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A must-have DLC for the best Terminator game.

Terminator: Resistance was a surprise gem, honoring the Terminator franchise the same way Alien: Isolation faithfully recreated the atmosphere of the original Alien movie, all the while offering a solid entry in the world of solo shooters. If you enjoyed the “future nightmare” sequences of the T1 and T2 movies, then Terminator: Resistance is the perfect video game recreation of that particular experience. It alternated between sequences of scavenging/exploration/tension and sequences of run and gun explosive action while telling a compelling story true to the lore and developing a great cast of characters. You loved it and you want more; is the DLC Annihilation Line worth risking your life again?

Annihilation Line is a side-story that takes place in between two missions of the Terminator: Resistance campaign. Right after the fight against the Infiltrator, John Connor sends a team of four to investigate an outpost that has gone silent. This team is constituted of Rivers (the player), Ferro, a woman who just lost most of her squadmates, Evans, a mysterious man that is rumored to have fought a Terminator with his bare hands, and finally, Kyle Reese, better known as the protagonist of the first Terminator movie. This is the occasion to see him in action during the fight against SkyNet, and to learn more about him and his relationships with others in the future. Once again, Teyon went above and beyond in their respect to the lore, and this DLC can once more be seen as a great complement to the movies, expanding them gracefully while telling a story that is self-contained and satisfying.

Unlike the initial game, there are fewer daylight scenes, almost everything takes place during the night. The fights are more challenging, and the set pieces are more spectacular. You can count from 5 to 7 hours to see it through to completion, which is a sizeable campaign and more than worth its price of admission. The next two paragraphs describe what you can find in this campaign, you can read them if you want to know more before purchase, or you can skip them if you want to be kept in the dark.

The first scene is the one that I liked the less. Well, story-wise it is pretty good, retelling one of Jacob Rivers’ childhood memories at school. Except that he was born after Judgment Day, so this is a devastated school crawling with T-600 models. I did not like playing it, because it is forced infiltration (Jacob is not a soldier yet!), and in the original game I always opted for a more frontal course of action. Still, it manages to remind you to fear the Terminators even after you got used to tearing them to pieces easily when you completed the original campaign with advanced weapons.

The next set piece is a small mall, and don’t try to scavenge while Kyle Reese is urging you to open a door: there will be breathing room after the assault. The next mission is a more classical map featuring an HK graveyard and then a human graveyard, offering lots of tight combat situations as you can get flanked or ambushed on several occasions. This is one of the best, if not the best out of all the Terminator: Resistance levels. Next, there is an excellent run and gun chase that supplants in intensity the first one from the original campaign. After that, there will be the first mission with a new atmosphere and sky: a burning apocalyptic wasteland, with large fights inside SkyNet outposts. The next mission is an impressive break-in inside a SkyNet factory, interesting also for the lore. The final mission starts with small sequences, before culminating in a scene directly referencing the movie and then a boss fight.

At first, I felt a disconnect when catching the campaign in the middle of Jacob Rivers’ story and being handed out skill points while losing my powerful equipment from the main campaign. The first missions felt somewhat rough, not as streamlined as my previous experience with Terminator: Resistance. However, once I got into the groove of it, I loved how it smoothly complemented the movies, how it added new locations, how it upped the challenge, and how the run and gun sequences were the most spectacular to date.

If you enjoyed Terminator: Resistance, then this Annihilation Line DLC is a must-have. Teyon offers more of everything that made the base game so amazing for Terminator lovers. We are now eagerly waiting to see what the developers will do with RoboCop: Rogue City.

Gear up for more epic destruction.


Previous titles in the MechWarrior franchise used to start with a campaign, followed later by a “Mercenaries” expansion. Is MechWarrior 5 doing things in reverse, releasing a story campaign after the Mercenaries content? Well, yes and no. I will explain what exactly is the Legend of the Kestrel Lancers DLC, how to access it, and whether or not it is worth getting.


Legend of the Kestrel Lancers adds three new biomes: jungle (plus swamps), some sort of canyon spires, and huge megacities for epic urban warfare among skyscrapers. There are also new quest missions that pop up on the Starmap, and most importantly, a new campaign. But that campaign is not a separate entity from the mercenaries outfit. It behaves more like an enhanced quest that you can choose to take for many missions in a row. There are two ways to access it: one is to keep playing your initial Campaign until you come across the missions, or the second way is to do a Kestrel Lancers (or earlier) start in Career mode. The Career mode can give you a starting outfit with a few BattleMechs and pilots, but then you will be vastly underpowered when the Kestrel Lancers campaign is in full swing. A proper alternative is to do a Kestrel Lancer start while importing your outfit from an advanced point in your Campaign if you already have plenty of heavy hitters ready to roll.


The original Campaign starts in 3015. You receive the call for the Kestrel Lancers campaign in 3026, which is the Kestrel Lancer starting point in Career mode. Spending 11 in-game years on grinding the repetitive procedural missions can seem a daunting prospect if you only wanted to play the Kestrel Lancers campaign (that’s roughly 50-80h of play until you reach that point). Annoyingly, in 3026 you only get two missions, an appetizer, and then you have to wait again 2 years for 3028 to unveil the actual Kestrel Lancers campaign as a contract for Davion. So, if you were hoping for an independent linear campaign that you can launch at any time, you are out of luck. Still, the advantage is that this campaign can be part of your own story, with your ‘Mechs and your pilots, and the spoils of war contribute to your war chest.


