Recent reviews by KMills

Had an absolutely abysmal time with this, I will commend the developer(s) for having the gall to charge a dollar more for this than Phasmophobia though.

The progression system is extremely tedious, you literally cannot complete the first level because you lack the tools to do so. You have to basically half-complete the level over and over to grind money and experience to unlock mission-critical tools like the camera. This was made doubly frustrating by the insane load times (my group is all running RTX 30 series cards and 16+gb of ram)

The spirit types seemed simultaneously too varied and also extremely samey? Certain clues like handprints or ectoplasm were very easily missable which could lead to you wasting a bunch of time trying to set up your tools for the wrong type of spirit. Even with me and three friends scanning around the house we had about a 25% success rate in guessing the correct spirit.

There are very few positives to this game in its current state. The atmosphere is decently spooky, and we did get a few genuine scares while playing. But the majority of the short time we played was spent reloading the first level over and over guessing ghost types and leaving, in an attempt to unlock stuff so we could actually complete a hunt (which we never did). Hopefully with future improvements I'd like to revisit this and give it a fair try again.

I initially was fairly excited for this game based on the concept alone, and steered clear of footage so as not to spoil myself. I was quite surprised by just how much character and design depth it has! The world is dancing and vibrant yet not too visually noisy to the point where things get lost during combat. Not the most challenging dmc-like I've played but there's definitely a skill curve to where you can really dominate the combat. Because everything is on the beat, you can kind of think and plan while you're going through combos. The platforming was a bit iffy in spots but that's kind of a given for this genre. My only major complaint was a few of the bosses just didn't mesh with the rest of the roster; two of the "main antagonists" who were given very little screentime so you don't get to know or appreciate their characters before you're dumped into their rather gimmicky fights. The meat of this game seems to be squarely in the postgame, and it's such an intimidating pile of specific challenges requiring you to extensively use tons of moves I don't even like that I might not go for 100%. Could definitely benefit from a collectible checklist for level replays. Hoping for some good post release love, I can see artist-partnered DLCs being a huge hit with this game like they are for other straightforward rhythm games.

Super short but super fun take on pinball! Using the flippers to get where I needed felt a bit janky at first but I got used to it over time. The skills are pretty cool although at times it felt like you were expected to go back to previous floors and grind a bunch (I powered through and beat the final boss before unlocking every skill). I hope there are more towers in the future with more bosses and puzzle-type gimmicks. This game has a lot of potential!
My only main gripe was how seemingly easy it was to fall out off the table; not by falling down between the flippers, but by random things launching me into the air where you're basically helpless. There's a reason most pinball games have you stuck down to the table. The final boss was the main place where this happened.

One of the best LEGO games period. As someone who's played with LEGO since I was a kid, I always wished there were more games about the building itself. Not to say the TT platformer games aren't fun, but it's refreshing to finally have a game centered around building. The puzzle design is fantastic, and the worlds you build in look gorgeous! The only thing I would change is making this game longer! I would absolutely shell out for a DLC.

One of the few times I've ever given a game a 10/10. Seeing this finally come out after an 8 year wait was beyond worth it, the game just keeps on giving and never stops escalating the insane parody. Razor sharp wit, ingenious buildup for nonstop subversion. It's a game that everyone needs to experience.

Was very excited to play this based on gameplay videos. I've got a long history with shmups, and they're some of my favorite games. I've beaten some serious hardcore games before and was ready for a fun challenge. Unfortunately, all I got was a ruined evening full of disappointment.
This game starts very strong but each level brings less enjoyment and more annoyance than the last. While the controls are very solid, many patterns are simply unpredictable inconsistent random garbage. It feels like you're expected to 1CC the whole game and always have full power. If you die before the boss, you might as well reset the stage. If you die on the boss, your chances of winning pretty much go out the window. Midbosses have a ridiculous amount of health, and several of them are positioned right before the boss with no checkpoint. Those levels might as well have two bosses.
The highway level is painful to look at, the flickering background making it difficult to see what I was doing and just generally wearing on my eyes as I threw myself at it over and over again. Every run through was a different annoying pattern to learn because some enemies explode into projectiles on death, and killing them at different times would produce entirely different patterns.
Many bosses summon tons of unnecessary adds that do nothing but flood the screen with extra patterns that have little to no cohesiveness with the boss's pattern. This forces you to evade, and if you don't have extra power you can't use homing shots so you're not dealing damage if you're not right below the boss. Because you have to be evading these extra patterns, boss fights are prolonged way farther than they need to be. It's just padding.
I really wanted to like this game, and I gave it as many chances as I could before I was ready to send my controller across my house. The great pixel art and fantastic soundtrack could not make up for the abominable pacing and enemy groupings. As of the time I'm writing this review I give the game about a 5/10. It has promise and potential, and I believe it is definitely salvageable if the developers update it.

