Recent reviews by okcomputing

11-11 Memories Retold is a game somewhat about the First World War framed through the perspective of two soldiers, one Canadian and the other German. It occasionally places the player in the middle of the war, but for a large part also at its periphery, showing its effect on different places and aspects of society at the time. It goes without saying that it's a complicated subject and one that has been explored thoroughly already through other works of art. Even though I don't recommend it, 11-11 is absolutely fine. It's just that I think it doesn't have much to say or add that you couldn't get better elsewhere.

While 11-11 was at times touching, my overall feeling is that the game is too on-the-nose, naive and derivative for the most part. Its strongest qualities are its voice acting, bold aesthetic and soundtrack. I especially appreciate hearing German and French voices attached to characters of those nationalities rather than it all being dubbed over in English -- even though the German lead does still speak English in his narration.

I am less enthused about most other aspects of the game. The gameplay end of things in particular is weak. It's effectively a third-person walking sim with a few light, more traditionally gamey interactions here and there. Unfortunately, these points of interaction are often awkward and slow. Whereas the narrative itself can evidently branch in various ways based on your choices, the play itself is rigid and lacks means of player expression in the moment-to-moment -- to the degree that you don't even have full control over where you're looking. Most gameplay articulates in pressing a button to do a thing, collecting something or fumbling with a few switches. Aside from this, the collectathon metagame in 11-11 also feels truly excessive. If there was something interesting in there for the player to find, I would have rather seen it incorporated organically in its levels instead of having to scrounge around the environment for multiple parts of a letter or image before being able to view it. I could not bring myself to care about these collectibles beyond the first few areas.

To be fair, I had not expected much from the gameplay going in. Instead, I hoped the story and characters would carry the game. Even here, however, I was left unsatisfied. Its various twists and turns often made little sense, the two lead characters often act bizarrely oblivious and unrealistically incapable of basic communication, and the writing in general is characterized by a heavy handedness that took me out of the experience. When the gameplay is already unexciting, I expected more from the narrative layer. In terms of depicting the darkness of the war, it has a relatively light touch. You're not really confronted with its realities, and there isn't really a sense of your leads living in it. I'm sure others will experience it differently, but that was how it came across to me.

Related to this, the impressionist aesthetic that was chosen also masks and dulls the tragedy in a way. Not everything has to be gritty realism, but there are other art movements from the time that I imagine would've been better suited. I'm not quite sure what the thoughts behind this artistic choice were. It is absolutely pleasant to look at, yes, but it didn't strike me as especially fitting given the dominant art movements of the time or purely as a matter of function. So it feels a little superficial rather than really grounded in the overarching theme of the game.

On the whole, it's fine, but I feel like it falls short as a video game, and as a vehicle through which to understand the First World War, it is not really doing anything remarkable either.

Pixeljunk Eden is an acrobatic platformer with relaxing music by Baiyon to vibe out to, beautiful visuals and a great sense of flow once you get into a rhythm. The basic gameplay involves you maneuvering around a large space with all kinds of platforms scattered about using a floaty, low-g jump and a swinging mechanic. Each level has you defeating enemies to make pollen (?) appear, which allows flowers to grow from surrounding buds and let you reach new areas of the level. The end goal being a token somewhere in said space. It may sound pretty basic but it's really fun in your hands, and the game's audiovisual elements elevate the entire thing. Definitely worth a go for the novelty factor alone, I'd say. And there's plenty to it beyond that as well. Great game.

The game is still super rough in many spots, it doesn't do a good job of explaining its systems and the facade of its arresting visuals falls off quickly to reveal a rudimentary-feeling series of dice rolls rather than a cohesive setting. That all adds up to it being an uphill struggle for me to play. I'd say watch and read a bit more about it to be sure WoH is what you're looking for.

Light, fun and relaxing!

