Hammerwatch

I like the graphic style. It's retro in the good way with some nice effects. Controls are subpar. E.g. you can't strafe or even move while shooting. Variety is small. While enemies are unique to each act, the enemy types don't really change. Level design is uninspired or boring. Most of the times it's just enemies and traps and you keep running back and forth to attack and evade enemy arrows/spells. Enemies run directly at you and get stuck at walls. Archers shoot at you even if they are wide outside your visible screen area. The only sort of tactics you can apply is to use the enemies' lousy pathfinding against them. Which feels more like a flaw than tactics. Worst of all is the design of the level boss fights. They respawn lower enemies like crazy and you will die a few times inevitably. In the end you stop trying to hide and just keep shooting and casting spells directly in front of the boss until you die and then you repeat that until he dies. There are no weak spots, there is no strategy, it's just dumb. And when you defeated the final boss and just missed on single hidden plank in the 12 floors, the game hits you in the face and lets you die without allowing you to escape the castle. There are some riddles which are all trial and error, usually bombing you to nirvana if you guessed the wrong order of four switches to activate. And there are some secret areas which are usually entered by shooting at walls or running trough walls. This implies a lot of running around and shooting at walls. Which is quite annoying. There are manual save points and autosave on death. You can't manage your save games in any way (only on operating system level). So chances are you end up at the boss fight with no life left and as the boss fights need several lives due to the lack of any sensible strategy, you are screwed and have to play through the whole game again. This is just treating player's time and interest with scorn.

Hammerwatch puts me in awe of much you can tear down complex RPG mechanics and make them so simple as kill-loot-get stronger becomes the only thing that matters, which is not something bad but tear down anything remotely complex leaves not so much to actual gameplay or well... fun. I mean, the game is fun.. for one hour, then it becomes so repetitive that even playing with a friend doesn't do much to make the hours spent grinding feel worth it. Besides that, the pixel art is decent and the soundtrack is what surprised me the most, really good. So, if you are a fan of these kinds of games, it's worth checking out.

Now, this game is a hack-and-slash game, through and through. Easy to control and tons of frantic fun at it's finest, best with multiple players. Wide variety of different challenge and crutch mutators make customizing the game a breeze. It's a fun game in smaller doses. There's the campaign and survival map, latter being better for quick, fun bursts of frantic action. 5 different classes at the time of writing allow for replayability as each one is quite unique. The campaign varies. Depending on how fast you go through it, the time of completing it once will be around 3-5 hours. There is no random generation of any kind. The boss fights are arguably the best part of the campaign. Regular mobs aren't particularily memorable though. Fighting the several over and over starts to feel dull soon. Also, most of the more challenging enemies won't come along until 45 minutes into the campaign, making the beginning a rather dull affair. Luckily the middle and end are pretty challenging. Playing multiplayer is silmple. Either browse the server list or type in the IP address (visible in the host's game lobby). If the player doesn't have the map, they'll join the lobby and download it. There's a level editor in the game, allowing for custom campaigns, mobs and modifying the classes. I'd recommend Hammerwatch for fans of the genre, those with a good gaming group up for some simple hack-and-slash action or for younger players.

A must have for old Gauntlet fans. This game features: Large mazes filled with interesting puzzles and secrets. Hordes of enemies that spawn endlessly until the spawn is destroyed. Unique abilities for each of 5 character classes. Two full campaigns and several other game modes. Local multiplayer for up to 2 and up to 4 over the internet. This game MUST be played with a controller. Keyboard is just painful. I've had a good time playing this with friends and solo. Not a bad game to just join people in mid-session either since you get all the money they have collected along the way. Stopping at a shop gets you caught up with everybody else really quickly. The gauntlet remake bonus levels are just fun (and worth lots of money).

Anyone who ever grew up playing gauntlet with a sibling will love this game. I have only just started playing it and I'm loving the feel of the game. In summary the game is a top down light action game where you take yourself and perhaps a partner through various levels of setting off enemies by proximity and dodging their attacks while wading on through battle. The pacing seems more relaxed than gauntlet (perhaps because gauntlet you use to slowly die so you couldn't waste time [ and there's an option to enable this, so no loss there]). Playing by keyboard is a bit clunky, as there is no moonwalking fire, though you can manage to get directional shots going and while you aren't moving these shots can be continued. I love how you can retro it up with graphics settings.