MechWarrior 5 begins as a meatgrinder. More than a late-game campaign, it needed a better early-game campaign to receive more pilots and ‘Mechs before setting off for the stars. I have a love-hate relationship with this game. I am frequently annoyed by all the hurdles in my way. Travel across the systems is incredibly expensive, refitting and repairing ‘Mechs takes an eternity, the reputation system makes it hard to get a lot of salvage shares (especially the quests for new stakeholders), the bases to destroy can take ages to raze, the artillery barrages are a pain (even worse when they are not available as targets), the tonnage limit is an artificial number to prevent the player from coming down too hard on some missions (why not instead push for runner missions in Light ‘Mechs or something?), etc. But it’s also a very appreciable simulation, fully customizable with mods (Nexus mods or the Steam workshop) to touch up the balance, the HUD, and more, molding it into the perfect MechWarrior of your dreams. And when MW5 delivers its brutal combat among those gigantic tanks as tall and graceful as buildings, wow does the game shine, and I love it. Kestrel Lancers goes above and beyond what MW5: Mercenaries proposes. It is peak MechWarrior.


The new Kestrel Lancers quests in the Starmap are already quite fun, with some missions in valleys, ravines, and canyons: many linear and intricate locations; a nice change of pace from the procedural desert plains. But then the Kestrel Lancers campaign itself offers a variety of hand-crafted levels with wholly original battles! There is an assault inside a factory, with the local equivalent of jump-scares leading to close-quarter combat in destructible environments! There are ambushes in the jungle! The inside of a derelict spaceship to defend! Hit and run missions across megacities! Fortresses to assault! There are additional AI allies to increase the sheer scale of the battles, and the missions provide a lot of recorded lines and chatter between the characters to reinforce the immersion and the sensation that you are taking part in exciting operations. There are complete story arcs to follow, from planetary invasions to being grounded and trapped in hostile territory with no communications to the outside. Many war crimes will be committed. It took me roughly 5 hours to complete the campaign, and those were my best hours by far in MechWarrior 5, and probably in any MechWarrior.


The perk of the campaign is that it is focused on the battles, without the need to manually jump from one star system to the next. However, please be aware that there is very little time to perform repairs in-between missions. There are between 15 to 30 days of downtime, so it is still possible to keep in shape through a rotation of the ‘Mechs in-between the mission. But try to avoid receiving too much damage. At first, I thought that I would hate this system (I avoid and loathe the “several missions in a row” contracts in the Starmap), but there is just enough time to perform the repairs, so there are high stakes, while still having enough leeway not to turn this into frustration.

The Kestrel Lancers campaign is not an independent campaign, it is instead a late-game apotheosis. Because of that, if you are not on board with MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries’ grindy foundation, the Kestrel Lancers won’t be enough to convince you to jump in. However, if you enjoyed the base game and an even better experience appeals to you, then this expansion is an epic blast worth its hefty price.

Agony, but fun to play.


Agony’s big-breasted demons exerted quite an influence on horror lovers, but the disappointment was even higher than the anticipation. Madmind Studio salvaged its game with an Unrated version that added a Succubus mode. This additional mode has now been fleshed out into an entire new game.


After the grandiose music theme, Succubus immediately marks a difference with its predecessor: this is not a walking simulator nor a game of hide and seek in a maze, this is an arena brawler! There is no overcomplicated story told through written notes, but rather a refreshingly simple plot: our succubus got her wings ripped out, so she is out for revenge. Besides that current quest, all that drives her are her thirst for ♥♥♥ and violence. And both will be provided during the course of the game.


Immediately after the first level, the player gets introduced to Vydija’s lair. Here, you will be able to customize her appearance and decorate her rooms. There, she will also find the opportunity to rest in her bed, take a bath, or sit on her throne, legs spread wide open… There are different armor/clothes for you to find, but you can always deactivate them to display Vydija in her natural glory. Provided that you activated the relevant free DLC, the game is completely uncensored.


Each level is a series of arena fights, with boss fights and some mild exploration sprinkled on top. To 100% the game you will have to complete some additional side-quests, such as finding and killing all the demon babies, finishing the level under a certain time, or taking less than 1,000 points of damage. I only experienced rage and frustration once: one of the later levels, in which you have to throw exploding eggs onto imps’ nests. The enemies and imps keep getting in the way and the eggs explode before they reach their destination, and this level is full of gooey poison that spreads over your screen and prevents visibility. This one level was a nightmare, but overall, they were rather well balanced and well crafted. And I kept stopping in my tracks to take screenshots of the architecture of flesh and bones.


Succubus has no ugly area like the forests and mazes from the first game. Instead, we have a messy but gorgeously twisted vision of Hell. As there is no button for jumping, navigating the levels is fairly straightforward. When larger gaps need to be crossed, the game switches to a third-person view for short climbing sequences. Buttons and destructible areas necessary for progression are highlighted, and there is a button to mark the objective on the screen. Unlike in Agony, you won’t get lost. Although the game’s primary focus is on combat, the layout is interesting to explore and I always enjoyed throwing myself into a Succubus level, whereas I used to rage quit a lot in Agony.


Time spent in Succubus is mostly time spent in combat. Sadly, this is going to be hit and miss depending on the player. There are all sorts of melee weapons to unlock, and also some powers/spells assigned to the different armors. Most spells are useless, clunky to use, with strange hit detection or lackluster damage. There is no block button. The enemies also don’t really telegraph their attacks. You are just hacking and slashing through crowds of enemies rushing at you, with absolutely no subtlety. The only concession is a stagger system: execute a highlighted enemy to recover a small portion of health. Combat is rather brainless, so anyone looking forward to something more technical will be disappointed. However, this is also why I enjoyed playing the game: simple, continuous, effective massacre. Brain on OFF, ultraviolence on ON. Succubus is super brutal. Sword finishers will cut enemies in half. Staffs will break bones. Enemies fly off everywhere, preferably on spikes. The levels are filled with all sorts of traps. Lava, tentacles, spikes, iron maidens, butcher hooks, and so on. You can kick almost all enemy types into them for instant death, along with exaggerated ragdoll physics. This is a blast to play. A caveat: at higher difficulties, enemies get more health and react in a less satisfying manner to your attacks. Therefore, I suggest that Story Mode is the best way to enjoy this particular game.


