Recent reviews by Arti, Rat Goblin

Mine deep. Kill the bugs. Get your job done. Leave no dwarf behind. Rock. And. STONE!!!

FOR KARL!!!!

Do you like 3D platformers? Do you like map design that takes cues from Metroidvanias, encouraging you to find new abilities that let you reach new places in old areas that give you more abilities and upgrades? Do you like N64 aesthetics? Then PLAY THIS GAME. It's worth every penny. It's not as long as the bigger projects, like some of its contemporaries in the indie dev pipeline, but it doesn't NEED to be. It's just long enough to have some good meat on its bones, while not being too long so it's addicting to come back to time and again. If this is the kind of game you enjoy, this is an perfect purchase, and even if you've never really played this kind of game before, it's worth a shot.

If you're a FPS fan, and don't mind playing games that are a bit older, this is hands down one of the best deals in modern gaming. 5 games that are easily some of the most iconic and well-made FPS games of the early 2000s - 2010, with a sixth that, in all honesty, is not as bad as its reputation would lead some to believe, all for $40 with zero in-game microtransactions. The multiplayer is thriving. The games have been getting mod tool support. Steam Workshop Support to make modding exponentially easier.

Yes, this game had a rocky launch. No, it's not okay how many "AAA" games in this day and age launch in poor states. It's also not okay that, a little over 2 years after launch, we're only just now starting to see feature parity with HALO REACH, a game from over 10 years ago, but with a lot of the cosmetics locked behind egregiously expensive microtransactions. That said...

The gameplay of Halo Infinite is fantastic. It's the first game we've gotten since Reach that feels like a sequel to Halo 3 instead of what Reach, no matter how much I love it, did with its controversial introduction of the armor abilities and a form of loadout system. It's got, in my opinion, the most focused weapon & equipment sandbox we've gotten in the 343 games, period, with far less role overlap in the weapons than we saw in Halo 5's "just pick whatever kills the quickest" sandbox where almost every weapon felt the same. There is still some degree of overlap, yes, but that's been a slight sandbox issue in the series as a whole ever since Halo 2, if we're being honest.

In conclusion, Halo Infinite is a fun game with well designed mechanics with some deep flaws in its customization systems and its implementation of microtransactions. If you're like me, and enjoy it in spite of its flaws, you'll have a good time. However, it's also 100% understandable if these flaws are too much for you, and you give it a pass. Either way, the multiplayer is free, so all it costs you to give it a shot is the disk space, the bandwidth to download it, and some time, so I'd recommend giving Halo Infinite a fair shake in 2024 before writing it off completely, especially if you yearn for something a little more classic in its FPS PvP gameplay than, say, Call of Duty, but don't want to go all the way back to the days of Doom, Quake, and Unreal deathmatching, and thus don't want to buy into the modern retro shooter scene.

idk I'm considered a bit of a beginner according to some people, only been playing since March 2022

So, I'm writing this before I finish the game, so I may come back and edit it, but going off of my experience in the finished game so far and in the demo, I already know I can wholeheartedly recommend this game. So if you read nothing else, read that. Want to read a random online person gushing about a game they like? Keep going.

So, this concept has been tried before, in a game called BPM: Bullets Per Minute, which if there are other games that have tried this same concept I will not mention them because these are the only two I have personally played. Just mentioning this now because I'm likely going to make a few comparisons here, so let me lay out the base of what BPM is as well: Think something LIKE this game, a shooter based around doing your actions on the beat of a song to make it into a rhythm game, except BPM, notably, has a few flaws that hurt it that show how strong this game is by comparison by avoiding those pitfalls. I'll focus on 2 main differences that show just how strong this game is in some major aspects that make a rhythm game and a shooter.

The first big difference is that BPM doesn't use vocals in their songs. Now, instrumental rock and metal can sound really good, but when you're making a rhythm game, it needs to STAND OUT. It can't just sound like it's trying to follow in the footsteps of the later Quake and recent Doom soundtracks and expect to stand out from the crowd in terms of shooter soundtracks, and while that genre is rarely seen in rhythm games, the levels they felt simplified down to in BPM just don't live up to what's needed in a soundtrack for a rhythm game. Here, however? Metal: Hellsinger easily has the soundtrack of the YEAR. Full, purpose-written and recorded metals songs, that build as you do well in the game (giving you a sense similar to Devil May Cry's adaptive music system) and max out at giving you the major reward in the music, the vocals, adding another layer of "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ this song is good" as you're playing and getting in the zone. It's wonderful, and the biggest challenge for me was keeping myself from headbanging so I didn't fling my headphones into my monitor while I was playing and getting into the groove.

Second major difference. Since BPM is a roguelike that uses fairly standard procedural generation of its levels via a tile system (making sets of hand designed rooms that are strung together by an algorithm), and doesn't have a lot of room and/or area variety in its environments, the level design can feel cobbled together if the algorithm gives you an odd seed, as well as replays feeling stale. Metal: Hellsinger, on the other hand, is ALL hand-crafted levels from start to finish. Each one feels designed with your available moveset and weapons in mind to allow you to wreak maximum carnage to the beat, while still presenting a challenge and a visual treat. Hell may be an overdone concept, visually, in a lot of games now... But this game still manages to make its interpretation of it look amazing enough that you don't care that Hell's been done a million times. I can't speak to the replay value just yet, but if my many times replaying the demo alone are anything to go by, the difficulty in the combat and rhythm elements mixing together with the level design makes this a treat to replay, always going for a higher score, avoiding just that many more attacks, clawing your way up that leaderboard to show you have MASTERED the art of killing to the beat in a way that is hard to touch.

Give this game a play. And be prepared for it to kick ass.