Recent reviews by Metamerism

ATLYSS is an extremely fun action RPG in which you can play as an Imp. Movement is frenetic and fast, combat is rewarding with a parry system and plenty of abilities, and the game is very charming in its presentation. I really like the sound effects, especially; the sound characters make when jumping is adorable and I love it.

The only criticism I can give ATLYSS is that there's not enough of it; with only two dungeons and 25 levels, it's a pretty swift play. Fortunately, the game is in Early Access and with plenty of updates on the way, I'm massively looking forward to more ATLYSS content!

Honestly nothing I can say about Hotline Miami hasn't already been said, so go play the damn game.

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Hotline Miami is a top down puzzle game where your primary puzzle is how to kill all the enemies without dying. It has incredible graphics, gameplay, etc, etc.

Just buy the damn game and play it.

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Overall Rating
10.0/10

Play it.

PROS;
+High quality pixel art
+Unique top-down run-and-gun gameplay
+Well told, anachronistic storytelling
+Tons of masks to collect and use
+Incredibly violence.
+Horrific bloodshed.
+It's really fun.

CONS:
-It's a little short.

The world's most enjoyable Anti-Drug PSA.

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Mother Russia Bleeds is a side scrolling beat-em-up in which you play as one of four ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, arrested and taken away to a research facility hidden away beneath a prison and forcibly experimented on with a new superdrug known as Nekro. Nekro, aside from being highly addictive, both empowers its user and can keep them going. With its power, you break out of prison with one goal: revenge for those who did this to you. Along the way, you get wrapped up in a prison riot, a gay fetish dungeon, and a revolution that could shake all of Russia.

As for gameplay itself, Mother Russia Bleeds offers a simple yet satisfying combat experience that can only be described as brutal. You can pound enemies' faces with your bare hands, slash their ribcages open with chainsaws, violently extract any Nekro within their spasming corpses with your syringe, or just beat the absolute crap out of them. It's satisfying and violent. Oh so incredibly violent. There's plenty of weapons to pick up akin to Streets of Rage, meaning combat options evolve beyond just "beat the dudes," if only by a little.

The game's unique selling point is the beforementioned Nekro drug. During the game, you can inject the drug into your character to either heal them for about 1/3rd of their life, or to enter a steroid filled state, in which you knock enemies aside with the greatest of ease, attack faster and harder, and can even instantly pound enemies' skulls into mush. In order to get more of the drug, though, you have to extract Nekro from spasming bodies, which can slow the game down as well as be a near fatal decision during combat.

Mother Russia Bleeds is difficult. Part of it is due to genuine challenge, and part of it is due to poor gaming design. In particular, enemies with guns deal an absurd amount of damage if they hit you, especially shotgun wielding enemies in later levels. They're very difficult to dodge in the fray of combat. A lot of people have problems with the walkie-talkie segment on the train level, but personally I didn't mind it too much. The game does offer some interesting level design, however, beyond just scrolling right; there's doors to pound open, motorcycles to avoid, train tracks to swerve out of the way of, helicopter fire to dodge, and more stuff I'm probably forgetting. It's nothing spectacular, but it's better than "just go right."

Asthetically, Mother Russia Bleeds is gorgeous. The pixel art fits well with the Hotline Miami levels of graphic violence, and the game is not afraid to show some horrific stuff. The soundtrack, while good, I could hardly remember while I was beating the crap out of guards. The narrative is somewhat simple, but it did a good job of drawing me in.

Probably the biggest tragedy of this game is that it is both short and does not offer online co-op. While it being short is acceptable, the lack of a way to play with friends aside from local is a puzzling inclusion in 2016. It really bogs the game experience down, as smashing people's face against the pavement is way more fun with friends.
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Overall Rating
7.0/10

Mother Russia Bleeds is an excellent example of the beat-em-up genre, and I would reccomend this to anyone interested. Through its rich atmosphere, over the top violence, and addictive gameplay, Mother Russia Bleeds is an enjoyable experience. However, I cannot rate the game any higher than a 7.0 due to its lack of online multiplayer, which I feel is a staple in the modern genre of beat-em-ups.