Apart from executing fighters to regain health, you can also stomp on demon babies, or torture innocent victims. These scenes are quite gruesome, such as stroking a guy’s ♥♥♥♥ before ripping it off or borrowing a pregnant woman’s fetus before giving it back right from where you pulled it. This game is unabashedly immoral, which is refreshing as we are currently in the middle of an era of extreme political correctness.


Furthermore, Madmind Studio fully embraced the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ appeal of its game. I already mentioned that you can hide Vydija’s “clothes”, then you can have a peek at her during fanservice scenes in her lair or here and there in the levels. There are actual ♥♥♥♥ scenes involving the Succubus and various men or demons, with genitals fully visible. Completing the game triggers an orgy in Vydija’s lair, where you can find all the arousing and twisted sights that you witnessed before, and experience them again at will. There is even a Selfie mode (press Escape during the game) to provide more fanservice.


The art direction is striking and worth playing just to gaze upon the twisted landscapes and creatures of Hell. While the post-processing effects looked less cinematic than in Agony Unrated, the game runs much smoother, and the new character models look great; a lot of progress has been made since the initial Agony. The game runs well with high settings on my ageing machine, but it is not perfect, there are technical issues here and there, mostly collision issues. The initial key binding is slightly confusing and takes a while to get used to (here is my variation: SPACE to display objectives, SHIFT to dash, E to pull/execute, F to push/kick). The wording of the side-quests is sometimes misleading.


To 100% the game with all side-quests, it took me 20 hours. Without any side-quests, rushing through the end should take between 6-10 hours. Since the levels are focused on combat, they are highly replayable, with even a leaderboard to motivate you. Each run gives you a currency to purchase new armor and weapons. As soon as a weapon is available, you can purchase different version that deal increasingly higher damage. I was glad that I could directly purchase the best version of each weapon, but then I wonder what was the point of modelling a dozen skins for intermediate weapons that no one will ever pick. This flawed progression system, added to the lack of a block move, show that while Madmind Studio is getting better at making games, the studio still needs to hone its skills and improve on game design to keep up with its excellent artistic output.

If you adhere to Agony and Succubus’ peculiar vision of Hell, then this time Madmind Studio has released an actually enjoyable game that completely delivers in the fanservice department: combat is brutal and immensely satisfying with powerful weapons that launch enemies into traps, and the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ component of the game is available at your leisure. If you are into horror, the whole game is sick eye-candy. Completely decadent, perverse and gratuitous. But if the visuals and themes are not your cup of (hot lava) tea, then there is little for you to find in Succubus.

When washing your clothes turns into your worst nightmare.

First-person horror games are booming on PC, and my favorite subgenre is the “PS1-era” aesthetic, with low-poly models and chunky pixels. Not only are the graphics creepy and surreal in and of themselves, but they are an excellent support for our imagination to fill in the gaps. While my favorite representative of this subgenre is MOTHER, most people are more familiar with Paratopic. Let’s see what Bloodwash has to offer.

We follow the journey of Sara, a Bachelor's student trying to balance life, school, and job hunting. She has a job interview the following day, and she needs fresh clothes to put on. She soon learns that the building’s washing machine is out of order, which brings her to a laundromat outside of town. If that wasn’t enough bad luck, a serial killer is on the loose…

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2621405905

The gameplay is rather simple: you walk around and interact with people or objects. This is not a “haunted house” in which you need to pick up X items before you die, nor an escape room with imbricated puzzles to solve, but rather a story to follow. Except that it is not strictly linear like a movie, rather than being stuck in a corridor you have a small area to explore and truly live your life as Sara. For example, once at the laundromat, you can visit the stores around and talk to the clerks. Most actions are done automatically by pressing E or the mouse next to a point of interest, there is nothing complicated nor annoying like an inventory system that goes in the way of playing. In other words, anyone can play this game and expect minimal friction to be able to enjoy the story.

Except for the rare occurrences at the start of the game when the chain of events wasn’t exactly clear. For example, after learning that I had to take a bus I kept trying to find a way out of the building, while in reality, I had to get back inside the apartment to grab my purse first. A line of dialogue to mention the purse would have made directing the player smoother. This is not a big deal since these omissions are rare and the areas to explore area small enough that you will quickly do the right step for the story to progress. In truth, it’s hard to get lost or miss anything important.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2621403937

Now that we established that this game is simple to play and you just explore small self-contained areas rather than scripted corridors, let’s talk about what you are here for: the horror. The choice of plot is excellent to anchor both the scares and gameplay elements to a familiar everyday-life scenario. The immersion works wonders; the dilapidated atmosphere of the locales as well as the presence of their suspicious denizens are immediately creepy. You can expect some well-crafted and well-timed jump scares to put you on the edge of your seat, and a clear ramp-up in horror and adrenaline as the events unfold. In my opinion, this was a perfectly crafted ride. Not too linear that you feel on rails, but not too open that you don’t know what to do or get lost. A good balance between building up the tension and scares (although real danger is too rare). A story (with a twist!) that is fully explained rather than left vague. The length of the game is just right, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, clocking at between 2 to 3 hours depending on whether you let yourself be distracted while you wait for your laundry to finish.

