frogfarmer38
2004
This review contains spoilers
i was really surprised by how much i enjoyed it this game aside from a few big design flaws. those first - the game's difficulty is definitely the biggest imo. i think the developers intent was to give the AI a slightly unfair advantage so that the combat situations would feel more life-or-death, making stealth and strategy a way bigger deal in this game than in its competitors (doom, quake, half life, etc). what actually happens though is that the AI takes an increasingly absurd amount of damage as the game goes on and constantly prefires into bushes and doorways, which really fucking sucks. my first playthrough of this was on challenging difficulty but i had to restart at medium about three quarters of the way through because it was just too ridiculous. this is especially bad during the indoor levels, where fighting in such small physical spaces necessitates really fast reflexes and l33t aiming skills that I don't have. everybody complains about those levels though. everybody also complains about the big twist a quarter of the way through where they introduce... mutant monkeys?? but then they become mutant human soldiers?? i don't know dog, i played through all of this stoned. but anyways, i don't want to go as far as to assume that the developers just added that to cash in on popular FPS trends at the time (see the aforementioned competitors), but i will agree that it's a likely explanation and that it also kind of sucks.
really though, put all of that aside cuz there's some absolute gold to be found here. the outdoor segments,especially the ones set at night, are absolutely lovely. i love games that let you creep around in the dark and i love sneaking up and blowing guys heads off cuz i'm still 12 years old and it's wonderful. the enemies are engaging, too! this is one of the first FPS games i can think of with really responsive and tricky AI. they'll respond to the sounds of gunfire and footsteps, they'll communicate with each other and try to out-strategize you, and they even have little conversations between themselves that you can overhear with the binoculars. you really do get the sense in parts that you're in the character shoes, slinking through the overgrowth, trying not to get caught. something i didn't mention earlier in my complaints section was the lack of quick saving which a lot of people cite as another big issue with the game. there's even a mod just to correct this. i actually really like this design choice, though. i feel like it divides each fight scene into a little vignette, one that you have to look at from every angle and fully understand before you can complete it. it's a little annoying during the indoor levels when you just want to get through the slog, but it works wonderfully outdoors. i can tolerate the added difficulty much better when i'm not just trying to memorize enemy patterns and dying over and over again to get past an annoying level.
i also want to add that, if you're a fan of the later games in the series (probably 3 onwards), this one might be really annoying for you. i've only played a little bit of a far cry 3 and 4 but those seemed way more like high-flying gun-slinging adventures than this one does. don't get me wrong, this game is just as ridiculous, but it requires a lot more patience and a lot more caution than your average open world shooter nowadays. think of it as being like Indiana Jones compared to Rambo. i intend to play through all of these games soon though so i may go back and remove this portion if this proves untrue. either way, i highly recommend this one.
really though, put all of that aside cuz there's some absolute gold to be found here. the outdoor segments,especially the ones set at night, are absolutely lovely. i love games that let you creep around in the dark and i love sneaking up and blowing guys heads off cuz i'm still 12 years old and it's wonderful. the enemies are engaging, too! this is one of the first FPS games i can think of with really responsive and tricky AI. they'll respond to the sounds of gunfire and footsteps, they'll communicate with each other and try to out-strategize you, and they even have little conversations between themselves that you can overhear with the binoculars. you really do get the sense in parts that you're in the character shoes, slinking through the overgrowth, trying not to get caught. something i didn't mention earlier in my complaints section was the lack of quick saving which a lot of people cite as another big issue with the game. there's even a mod just to correct this. i actually really like this design choice, though. i feel like it divides each fight scene into a little vignette, one that you have to look at from every angle and fully understand before you can complete it. it's a little annoying during the indoor levels when you just want to get through the slog, but it works wonderfully outdoors. i can tolerate the added difficulty much better when i'm not just trying to memorize enemy patterns and dying over and over again to get past an annoying level.
i also want to add that, if you're a fan of the later games in the series (probably 3 onwards), this one might be really annoying for you. i've only played a little bit of a far cry 3 and 4 but those seemed way more like high-flying gun-slinging adventures than this one does. don't get me wrong, this game is just as ridiculous, but it requires a lot more patience and a lot more caution than your average open world shooter nowadays. think of it as being like Indiana Jones compared to Rambo. i intend to play through all of these games soon though so i may go back and remove this portion if this proves untrue. either way, i highly recommend this one.
