroughly enjoyable twist that keeps to the soul (heh) of their other entries.

A lovingly handcrafted game kindly gifted to me from an insider - I finally get to check that 'for free' checkbox!

But I will pay full price to gift this to a friend! Because this game oozes with individual attention, deft design decisions, and a beautiful lively world.

As a child of half-life, I have a high bar for tutorials, game-loops, writing, and worldbuilding - and PD flies over every hurdle. The narrative is well written and humble - it never seeks to bastardize its science or magic by overexplaining, and it continually respects the players time and attention. It layers like a warm blanket over the entire experience, drawing you deeper into the world - no QTEs or cutscenes.

The driving absolutely shines through the whole experience - you are constantly throwing the wheel to avoid last minute danger, plowing through vegetation as it pings of your grill, and navigating the ever-evolving puzzle that is 'the zone'. Fans of Stalker will find this game's anomalies a refreshing upgrade, and I find swerving through them to be a much more harmonious game loop than just shooting badyguys™.

Where this game really sings is the systems layered over the core loop. For example, there's a tamagachi-like sensibility is woven into a 'quirks' diagnostic that will have you kicking the car to turn on your lights, or slamming the boot to get the radio back on. I imagine there is 10,000 different permutations of these 'quirks' - and they really do draw you into a familiarity with the car. I couldn't help but fall in love with the hatchback - same as I did with my ratty 1st car in highschool, pounding on the dash to open the glovebox,
With every clunk of doors, every paint-scheme and decal, and every heart-racing top-speed exit - you will tighten your bond.
And that is just one of several additive systems that truly give this game its unique flavor, and satisfying crunch.

That is the true story of this game - it doesn't ask you to love it (with hamstrung writing), it doesn't force you to play it (with fomo passes and online events). It builds the type of relationship that is most pleasing into the fabric of the game itself. You are never fighting the inventory, never frustratingly lost, never brain-dead following a minimap, never 'waiting for the game to get good'. Because at each and every crossroads in the development, Ironwood thought carefully about the type of experience they were trying to craft, and they took the right path.

A masterpiece of good game design. Every other indie take note.

So buy this game, crack a craft brew, let the gothic-folk radio guide you into the dark. When the lovecraftian world reaches out to grip you - put the petal to the friken metal.

Now that we are past the peek server issues - this game is an easy recommend. Playing it with friends is an absolute blast - and its not just brainless bombast, it is quite well designed.

There is a physical, tactile nature to much of the play - calling down individual weapons and artillery (and the light UI) give the game a diegetic satisfaction that is somewhat rare. The different emergent play-styles that come from bots vs bugs was a welcome shock. One mission: you are sneaking up a clifftop, careful to avoid the red-eyed metal overlords, calling out shots and holding your breath so you and the special-ops squad can carefully detonate stockpiles without drawing too much ire. The next mission, you are screaming, blasting off semi-auto buckshot, and diving beneath your squad-mates flamethrower, as a hoard of crisping termanids threaten to run you over. A gunship passes low overhead, drops its lethal payload, and lights up the sky.

It also manages to be a pointed and successful satire of this kind of Americana fascism - while not sacrificing the epicness of the setting. You get to have your cake and eat it - snark at the dystopia of firearms and colonialism, and be a total bad-ass on the battlefield.

Its got the battlepass thing, but its fine, and I was able to get everything I wanted without paying real money. Not just cosmetics though, there are guns behind premium-currency paywalls, but luckily meta-hounding isn't as important in co-op, and you can find most loadout-styles in the free stuff. But it should be noted as a con.

Overall, a total lark, highly recommended.

A true classic, a juggernaut of the years.
Still balanced, still (pretty) simple and casual, still great fun.

Although I do not bear great trust with the company - with the long-lasting high prices and increasingly expensive DLCs - I cannot doubt that this is the best RTS experience I've tried. A wide range of viable tactics, storied and beautiful units, and

I second everyone's opinion that Mortal Empires is best if you can pick up TW1 on sale (although Vortex is perfectly fine) - and will include that, for me, after a few playthings - I added the 'double upkeep cost'. Battles become far scrappier and desperate - 6 low-level units out-maneuvering eachother, for much of the mid-game. Without it, you will quickly have max-size armied with the best units, and only fight opponents with the same. Fun, but every battle become a grand escapade on equal footing. With 2x upkeep, there are far more 'hopeless hillside holdouts' that grant the greatest satisfaction.

Mostly, the game is great, and at 600 hours I still feel like a novice. However, in that time seige battles have become a slog, and the over-world random-event choices are largely uninteresting - but when I close my eyes, I see eager units in rank and file, watching blessed trebuchet bolders blot out the sky.

A lovely game - it plays exactly as you hope it does. Relaxing but engaging, measured but with enough depth to chew on, I greatly enjoyed my 50 hours with it.

A charming, delightful, and surprisingly deep game - both in mechanics, and writing.

I expected a short, silly adventure - but fell in love with the varied gameplay, inspired design, drool-inducing graphics, and bombastic fights. As a lover of souls-games, I was not anticipating I would be impressed or so fully engaged by simple controls and silly physics - but there is a shocking amount of creativity and skill required to push your way through the game's disparate challenges. Learning the intricacies of the 'elemental' weapons actually felt intriguing and useful - not just a silly gimmick or graphical flourish.

As for the theme-ing, never have I seen such a delicate and well executed balance between cynical satire, and sincere comedy. The eye-rolling lambast of modern work is cutting, but never becomes grating or depressing, and characters that appear as flat-jokes will later reveal nuance and charm. The game is (thankfully) light on cutscenes and dialogue, so every line feels well placed and intentional.

A masterful work - far more fun than I expected, lasting far longer than I would have thought, and worth far more than what they are charging. Easy reccomend!

A lovely blend of satisfying firefights, chess-like maneuvering, and mind-games galore. The developers have kept the game fresh and honed - and though no game is perfect, it feels truly loved. I really don't play multiplayer games much, but I've put 500hrs in - totally a worthy game.