December 14, 2023 - Day 348 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 368

Game: From Space

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Nov 4, 2022
Installation Date: Dec 14, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 16m

From Space is a post-apocalyptic (alien invasion!) isometric action twin-stick shooter; it's the eighth game in the December Humble Choice bundle.

The game opens with a short exposition to set the game world, then gives you the option to pick a "specialist" from an extensive range of options.

The characters look like Fortnite avatars run though a chibi filter, but they work well enough with the games stylised graphics.

You load into a training area, then you're off on your first mission. You start with a weapon slot (plus melee weapon via right-click), with more slots unlocking as you progress.

There's also a cache for your weapons at each destination location.

The game (at least as far as I played) seems to be set entirely at night, and makes excellent use of lighting and sound effects.

It's a perfectly serviceable twin-stick shooter. Whether it will draw me back, I don't know.

From Space is:

3: OK

September 14, 2023 - Day 257 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 278

Game: Patch Quest

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Mar 3, 2023
Library Date: Sep 14, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 24m

Patch Quest is a top-down 2D twin stick roguelike-metroidvania-monster catching bullet-hell mashup.

This is the fifth game in this month's Humble Choice bundle.

With cutesy cartoonish graphics, you run around a "patchwork land" armed with a lasso and a gun-that-is-not-a-gun-but-really-it-is-a-gun, to capture monsters and ride them while you shoot others with the not-gun that makes them "fall asleep" and disappear.

Unlike last night's game, it's not that I'm too tired too understand it, it's just that it just all feels kind of bland.

There's a basic story to try and provide a reason to want to care about this odd maze full of monsters and give me a reason to catch or not-kill them, but I was kind of glad when I was done.

Patch Quest is just kind of:

2: Meh

July 10, 2023 - Day 191 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 211

Game: Neon Abyss

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Jul 15, 2020
Library Date: Jan 28, 2022
Unplayed: 528d (1y5m12d)
Playtime: 19m

Neon Abyss is a bright pixel-art-based twin-stick roguelite platformer. This is another (technically) unplayed game. I actually took a couple of shots at it in 2022, totalling less than ten minutes of playtime (less than 15m = unplayed).

I figured that with my improved controller skills, it might make more sense, and I was correct.

To describe it as "bright" is kind of an understatement. It really does lean into the titular "neon". The lighting effects are wonderful, and the EDM soundtrack really fits the feel of the game.

Rooms are procedurally generated, so you're not getting the same experience twice, which is interesting.

However, the controls feel a little bit counter-intuitive, as using the right stick for shooting means that a non-thumb button needs to be assigned to jumping, which is the left trigger on the controller.

While the buttons can be remapped (yay!), there's no sensible button to map it to. I keep instinctively going for the A button when I'm not shooting. I think I'll get used to it, though.

The more games I play, the more I find myself comparing a given game to others that are similar, which is becoming increasingly complicated, but also helps clarify which games really stick out to me.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps, and Grime, both stick out as comparisons, but also that make me feel like jumping back into one of them.

What it comes down to seems like "Is this a game that feels different enough to draw me back again?" I think that maybe the answer is "yes".

Neon Abyss is a brightly lit:

3: OK

June 17, 2023 - Day 168 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 186

Game: Weird West: Definitive Edition

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Apr 1, 2022
Library Date: Jun 5, 2023
Unplayed: 12d (12d)
Playtime: 1h45m

Oops.

Weird West is a top-down twin-stick immersive sim set in an alternative wild west full of monsters bad juju.

The whole point of this endeavour was to reduce the number of unplayed games in my pile of shame, not add to the pile, and yet here we are with Weird West.

I assume part of it is my ADHD, and the "ooh, shiny" dopamine hit when something grabs my interest. A couple of weeks ago I saw the demo for Weird West and grabbed it. I also (and I have no recollection of doing so) wishlisted it.

Running on 2.5 hours sleep this morning, and I get an email saying "Weird West is on special!"

Fired up the demo, bought the game. Between Weird West, and Evil West, I guess the old west crossed with the supernatural is a thing now.

The cross between top-down and immersive sim makes for some interesting gameplay, however there were times when I felt like I wanted to zoom right in to a third-person perspective when in fights, but the fixed camera position made it a little bit frustrating.

Given that if you ask me to choose between western and sci-fi, I'm going to choose sci-fi, I was a little surprised at the way Weird West hooked me.