2018
i feel like catburglary is especially well-suited for this type of technical profession based sim (which you see a lot of now). i've never played a game like this that nails the tension of creeping thru someone's home at night so well - you slowly stake out a house, learning all of the entrance points, escape routes, and homeowner's routines before breaking in. once you're inside, you have access to a pretty wide array of tools for navigating around security and planning further intrusions. these kinds of games really shine when they establish a tight gameplay loop, and this one is no exception. it's a little janky at times, and i guess the story isn't anything to write home about, but why are you playing 'thief simulator' for the story? the mechanics are what matter here, and they work very well imo.
2018
this one fucking rocks, dude. there's nothing more satisfying than punching some dude upside the head in VR and watching him fall on his ass. the tracking kinda sucks and there's really not that much content, but i still put probably like, one or two hundred hours into this. fuck viktor drago btw
1976
the OG breakout - not the best version (i'm fond of the game boy ones in particular) or even the best on the 2600 (see: super breakout), but an undeniable classic regardless. great game for killing some time, but don't look to this one as your go-to. note: if you're not playing this on a console (idk if i'm allowed to say the E word on this site), your input might be a little sensitive
1975
you gotta dig a 2600 sports game with readable graphics. i love how the little horsies look & run and the gameplay is simple to learn & endlessly replayable, which is all you can really ask for from the system. like the other reviewer says though, the CPU is suuuper hard above the easiest difficulty.
1976
really impressive for the time it came out, but i feel like later variations on the first-person racing theme (pole position, enduro) improved on it tremendously. this could just be an issue with how i'm running the game, but i had a lot of difficulty controlling the car at higher speeds. the visuals, while charming, became a little disorienting to me at such speeds (especially the little lines marking the road). not my favorite racing game for the system, but certainly a historically important game and one worth checking out.
1977
one of the best 2600 launch titles! this game is best played with a friend, with each player controlling a turret and firing at various boats, planes, and military vehicles. it can get pretty frantic, but i feel like dividing the visuals into clear rows and placing the player on a fixed segment of the screen makes it easy to understand what's going on. there's a real wealth of alternate gameplay modes here, too - you can play as a ship, firing at planes flying above you, as a plane dropping bombs on the ships below, etc. atlantis and missile command would later improve on what air-sea battle is doing here, but for the time it was released, this is really fun.
1977
title says it all, buddy. i can see how this would've been a nice little educational game for kids back in the late 70s, but like.... you're not gonna get anything out of this nowadays. i guess if you're a big arithmetichead you might be into this one.
2016
hits a good middle ground between the binding of isaac and nuclear throne, but doesn't reach their same heights for me. (i wanna apologize in advance for mentioning those two games so much in this review, btw, but it's just how i framed my thoughts on enter the gungeon). tboi feels labyrinthian, for better or worse - it's an amalgamation of all these little ideas and memes and in-jokes between the developers pulled together, full of these unique interactions between items and characters that continue to grow and grow in complexity as you get further into the unlocks. nuclear throne, on the other hand, keeps the content very minimal and instead focuses on making the gameplay loop as tight as possible, flowing through repeated levels and run after run until shooting little dudes with grenade launchers becomes burned in muscle memory.
