Welcome to the sixth volume of Brief Looks and the last entry for the entry. An occasional series where I take video games I wasn’t bothered to write full reviews for, but still have thoughts that I want to convey. It’s been awhile since I did one of these. I could’ve done one in September, but instead I decided to churn out as much as I could because a summer class I had took up a good chunk of my time. Now that we are here though let’s quickly cover some games that may or may not deserve your attention. We’ll be doing what we did last time and listing the games from my personal least favorite to most favorite. Kicking things off we’re gonna start off with…
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number
A long time ago in one of my earlier Brief Looks, in fact I believe it was the first one, I discussed Hotline Miami. Despite being a fan of the future games it inspired like Katana Zero and Ape Out this was a game I never exactly wrapped my head around. I see the appeal of a game such as this, but I just couldn’t understand why it’s held so high as an indie classic. It’s pure gorey fun, but in a very flawed manner. It’s a game built around memorizing the layout of every level, and dying over and over until you perfect an encounter. However, it was more frustrating than it needed to be due to some weird design choices to me personally. Being unable to shoot through doors. All guns only have one clip and no way of looting ammo even if there’s a ton of the exact same gun lying on the floor. Being unable to see what’s in the distance even with a far view, and oftentimes being killed by bullets you couldn’t see coming off screen. The game is made to be arcadic fun you can play several times over, but I found myself grueling until the end. Which is weird, as for the games it inspired I never felt this. Probably because they fixed the problems I ran into with Hotline Miami, with last year’s Otxo cementing why I still stand with these mixed feelings.
I don’t hate Hotline Miami. I honestly think it’s an okay experience. It’s just not for me, and the second game was a title I dropped after two hours of playing back in 2023. However, I revisited the game a few hours before writing this and managed to reach the ending. Hotline Miami 2 is a divisive sequel amongst fans. Some saying it’s an underrated masterpiece, and others saying it is inferior and fails to improve any of the problems I’ve mentioned. I’ve played a lot of sequels that are similar to their predecessors and don’t change much. Octopath Traveler 2 is exactly that, and it’s one of my favorite games of all time alongside the original. It’s that Hotline Miami 2 created problems that didn’t exist in the first game that frustrates me more. The level design is somehow worse with many of them falling under the strategy of waiting in a corner and letting the guards flood in. Some are downright frustrating either containing too much open room and no cover for you to take advantage of. All the while enemies with guns blast you in droves. Speaking of the sequel seems to be a big fan of bunching big groups together. Making entering some rooms a bit suicidal depending on what weapon you enter with. You’re even more screwed if it ends up to be the first room on the floor with this description. Then you have the character gimmicks…
Each scene follows a different character and they each have their own gimmicks depending on their background. One is a soldier who can start with one of three guns, and he can loot bullets for the gun he’s using from crates. However, he can’t pick up any other gun and despite starting with two clips each level he can only loot one clip from a crate when empty. One character tries to be a pacifist, so when you pick up a gun with him he tosses it to the side. Then there’s the batch of killers reenacting the acts of the first game’s protagonist, and you get a choice at the start of each level similar to the first game as well. Each killer has a gimmick, and some of these are fun like the duo. One has a chainsaw and the other has a gun. One killer can dodgeroll and one can beat enemies with fists even when they are heavies. It’s this constant shift in character gimmicks and frustrating design that made me wonder if experimenting was the problem. I like when games take risks, but at the same time you don’t want said risks to hurt the game. Topple this with a narrative that tries to expand the world, but honestly doesn’t achieve much and ends up being less cohesive than the original. Hotline Miami 2 is an acid trip of a mess. I don’t think it's bad and the developers clearly cared, but man it is not any easy game to recommend even if you are someone who liked the first game. Consider it carefully. I’d probably give it a 7/10.
Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengeance of The Slayer
Just like Hotline Miami another game I covered in one of my earlier Brief Look volumes was the 2019 simulation game Hypnospace Outlaw. A game imitating old 1990s web browsers while being a fun little detective game. It was a title I liked quite a bit and found worth recommending even if the last few hours of it confused the heck out of me in terms of what to do. So what did the developers end up doing next after making such a critically acclaimed indie gem? They made a boomer shooter… scratch that. They got another team of developers to make a boomer shooter. Not a letdown, but this feels like a complete 180 from what they delivered previously. I also do not understand why so many people want to make boomer shooters, because the genre has now become bloated and oversaturated. You can’t go three months without another one . One thing I’ll say though is Slayers X is doing enough to set itself apart.
