this is a demo that costs 8 bucks plus tax. im all for short games, some of them are my favorites, but this didn't even take an hour to beat while also asking for 2 dollars short of 10 USD. pricing aside, the game is alright. the shooting does feel good, but enemies are decently tanky, so you'll find yourself constantly reloading all your weapons to interrupt your flow. the guns are fine, but the response from the enemies is nigh-existent. The only good feeling response out of them you get is launching them in the air. it's only that initial launch though that feels good. even when they're in the air, there isn't much punch to your attacks. To add insult to injury, the movement is awkward at worst and okay at best. It doesn't feel good but also fails to be satisfying. it has the call of duty sprint that cancels if you strafe, as well as double-tapping buttons to dash, which can make the combat feel weird when trying to avoid attacks. Everything feels very weightless. i remember seeing this game get a bit popular with content creators, calling it insane. i was originally interested in it because i heard it was made by one dude and thought that was crazy. having played it, it's very average. it does cool things with the enemy designs and combat abilities but then ruins that with how boring it is to fight the enemies and the pretty boring level design. if anything, this game is a proof of concept rather than a full game, which boggles me when it's being sold as a game.

if you can ignore the cringey dialog, the incredibly unsubtle writing, and some of the anime tropes, theres a fun movement game to be had. breaking down a level into the simplest of routes was always an engaging experience that would leave me feeling satisfied when i beat a friend's time. each weapon's abilities also make the levels much more cathartic to explore/optimize. normally movement this floaty would annoy me but with how the levels are structured and how you can use the abilities makes the low gravity feeling of the in-air movement feel justified. while the game paces weapons and enemy introductions very well, i feel that the game's overall pace is a bit dragged on in the second half. like i spent 19 hours beating the game with almost every mission consisting of 10 levels. Though, to be fair, i was trying to 100% the game as i beat it.

anyways, if you can stand anime tropes and visual novel gameplay (this is half movement game, half visual novel) then neon white is a good time for dumb fun story moments and speedrunning a game until you cant get any faster.

the supposed f.e.a.r. successor is really only successful in replicating the spectacle of its main influence's combat. aside from the flair of gunfights, supernatural themes, and enemies that yell into crunchy mics, trepang2 is a wholly different experience. the maps are larger, the game throws hordes of enemies at the player, and it's really not that scary compared to f.e.a.r. trepang2 is instead about doing what it says in the steam description: making you the "ultimate badass." as cringe as the word can be, it's the defining word of the power fantasy that this game set out to create. enemies fly like feathers, and your guns pulverize flesh into a paste. almost effortlessly, the game makes you feel powerful. gunfights are the main meat and potatoes here. guns are deafening, and the excessive particles almost make f.e.a.r. run for its money if it wasn't so blinding half the time and also how f.e.a.r.'s environment was more reactive due to how small the arenas were. i'll be honest, i only really played this because the demo was cool, but i only played that because i thought it would be more like f.e.a.r.. instead, this is an attack on your senses. f.e.a.r. was more methodical, slower paced. trepang2 is a lightning bolt shot out of a cannon. the visuals will overwhelm you with the particles and incredibly dark lighting. the hordes of enemies will send you into a panic. then to top it all off, you have to manage bullet time, ammo, invisibility, and stamina. the combat is a test to see how far you can push yourself, an enduring battle with overstimulation. i like this direction, even more so with how it creates a sense of resource management with your abilities while also constantly being aware of your positioning. It's tense. It's exuberant. It's a fun time. the ai is competent while also being dumb at the same time. you can outsmart them, but they can certainly outplay you with a good flank if you dont keep them in check. thats one thing trepang2 differs from f.e.a.r., the enemy ai doesnt feel as menacing or cooperative. The clone soldiers in that game were truly scary foes mainly due to f.e.a.r.'s immaculate level design. in trepang2, the enemies sometimes just run around looking for you instead of using their environment to their advantage. for as much as i compare trepang2 to f.e.a.r., they really are two different games just with some similar mechanics and themes. trepang2 is a good game but one so derivative of what came before and what the developers find cool that it sometimes felt hard for it to show its voice. from the obvious f.e.a.r. inspirations to scp-like agencies to a fucking backrooms level (yes, there is for some reason a BACKROOMS level in this game), trepang2 continuously wears its inspirations on its sleeve like it was its favorite sweater instead of showing the cool ass shirt beneath it. but you could see that shirt only in moments of its acrobatic destruction of blinding viscera and screaming opfor radios. its globe-trotting campaign was also a good unique aspect of the game. i really liked how it had a hub, but even better was how each mission was set in a new part of the world with sometimes different objectives. the side missions were alright for the most part, mostly being wave defense objectives, but the one horror-focused mission was probably when the game did horror at its best since it never overstayed its welcome and felt more original. one thing it did right was its higher focus on action, because even if f.e.a.r. was its main influence it didnt have to be just as horror-centric. the horror in this game isn't great for the most part, but it was competent at its best while riffing off of some dumb internet horror trend at its worst.

