Dex

It's more or less a 2D sidescrolling Deus Ex inspired cyberpunk game, with a lot more punching people in the face - combat. The melee combat is a bit rough around the edges, and the game is a bit brutal for the first 15-30% of the game, but it gets much easier as time goes on (Regen aug is *very expensive*, but cheese.) As with Deus Ex, it's important to utilize stealth, as well as silent takedowns, especially early on. Further through the game with more levels and equipment, you can afford to go guns - or fists blazing with less consequence. The game also has a pretty integral SCHMUP styled hacking minigame, it's pretty decent, and more importantly: fun, unlike most hacking minigames. You can even stun augmented enemies (AKA pretty much literally everybody - this is a cyberpunk universe, remember?) with hacking, with the acquired perk, very helpful. Would love a sequel someday.

2D action cyberpunk adventure with RPG elements? Sounds like the regular eclectic nonsense that developers are usually trying to have something to talk about and differentiate their game from the rest. But in this case, it all blends well and is used to tell a great story. The graphics are stylish, consistent, and varied enough to keep your eyes interested throughout the game. This is how I would imagine the world of William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy (which was obviously a big source of inspiration for Dex, maybe together with Effinger's Budayeen cycle and a bit of Matrix for a better taste). Paradoxically, I liked the ingame graphics better than the static pictures used for storytelling in places where AAA titles have movie scenes. The soundtrack is superb. Even during the less original missions, the game never became boring because of the wonderful music. And now the best news: story is king, erm, I mean CEO, as cyberpunk worlds are always ruled by megacorporations. It's interesting, it's captivating, and it has a satisfying conclusion. I don't think it has ever happened to me before that I shed a few tears for the villain. Or maybe let's put it this way: I have a backlog of around 500 games just on GOG, and I intend to play them all (well, most of them at least), but Dex is still a game I will definitely want to play again.

In this day and age of 100+ hour single playthroughs of games created by gargantuan teams of programmers, writers, and developers, Dex is really quite refreshing. If you're thorough, multiple play-throughs aren't really necessary and a pretty complete experience can be had in under 15 hours of gameplay. That said, it's really a very complete package. A quality story with difficult-but-not-impossible combat, stealth elements, and a few quest items that make you scour your brain and go "where did I see something like this that could help already...?" Basically it's a nostalgic love letter to the best games of its kind from a decade and a half ago and is absolutely worth the price of admission.

An honest game with a lot of charm and a good-ol' dark and gritty cyberpunk atmosphere. You can see the love for the genre in what the dev team did here. Even the story and the characters manage to get gripping and interesting, despite relying on 1-2 cypunk cliche's that many of us have gotten used to. (The fact that the characters grew on me and made me care about them should be proof enough.^^) Gameplay is quite versatile, and lets you choose different paths for tackling most quests. There were a few minuses I could not overlook, though: * Ranged combat is a tad shoddy, and ultimately forces the player to rely on high HP and healing items while shooting baddies. There's little room for strategy here. ** The ending scene seemed a bit rushed. *** If you're the type of player who explores every nook and corner on sight, you might end up solving certain quests by accident before they even show up in your log. (e.g. casually walking into a guarded place and hacking the pc, which HAPPENS to be the key to a quest you unlock muuuch later). I wish the game could let the players fool around with the optional stuff, but still prevent them from spoiling the flow of the main quest. The above three are all that stopped me from giving it 5 stars. I'm still giving this game a 2nd run. Hope to see more such 2D goodness from this team!!

I've had my eye on this game for a while and finally got it the other day on sale. While I normally don't like violent games or strong language in a game, Dex does check all the other cyberpunk boxes I enjoy. This game has really great 2d hand-drawn style graphics. The backgrounds are simply gorgeous. The controls were kind of tricky for me (using mouse and keyboard in a platform run-and-gun/melee game) but you can easily remap the controls to find something you like better. I haven't played super long into the game, but it's been engrossing. Voice acting is generally good. The music is absolutely awesome synth/cyberpunk type music. I love that. The world and story seem pretty standard cyberpunk stuff so far, and yet that doesn't take away from the experience for me. And I find the choice of making the game a side-scrolling rpg an interesting one, and quite like it. If you're a fan of any cyberpunk games or Shadowrun then you should check this out.