The story follows one of the Hypnospace characters, Zane, as he and an old friend finish an old project from their high school days and try to sell it on Steam for money. I am not joking, that is the actual plot. Slayers X in some way is a game within an already existing game world. It is a title that pokes fun at fan made projects made back in the day, and honestly it works. The dialogue is cheesy, the animated cutscenes are terrible, the voice acting is bad, and it rides forth with the confidence of how bad it is. As a boomer shooter it’s alright. The weapons are good, the enemy variety is vast enough, and you’ll visit a lot of places across this three or so hour long adventure. I don’t think some levels can use a bit more guidance, but this isn't anything new when it comes to boomer shooter design. It’s an alright game and it’s one of the few alright titles out there I can’t get too disappointed in. Slayers X is not doing anything outstanding, but it is not doing anything terribly. If you like boomer shooters or want an expansion on the universe of Hypnospace Outlaw then it’s maybe worth the look. I’d give it a 7/10.
Trepang2
There’s gonna be a trend of ok indie shooters on this list, and I know a bunch of people are going to hate me for saying they’re okay. Especially this one considering it spent quite a few years in the works and is a love letter to one of gaming’s iconic shooters. Trepang2 aims to be a spiritual successor to the all time classic F.E.A.R. The combat hits just the right spots with slow motion action, gore, and being able to obliterate hordes of helpless troopers. There’s a good variety of guns to use, and halfway through you unlock an upgrade to dual wield certain guns. It is a butts to nuts power fantasy and for that I really respect Trepang2. I don’t know if this is a fair claim to make considering I never played F.E.A.R, but one thing Trepang2 lacks that its predecessor had was horror. I haven’t seen a review for this game that hasn’t not brought this up. This game puts such a heavy emphasis on its stupid action that it forgot what it took inspiration from. In some ways this hurts the game as not only did you invite unfair comparisons, but your levels and the ideas within them are gonna be looked at carefully. None of the levels outside of the castle and the short horror moment with gags stand out. They’re all what you expect from a game whose plot I can’t remember beside that you are a super soldier recruited to be part of a secret militia.
You know it’s bad when the most memorable level in the game is one that literally whips out the backrooms, and I mean the literal backrooms. Except there’s no out of this dimension monsters and it’s just more of the dudes you’ve been mowing down before. This game is also really short too. I knew something was wrong when half the level select screen was just side missions. It is nice that the game made it optional so that the one thing it does well doesn't get too repetitive quickly. It’s just after beating Trepang2 there’s not much reason to go back unless you enjoyed the combat loop that much. Thirty bucks is not too much for a video game, but I would say wait for a sale as they’re asking too much for too little. I’d give this one a 7.5/10 for being alright.
Project Warlock
Earlier this year I thought I hated boomer shooters. Blood didn’t click for me and when I tried to play this for an hour I dropped it. I thought the genre was getting stale, but then I played through Doom 2 and Doom 64 back to back and realized that maybe just maybe: Project Warlock is not a very good one. Project Warlock is a boomer shooter that tries to blend a lot, but not much of the things it’s trying to do particularly works. Specifically how level progression and loss is handled. There are five worlds each containing four levels and the boss level. Each level has a different amount of floors, and you can only move on when you clear the last floor. Depending on the difficulty setting you’re playing on you get a certain amount of lives. These lives determine how many times you get to continue in a stage. Die too many times and you get kicked back to base. This design choice sucks. Imagine going through a grueling level, being near the end, losing your last life, and having to redo what was probably twenty minutes of progress. Remember that this is a boomer shooter, so it means you have to do all the backtracking and keycard hunting all over again. I ended up playing on the easiest difficulty to avoid this problem, which I know a lot of people are going to criticize me for, but I spent money on this so I enjoy it the way I want to.
There’s also a few RPG mechanics. You get skill points whenever you loot them or level up, and they can be spent on new powers and different guns. The powers are fine. I didn’t use them all too much, because besides the freezing one, not many of them are useful. The gun upgrades are fine too. You choose between one of two upgrades and for the rest of your playthrough what you chose will stay selected. For example, you can upgrade your SMG to either dual uzis or a machine gun with bullets that ricochet off walls. This comes with the caveat of not being able to reroll your character, because some upgrades for guns are certainly better than others. I chose the ricochet machine gun and what I didn’t know was bullets can bounce back and hurt you. Why!? You can also level up character stats, which is nice until you realize they don’t add much and this means if you’re struggling with a level you can just grind til your character stats are high enough and you can just soak damage or never run out of bullets. Last thing to note is something feels off with how the game plays. Your guns lack weight, impact, and moving around feels more like sliding than running. Project Warlock is considered one of the best of its genre, and I disagree with this statement. I think it’s an okay game that tries to tack on RPG elements for some odd reason, and none of them work for what is an alright shooter. I give it a 7.5/10 for being alright.