so then, gungeon is a little bit of both. it holds a wealth of secrets, rich in hidden levels and bosses and personal touches, but it pulls from the fucked up tense gunplay of nuclear throne. this works and it doesn't... i really enjoy how it feels, it's fun and engaging and it makes me kinda addicted like any good modern roguelike, but when i step back and look at it from afar, it doesn't leave the same mark on me as the two aforementioned games. i think stretching out nuclear throne's gameplay to the same scale as tboi's content and progression ends up leaving it a little thin, a little too samey over run after run. the guns don't differ as drastically as the upgrades in tboi do, but they try to offer so much more than nuclear throne does, and so you end up with a whole lot of content in a slightly too restrictive package. what enter the gungeon leaves me with is a lot of personal enjoyment, but not the weird pull that makes my favorite roguelikes so endlessly fun. it's exciting and i have put way too much time into it already, but i don't think it's aged as well as its peers.
so then, gungeon is a little bit of both. it holds a wealth of secrets, rich in hidden levels and bosses and personal touches, but it pulls from the fucked up tense gunplay of nuclear throne. this works and it doesn't... i really enjoy how it feels, it's fun and engaging and it makes me kinda addicted like any good modern roguelike, but when i step back and look at it from afar, it doesn't leave the same mark on me as the two aforementioned games. i think stretching out nuclear throne's gameplay to the same scale as tboi's content and progression ends up leaving it a little thin, a little too samey over run after run. the guns don't differ as drastically as the upgrades in tboi do, but they try to offer so much more than nuclear throne does, and so you end up with a whole lot of content in a slightly too restrictive package. what enter the gungeon leaves me with is a lot of personal enjoyment, but not the weird pull that makes my favorite roguelikes so endlessly fun. it's exciting and i have put way too much time into it already, but i don't think it's aged as well as its peers.
i guess this ones pretty good, as far as idle games go. i like that you manually earn leaves (this games version of an ever-growing score/currency) by dragging around your mouse and blowing them off of the lawn, that's pretty cute & it's more engaging than just clicking. they slip a little bit of lore into the upgrades to keep things interesting, but i can't say that it was enough to like, hook me. i played this one for a couple of hours and then after i tried to come back to it, i found my interest had sharply declined. worth giving a try for sure and certainly well made, but it's more the kinda idler you play at work to kill a few hours than something you'd get really invested in for two weeks.
2019
possibly my favorite idle game that i've played? it doesn't do anything very standout, imo, but it takes a lot of the most common tropes and mechanics of similar idlers (numbers going up, rebirth/restarts, increasingly elaborate guis) and executes them very well. the humor and artwork reminds me a lot of kingdom of loathing, for those of you familiar. lots of ms paint dudes fighting fridges and toilets and stuff, lots of pop culture references that seem like ten years out of date. i definitely got hooked by this one for a few days, but i'm at the point now where they've introduced so many new mechanics that i'm a little burned out. there's a lot of depth here and you could absolutely sink a few hundred hours into this, give it a shot.
2022
have you noticed that plinko has made a big comeback? i feel like i started hearing about plinko again with that horse tumblr meme, and then this game comes out and suddenly it's the biggest roguelike on my radar. i looked at the google search analytics and it seems that, in the past 5 years, plinko as a search term peaked in the summer of 2020 and is experiencing its second biggest peak this past six months. troubling to say the least. i think this game is referencing Peggle though, which looks to be one of those kinds of games that you find in the walmart cd rom section for 10 bucks
anyways this is pretty good for a little early access deckbuilder. i find the central mechanic, shooting little rocks and acorns down the plinko board to deal damage, very novel and fun. it reminds me a lot of those bubble blaster style flash-games you used to see a lot online. the characters and enemies are charming, the upgrades seem fairly? balanced, and they have a lot of depth in how they combine and synergize which is always an addicting roguelike mechanic. the only real issue i had is that i thought it scaled up in difficulty a lot at the very end, and so far i've created a lot of builds that absolutely destroy everything up until the final boss, where they just totally peter out. not that big a deal, but i was getting annoyed with it. you can tell slay the spire has had a big impact on this dev, just look at how the map works and what the final boss looks like. overall a really fun little game though and definitely worth checking out early.