HLD's standout qualities also happen to be the among most overwrought talking points for indie games: its beautiful art and a killer soundtrack. While it can't really be overstated how great both are, the actual play is no slouch either. Once you get a handle on the way the character controls and the timings of their actions, this game eases you into a flow state like few others do. That initial barrier is a little tricky, but the game gives a lot back with its fun combat scenarios, exciting secrets and satisfying progression loop. It evokes a Zelda-like sense of adventure with hints of Dark Souls, whereby combat and exploration are tests of endurance as much as dexterity. Everyone and their mum's played this by now, but I like it and figured I'd write a bit about it anyway! My biggest issue with it is that it doesn't have cloud save support. That sucks. The game itself is good fun though. Easy recommendation.

Gorgeous looking remaster. Nightdive knocked it out of the park.

A promising and enjoyable anti-gravity racer that’s got some design flaws. Going into Pacer, it's best to set your expectations right. If you're looking to play Wipeout, this isn't it. While the game scratches a similar itch, Pacer is its own thing in a variety of ways. It’s well-worth playing. Fans of AG racing will find plenty to enjoy, and it's good fun by and large. Judging it by the standards of a legendary studio like Psygnosis doesn’t make much sense, because that was a highly experienced team that had many opportunities to perfect their formula. Come into Pacer with an open mind and you'll be pleasantly surprised. That said, it has its flaws and I'll be highlighting those. Just keep in mind throughout that, on the balance, it’s still got a lot going for it.

So how does it differ from Wipeout then? Fundamentally, the handling model here is a lot more grounded than what you'd expect of those games. You'll not find yourself bopping around on slopes or catching air very often. In Pacer, you're not free of gravity as much as you're hovering really. More mag-lev than anti-grav, which is why it’s a little reminiscent of F-Zero. That’s pretty much where the similarities to F-Zero end though, because otherwise the way your ship moves is pretty similar to Wipeout. Racing in Pacer is satisfying, snappy, direct and incorporates much of the fidelity of movement that this sub-genre presupposes. You've got analog airbrakes on the triggers, you manage the ship's pitch with the left stick and you've got a manual boost. What’s out are in-air control (mostly), tricks and side dashes.

Audiovisually, Pacer is strong. Its soundtrack is great and incorporates music that both skews contemporary and 90s. Plus, you can control which songs to keep on or off. Great! The game’s also gorgeous and rich in detail. Its environments are vibrant, lively and diverse. I’m less sold on the ship designs, but they’re fine. Overall, Pacer’s visual direction of its 3D art is cohesive and slick. The HUD and UI are remarkably weak by comparison though. Its menus are unintuitive and bland. In the pre-release footage, there was a stronger identity to the menus than what we got, which is essentially series of lists with an aggressive font. Strange. The readability of the HUD isn't too hot either. Its elements are placed too far into the corners for their small size, and their placement comes across as haphazard rather than reasoned. Problematic when you're going at high speed and need a quick status check on the race.

Another area that the game stumbles in is how it communicates upcoming turns. Usually, it's fine, and it's not as prominent of an issue at lower speeds. However, when it isn’t it can range from being unclear to straight up inserting blind turns after the crest of a slope, for example. That makes learning a track more difficult than it has to be, and I didn’t find it fun. It's not a constant issue, but it pops up often enough. As I said, that issue is compounded by the pretty high speed of the game. I got the feeling that Pacer was not quite designed around the highest speed classes. You start out at F3000, which plays fine. F2000 ramps it up and is probably the sweet spot, but even there some of its track design issues begin rearing their head. By F1000, it's so fast that some of the tracks become anti-grav pinball. Then, finally, on the Elite tier the guard rails and your ship become intimate friends. It's too fast even compared to its AG peers. The reason some tracks don’t feel designed for this is because they’re too cramped to be fun to race in high speeds, and Pacer’s issues with turn communication are exacerbated. It's where I started cooling on the game very rapidly. I don't think it's a deal-breaker, but it's unfortunate.