ZeroRanger
I’ve played a few bullet hell games before. Furi is still one of the most underrated indie games of all time, so go play it. I never played a shoot ‘em up before, otherwise shmups. Weird nickname for a genre, but it is what it is. I thought ZeroRanger would be a perfect entry as a lot of people say it’s on the easier side and one of the best. Unfortunately I let my guard down as at the end of the day this was still a shmup.The furthest I got in ZeroRanger was the true final boss and after a few attempts I realized it was enough and I experienced all it had to offer. ZeroRanger is a good game. There’s some neat ideas that help separate it from other shmups and make it not equally as frustrating. In the normal mode you have what is essentially an experience point system. It goes up the higher your score is, and when it goes up enough you get another continuation. Let’s say you currently have two continues and level up. This means whenever you restart a stage you have three continues, and this goes up until you have what I remember eight or ten continues. This means you can die ten times in a level, and this makes what ZeroRanger more manageable.
Halfway through you unlock the ability to turn your shooting robot into a melee robot who can cut through projectiles, but some he cannot and these projectiles bundle up. If too many bundle up you take a hit. You can three hits in total before dying with the rare occasion of you getting a fruit that can refill health. The game is good and I would’ve beaten it if it weren’t for the final boss. There is too much going on at once with the first phase eating away your health with total screen covering attacks and orbs you gotta break quick enough because they revive each other. Then the second phase is too much, and that’s when I stopped because I didn’t want to frustrate myself too much and I was ready to move onto other games. I can already see people laughing at me, but when you’re an adult and you have both a job and college classes to worry about, taking the time to play hard games is tricky. Also I beat all the Soulsborne games, so that’s my flight for the day. ZeroRanger is good and I give it a soft 8/10.
Pepper Grinder
Pepper Grinder is a solid 2D platformer with ideas that could honestly be pushed a little further. I enjoyed this game a lot, but it was too short to my liking. And I’m a guy who loves a game that is short and gets its ideas across quickly! You follow a treasure hunter that washes ashore and now must use a drill named Pepper to chase after her foes and claim ultimate booty. This game has what are probably the most satisfying digging controls in a video game. Constantly moving forward, being able to move around with ease, popping out, zooming into the air, and drilling into more dirt if you manage to land into it in the right direction. Levels are often built around this as some sections have you pushing forward through epic set dressing and rocketing towards the goal. Each level has its own gimmick to switch up the gameplay with bosses often testing what you had learned up until that point. It’s been a few months since I played Pepper Grinder, but I don’t remember stages stacking mechanics on top of each other. It didn’t do what Celeste did and build up ideas with time. Mechanics and gimmicks are stuck to the level they’re in and it’s a shame. A lot of cool levels could’ve been constructed if they had just taken previous ideas from a few minutes before and put it into what you were doing now. It would be great!
The game has a good pace, but again I would say it’s too short for its own good. It took me two hours to beat Pepper Grinder and that was without doing the side levels or replaying stages to get the collectibles I’ve missed. Collectibles allow you to purchase items at a shop with most of them being cosmetics and other goodies. The game is regularly fifteen dollars, and I’m glad I nabbed it during a sale for ten bucks. For ten dollars I got money’s worth, but I know some folks will state there are other games around the same price and they offer more hours of play, which is true. Pepper Grinder is still worth the look even when it’s a bit flawed. 8/10 for being enjoyable.
This War of Mine
Normally I like to review games I manage to finish, but This War of Mine is an interesting case for me. This is the first game I’ve ever played that I didn’t want to play any more of, but wanted to still talk about. This War of Mine is a bold game in that it follows people living during a war rather than fighting in. The civilians caught in the crossfire and unable to flee the country said war is happening in. If they attempt to then most likely they’ll get killed. Why? We don’t know and it’s sad that this is the reality we live in. This War of Mine is often brought up during the discussion of anti-war video games alongside Spec Ops: The Line and Metal Gear Solid, but I’ve never seen people discuss it in the same vein. Which is unfortunate, because This War of Mine is the most down to earth anti-war game ever made. Being this cruel and relentless experience that sees you and your survivors suffering all the time. It’s a survival game and days are divided into two segments, daytime and nighttime. Daytime sees you managing the wrecked house and trying to give your survivors what they need to live just a little longer, and nighttime has you making a choice whether you send someone out to look for supplies or to simply guard the house in case of people who want to ransack you. Everyone is out for themselves, and this captures how war will bring out the worst in people. Is this always the case? No, because in real life communities will always come together to treat those who are injured or have lost loved ones during wartime.