trepang2 is fucking obscene, and i love it for that. but i wanted it to be more comfortable in being that instead of relying on past works from other people. it has a foundation made of great inspirations and almost succeeded in fully separating itself from them through its mystery and thrilling combat. then again, even though it's not something completely original, it's a very good time for turning human bodies into a red mist from just one shot of a spas-12 shotgun. it's been too long since ive used a shotgun this good. recommended if you want to fuck shit up.

never finished perseus mandate before, so i thought it was about time to do so. PM is the lowest the first F.E.A.R. can get, full of depressingly bland lighting, boring skirmishes, and weak additions. LithTech lighting is some of the greatest to be found in a game from its time and even today. Pitch-black silhouettes of enemies and deep voids accent the surfaces of F.E.A.R. to create an impeccable atmosphere. fighting in the shadows, exploring vents in a vacuum, and witnessing horrors in the dark, the stark lighting is great in the base game. timegate studios, for some reason, thought that the game should just have global illumination turned to 11, making nighttime outdoors combat incredibly drab. no muzzle flashes to light up dark corners or flashlights to cut through shadows, just plain ol', evenly lit arenas for 90% of the game. the arenas dont make it any better. many of them are boring single-floor, open rooms with boxes as the only cover. gone are the anxiously close-quarters gunfights of the original F.E.A.R. as most encounters are quick skirmishes across large rooms and halls. the verticality of the original made it even tenser when fighting enemies as they could flank from above or take a long winding path for a surprise attack. enemies in PM can barely surprise you. the new enemies arent even that interesting. the mercs are the same thing as the clone soldiers, so they're basically clones of clones. the quick ninja mercs are too tanky and quick to be entertaining fights, made worse by their usually terrible arenas. the new monster enemies are neat, made better by the area they're introduced in. that's probably the highlight of the expansion, the underground area where the invisible beasts kill your buddy chen. timegate remembered about the great lighting and puts it to great use while also putting f.e.a.r. in a new locale. it's a nerve-wracking level where you tiptoe and obsess over your flashlight battery. but good things always end and you get thrust back into the grinder of boring to decent fights. the new weapons arent even that exciting with a 'new' assault rifle (it has a scope?!?! woah..), a weaker railgun equivalent, a kinda sick grenade launcher, and a neat laser beam rifle. the placeable turret isnt really worth mentioning. Its only value is that it can distract enemies. the highs reached f.e.a.r.'s baseline, with great horror visuals and atmosphere on occasion. however, the lows were so low and more common, just dragging the expansion into a pitiful crater. it does scratch the f.e.a.r. gameplay loop at times, but it's not wholly worth getting into unless you're a big f.e.a.r.-head, which is the only reason i even decided to play it after hearing it was disappointing. a middle-of-the-road expansion, so replay f.e.a.r.

doom II is more doom. it's fast and dirty, you're either gonna leave piles of red mush or become one. the level design in doom II compared to the first doom is hit or miss. some levels banged, others made me want to rip my face off. i love that they increased the enemy count, making for much more intense combat encounters. the downside to this increased number of shooting targets is that some encounters are straight-up too mean. i actually used idfka once because i didn't have enough ammo or health in one level. aside from that, some levels feel big for the sake of being big. i would find myself looking at the map too often rather than the actual game world.