While I am tentatively recommending this game, I would seriously urge the reader to just buy Dead Rising 2: Off The Record. This game isn't bad, it's just nowhere near as good as OTR.
Dead Rising 2 has aged acceptably, and still delivers a lot of satisfying zombie-shredding action. The gameplay holds up and I had plenty of fun revisiting Fortune City 10 years later. The game's weakest aspect is definitely its story, mostly at the fault of the cardboard protagonist. Chuck is simply bland and uninteresting, with his entire character boiling down to a neanderthalic formula of "must find zombrex for daughter". Also (this is just my opinion) I don't think the special moves he gets are anywhere near as cool or as useful as Frank West's.
Despite this, Chuck doesn't manage to drag the game or story down. The psychopaths are just as wacky as the first game, each with their own unique brand of insanity. The combo weapons help keep the zombie corpses piling up without it becoming monotonous.
The co-op is also still a blast, while it does sort of break a lot of the boss fights (enemies have a hard time focusing on 2 players). It's always a laugh seeing your ridiculously dressed Chuck act out the cutscenes with a friend.
My only real warning against prospective players is for anyone considering 100%ing, which demands some rather dull activities (clearing out two poker games, grinding for money, etc) but this is obviously completely optional and isn't even that bad for hardcore completionists.
Overall, I give Dead Rising 2 a 7/10. Still fun to play, but there's not much reason to play it when you can just play Off The Record.

UPDATE: Having since completed the game (as far as early access goes), I have decided to change my review to a positive recommendation. Pushing past the aforementioned problem missions, the game does a complete 180 and gets way way better. It's a bit frustrating to be taken on such a design rollercoaster, but at least it ends on a very high note. Missions get way more fun and interesting, if a bit oddly paced (some missions taking 10-20 minutes, others taking 40-60+). I sincerely hope that the future updates for the game continue bringing fresh enjoyable ideas like the ones seen in later missions. Glad I came back to give this another shot.

OLD REVIEW:
This is a game that tries to be too many things instead of sticking to what it's built around. Let me start off by saying I love the first handful of missions, and I think that the destruction system and engine are fantastic. When this game is being a destruction puzzle game, it does an amazing job and delivers some of the most fun gameplay I've experienced in months.
Unfortunately, it's also plagued with missions that drag the game down. The developer was not satisfied with making a groundbreaking physics destruction game, they wanted to also make a racing game and a heist game at the same time. There are so many annoying missions where you're driving all over the place racing the clock to collect objectives, with little destruction involved. These missions pack all of the destruction into the pre-timer "setup" where you're spending half an hour or more positioning cars and clearing walls away to optimize your path through the level. There have been multiple occasions where the solutions I found felt like glitches or exploits.
Three of these missions in a row was enough for me to finally say "I'm done." I'm not having fun anymore with Teardown. Every mission is just a painful annoyance that I'm aching to be finished with. I've given up trying to 100% this game because it's not a game that respects your time. The levels are designed too obtusely, the driving controls are slippery, and the destruction system is wasted on missions where it is more or less forgotten.
At this point I'm at least excited for the workshop support, because hopefully there are players like me who will try to make levels that actually utilize the game's strong suits instead of doubling down on the weak aspects. I'm seeing a lot of reviews that reflect these concerns and I hope something changes before this leaves early access.

Paradise Killer is the beautiful baby of a walking simulator and visual novel, swaddled in lofi aesthetics and fantastic character design.This was by far one of the best written and most compelling mystery stories I've ever played. The bizarre world draws you in with its intriguing lore and makes you feel at home with its amazing soundtrack.I was kept guessing up until the very end, and had a blast collecting every little morsel of evidence and testimony while exploring the island.I implore anyone who is a fan of mystery games, story games, or just strange artistic games to pick this up.

Went into this game with moderately high expectations and left absolutely disappointed. I'm baffled that it was published in its current state.
Cons:
Experienced a load of AI bugs, some bosses just standing still not even attacking.
Difficulty is wildly unbalanced, enemies had seemingly random health despite looking exactly the same as one another.
Bizarre pacing, overall extremely short game for $40
Skill tree layout was poorly designed. Having to buy the double jump and better dodge, being forced to buy a fist combo to access sword combos.
Spotty voice acting, some lines were acted and others were not. Certain dialogue had random clips from the show playing over completely different sentences in the subtitles.
Sloppy unenjoyable combat. Felt more janky and underdeveloped than most PS1 and PS2 games I have played.
Relatively boring soundtrack

Pros:
Good artstyle, character animations and environment design

This game is simply not worth $40. In its current state I give it a very generous 5/10. Sad to see such a cool concept go to waste.