There is always something going wrong in This War of Mine. Your survivors are either starving, tired, sick, bleeding because they accidentally got injured, cold, etc. Trying to take care of one person is hard enough, but trying to divide food and medicine amongst three or more people is even harder. Characters who die are dead for the rest of your run, and if all characters die before a ceasefire can happen you get messages about how their loved ones wished they could’ve just survived a little longer. So they could come home instead of weeping everyday they’re missing without them. This is a very stressful experience. Hence why I stopped playing before I could achieve a single successful run. This War of Mine is made by the same devs as Frostpunk, which does make a lot of sense seeing some of its DNA carried over. Despite both games being dark and stressful I can see why Frostpunk is the more easily appeasable between the two. I do not know how many people I can suggest This War of Mine too, but I will say it’s still worth looking into. We need games like this. War games that actually showcase the suffering created by war instead of display it as the joyrides a lot of war games tend to show. It’s a game that reminds us, “You don’t want this. Nobody wants this!” 8.5/10.
Corn Kidz 64
Back in late September or early October, I forgot, I binged through a couple 3D platformers, It’s the genre I grew up with and still enjoy to this day. Not often we get new 3D platformers, but we all have to thank the indie scene for giving us more of what we love. Penny’s Big Breakaway was great, and despite having released last year Corn Kidz 64 was also another great genre entry. I do have a few complaints, but nothing that prevents me from recommending it wholeheartedly. You follow some weird genetically modified goat kid as he navigates a wacky dream world hoping he can get some nachos by the end. Silly premise, but it’s carried by a charming setting and funny writing. This game is inspired by old Nintendo 64 titles, specifically Banjo-Kazooie. I have never played Banjo-Kazooie. It’s on my bucket list for classics I want to play. I don’t know if saying this is fair, but Corn Kidz 64 is basically the third Banjo-Kazooie game people wished they got instead of the mess Nuts and Bolts was. The movement and abilities of the character feel exactly like what a 3D platformer from the N64 era would feel like. It’s fluid, but not the most fluid thing in the world. Your character feels weighty, so it makes each successful jump great to land as you constantly ask if your momentum and trajectory is enough to get you where you need.
The goat kid has a few tricks up his sleeve, specifically his midair ram. He can charge forward and if he bashes a wall with it he can push himself upwards. This is basically a replacement for the wall jump, and it never gets old to use. Platforming challenges are fun and designed around the limited arsenal of character moves you have to use. The movement might not be the most nuanced, but it’s the variety of activities you get to do that make Corn Kidz 64 fun for five hours. There’s these mirrors with optional challenges and I expected them all to be platforming stuff, but it turns out some of them involve minigames like one where you have to catch stuff falling from the sky. You go into a pig cathedral at one point, and at another point you help a spider dig up his mother’s grave to get an item he accidentally buried along with her. Turns out he hates his mother. There’s only one major area outside the tutorial area, but all the levels within it are what make it diverse enough. My only major complaint is that some areas can’t be progressed through until you get enough crystals and level up, and backtracking to see what you haven’t gotten yet is annoying. I also don’t think it’s my favorite indie 3D platformer despite the quality on display. I like Tinykin, A Hat In Time, and even Pseudoregalia for all it's confusing level design are games I consider better. For a game that’s less than ten bucks though you can’t go wrong. 8.5/10.
Impostor Factory / Beach Episode
This one I’m combining into two, because they’re both part of the same series and the last we’ll ever see from Freebird Games. The To The Moon saga is one of my favorite indie series in quite a long time. Not because they are good video games, because of how emotionally invested I’ve been with these stories and characters. Watching Eva and Neil help out all they can and let the dying souls of those who suffered too much be laid to rest peacefully. Impostor Factory does something new, because if they were to just do a new patient each game then it would probably get stale. Instead you follow a man who ends up getting sucked into a murder case, but it turns out he’s not just in a murder case but also a time loop. Then half way through the game it turns into the typical To The Moon story and we get to relive the memories of two individuals. Lovers who wish their love life could've been better, but got separated due to personal issues and busy work schedules. Then the third plot twist happens and it’s like this big reveal for one of the main characters in this whole series. Impostor Factory isn’t going to have the same impact as previous entries did, but it did for me and I still consider it an amazing game. It does what this series does best and shows the several ups and downs life and love has. How you can choose to be happy despite it all. To move on without any regrets of what you failed to do or please.
