Recent reviews by Joe

If I could give mixed I would but the ups outweigh the downs.

+ Gameplay is quick and challenging
+ Levels are really varied and bring a lot of interesting ideas
+ Looks great and commits hard to the GBA artstyle
+ Sounds great

- Controls variably feel slick or slippery depending on the transformation. Base anton is okay, but speed boosting and setting up a ground bounce are on the same button, which makes controlling him hard in certain situations. Bouncing off walls and getting stunned for a sec feels bad. Most powerups are okay. Jetpack and Pinball anton can go to hell.
- Readability is a mess. Lots of VFX 24/7. What parts of bosses/their attacks are vulnerable and what parts are hitboxes are not well telegraphed at all. Screen being zoomed in enhances the Wario Land effect they're going for but makes it very difficult to anticipate upcoming obstacles. At one point the game deliberately throws up a speech bubble to block an upcoming obstacle at the end of a long gauntlet, which feels cheap. This leads into:
- A lot of rooms are dependant on knowing their layout ahead of time to effectively complete them. This is fine on a replay, but feels frustrating on an initial run.
- Chip penalty for dying feels bad because of the above.
- A lot of long sections that you have to run through to reach a specific actually difficult part of a level/boss. Gets grating after a while.

as much as the above makes it sound like I hated this game, nah I loved it. The good parts are just immediately obvious while the flaws need to be articulated a little. Still well worth your money if you're willing to deal with some grating parts that really feel like old school BS.

every night I dream of a flayed woman in my bathtub

The best modern co-op shooter, bar none.

Core gameplay loop is honed to a knife's edge. Cutting into hordes with a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ chainsaw sword and blowing guys twice your size into a million bloody chunks with a full-auto bolter that kicks like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ feels really, really, REALLY good. Special enemies are well-telegraphed and easy to counter alone, but you're never fighting them alone. So long as you don't screw up and get hit by a disabler, nothing strictly requires someone else to help you out. If you're cracked, there is nothing stopping you from carrying you to victory, and that feels really really good! An incompetent team backing you up is less of an active liability and closer to dead weight - that's important in a co-op shooter where you'll probably be queuing with randoms most of the time.

Also absolutely nails the 40k aesthetic. Missions are varied and take place in all sorts of wacky spots, and all of them look absolutely and utterly miserable. Everything kind of just sucks, like, all the time. As it should in 40k!

Music is fantasic.

Dialogue is really really good - despite having a character creator each class has several personalities with their own VO to choose from, and they all interact more than any premade characters in any co-op shooter I've ever played. Characters react to each other's callouts, have conversations between ♥♥♥♥ hitting the fan, banter with whoever their handler is at the moment, and there are a *lot* of voicelines. Not one play session goes by where I don't hear a conversation I haven't heard before.

Cherry on top, with the most recent update the backwards crafting system got reworked to make 42% more sense and now the game is actually, like, in the state you would expect of a completed product. Literally all it needs now is more content and it's already got plenty.

Incredible for the price. New blood never misses.

Pretty fun!
Does enough to differentiate itself from post void I think.
A tiny bit rough around the edges but I never ran into a bug that wasn't either beneficial or inconsequential so no complaints there.

Incredibly well designed roguelike. Very accessible, I'd recommend this to anyone.

New patch is a colossal step in the right direction.
Support weapons are way more diverse and heavies feel a lot more fun to fight.
So many previously terrible options are viable opening up a lot more replay value.
A lot of pain points in the gameplay loop have been ironed out, opening up a lot more agency in fights and a lot more chances for those "how the ♥♥♥♥ did I get out of there?!?" moments.
I was worried the game wouldn't turn around, but it's looking like helldivers is back on the menu.

genuinely psychotic game but in like a chill way you know

peak just went hd

Far too short to be worth full price, but a good deal when it goes on sale (which it does very often).