Recent reviews by Lunatic Blue

Cogmind is like a rabbit hole of rabbit holes in video game form: everything about this game goes deeper than you can see at first, has more to explore and learn about it than you'll notice at first glance, and once you start to learn more, it'll beckon you to scratch past the surface and find out just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

This game also features one of the coolest dungeons ever made. Complex 0b10 is neither static nor sterile, and it doesn't revolve around the player-character. Rather, the complex is like an organism that you learn to live with: it's your only truly constant companion throughout the game, and one of the most rewarding aspects of Cogmind is learning how to coax it into giving you what you want. Your ascent will take you through giant factories, huge reactor banks, terminal access points, recycling facilities, etc. and learning to not just breeze past these machines but learn their purposes, identify the risks and rewards they present, and find ways to make use of them is key to success. The robots, too, can be exploited: you can learn their routines, discover what they do and when they do it, and use this knowledge against them.

This game also looks and sounds great. It's not the grey-brown bloom-addled muck with individual visible facial hairs that most people think of when they talk about "good graphics in video games", but it oozes style and charm at every turn. Immersive positional machine sounds and satisfying weapon animation/FX help reinforce the sense of environment and atmosphere that permeate this game's every floor. The graphical style may seem rudimentary at a glance if you're not familiar with traditional roguelikes, but this game actually looks fantastic in the midst of play. The animations are great, too: I never get sick of using the cool, late-game high tech weapons with particularly flashy attack animations and exciting sound effects.

Oh, and don't assume the game is done once you've won it for the first time, either. That's just the beginning of your journey.

Overall, I heartily recommend Cogmind to anyone who wants to dip their toes into the genre of traditional roguelikes for the first time, and anyone who already likes the genre and wants to try something new. It's stylish, it's immersive, it's intriguing, and it's insanely rich with new things to discover all the time. As of writing this review I'm 167 hours in, and I feel like I'm just getting started.

L( ˘•ω•˘)」WARLORD
∠( ˘•ω•˘)/ FOREVER!!

Miss a 99% shot, get dragged into the enemy deathball by a viper and proceed to activate a sectopod? That's XCOM, baby!

Mind control a pair of Gatekeepers and turn every enemy on the map into PSI zombies? That's also XCOM.