anyways this is pretty good for a little early access deckbuilder. i find the central mechanic, shooting little rocks and acorns down the plinko board to deal damage, very novel and fun. it reminds me a lot of those bubble blaster style flash-games you used to see a lot online. the characters and enemies are charming, the upgrades seem fairly? balanced, and they have a lot of depth in how they combine and synergize which is always an addicting roguelike mechanic. the only real issue i had is that i thought it scaled up in difficulty a lot at the very end, and so far i've created a lot of builds that absolutely destroy everything up until the final boss, where they just totally peter out. not that big a deal, but i was getting annoyed with it. you can tell slay the spire has had a big impact on this dev, just look at how the map works and what the final boss looks like. overall a really fun little game though and definitely worth checking out early.
2019
hits the best possible balance for a minimalist puzzle game - the players tools are simple, but endless in potential variations and uses. your job here is to place roads and highways for an ever-growing community of commuters, using the limited materials available to get everybody where they need to go with as little congestion as possible. every time you play (this game takes a high score style approach) starts out slow, with only a few different colors and motorways, but becomes deeply complicated as the demand for new roads grows and the existing motorway grid because increasingly elaborate. it's about accommodating everyone's transportation needs, regardless of where they decide to live or work. ultimately this proves very frustrating, and i eventually give up every run after a building spawns in the exact worst place possible and i don't feel like tearing down all of my existing roads to reorient everything for a single house. as others have pointed out, mini motorways ends up creating a great argument against car-based infrastructure. could you imagine trying to pull this off in the real world, where you can't just pull up all the roads and re-lay them like magic. fucking ridiculous.
2021
i really wish i had much good to say about this one. like other reviewers here have pointed out, the game's beliefs towards drug addiction, the homeless, and violence are very pitiful. the basic premise of the story is that your character has been victimized by a number of homeless addicts (named 'degenerates' by the game itself), seeking revenge by killing a bunch of guys in junkyards and warehouses or whatever. i've seen a lot of people try to write the bad takes here off as the result of the narrative being a quickly-written afterthought - if true, then the game is poorly conceived and lazy on a fundamental level, and if false (and these are just the developers explicit beliefs), it's pretty reprehensible. the closest comparison i could probably make is death wish, the 1974 film, but even then, i think death wish tries to approach its subjects with some level of (admittedly very stupid half-assed) consideration, whereas intravenous seems to treat its attitude towards these so called 'degenerates' as a given, putting any nuance on the backburner in favor of reveling in the gameplay. the gameplay is serviceable, but I feel like there's far too many different ideas and mechanics going on here for any one of them to feel particularly polished or functional, which is what you generally want out of a stealth game. the detection especially feels weird, you often get spotted by enemies just off-screen or who were completely hiding in the shadows but you can also open a door and walk up right behind a guy and kill him without him ever noticing. small related note - there's a bit at the beginning where these two guys accidentally shoot and kill their third buddy, running away and leaving his body on the ground, and i'm just wondering - why does everybody in the dang junkyard run out when i shoot my gun but when they kill this dude nobody hears a thing? that bugged me in particular.
gonna stop here cuz i'm just rambling now, but yeah, i really wasn't into this one. it's rare that i ever request a steam refund on a game just from pure dislike (as opposed to it being broken or something), but after playing through a good bit of this one on gog and then the beginning again on steam, i'm really not digging it.
gonna stop here cuz i'm just rambling now, but yeah, i really wasn't into this one. it's rare that i ever request a steam refund on a game just from pure dislike (as opposed to it being broken or something), but after playing through a good bit of this one on gog and then the beginning again on steam, i'm really not digging it.
1982
one of the best 2600 shooters, imo. the appeal here is the simplicity - think Galaga or Phoenix, but with weird, demon-bird-aliens as enemies and some really tricky but addictive & tight gameplay. this one was put out by Imagic, who i'd consider the best company working for the console at the time. check out their other games too, especially Atlantis (duh), Dragonfire, Cosmic Ark, and No Escape.