An immaculate 3D interpretation of the metroidvania concept. Movement is dynamic and fast paced without ever feeling uncontrolled, puzzles and tools are creative and engage with each other in tons of fun ways, and the style and art of the game is playful and wholesome.

Only gripe, and very fitting to much of the metroidvania genre of old, the combat is majorly lacking. I'm torn between saying the game would be better without combat all together or that combat needed to be doubled down on. It's not unpleasant although the first few minutes are stiff, but it quickly becomes something you barely engage with.

Overall a blast, a great collectathon with awesome gameplay.

I deeply love the metroidvania genre. In particular, I've always had a preference to the less-castylevania games as well, finding faster movement, deeper verticality, non-architectural level design, and gun/projectile based gameplays more fun.

This is likely the only real exception I've encountered. The style and premise are right up my alley, beautiful pixel graphics and a fun existential scifi plot in what I dare to describe as a near-Gigeresque world.

And yet. It jut doesn't click for me. I found the gameplay loop of the gun switches to be clumsy, the drill was entirely unnecessary and could have been wrapped in with the scanner, the scanner also being pretty unfun and unwieldy to use. The game doubles down on one of if not the worst tropes of the Metroidvania genre, hitting every single tile of every single room. Pair this with what felt like pretty uninspired level layout, it just seemed so much more damning than pleasant.

I truly want to like this game, every part of my being says I should and that's why I keep going back to try it again thinking "maybe this time it'll happen" and it never does, and I have plenty of real marked complaints about the game but at the end of the day I don't think it's some awful game.

It's just not for me. It's probably not life changing amazing, maybe it's not even great, but it's not bad either. Give it a try if this genre is your thing, otherwise, maybe steer clear.

As a programmer and engineer, this is a hard review to write.

This game is the closest I've come to doing work for fun. It puts a twist and turn on programming(assembly programming, reviled as the worst kind by most of the world) that isn't seen anywhere in the real world, yet still employs much of the concepts and basics of assembly. This results in a highly unique and stylized experience unlike anything real not like any other game(that I've experienced or heard of, at least).

As such, this is a truly remarkable little jaunt. I imagine it would be fairly hard for anyone with truly zero programming experience to jump into, yet, I also feel like anyone with real programming experience puts themselves at a deficit due to approaches and habits that are antithetical to what's required to beat the levels.

I love this game. It's not for everyone, in fact, I'd say this game likely has an incredibly small target audience. If you know any programming, I think you should try this. It may seem like a drag to do work for fun, but I think it transcends nicely. If you don't know any code but love puzzles or riddles, you should also try this. I think it provides a wonderful and unique spatial and temporal thinking challenge,

Na na na na na na na na na katamari damashi
Na na na na na na na na na katamari damashi
Na na na na na na na na na katamari damashi
Na na na na na na na na na katamari damashi


Katamari is a genre of it's own, and this is it at it's absolute best.

PS: Play with a controller

It's incredible to have witnessed the birth of a new sub-genre in gaming as the result of an experimental, no-budget, indie release. Words almost don't do justice the significance this game has had, once again reminded us as players and consumers that indie games are what drive the ecosystem and market forward, and that we must always be vigilant for(and even more importantly, open to try) obscure games that may cross our paths.

There's no way around it, this is a must play, as in, you must at least try this game. The gameplay is as simple as possible yet it hits some primal nerves that make it ring the dopamine bells inside you.

I often have to remind myself to contextualize how I feel about a game(or movie) with two questions. What was it trying to achieve? How well did it manage to achieve it's goal?

Backfirewall_ is a story and character first puzzle game. A gauntlet of programming and tech user jokes decorate a fun and playful style and setting while the player navigates emotional highs and lows. With multiple routes and endings and a swath, but very purposely not an over abundance, of collectibles that are specific to story expansion, this game has strong replayability, which bolsters the otherwise terse campaign duration of somewhere between 4-8 hours.

The puzzles are never too complex, nor are they the main event. Some levels in particular explore the narrative through the puzzles, which I think proves this to be intentional. In the event the player feels bogged down by the puzzles, there's a mixture of nudging from the narrator as well as an optional more direct hint system, both of which are in character and canon to the story. A nice touch, especially since the automated hints are very conservative in how quickly they appear.