There are many optional activities that you can pursue for achievements or for your own enjoyment. If you like to snoop around, you will find clues that you can then present to the various characters to extract more information from them. There are entire horror comics issues for you to read! There are two (rather basic) arcade games to play! Provided you find the remote, there is a TV in the laundromat that can keep you entertained during your wash cycle! This game is incredibly generous in its in-game content. Therefore, you can choose to limit yourself to the main interactions, or you can investigate further and discover all the many details of this world, or you can role-play a bored Sara consuming any nearby entertainment.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2621404967

The only downside to this plethora of activities is that each new item grabbed adds to the long list of items to scroll through. While scrolling to a key, you might have to cycle through a bunch of comics, newspaper clippings, and a gaming console. This is not detrimental to the game, as the lack of an inventory menu also works in the game’s favor as it makes the game simple and accessible, but also ensures better immersion if there are not a dozen sub-menus and button presses separating the player from the action. This is just a minor annoyance.

I already explained why I love the retro graphics, and the art direction is impeccable throughout the game, including the gore. I will just add that you can deactivate the VHS and CRT filters. Both add grain and distortions that enhance the atmosphere, but the VHS parasites (green lines tearing the screen) were too frequent so I disabled that while keeping the CRT filter. And despite the basic graphics, the game did occasionally stutter in some scenes.
The music is suitably eerie, and I was impressed by the voice acting. Not only is it rare for these games to be fully voice-acted, but Bloodwash’s voice actors did a pretty good job! My only regret is that there were occasional moments without ambient sounds, I even thought that I had muted the game because I didn’t hear anything at all.

This everyday horror is immersive to play, and surprisingly well crafted. Bloodwash sits nicely in-between the games that are so linear that you don’t feel any agency, the games with so many chases that you quickly see them as frustrating obstacles rather than scares, and the games that lose themselves in puzzles that hinder your progress. Bloodwash has the right dosage of all its elements to build up tension and deliver effective scares. If you enjoy horror B-movies, and that type of graphics, this game ins unmissable. Bloodwash is one of the best entries in the modern “PS1-era” horror scene, and likely the most streamlined.

A modern descendant of F.E.A.R.


When I started playing Severed Steel, it took me a while to get into the game, because I was playing it wrong. While the presence of a slow-motion button to feel like a character in The Matrix can be pretty cool, I tend to prefer a fast pace in my games, so most often I do not activate anything that slows down my experience. And I kept being killed over and over by the very reactive enemy squads who put an end to my frail life with only a couple of well-aimed bullets. I gradually learned that all the extra movements options, also called stunts (I will come back to that later) granted temporary invincibility, but that wasn’t enough, the movements were messing with my aim and I was forced to activate the slow-motion. At once, I started getting a few more kills before dying, but I was pestering against being forced to go through so many hoops and press so many keys just to kill someone. When exploring the options menu, I discovered that it was possible to automatically trigger the slow-mo during stunts without having to press an additional button, and my fun in Severed Steel finally took off at that moment. And what joy it was.

On top of a double jump and a kick, there are additional movements called stunts in this game: it is possible to wall-run, to perform a slide-crouch, and most importantly, a dive. All these stunts grant invincibility during their duration, so you should constantly make use of them to avoid enemy fire while you are moving. And you should always be moving, because the AI soldiers tend to be very dynamic themselves, chasing your last known position to flush you out or gunning you down from afar. The only safe way to get a kill is to approach them while under the protection of a stunt, and that’s why the dive is so important: jump then dive in the direction of your enemies to give you the opportunity both to get closer and to line up a few shots thanks to the slow-motion. This system is excellent because it rewards forward momentum: playing aggressively becomes pure fun, letting you feel like a fearsome predator. While most FPS games require their audience to shoot from behind corners or keep circling backward, a few manage to reward rushing into enemies; NecroVision lets players regain health through kill combos, and DOOM (2016) & DOOM Eternal let players perform glory kills on staggered enemies to gain health points. Therefore, Severed Steel managed to find a way to engage in forward momentum without a health incentive, by combining movement mechanics with slow-motion! As an aside, health in Severed Steel is limited to a few health points that regenerate automatically to some extent; the character is a glass canon.

Other game mechanics fit nicely into this system. Our main character, Steel, has been amputated one arm, so she can only carry one weapon and she cannot reload it. Therefore, she has to constantly move toward enemy positions to pick up new weapons (done automatically if your magazine is empty), and something brilliant was added to that: your enemies don’t need to be dead for you to pick up their weapons. They carry side-arms that you can pull off of them! Now picture this not-so-rare moment: out of ammo, you dive above an enemy. The camera is getting flipped, but with the slow-mo you can still see what is going on. As your trajectory intercepts the upside-down enemy, you grab their gun, then you shoot them in the face and get rewarded with blood and a satisfying crunch sound. Orgasmic. The weapons themselves have incredible punch, Severed Steel's shotgun is godlike, even at long distances.

Already at that point, this is a game worth playing, but then it goes one step further. F.E.A.R. boasted excellent environment destruction effects for the time, with bullet impacts defacing walls and clouds of dust emanating from the plaster. Severed Steel’s weapons punch actual holes in the walls. A rarely-seen dream ever since the first Red Faction graced us with the technology but was too coy with it to let its players abuse it and make the levels unplayable, so there well lots of indestructible surfaces. Severed Steel doesn’t care: the game replaces your severed arm with a canon, and you can shoot below your feet and fall out of the map. Serves you right. Next time, use it better to shoot below enemy feet and see them fall to their death! Or create yourself a shortcut to the end of the level! A voxel technology powers walls and glass, letting you and your opponents go wild. At the end of the carnage, I was always taking a break to admire with awe the levels punctured with holes that had more in common with Swiss cheese than with human architecture. And that flamethrower level was pure bliss. Most of the game features minimalistic graphics in the vein of Tron’s neon or wireframe art style, which goes hand in hand with the electronic music. A few maps try to inject more textures, but they are usually very blocky and not as nice as the almost transparent levels.

