It's pretty good, but they have had an issue since launch where lobbies won't backfill with players who leave, so if one person leaves a lobby during formation it completely fucks the whole thing up. There's also some extremely funny balance problems and the lead designer of the skills system is a moron high on huffing his own farts, judging by his response to people criticizing his (frankly stupid and terrible) implementation of skill trees. Nothing more frustrating than a designer who doesn't acknowledge that the player experience is different than he envisioned. Still fun when you can get a relatively even match with no leavers though.

Impossible to give a live service game that I both love and hate in equal measure an accurate rating so I'll split the difference at 3 stars.

Fun, frustrating, clever, idiotic, empowering, enraging; all of these are true about Dead by Daylight. A game where hundreds of hours means you're still a newbie, where players are constantly toxic to each other, where game balance is completely fucked and impossible to fix, and where you play it anyway because literally nothing else that has tried to strike this same balance hits the same way.

I love this game. I hate this game.

Clearly and directly aping Theme Hospital.

I quite like it, but the metaprogression element isn't to my taste. You earn meta-dollars to buy new items, or earn them via stars on a level. Earning stars on a level isn't about hitting specific goals in a time frame, or being judged on your ability to construct a well-run hospital, but rather a continuously-running goal check that you can and eventually will succeed at. Kind of a bummer.

Still great though, if you want to scratch that hospital administrator itch Bullfrog left in your blood (like they did mine) decades ago. I'm pretty sure the announcer lady is the same one from Theme Hospital lol

Really liked it! Looks super good and is a perfect emulation of Resident Evil's design while feeling reminiscent of FF7 Golden Saucer's Ghost Square, or Illbleed. I beat it in basically one sitting, I was so engrossed (and it's relatively short, 4-5 hours at a normal pace). Story has some fun mysteries but goes where you expect and has a bittersweet ending. Nice to complete a game and walk away from it feeling satiated and pleased, that's so rare these days.

I like this game so much I wrote the definitive guide for it!

It looks pretty nice and it hits all the checkmarks but I'm immediately bored by it.

I'm honestly kind of frustrated that Freelancer is still one of the better open world space games, because it's a pretty weak game with a pure genius world structure that deliberately encourages and surprises you. Meanwhile this game is fetch quest after cutscene after boring dogfight with RPG shit tacked on.

You'd be better off playing the X series (if you're interested in the world simulation aspect) or Deathwar 3030 Redux (if you want the trade lane action combat) or NeonXSZ (for the 6dof dogfight ARPG grinder) than this. Nice looking but empty.

Solidly okay. As far as "souls-like" games go, it's very straightforward and doesn't have a ton of RPG choices to make beyond what shell you have and what you put your level point into.

But that simplicity is nice too. And the parry mechanic is more forgiving + intuitive than a Souls parry (you release a block, rather than pressing a separate button or starting a block). Pretty easy and cute, and "Battle for Bikini Bottom" is a very novel aesthetic to apply to a game like this.

I don't think it'd satisfy the buildmaxxers or the grimdarkers or the combatheads, but I'm enjoying it for what it is. Inoffensively charming. Much better than other kid-friendly games I think.

Extremely cozy game. Obviously Half-Life 1 inspired. What if you played the scientist team and had to survive with your wits instead of your inexplicably amazing way with guns?

I'm generally anti-survival-crafter because they mostly seem to be about stripping the environment of trees and rocks and shit and building an extremely ugly-looking box house. This game recontextualizes that behavior into strip-mining an office complex to build little hovel-apartments to support your work exploring each zone. As a result it feels like the intermediary period between the start of the cascade and when you as Gordon Freeman run into some scientist guy huddled in a corner behind a makeshift barricade going "please help me!!!"

The other thing I super love about it is that so much of your time is about exploring a specific path until that path eventually loops back into the main "unlocked" part of your run. There's five billion shortcuts per area, all bespoke, all uncovered by digging through every nook and cranny. It's extremely rewarding to just wander around and get lost and follow some arbitrary path because it'll give you resources AND open up new parts of the level.

Brilliant stuff. Palworld could never.

Good but ultimately a little shallow. Shows promise, but needs that extra oomph I think.

The main problem is that level ups don't really give you anything interesting. The closest is the vehicle upgrades (which go away when you lose that car anyway), but all the other choices are the same as the base upgrades you can buy on your characters. As such, there's no fun synergies to develop, no odd choices to make, just "get stronger in specific area". One can imagine some incredible possibilities for chaos, like "give all taxicabs bombs" or "mobsters now attack police", but none of that is in the game.

Other small gripes: Hitting air targets is a pain in the ass. There's no isometric-angle camera like in the trailer, just 3 varieties of "overhead". There's no map features like Pay'n'Spray to aim for. If you have finite ammo, getting more ammo for your gun is nigh-impossible. Cop cars and the like act very strangely - they disgorge 2-3 enemies, then sorta hover just outside your hijack range??? Hijacking in general is annoying unless it's literally a parked or trapped car.

I do like the hyper-destructive experience, and I think Maniac has extremely strong fundamentals, it just needs some fun "crazy" upgrades to spice up the experience, better hijacking, and a more fleshed-out city. I don't want different mission types or anything necessarily, just more to do than "wander in a circle and explode cars".

Basically a first-person FMV adventure game. The combat is not really combat per se - you just spam your "attack" move until you win, no thought necessary - so in practice it's more about puzzles, like using a rain spell to put out fire or a light spell to navigate a labyrinth.

Mostly coasts by on the strength of its silly theater nerd writing and the large (and shallow) cast of characters. I get the distinct feeling that the person who made this game basically invited all their friends and family and family of friends to take portraits and deliver grandiose lines. It's fun in that respect, and a good game to play in a call or on a stream with your buddies.

That said, the simplicity and shallow goofiness start to lose their appeal around hour 3. Other games like this tend to wrap up in a nice clean 2 hours. This one outstays its welcome.