The supporting characters are unique and memorable without being overdone or cliché. The main character, which is actually not the player, evolves over the course of the game and manifests the stages of grief in a deep and thoughtful way. The game often asks the player to encounter or experience human experiences and emotions through the guise of playful tech-themed characters and situations.

So. I think the developers wanted to give us an interesting, fun, and memorable story that we can connect to, while going through a series of puzzles that pace it along. With that, I think they did a marvelous job achieving this. Inspirations are clearly drawn from games such as Portal and Anitchamber(though perhaps not what you're assuming), they expertly navigate a fine line between being overbearing with jargon and technical details while having cute quirks for those in-the-know to enjoy.


I highly recommend this game for a wholesome, but optionally, deeply insightful, game that will require you to turn your brain on but not shoot smoke out of your ears. It's highly likely you'll find yourself keen to replay and see alternate routes and endings, and the bonus underlying story is also very interesting in its own right.

So, will you upgrade?

Overall, it's pretty good. Somewhere between good and great, not quite either.

I think, as many games do, this suffered from some overhype due to it's sporadic and reserved updates/info during it's very prolonged development period. People, with barely any real info to go off of, cited this game as "The New Bioshock" and/or "The New Fallout". Yes, it certainly and very directly takes inspiration from both of those titles, but it's still decidedly it's own game. It's reductionist to assume that a game with some crossover in tone/concepts as Bioshock is a clone of Bioshock, the same way that saying COD is a clone of DOOM for being first person and a shooter would be insane. I may be giving this game some unearned credit because I'm actively trying to contextualize better than I might for other games.


Graphically and visually, the game is great. Things look good and high quality but have enough stylized elements that make it feel unique and personable. I'd give high if not very high marks for these aspects.

I expected a buggy mess on release off the heels of the misery that was CP2077 and expectations being low for being the first entry of a new studio. That being said, the game ran immaculately from day one. I experienced no crashes, only 1 major bug(stuck in a menu that caused me to force quit) and a few insignificant bugs such as enemies clipping into walls. Overall, I was really really impressed on the quality and polish of the experience.

Story was pretty good. Most details are well developed and have good pacing and impact. The extracurricular story(terminal entries and audio logs) left me a bit frustrated. I played in Russian audio w/ Eng subtitles(as I've found games tend to have better voice acting when in their developers native tongue) and comparing to English I found the voice acting better and preferable. That being said, many terminal audio logs failed to load subtitles, subtitles would collide and overwrite as 2 separate voice segments would start in succession, dialog would begin at very inopportune times causing me to miss what was said, etc. Audio and subtitles problems were frankly bothered me a lot and was one of the worst aspects of the experience.

Gameplay and level design, there's a lot to be said. I loved the way that more linear and scripted sequences were woven into the semi-open world to keep a sense of pacing and urgency in a way that almost no open-world games have ever captured. The worst indictment about these sections were that the sets started out very strong but got a bit trite by the end, as almost all main story took place in congruent undergrounds. The underwater spaces were shown and teased but totally unused, and we start and end on the floating cities but have no middle experiences there. DLC could fix this. The open world settings frankly were disappointing. No areas felt unique(same few house models pasted everywhere), the same format for each zone, being in the open world felt tedious, boring, and overall unpleasant. The enemy respawn mechanic was a cool concept but the execution is miserable. Once again, we have failed to learn from FromSoft where enemy refreshes should be instigated by a major transitions or saves/safe rooms only. It's a shame to see such a cool world and ideas be so neglected once in the scope of the open world. Even the test chambers, which were pretty fun and engaging, each having a notable theme to their solutions, was bland when you realize all of them rely on the magnetism mechanic, which is abandoned from the main game other than the one level that introduces it. I think they could have gone wider and deeper with the concept and added some more advanced combat experiences to the testing grounds to improve unilaterally.

Menus, UI, map, inventory, were all pretty bad. All of the player interactions(locks/doors, terminals, etc) are very slow and clumsy feeling, with information spread out in annoying ways. Nothing was unusable nor hideous, but the amount of time I sat there watching the characters hands doing something(one of these days I'll write my DOOM (2016) thesis of Hands Theory in Gaming). Upgrades felt annoying to navigate and execute, having to cycle between a lot of pages and often with a load time.