While the trade-off for invincible stunts is a trajectory that makes it harder to aim, the trade-off for complete level destruction is an impact on the framerate. Thankfully, both are mitigated by a very useful slow-motion that replaces twitch reflexes with a deadly ballet. Sadly, the game has other flaws, such as the script for enemy AI sometimes not triggering at all. I played some levels without any opposition whatsoever. The sound can stutter during the occasional short cutscenes. Oh yes, there seems to be a story in the game, but I have no idea what it was about. At least the story doesn’t get in the way of fun: the levels are entirely focused on combat, with no exploration or dialogues.

As a consequence, the game can be rather short, with people playing in lower difficulty reporting 2.5 to 3h to finish the campaign. In higher difficulty modes, aim more toward 6-10h. Weirdly, I think that the first level is the hardest. It’s a combination of getting used to the system and a very open layout that gives no respite to the player, so it’s a tough beginning but also a way to force us to adapt to the game mechanics before letting bad habits set in. Swim or sink, basically. However, once the basics are mastered, the sense of flow is perfect. Considering that the game is about gunfights rather than story, replayability is high in the next available game mode: Firefight. There is a score leaderboard for each level, as well as specific challenges (kill 2 enemies by knocking doors into them, kill 4 enemies while being flipped, etc) that allow you to unlock new starting weapons for the Firefight mode. And if that is still not enough, there is a level editor. Considering the possibility for gimmicks allowed by the combination of levels and game mechanics, I am certain that the community will soon have a lot of interesting maps to offer.

Despite its few flaws, Severed Steel is an incredible game, the quintessence of modern first-person shooters, delivering what the evolutions of the genre always promised to offer but never managed to put together in a tight and coherent package. After some getting used to the game mechanics, this is some of the best fun I have had in a while: a focus on stylish shooting and destruction without any dead weight.

More reviews at https://saveorquit.com/author/8rgk/

Sumire is a short narrative game that plays like an interactive storybook enriched with various gaming elements. If you are looking to pick your brains through puzzles or a very long experience, this is not for you. However, if the screenshots caught your attention and you want to get immersed in this beautifully painted world, please read on.

Sumire is about spending a very special day in the life of, well, the titular Sumire, a Japanese girl experiencing the transition phase between childhood and adolescence. She just lost the only stable anchor of her life: her grandmother. Everything is changing around her, and her relationships with others are getting complicated. So far, she has been putting a lid on her feelings, and she prefers to leaves things unsaid. And then, suddenly, a magical flower appears, claiming that he only has one day to live and he would like to see Sumire take that day to accomplish all that she wishes for. The time constraint pushes her out of the comfort zone of her isolated home atop the hill, and she will interact with the local wildlife as well as the residents of the nearby city. The player’s choices will take Sumire’s day in several possible directions.

Our main character is moved with WASD or a controller’s left stick rather than pointing and clicking. It is immediately apparent that although the screen scrolls left or right like a platformer, it is also possible to slightly explore depth to move closer or farther away from the camera: the world is a 3D environment, and it is used for great visual effects. The curvature of the edges feels like a tiny round earth, and some sequences are about moving toward the depth of the screen rather than sidescrolling. The result is gorgeous. Combined with the painted backgrounds and sprites, Sumire’s world is absolutely delightful to explore. Some of my screenshots have already been selected as my new Windows wallpaper! Despite how short the game is, it is full of variety. There are quests to accomplish for other characters, and also several mini-games that range from avoiding evil crows to playing a card game. The quests are never difficult to accomplish, but the way you talk to the characters or the way you solve problems will impact Sumire’s karma and change small events or even the ending.

The heart of the game is in Sumire’s dialogues and interactions with others. She tends to be very assertive with non-humans and extremely shy with other human beings, but the player can influence her behavior. For example, Sumire can confront people or not, she can forgive or get revenge, and so on. Her body language, her way to express herself, as well as the idiosyncrasies of the Japanese language translated into English, made her a very cute and compelling character. She is so well written that I was looking forward to every single line of dialogue… and this is coming from someone who usually doesn’t care about stories in video games and frowns at cutscenes. I even played the game twice, once with positive karma and once with negative karma. My first run took between 2 to 3 hours. I am still considering a third run to change a few interactions, that is how rich the game is despite its apparent simplicity.

Notwithstanding my comment about changing interactions, the overall structure of the game is quite linear, as specific cutscenes are necessary to move to new locations, and the next step is always made obvious. You won’t get lost or left clueless about a puzzle. Yet, you have enough freedom in your actions not to feel constrained by a linear adventure: the developers at GameTomo Team struck a nice balance. There is also a fine balance between magic/fantasy creatures and the humans in Sumire’s life, both impacting each other subtly and gracefully. If I had to find one single nitpick, I would say that one of the songs that played in the background with acoustic guitars was repetitive. That’s truly all I can find to complain about…

Navigating Sumire’s gorgeous painted world and the changes in her life left me utterly charmed. This game is short and simple, and yet it offers richness in terms of gameplay with a soft blend of 2D and 3D, as well as a variety of minigames and situations that offer multiple outcomes. This game is like an enhanced storybook, combining the best of both worlds: an enchanting story, gorgeous pictures, great writing, interactivity, and player choice. If you like the screenshots and you don’t mind playing as a little girl within a game that is both short and easy, I heartily recommend Sumire. You might even find it touching.

This is a PC port from a mobile game. The units and orders still seem calibrated for touch controls: the game is nigh unplayable with the mouse. Contradictory orders are sent all the time, buildings need to be placed with drag & drop instead of just clicking, and so on. This is a frustrating experience, I stopped after winning a few missions. This game is inspired by WarCraft II, but I would rather launch War2.

The retro future is now: run and gun games at their best.