Weird West is:

4: Good

June 16, 2023 - Day 167 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 185

Game: Bleed 2

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Feb 19, 2017
Library Date: Feb 2, 2019
Unplayed: 1595d (4y4m14d)
Playtime: 19m

Bleed 2 is a 2D twin-stick sideways scrolling pixel-art arcade shoot-em-up.

It feels very much like a 80's arcade game, both sonically and visually.

Lots of frantic button mashing, which would be great if I could mash the right buttons in the right order, but as I can't, I spent a lot of time dying.

The most frustrating thing is that every platformer / sideways scroller I've played uses the A button on the controller to jump, while Bleed 2 uses the right trigger, and uses A to taunt.

As the right thumbstick is used for shooting, it makes sense, but I found myself taunting instead of jumping far too many times (and then, of course, dying).

It's not that Bleed 2 isn't a good game, it's just that I'm not good at it.

Bleed 2 is just:

2: Meh

Apr 21, 2023 - Day 111 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 121

Game: NeuroVoider

Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Sep 1, 2016
Library Date: Jan 30, 2019
Unplayed: 1542d (4y2m22d)
Playtime: 27m

NeuroVoider is a top-down roguelite twin-stick shooter RPG... with pixel art.

I don't have a lot to say about this game, so allow me to digress; I don't get why so many indie games are done in pixel art. I'm not saying they can't be done well, I don't understand why so many people choose them.

Maybe it's selection bias on my part; a lot of my games came in Humble Bundles, and maybe someone at Humble has a huge amount of nostalgia for pixel art games.

There's the occasional one that transcends the style, but for the most part, the game has to be that much better for me to be able to get past the pixel art.

Anyway, NeuroVoider was off to a rough start for me being a pixel art game, but twin stick shooters are a huge ask.

You play a brain in a robot body, that has to shoot other robots.

I don't quite understand why, but in spite of being able to do a huge number of different things with one hand on my beloved G13, and the other targeting with a mouse, when I need to move with the left stick and aim with the right, I become incompetent.

If you're a fan of this kind of game, it might be more your thing, but I can't see myself going back to it.

NeuroVoider, sadly, was:

2: Meh

Jan 23, 2023 - Day 23 - NewPlay Bonus Review
Total NewPlays: 30

Game: Mr. Shifty
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Apr 14, 2017
Library Date: Jan 8, 2018
Unplayed: 1841 days (5y15d)
Playtime: 26m

Mr. Shifty is a game that, had it not come in a bundle, I definitely would not have bought it; were I not working my way through this little project, I'd probably have never played it.

Going in dark, based on the name, I didn't really want to play it, and then it turned out to be a controller-based, top-down, (theoretically) twin-stick "shooter", action game.

That would have been my loss.

The right stick is rarely used, and the titular character cannot (as yet?) shoot.

What he can do is teleport, and punch things, and so I found myself navigating a level working out how best to teleport to a point that I can punch the enemies, without them one-shotting me.

Initially frustrating, at the 5 minute mark, I was "15 minutes will never end", but as I started to get the hang of it, it turns out to be wildly entertaining, even if there is some frantic button mashing involved.

At the 26 minute mark, I logged out with level 2 completed.

While deaths are frequent, each level has mini-stages, so you're returned to the start of that mini-stage, to try and teleport and punch your way through; sometimes the best strategy is letting the environment take care of the enemies.

Turns out, Mr. Shifty is kinda:

4: Good

Jan 16, 2023 - Day 16 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 22

Game: Nex Machina

Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Jun 20, 2017
Library Date: Dec 3, 2017
Unplayed: 1870 days (5y1m13d)
Playtime: 23m

Nex Machina nearly got three different ratings. You'll have to wait until the end for this one.

It's a top-down twin-stick bullet-hell shooter; it's gorgeously rendered. Shoot a mob and it explodes in a shower of voxels in a deeply satisfying way. The lighting of the jungle-ish alien planet I'm fighting my way through is glorious.

The first 7 minutes were spent with hands on G13 & mouse, and I could not get past level 4. I was ready to throw my mouse at the wall, and quit. It's right there in the paragraph above: 'twin-stick shooter'. "Maybe I should at least give it a try with a controller".

With a controller I now kept dying on level 3. I'm ready to throw the controller at the wall, and there's no cable to restrain it.

All of the gorgeous lighting & explosions of mobs made it almost impossible for me to follow the action. Mobs would spawn right on top of me.

Then a weapon power-up drops. Suddenly my triple-shot is making me effective, and now I realise that it's not that the game sucks; it's just difficult, but rewarding.

If you're a fan of bullet-hell or twin-sticks, this might be your game.

First Nope, then Meh; now my Nex Machina rating is:

4: Good