Overall, this was still a really fun and impressive game. I've spoken a lot on it's flaws, but that's because I've been willing and wanting, to spend a lot of intimate time with the game since it's release. I've tried to be mostly spoiler free, although I have an extended set of thoughts that hinge on spoilers that I'm considering writing. If you liked Dishonored, Bioshock, Fallout, Crysis, Metro, Wolfenstein, or Half-Life, I'm very confident you'd enjoy this game too. Realistically, the game is best enjoyed as a strictly linear and guided campaign, and that's a shame because there is something beautiful deep down. I think and hope we will see a sequel(or successor in some other terms) where Mundfish can learn and grow from this. It's clear to me they put in an immense amount of groundwork to make the game feel and look great, so they have a huge head start on a future endeavor. I recommend this game, its miles ahead of something like CP2077 comparing them both at launch, and despite having a much smaller open world, this game felt massively more alive and personably than CP2077 EVER did. It stands up fair against many of the story-driven FPS games of recent years(taking a moment to review my own rankings, I do stand by giving this the same score as Bioshock Infinite!) and it makes me excited that a new studio is on the map that could continue to improve and make better and better games!

This is tough for me to write but I think I need to be honest with myself and with others.

Infinite is the weakest game in the series. That's not to say it's a bad game. Far from it, in fact. I'd still rank this as a MUST PLAY entry in general and especially for FPS and Sci-Fi fans.

Infinite abandons the charm that the shooting-combat of the first two games managed to master, and navigates down a more real-time ammo management and ADS system. On the positive side, they encourages frequent weapon changes and improvisation, but the downside is that is also pigeonholes itself into a wack-a-mole cover and peek shootouts. Although the skyhook appears to contradict this, once you get past the fake thrill of air trails wizzing by, the rails are just another form of cover where you're mostly if not entirely safe as long as your moving in a direction. Removing special ammos hamstrung what made for some of the most interesting combat elements, plasmids feel less impactful and less intuitive - I understand their desire to break away from the now potentially trite base plasmids, but there's a reason they were so beloved, they were just damn good designs!

The story massively hinges on a moment of climax. This isn't inherently a bad thing, but I can't help but feel they were chasing the high and gaming history moment of the climax of Bioshock 1, and they simply couldn't capture that shock jockey in a bottle again. Once you know what happens, the story feels very very bland and weak on repeat playthroughs, as opposed to Bioshock 1 and 2 where repeat plays give the play more empathetic and insightful ways to think about the characters and their actions and motivations with hindsight.

The art style was also, not a bad choice, but ended up feeling washed out and "Fisher Price" toy-like, a combination of the style of graphics used contrasted with the chosen aesthetic. The engine simply worked better with gritty and grimy, dark and damp of the first games, than it does with Columbia.

Some final minor notes
- Boss fights were awful
- The only Big Daddy type enemy is deeply unfun to fight, a major loss to the franchise
- Symbolism was way too on the nose
- Buffs and upgrades didn't feel as meaningful or good to get

Play this game, seriously, but take it's flaws in stride and recognize those flaws and shortcomings. Game devs could and should learn a lot from this entry, both good and bad.

It's good, it's pretty fun. Well suited for mobile gaming, OK for somewhat lower effort desktop tower defense gaming. Very pleasant aesthetics and atmosphere, less dense and deep than Rogue Tower but still offers a lot of interesting gameplay. Less chaotic and noisy than Rogue Tower of Bloons TD entries. Could use some work, and in the worst case it may be a game that's limited by it's own systems simplicity, but after my first few sessions I've found myself wandering back to it on occasion when I want a tower defense itch to be scratched, but don't want nearly the commitment or investment of alternatives.

A great little platformer experience centering on an authentic web slinging experience. I have a few gripes with how the physics of certain objects and interactions were tuned(such as some hose connections requiring very strict and perfect alignment and distance, only to then be easily disconnected). These could lead to getting wrapped up in some tedious webbing gameplay.

Overall though, a delightfully cute experience, that leaves you feeling cozy in the warm 8-armed embrace, with cute narrative and characters.

I've played every entry in this franchise with a close friend of mine. We're both highly neurotic puzzler solver types, and the moment we boot into these games we start tearing into it like rabid dogs.

I thought the color-bridges numbered-portals puzzle was really annoying because a lot of it relied on vision that was hard to deal with because of how thin and long the map was. A few puzzles felt bland or short, and the light puzzles were AWFULLY laggy(both of us play on fairly high end hardware and had no issues with the rest of the game), but despite that we still had a blast and would pick up a new entry in the franchise in a heartbeat.

I only hope they can refine and improve yet again!