Occasionally, I launch through RetroArch some old Sega Genesis / Mega Drive titles such as RoboCop vs The Terminator. While I enjoy the sprite work and feel, I only have fun for a couple of minutes until the approximate game design and dated level structure bring me back from the 90s. But now that I have HUNTDOWN, I can fully enjoy that 16bits era of time within a game that is undeniably excellent, benefiting from more-rounded modern design sensibilities... as well as from the crazy talent of the developers at Easy Trigger Games.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2485097605


You (and a friend in COOP) choose a mercenary upon the three available and get offered a campaign in the form of 4 consecutive areas each populated with a unique colorful gang. The backstory is minimalist, and there won’t be more than a few occasional lines of text or short cutscenes to introduce new threats. The end of a level is always crowned by a boss fight against a “bounty”, often a gang leader that marked the level with their footprints.


While the story is appropriately barebones (and consequently will not go in the way of replayability), the world, rendered in gorgeous pixel art, is incredible. This is a perfect melting-pot of Blade Runner, Judge Dredd, The Terminator, RoboCop, Mad Max, The Fifth Element, Akira, and everything that is holy from that glorious era of science-fiction movies depicting an ultra-violent future. The references are everywhere, in the gangs and their style, in the cool one-liners from the main characters or their bounties, in the music, and of course in the dirty neon-infused levels, as the fights will be taken from the subway to the rooftops. Even the fonts are totally on point!

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2485101314


Gameplay-wise, instead of trying to emulate the rough edges of old games, HUNTDOWN removes multi-directional aiming to focus on horizontal aiming, but masters it. It is possible to dash or to take cover behind crates or within alcoves, allowing players to smoothly choose between frenetic jumping around in order to dodge, or smooth shoutouts from fixed positions behind covers. While these systems are often clunky in many games, in HUNTDOWN the controls are very intuitive and there is little friction between what players want to achieve/what they picture in their mind, and what they can actually perform immediately in the middle of a gunfight.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2485107739


Each character has its own gun and an alt attack recharging quickly, so even after picking up a melee weapon there are options to deal with enemies farther ahead. Scattered across the levels are all kinds of weapons, from close-range shotguns that blow people to bits to destructive rocket launchers that blow people to bits; there are often several possibilities so players can pick according to their style or to their knowledge of the levels. I must admit that it is refreshing to play in hand-crafted levels rather than yet another repetitive rogue-lite game or a broken Metroidvania. Combined with tight level design and a huge variety of enemies and boss fights (each new boss encounter is pure bliss), we arrive at the best run and gun game that I have ever experienced since Metal Slug. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a replacement for Metal Slug and its huge boss fights with spectacular levels at breakneck speed. HUNTDOWN is another proposition, less free-form chaos and more toward grounded but tight encounters.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2485100436

Difficulty is a common hot topic concerning action platformers. HUNTDOWN’s difficulty seems as well crafted as the rest of this superb game, with a campaign that starts relatively easy but gradually ramps up the challenge (I just hate the jetpack enemies that explode at my feet). Each level provides a fair amount of checkpoints, so you never have to go back too far when you die, although it’s still better if you can anticipate the threats ahead (damn those bikes). There are also secrets (3 briefcases to collect per level), and the extra challenge of completing a level without dying, to earn a medal. If you don’t want to occasionally have a hard time you can start the game on Easy, but if you are looking for a spicier challenge, there are more brutal difficulty modes with fewer health points, giving you little room for error and demanding that you both anticipate the threats and play more technically with the game mechanics. Finally, there is an Arcade mode, in which you get a finite number of lives (you can find a few extra lives in the levels and checkpoints still help) and you are tasked to complete one of the four areas. The levels have been slightly remixed from the campaign, your time is displayed, and skulls and other items are contributing to your score (with a satisfying “ting ting ting!”) as you compete in the leaderboards. If you just rush through the story on Easy, there will be at least 5 hours of play. But if you want to get all medals and play on normal, we arrive in the ballpark of 10-12 hours, and then quickly more as you get into the higher difficulty modes and the Arcade. Since the story elements and cutscenes are kept in check, the game is highly replayable, and you might want to invite a friend to share in on the fun.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2485098703

Once a player is down, there are 20 seconds to revive them by mashing the defibrillator over their fallen body. Otherwise, they simply have to wait until the next checkpoint. Coop is not available online (except through Steam Remote Play), only local. The keys are fully rebindable, and it is even possible to have two players on one keyboard. I just can’t find fault with this game.

Oh, yes. The elephant in the room. First, this is an external issue and has nothing to do with judging the game on its own merits. Second, while it seems greedy for successful publishers with a hit on their hands to also take Epic’s money, smaller games and publishers always risk releasing their game in complete indifference on Steam’s overcrowded market, so Epic’s money is a safety net and a welcome financial security. At least, now the game is finally on Steam, and it deserves to become successful. Don’t pass on it, as even Electronic Art’s horrors find a strong audience on Steam despite forcing to install Origin: it would be unfair that the small devs get punished while the nasty companies thrive.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2485097402

I occasionally had goosebumps while playing HUNTDOWN. Not only does it cater to my nostalgia of an incredible era in cinema and gaming, but it does so masterfully with its gorgeous pixel art full of incredible details, and its smooth gameplay that flows beautifully. Good run and gun games are fairly rare, but this one is exceptional. Well done Easy Trigger Games, HUNTDOWN is a masterpiece.

From the low-poly graphics to the pixelated brown textures and water distortion effects, from the icon of the game representing a nail to small details like in-game messages and fonts, from the square-shaped blood spatters to the dogs hunting the player and ogre-like enemies launching grenades and basic soldiers dropping backpacks upon death, HROT feels like a Quake mod, or even an expansion pack adding new enemies. And yet, it runs in a custom engine programmed by Spytihněv, solo developer of HROT. The faithfulness to Quake is impressive and will please anyone nostalgic of the classic.