the super shotgun and new enemies are mostly great additions to the sandbox though. while pain elementals are the embodiment of pain with their lost souls, the mancubi, archvile, revenant, and arachnatrons are great enemies to fight when used appropriately.

doom II is like eating a mostly great steak. you take a bite, it's nicely tender and juicy. then you take another bite and it's juicy, but it's also a bit too chewy like the cook didn't trim off all the fat. at the end of the day, it's still an enjoyable steak, but it maybe could have been incredible if the cook looked over it a bit more.

this really hit my soft spot. i think its far from perfect and nowhere near other survival horror games that i love but the atmosphere compels me to not hate it. the atmosphere is absolutely the star of the show here with the terrifying ambiance and dreary lighting of the USG Ishimura. this gave me an experience that ive only had with 2 games off the top of my head: doom 3 and silent hill. i was constantly checking behind isaac and being overly cautious of potential dangers around corners that were usually nonexistent. i love it when games make me feel this way, it's so fucking awesome. the slow movement of isaac and speeding enemies add to the fear that the game bakes deep into you.

though, like silent hill, the game floods you with more ammo than you need (at least on medium difficulty). i was constantly full of ammo for ALL guns. i actually considered selling all of my weapons except for the plasma gun. RE4 is an action survival horror game that does ammo economy better than Dead Space which is definitely more action survival horror than i expected. thankfully thats the only downside for the combat that i can think of. while i feel like some encounters are too easy with fewer enemies than i'd want (sometimes id even want the game to throw more than just charging enemies at times), but these are more like disappointments than dislikes.

the level design is also more of a disappointment to me. dead space is a very linear game. you go through hallways to get to a room to then enter another hallway, it's all basically a long corridor. this works though since the game's atmosphere keeps it tense. whats disappointing to me is how the game puts a hub into each level but doesnt ever set it up for isaac to explore the level at his own pace. it's pretty much always hub room with multiple locked doors except one, those locked doors will open up eventually as you complete hallway after hallway of the level. it's more of my preference, which i understand. i cant have every game be the spencer mansion or RE2's police station. but damn i really think this game would've been better if the levels were open-ended like that. if it was like that, i don't think it'd even hurt the pacing of enemies, mechanics, and story.

the story is pretty mediocre. there's a lot of stuff happening in the background that you'd only know from reading and listening to logs found throughout the ship. it's a slowburn where you crash onto a ship where a fight for survival turns into a fight against monolithic undead flesh monsters. though it feels more like a plotline at first, completing objectives with story excuses and sprinkles of what's happened. it's not a terrible story, it's very much acceptable and with some nice twists but i'd be lying if i didnt say that i saw most of them coming. what's lame about the story and writing is just how much of it is "isaac, go do this. NOW!!!" It feels so directed. It's not necessarily handholding but it doesn't feel like a story that's unraveling organically and instead feels like a stage director nagging you from backstage with what's going to happen next.

anyways, it's a cool game that has me excited to play the sequel and weirdly intrigued to play the third one eventually. here's to wishful thinking for the remake, which, honestly, im not too mad about happening since the pc port for this game kinda sucks. the mouselook is janky, lots of textures are low-res, and audio can bug out occasionally. I wished that the port was better, the game rocks so much that i want more of a remaster than a full-on remake for the game. remakes are a trendy thing for AAA games to do these days, everybody knows that, but there are a bunch of remakes happening that feel unnecessary.

tangent aside, this was a ranty informal review of dead space. the game's good but leaves some more to be desired if you expect every survival horror to be like classic resident evil or RE4. the atmosphere is compelling while the story isn't, but the combat helps negate that by being intense and anxiety-inducing. now before i play dead space 2, i think ima check out the callisto protocol or just go play some armored core. god exists and proof of that is armored core 6: fires of rubicon.