I would even go as far to say Impostor Factory has the best couple of this series. Following both individuals, stepping into their shoes, and seeing it all rather than having the plot revolve around Eva and Neil witnessing it and changing it. Not to say I dislike Eva and Neil. I love both of them, and this brings me onto the Beach Episode. The last episode in this narrative driven series. It’s treated like a gag episode at first. Every anime is bound to have a beach episode or filler, and the idea is played on. Eva and Neil go on a company vacation, but then you start to witness some strange things. People at the resort being those you laid to rest before. Glitches and flashes of Eva’s personal life. If you remember the big reveal in Impostor Factory then you might predict what is coming in the Beach Episode. Still, I was very shocked at what had happened. This final episode is less about loss and more about grief. Wondering what you could’ve done during the time a loved one was alive, and what you should’ve said. Knowing all things will come to an end and that’s what Beach Episode is. 9/10 for both of them.
Thank Goodness You’re Here
Thank Goodness You’re Here is great. You probably knew that already or have seen a clip of this game surface online. That’s because it’s good, charming, and above all funny. British humor may not click for a lot of people and this game is driven by it, but trust me even if you are not a fan of this style of humor you’ll still have a great time. You follow a little dude being sent to a small town as a business representative, but you got some time to kill before the meeting so you waltz around only to run into people facing multiple problems. Better go solve those problems and in the silliest ways possible. There’s not much gameplay to speak of. All you can really do is jump and slap things. Thank Goodness You’re Here is mainly driven by its animation and humor, and god damn it both of them are really good? Everything is drawn so fluidly it’s almost like you’re watching a cartoon. Every joke lands and some even lead others. One joke after another until eventually it piles up into this fun music segment at the end. There’s not much to really complain about aside from the game being short. There’s much reason to go back, but it was fun while it lasted. Play this game during the weekend. 9/10.
Still Wakes The Deep
Still Wakes The Deep is my favorite lovecraftian story since Bloodborne, and my second favorite story of the year behind 1000xResist. It’s made by the same devs who made A Machine For Pigs, which I played shortly after beating Amnesia: The Dark Descent only to realize it was okay and I wouldn’t look back at it ever again. The developers, The Chinese Room, are often made fun of for making what are essentially walking sims and walking sims with light horror. There was a bit of skepticism for Still Wakes The Deep as it was another walking sim horror game by these folks, and that description is absolutely right. The game is extremely linear by the design, it all kinda just plays itself, and there’s much reason to go back and replay it unless a few years from now you forget the story. However, I will say this is their best game yet and they’ve gone a long way since their first few titles like A Machine For Pigs and Dear Esther. Hence why their recent game is my second favorite story of the year and horror story in a while.
You follow Caz McCreary, a Scottish man who took a job on an oil rig far out at sea. Years ago he beat someone who ticked him off, and the police were sent after him for physical assault. He was afraid of owning up to what he did, so he asked his friend Roy for help. He got a job on the oil rig and he hoped with enough time spent there that things on the mainland would calm down. That is not what happens as the police eventually locate him, and during this time working he grows distant from his wife. Who was already pissed at him for starting a fight and leaving her and their two kids behind. Caz’s life is torn apart and on the day of being flown back something terrible happens. The crew struck a substance in the ground that isn’t oil, and once struck the rig shakes. Torn apart as this substance begins to expand and take over the whole rig. Transforming a lot of the working crew members into body horror atrocities that aim to locate the remaining crew and assimilate. This brings me onto the first aspect I love.
Nothing about the horror you’re facing in Still Wakes The Deep is explained. You can try to make sense of it, but you won’t have someone run up to you and give you an exposition dump on what this substance can be. I also like how monsters are addressed as the individuals they used to be instead of just monsters. The opening segment follows Caz greeting everyone he works with by name, and this creates familiarity even though the player doesn’t have any. Every monster or corpse you find is someone Caz worked with. Someone he shared a meal with or passed time talking to. You relate to Caz as not only is he emotionally torn apart at what’s happening back at home, but his current friends and family are suffering a fate worse than death. The whole story is him and the remaining crew trying to find a way off the rig only to discover there is no way off and they’re all gonna die here. It’s a story that’s both hopeful and hopeless, and it culminates in what is one of the best endings in a horror game. Caz grows as a person and he learns to face his fears even when he doesn’t want to. Ending the horror once and for all while coming to terms with who he is and what he has done. It’s a perfect ending to a game. My only major complaint outside of gameplay is that they’re charging more than they need to for this game. I get this is their fanciest game yet, but thirty five bucks is too much for what is three or so hours of a really good tale. Still, I can’t recommend this enough. Just wait for a sale. 9/10.
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