Recent reviews by Namkcor

Mercenary Kings is a game I greatly enjoyed, but it unfortunately overstayed its welcome.

In regards to negative reviews, it seems to be a result of people expecting something different than what it delivers. I can understand that- It's a very creative game that is trying to do it's own thing by mixing a bunch of genres/games together into a new thing. To simply break it down:

- The art style of Scott Pilgrim vs the World
- The the animation style of Metal Slug
- The controls of Mega Man
- The reloading style from Gears of War
- The Hub/Mission/Crafting structure of Monster Hunter

Out of this you get a decent game. I was able to play with a friend, and we had a blast. You build your own gun, equip character perks, and jump into a mission in an large open 2D environment. You have a set amount of time to complete your mission task: Rescue, Kill, Capture, or Collect. Combat feels perfectly retro- it's a bit stiff but very familiar for precision platformer players.There are quick text cutscenes that play after most missions to provide fun and lighthearted plot development.

There are two major issues this game has that may turn away some players. One is that many enemies, including bosses, are recolored and reused throughout the game multiple times. For example, you might have a boss that's in a tank. Well that tank is reskinned for a frost, fire, and electric tank with no changes to boss behavior at all. It gets repetitive to a shocking degree- making it very obvious they ran out of development money or time. Instead of making the game short and sweet with the content they had, it is instead milked as much as possible.

The second issue is that bosses are bullet sponges, and it's really easy to exploit stun locking using stun grenades. You can cheese many bosses and will often do so towards the end of the game, because it's so hard to dodge their attacks.

I think the game has a great concept, but in practice it really doesn't work well.

When you are starting out with the slower cars, it's a lot of fun. But as you get into the really fast cars, the camera doesn't account for this. You will be staring at your map and memorizing turns more than actually reacting to what your driving towards because you can't see what's ahead. It removes a satisfying element of driving. The game also requires you to do Rally to get enough Stars (points) to be able to complete all the circuits in the other types (Endurance, Weekend, GP). I don't like Rally and did not want to play something I wasn't interested in to get achievement/completion for the things I was. If I wanted to Rally I would play a Rally game.

It's a mixed bag. I found the game a lot of fun with friends, but it's only got about 2 hours worth of content. You do runs which net you coins and loot. You get hats, mods, and colors which provide different stats- and you get different guns. There is an issue where it's hard to tell where you are because there are way too many VFX on screen at one time. Overall worth a buy if you can get it for $10 or less.

Unfortunately I can't recommend a game that periodically crashes during missions, which don't have checkpoints you can return to.

Also doesn't seem to track achievements properly.

This is a really good bit-sized metroidvania. A bit on the easy side- seems targeted towards more casual gamers or kids- but is a decent adventure nonetheless. I think the asking price is insanity for what you get- this is a $3 game at best. It doesn't really have a plot except "chase and kill big bad". it has a pretty small map and not a lot of unique rooms. One thing to note is that it doesn't support ultrawide- gonna have to go into display settings, change to a 16:9 resolution, then launch the game. Annoying but not a big deal. If you don't the game will be zoomed in and cut stuff off.

This game is... phenomenal! Seriously, what a great indie game. It's like playing the old school Metal Gear games but with tons of modern QOL improvements and no tedious backtracking. It's also funny! This is a must play if you like stealth games, Metal Gear, or military action stories.

These games feel like they were good only because "that's all we had in the late 80's / early 90's". These games flat out don't hold up and are not good. I'll give you some comparisons:

Mega Man 2: Roughly 12 levels with unique music and environments, 8 unlockable weapons, boss weaknesses, personality, healthbar.
Metroid: Non-linear large world, unlockable pathways and hidden upgrades, healthbar, unique and memorable boss.
Contra: 5-6 levels, spamming repeat enemies, recycled weapons, forgettable bosses, and ugly sprite work.

I really can't see the appeal of this franchise. Even for it's time it was a pretty bad game. It has all the disadvantages of an arcade game with much less polish. Do yourself a favor and get Metal Slug, the greatest arcade Shmup ever- or give indie devs some money because there are plenty of games who take this game loop but inject modern design sensibilities.

It has an insane amount of input lag. If I tap the punch button, my thumb is in the air when the punch begins.

Unfortunately, Wild Dogs is not a good game due to antiquated design decisions, the same 4-5 repeated enemies, and a limited color palette. You are given multiple lives and multiple "Continues" per level, which splits into multiple sections.

The issue I have here is that it's balanced in a weird way- I can cheese bosses with multiple lives, but then I'm punished if I retry a level I struggle with too many time. It's 2024, I don't want to redo entire levels because one part was challenging. It would be much better to provide 0 or 1 extra lives but unlimited continues- so the player is forced to learn the game and overcome challenges without being punished for it.

The second issue is the color palette. For this type of game and the high resolution, it becomes incredibly hard to follow what is happening on screen. I am constantly taking damage from enemies or bullets I didn't notice because they blend into the background.

Overall, if you can get it for $1 or $2 it might be worth it, but I wouldn't pay more than that. In terms of quality though, I think this developer has talent. I look forward to seeing what future games they make.

It's really good. It's not too long, the combat is engaging and will routinely change up objectives during combat to change up how you handle battles. I'm not a huge turn-based combat fan as eventually every battle becomes a routine pattern, but this game kept things interesting. I'm also a fan of South Park humor so I enjoyed the story.