However, while I listed an uncanny list of similarities, HROT still manages to be its own beast as you will gradually discover during this preview. The setting is not eldritch medieval castles nor futuristic military bases, but rather an alternate 1986 Czechoslovakia, seamlessly merging soviet bleakness and brutalist architecture with the otherworldly nightmarish feel of Quake.


While the underground basements and sewers are a strong reminder of Quake’s abstract mazes, the content of the rooms and the surface bring us closer to Build engine games such as Blood, with more realistic locations rendered in a minimalistic form. In HROT, you can visit Prague’s metro stations, buildings, shops, and even toilets.

Unlike the boring Wolfenstein 3D clones, here the 3D engine is put to good use to offer some verticality and enemies coming from different directions (when they are not hiding behind a corner to ambush the player). While most enemies are dispatched during exploration, there are occasional arena fights with up to a dozen threats to face at the same time, allowing for frenetic gunfights to take place. Each level is bite-sized with a perfect length of 10-20 minutes, unlike Wrath’s gigantic environments that overstayed their welcome. There are your good old locked doors with keys to find in small levels that loop around themselves, offering the classic approach of 90s FPS games.

However, this was not always well mastered and the first level made me very skeptical: I had trouble figuring out an environmental puzzle (shooting an electric panel slightly above and behind me), even though the game was going out of its way to tell me with a text in the middle of the screen that there was something to do. Having to resort to spelling it out for the player shows that the developer is aware that the in-game visual cues are not enough by themselves, and I hope that this will be corrected in favor of a more subtle approach that teaches this essential trick in a more obvious manner but without requiring text. Thankfully, all the levels after this one were much better designed, and I had no major complaints. Perhaps a criticism that could be alleviated at the game is that the level design feels very safe and doesn't leave an impression on the player, but this is only the first episode so we will have to see what comes next as the developer gains experience and departs from the well-trodden grounds. By the way, Spytihněv is always listening to feedback and is quick to improve the game. Keep up the good work!


The soviet-era gigantic sculptures to the glory of communism, brutalist buildings with typical names such as the “Palace of Culture”, and the Quake-like world constituted of bleak low-poly and low-res textures are a marriage made in heaven. These recognizable elements (contrary to a purely abstract game) work in HROT’s favor and contribute to the game forging its own identity.

The ambient music is appropriately foreboding and brilliantly adds to the atmosphere. However, I felt that the levels are simply populated with enemies and are too light on horror elements suggested by the appearance of said enemies. Furthermore, id Software’s games are famous for the tension generated by the sounds emitted by its idle monsters behind locked doors, waiting for the player to discover them; HROT would have benefited from more work in that department as well.


HROT borrows many archetypes from Quake; I already mentioned Ogres, Dogs, and basic Grunts, but there are also the aerial menaces equivalent to the Scrag, providing a well-balanced main force to fight. The only glaring omission is something like DOOM's Pinky Demon to focus on melee and corner the player while being less of a pest than dogs. HROT quickly builds on top of this formula by adding its own enemies, such as the Hazmat shotgunners that take a lot of punishment and can scare the player by going back on their feet, or the crazy large horses wearing a gas mask with their unpredictable movements and high jumps. That enemy is so impressive and unsettling upon meeting them the first time, that I think that it will quickly be an emblematic beast elevated to legendary status; they are nightmare fuel. Occasional helicopters or teleporting machine gunners can quickly raise the threat level of an assault. There are several boss fights or weird encounters with crazy monsters, which greatly enhances the uniqueness of playing HROT. HROT’s bestiary is built upon elements from Quake, but it definitely stands out on its own with the excellent character design and lovely 3D models.


Combat is make or break for a neo-retro FPS, and I am happy to report that HROT does the job. Unlike Quake, rare are the bullet sponges, most enemies can be dispatched fairly quickly and gibbed to blobs of meat (actually, I wish there was more blood, especially after playing Prodeus). The weapons are classic id Software fare, except for one innovation: right mouse click sends a grenade. You will be mostly using the shotgun, which is lethal in close range and is the only weapon with plenty ammo in the levels (ammo and health can sometimes be scarce, but not to the point of harming the experience). However, for now the game lacks something that is effective in mid- to long-ranges. Regardless, the one and only major issue is the sound design of the weapons (except for the rocket launcher). They all sound like airsoft guns rather than terrifying tools of destruction that rip enemies apart. It gives a weird sentiment that the weapons lack feedback, despite them packing a punch and even staggering enemies, which is pretty neat. A small complaint is that there are no crouch and reload buttons; the former is useless but simply contributes to enjoying the first-person controls, while the latter can be detrimental when the machine gun decides to reload at the beginning of a fight. Either have a reload button to leave the player in control, or make sure that none of the weapons need reloading.


HROT’s first episode can be finished in 2-3 hours, which is a good length. The final adventure might then clock at around 7-10 hours; if that’s the case, I expect that the next episodes will bring at least some variety in terms of the environments visited. The difficulty level seems to only affect the damage dealt to the player, rather than the number of enemies. Most enemies are not dangerous but any hit received counts, as health is scarce; still, you can quick-save and quick-load at your leisure. Once you are done with the campaign, there is an endless mode with waves of enemies.

HROT is so faithful to Quake that it could be confused with a mod or an expansion pack. HROT does well what it does: propose a Quake-like experience, close enough to feel comfortable and appealing, but with its own unique identity. The level design is different as it embraces the bleak soviet architecture, and the bestiary is fresh and interesting. I was very pleased while playing HROT’s first episode.