The game’s got fourteen tracks in total and each can be modified to be raced forward or in reverse, regular or mirrored and during the day or at night. Those modifiers can overlap, so it does actually feel like there’s plenty of content there. Despite my issues with the design of some of them, the tracks are mostly fun and generally play well. One issue, however, is that throughout the campaign you'll often find yourself racing the same tracks over and over. But, even though you'll have seen most of the tracks countless times, the game will suddenly introduce all new ones late in the campaign. While it’s nice to get surprise new content, it’s not quite as nice as getting to practice tracks before having to do them at unmanageable speeds. Two tracks that are introduced very late like this also happen to be some of the game's most winding, most narrow tracks. A thoroughly baffling choice.

Overall, the campaign is pretty forgiving and manageable. As far as I’m aware, you’ve got four speed classes, each of which get a promo tournament and three sponsored series, which in turn are made up of seven events. These include standard races as well as sponsor-specific challenges, time trials, elimination events and so forth. Oddly, the “flowmentum” mode only comes up very late. That's a mode where you've got to pass through gates to recover your depleting shields and as you do, the ship will speed up. It’s kind of like Zone then, but not quite. I did the one race that came up in the campaign and left it at that. While the other variety races mix things up, they’re not all hits and skipping them isn’t really an option – more on this later. Another oddity is how the destruction events only award points on eliminations. So, if someone else gets the last hit, the point is theirs. This makes going for golds more frustrating and chance-driven than it needs to be. Scoring based on damage dealt would’ve been much better for consistency’s sake. One final mark against the campaign is its linearity, which also means that if you can't beat an event, that's it. You'll have to bash your head against it to progress. Having multiple events open at any given time and tying campaign progress to points awarded on the basis of bronze, silver and gold completions would’ve made the game more accessible and organically incentivizes improving your performance in events you’ve already completed.

Lastly, one of the things that makes Pacer stand out from other AG racing games is the ability to customize your ship. It's indeed pretty cool -- if the game wouldn't have sabotaged it. First off, cosmetics. Throughout the campaign, you don't get to choose the look of your ship. You don't even get to choose your ship. Both the paint job and ship are a factor of which sponsor's series you're playing. I like time trials plenty, but I'll have played a lot more of the campaign by the time I'm done with Pacer. Second, there was a lot of talk about strategizing your ship's weapon and parts loadout in the pre-release interviews and demos. By the time you've amassed enough currency to make multiple meaningful choices for multiple components, you'll have already gone through the vast majority of the campaign. This strategy layer is completely kneecapped because of how slowly the campaign gives out credits. You'll just pick from the preset loadouts most of the time. This is fine, but it undercuts having that full customization layer.

Now, despite all of these criticisms, I enjoy playing Pacer, and I'm happy I got to. I'll probably stick with F2000 speeds mostly, and even though I have my issues with the higher speed classes, I'll probably go back to mop up the gold awards I've missed. The game looks good, it sounds good, and it plays really well when you're on the less narrow tracks or aren't going absurdly fast. If you enjoy anti-grav racing and have at some point liked Wipeout, you'll probably come away enjoying this. Just set the right expectations. I'd love to see R8 do another one of these, because there's so much potential there. Most of the points that I took issue with are something that a Pacer 2 could address, and I genuinely think that’d be a hell of a game.

Adventure Bit is a throwback game that's surprisingly well put together. At first glance, it may remind you of something like La Mulana, but it plays quite differently in many ways.

For one, La Mulana is an action-adventure whereas Adventure Bit is a level-based action platformer. Another major difference is the feel of the jump in this game. La Mulana's jump action can be characterized as deliberate, frustratingly rigid at times but almost like an instinctual risk-reward analysis each time it's performed, and it deftly encapsulates the entire theme of the game in the feeling and feedback behind a single action -- apologies, I can't help talking up La Mulana whenever the opportunity arises. By contrast, Adventure Bit's jump action is much more reminiscent of a game like Super Mario Bros. It's flexible, fluid and you have a lot of control over both your upward and downward trajectory.