PROS;
+Wonderful art direction
+Unique mechanics via the use of Nekro
+Simple yet effective controls.
+Fist pounding action.
+Good enough narrative.
+Violence. Loads of violence.
+Horrific bloodshed.
+The penultimate boss is an armored bear.

CONS:
-NO ONLINE MULTIPLAYER.
-Cheap difficulty spikes.
-Somewhat short.
-A lot of near-instant death hazards.
-The good ending requires you to ignore a major game mechanic.

The only way this game could be better is if you could either pick what Bro you wanted to play as, or blacklist Bros you didn't want to play as.

I'd give it 9 MacBrovers out of 10.

They Bleed Pixels is one of the most difficult platformers I have every played.
That being said, I enjoyed every single minute of it. I felt like the controls were tight and responsive, and combat was simple, but functional. I loved the art direction of the game; with everything being black or white, it feels great to stain it all red with the blood of your enemies.

The game does steer towards the "frustratingly and hellishly" difficult side of the difficulty spectrum, especially in the later levels and especially if you want to grab every last page. The End, in particular, nearly had me break my hands due to how tightly I was gripping the controller.

I would reccomend this game if you like hellishly difficult platformers. If not, I'd still reccomend buying it during a sale, as the game is "manageable" on novice difficulty. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but I utterly enjoyed my time playing They Bleed Pixels.

You can spend over 500 years and a million dollars on this game and still not get that last achievement.
It's a masterpiece in the deconstruction of how greed and large numbers ruin us all...

...as a profound Capitalist myself, this concerns me.

Regardless, it's a clever and fun little romp. The music and art style brings a little flicker of joy to my shallow, unbeating heart.

Would reccomend checking it out, just don't ever expect to "win" without some hard-core time warping and cheating.

I got Legend of Grimrock 2 as a gift around two years ago, played it until I killed the Viper Roots, put it down, and didn't touch it for another two years.

After resolving to pick it up again and not set it down until I was finished, I can say that LoGII does everything from LoGI, and more.

While LoGI was entirely set in the claustrophobic confines of Grimrock, a giant dungeon built in the mountains, LoGII takes place on the Isle of Nex, with over 10 unique environments, 5 bosses, and more of the fun rune-based magic, hunting for rare items, and secrets that made LoGI so great. The level design and puzzles are on point, reminescent of classic dungeon crawlers like Dungeon Master. Many old enemies return from LoGI, with a few new ones to mix up the joyful shuffle-foot slice and cast combat routine of the original.

My only real complaint about Grimrock II is the difficulty: either I don't recall how difficult LoGI was, or this game is on steroids. Enemies deal insane amounts of damage and are bulky as hell, making combat difficult if you get pinned between two enemies or a wall. Nostalgic enemies as well, while great, seem to be added in as sort of a fanservice thing (the Herder's Den comes to mind as such, as well as the Crowverns that only appear in one area.)

Despite that, Legends of Grimrock II is more of the same greatness that made LoGI so fun, now with added plot outside of "escape the Dungeon." Would heartily reccomend, if you're a fan of the original or looking for a good Dungeon Crawler.

Just remember to plan your characters properly, or else you'll be in for a bad time.

Disclaimer: This is a mostly casual player's perspective.

Darkest Dungeon is a fun game full of relaxing moments and fun and colorful characters.

With biting frustration aside, Darkest Dungeon is great if you have a high tolerance for having everything go wrong. It has awesome art, music, and a great lovecraftian dark fantasy feel.

Of course, it has negatives. It's a touch grindy, especially later on when you're amazing heroes die of the most trivial of things. Running into multiple tough packs in a row [looking at you Fungal Giant + Crone] is aggrivating, but with enough perserverence and raw skill (or luck), what's one more fungal giant to a team of battle hardened heroes?