Playing Prodeus for the first time feels like familiar territory: in an alternate reality, this game could be named DOOM 3 without raising too many eyebrows. This is especially obvious when facing the equivalents to DOOM’s Shotgun Guy, Imp, Pink Demon, and Cacodemon. Visually, it even sports a resemblance to DOOM (2016)’s red levels like Forge. And then the weapons also share some similarities to id software’s classic weapons. Is this a bad thing to lean so close to DOOM? Absolutely not. There are reasons why DOOM’s formula worked so well then and now, and there is nothing wrong in taking strong inspiration from it. Especially considering that the more you play and encounter novelties, the more you realize that Prodeus is simply using a solid foundation to propose something new and yet familiar. And most importantly, efficient.


Prodeus’ weapons kick some serious ass, and unleashing hell on your enemies instantly feels amazing and exciting. This is the closest I’ve seen to the ultimate standard that is Brutal DOOM, and this is not a timid endorsement. From the sounds, the particle effects, the dismembering, the pools of blood that spray from enemies that were hit, and the sheer destructive power, it’s all there to make combat incredibly satisfying. Still, there is a need to use the right tool for the job, as the weapons have been carefully balanced (ammol pool, reloading, accuracy, power, etc) to each have a specific use. As long as you pick off enemies one by one, the base shotgun can also prove useful at a distance if you use the incendiary alt-fire that requires to charge a shot. And the plasma gun’s alt-fire is a remote beacon to make sure all plasma shots find their target, even at an angle. Or the grenade launcher’s alt-fire is a sticky grenade to give you enough time to get away before the blast. The equivalent to the lightning gun has an alt-fire that is basically a railgun. Another exciting alt-fire was the Quad Shotgun. This is like DOOM 2’s super shotgun, except that it can fire 4 rounds at once; whatever you were aiming at is now pulverized into chunks of meat. Tasty. The Early Access sports 9 weapons with 8 more to come, but there is one thing that I sincerely missed: a kick or another quick-melee attack button. In any case, the gunfights are sublime, and since the game is not stingy with enemies (waiting for you or teleporting in), you can quickly find yourself pumped with adrenaline, in a mix of frenzy and pleasure. Yeah, this is what I expected from DOOM Eternal, so I am now glad to find it in Prodeus instead.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2304627559


To reinforce your bloodthirsty immersion, the game’s foreboding atmosphere is dark and red. You are inside a nightmare, and your name is ultraviolence. To strike the point further home, composer Andrew Hulshult signs another masterful soundtrack of industrial metal, brimming with latent violence until it blasts its impactful energy into your willing body. However, while the art direction works wonders with the moment-to-moment fun in combat, it doesn’t really hold up as a whole. This is especially true for the levels, mostly simple corridors of metal with red lights, and it quickly becomes difficult to make the difference between the insides of one generic sci-fi base and the next. Even the original DOOM had more striking visuals and unique sights, making it easier to remember locations that you had visited. Although Prodeus still eventually succeeds to leave a visual mark with the layout of its exterior locations, I fear that overall, the game lacks a visual identity to make its levels, as well as itself, stand out.


Thankfully, the level design does not suffer too much from the lack of a strong visual identity, as the levels are masterfully designed to guide the player down a certain path even though many levels loop around themselves. Prodeus strikes a nice balance between a linear progression and levels that gradually open themselves and loop back around themselves, without either losing the player in a maze or lacking any freedom to explore. There are lots of small tricks to make progress as smooth as possible, such as the placement of windows to see ahead or doors to create shortcuts back to old areas becoming new again. Some levels ask you to cross several times the same place from different heights or sides or progress through a level centered around inaccessible enemies that harass you until you get the satisfaction of finally reaching their hideout and unloading your frustration directly into their ugly face. Sweet release. There are no quick saves and quick loads: instead, there are respawn points to activate and reappear there upon death (dead enemies stay dead). This manages to strike a balance between feeling the pressure to perform well, without being slowed down by death or quick saves. The length of the levels is also perfect, not too long like I’ve often seen in recent neo retro FPS games.


If the levels’ short length, tight level design, and intense combat invite us to dive in once more, this is facilitated by how the levels are presented: rather than a block of levels forming an episode, there is an overview map (like many Super Mario games) letting you pick any level at will, check out your score in the leaderboard and instantly go back to killing monsters. I had fun for approximately five hours in the Early Access, which seems to be about 40% of the final product. And that’s not all, as the game is already equipped with a level editor, and you can quickly find and play other people’s levels and campaigns. Of course, many DOOM maps have already been ported to Prodeus, which works especially well as there are similarities in the roster of baddies. However, don’t expect 1-to-1 ports, as Prodeus quickly expands its bestiary to newcomers, such as snipers that take aim with a laser sight before firing railguns or small scarabs that bombard you while leaving pools of poison behind.


The options menu has everything that FPS players could ask for, such as rebindable keys, a FOV slider, the possibility to invert the mouse, and so on. I was happy to find settings to modify the HUD, and I removed the Space Marine’s helmet that was blocking off the sides. Also, there is the possibility to switch between 3D models and sprites for enemies. In truth, the monsters are not sprites, but a 2D render that ignores some frames. Although I absolutely love sprites, here this didn’t work for me, so I was happy with the 3D models with their smooth animations despite their pixelated faces. My only gripe was that I didn’t find a way to let corpses remain for longer, but at least the blood does stay. And there’s quickly a LOT of blood painting the levels red, your lust will be filled.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2310212173

Prodeus is still in Early Access, and yet it directly shoots to my top picks in the neo retro FPS genre. Just like how Dusk was like a direct follow-up to Quake, if you are a DOOM lover then you can’t miss Prodeus. The moment-to-moment action is incredibly satisfying, the level design is tight, and the immersion in this world of ultraviolence will make you see red. My only and biggest gripe is a lack of visual identity, especially inside the structures.