Those two aspects alone make the two games play quite differently. So, suffice it so say that other than thematics and aesthetics, these two games are nothing alike. Having said that, Adventure Bit is quite fun in and of itself. And taking into account its scope and price point, it is pretty impressive even.

Your character is pleasantly responsive, including that aforementioned jump, and even though the gameplay is more reactive than a La Mulana or (traditional) Castlevania, you are strongly encouraged to take a moment and plan a few moves ahead so you can avoid traps and enemies. That Indiana Jones-like spirit is still reflected in the play.

While certainly easing the player into the structure, pace and visual language of the game quite gently, the opening series of levels are a tad unexciting, but thankfully as you go on the stages become more elaborate, devious and each with their own little surprises. I haven't seen the game through entirely yet (it's pretty challenging!), but I can see people looking for a back-to-basics throwback really enjoying this. There may be more surprises yet, and I'll be sure to adjust my review accordingly when I return to the game. This just came out, and I was offered to check it out through the curator program, so I wanted to share some off the cuff impressions sooner rather than later.

At the time of writing, I completed three out of six series of levels (and got a bit into the fourth as well). Seeing as the stages do get more challenging, I imagine it would be around a three-hour game on your initial run. Pretty meaty, all things considered.

I personally also really like the aesthetic and despite having a decidedly retro look to it, the game runs nice and smooth as you'd like. All in all, it seems pretty well-rounded. Straightforward, but, as I said, for the scope and price it'd be a bit much to get hyper critical.

As far as misgivings go, the one issue I noticed was the lack of a quick restart and the inability to skip the opening animation when starting a new level (chain). When you do reach the later stages and the game's challenge ramps up, it becomes a bit of a nuisance to have to scroll to the bottom entry on the main menu where you can reload your last save or, worse yet, having to sit through a slow animation of a plane going from the left to the right side of the screen to restart from the beginning. Ultimately, these are just a few extra seconds and button presses, but I can't say I wasn't irked by it either.

On a more positive note, there's also a two-player co-op mode that seems like it could be pretty fun, and the game supports Steam's remote play together feature, which is great! Haven't had the chance to try it myself, however.

So, in short, it's a fun game that has more going for it than you'd initially think. Solid controls, challenging stages and with plenty of content by the looks of it.

This game delivers the most fun "downtime" in a roguelike yet. I didn't even know I wanted that in a game like this. Whenever a run ends, I look forward to interacting with the characters in your home base and reading new lore snippets. So clever. The writing and voice work are impeccable, as you'd expect from a Supergiant title.

Aside from that, the core of the game is superb. The combat in Hades is so responsive, so satisfying and really crunchy. It feels really good to get better at the game and pull off incredibly flashy moves. The act of controlling your character and pressing buttons in this being so inherently fun is the essence of why Hades is a great roguelike. Yes, the progression curve is cool and good. Yes, there is a lot of variety. Yes, the downtime is extremely well thought out. But if the foundation here had not been so rock solid, all those other elements in which it is also really strong would have over time lost some of their appeal.

I'm really glad a developer decided to make an isometric perspective action roguelike. Surprisingly, this is a niche that had not yet been explored all that much, and Hades sets an high bar for other entries in this sub-genre.

Edit now that it's left early access and I've completed the game: this game is criminally good. Just disgusting how fun it is to play. Ugh. Unbelievable.

The six new tracks are all really cool and look fantastic. As expected, they have lots of little nuances to discover in each of them. A joy to play. The course that stands out most is Kuiper Overturn, and, as advertised, it is mind boggling. Definitely the most unique one in this lineup and the game in general.

The campaign included with this is pretty significant from I've seen so far. They're bringing out all the hits for these new tracks. I'll be interested to see what the total event count is for this. Doing some quick back of the napkin math using completion rates, there should be around 48 events in the new campaign, like Neon Nights. Plenty of content, in other words!

In short, just real good fun at a super affordable price. A must for BallisticNG fans, I'd say.