The winner of Darkest Dungeon, by far, is the Narrator. His narration makes the slog through the horrors that await in the Darkness all the more worthwhile.

Buy Darkest Dungeon if you know what you're getting into. The first couple hours alone are pretty worth the money anyways.

Yeah, you die a lot, so I guess the title's accurate.

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Bunny Must Die! is a metroidvania game in which you play as Bunny, a bunny girl who is cursed with cat ears from a thermomeowclear explosion for some reason. The story isn't incredibly important, and the writing seems to be self-referential to the point were the game knows this too. It's funny, but ultimately you're there to murder everything you see.

As for gameplay itself, it has the standard jumping, moving, attacking actions of any metroidvania, as well as some added techniques. In total, there are 6 weapons, each which different effects and powers that distinguish them from each other. No two weapons feel the same, which is good. The most interesting mechanic BMD! has is its time warping functionality : Bunny is capable of stopping time, allowing her to move past enemies, do specific platforming things, and as she collects more Yellow Powder, rewind time, heal herself, and more.

True to any Metroidvania, Bunny encounters a variety of power-ups along her adveture, ranging from the ability to turn Right to wall-jumping, and even a suit that increases her bust size, giving her added offensive capabilities and slower movement. Not going to lie, it's pretty funny.

As hinted at from above the line, BMD! is hard. Hellaciously hard, even. This is in part due to its steep difficult in platforming and overall difficult boss fights [which are equally as absurd as Bunny herself], but also to the game's most fatal flaw : the movement controls. Jumping is a feat in of itself. The entire system feels very clunky, and oftentimes, you might perform a somersault when you meant to do a straight jump, end up falling down a long tower shaft, and being forced to climb up again. Enemies also inflict a knockback when you're hurt, lending to frustrating moments [in particular, the Jade Tower comes to mind.] However, the controls aren't terrible, and can be surmounted with enough practice.

The game's art and soundtrack are delightful. Environments and enemies look nice and distinct, and each musical score, while nothing particularly catchy or memorable, is nice to listen to. Bunny's voice acting is also pretty solid, but it should be noted that it is in Japanese. The game runs phenomenally well. In my experience, I encountered no graphical slow down, even with dozens of fireballs on the screen at once.

A minor issue is that, should you play this game on Windows 10, you have to edit the game's configuration files to fix the window, otherwise it's just a black screen. It's annoying, but once it's fixed, it's gone.

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Overall Rating
7.3/10

Bunny Must Die! is an overall enjoyable experience. Aside from its wonky controls, the gameplay is simple and fun, offering fast action and hair-trigger timing. The game is rather short, and can be beaten in as little as an hour [the game even has an achievement for doing so!], but that detail is offset by the fact it has an additional mode in which you play as a different character, who plays almost entirely differently. It is, at times, frustrating, but in the end, Bunny Must Die! is a game worth playing, and I feel as if it isn't talked about enough.

PROS;
+Excellent weapon variety and smooth combat.
+Humorous story and characters
+Wide variety of power-ups and gameplay options.
+Second story mode adds replayability, in addition to speed-run possibilities.
+Good art and music.
+Excellent technical performance.
+A worthy challenge.
+You get to play as a Bunny Girl. That's a new one.

CONS:
-Mind boggling frustrating
-Somewhat short
-Wonky controls provide an artificial challenge.
-Some issue getting the thing to work.
-Animeish style might drive people off.

No matter how many times I get wrecked by Titanite Demons...
No matter how many times I have to treck through Blighttown...
No matter how many times I get cursed by Basilisk on my way to Ash Lake and then am forced to grin giant clams for Purging stones just so I can kill the Hydra to collect Dragon Scales for the Path of Dragons...
No matter how many times I chuck my controller accross the floor in rage of a certain thing...

I cannot stop playing this game. It's like Stockholm Syndrome. Send help, please.