Yeah. That pretty much sums it up. For those who haven't played either of those arcade classics this game mixes the best of both. Randomly generated mazes and loot mixed with twin stick shooter madness. A wide variety of weapons, pumpin' soundtrack, vivid colors and a customizeable portagonist makes for an awesome game I can pick up and not be able to put down right when I need to. The levels play out quickly , even the large ones. Since all maps are generated on a scale of 1-5 with 3 stats (size, # of elite enemies and amount of loot) I've found tiny maps packed with loot and elites give the best return on time investment. You have 3 classes of robots to choose from, a melee 'bot, a tank 'bot and a middle of the road gun 'bot. Each one demands unique tactics, so there's lots of room to experiment. Boss battles are a little on the bogus side. Once you figure them out they're easy enough but they're kind of all the same. Loot sorting is a simple affair that I've figured out well enough that I can pare down my recent haul to a couple keepers and the rest gets turned into credits for upgrades. There's 4 types of parts for your robot, Sensors, generators, movement and weapons, all upgradable by 5 steps. I've found a few types of the weapons to be my favorite so I tend to use them most often. I've begun forcing myself to give the others a shot and they're pretty fun once you get used to them. I've even tried a few silly combinations and they can be surprisingly effective (try double mounting twin beams or rocket launchers) to absolutely useless ( like twin blades). Everyone gushes about the music and while I won't say it's bad it does get repetetive quickly. Overall I love this game. It's easy to pick up and play for `5 minutes but it's kept me busy for hours.
The idea is great, you are being hunted as the title says. The problem is the whole idea doesn't hold up very well over the long course of the game. I'm sure they had good reason to spread the game over 5 islands but doing the same thing over and over gets boring quickly. With no crafting system, there's no way to set up Rube Goldberg traps or build weapons to defend yourself from the robots. I was disappointed to see that I can't put spices on dubious food to make it palateable. I can only pick up items from houses or barrels but I can't pick up a rock I see laying on the ground. There are few things to use that distract the robots from their patrol area and once you run out you're screwed. The robot AI is relentless until they break line of sight with you and then they can be easy to evade. Just don't be too aggressive or reckless and you'll be fine. I do enjoy this game but it just falls short in so many ways that keep it from earning that 4th star. Consider it a strong 3 stars.
A long time ago I played Spelunker on the NES. Once I got the hang of it beating the game was easy. Problem was there were only 4 levels, so once you knew what to do it lost all its appeal. A couple decades later along somes Spelunky. It's almost the same game but with enough variation to make it fun. You'll get the hang of the basics pretty fast but you'll also be in for new surprises. Spelunky skips a lot of the rouge-lite charachter development and instead gives you new avatars to play with. You can skip ahead to new levels once you reach certain check points. Shops sell buffs and you'll occasionally find basic items to keep your stocks up. You'll have to balance time spent in the level with other activities like collecting loot and rescuing people trapped in the mine. Be careful! EVERYTHING will kill you. Dangerous animals, death traps, spikes, falls, explosions, boulders, ghosts, and worst of all, your own impatience will cost you your life. It's frustrating but you can always figure out how you screwed up. The game even keeps tally of how many times you've entered the mine with hashmarks at the entrance. I really enjoy this game and vcan totally rcommend it.
I love Manhunt. It ranks high in my top 10 list of games I've played. Metal Ger from the NES is amazing also. Being given the chance to play a twin stick stealth murder game with near zero load times between deaths was too good to pass up. Man, am I glad I got this game! An interesting mystery unfolds as you take control of an unnamed protagonist. You'll take jobs from shady characters. Job that have you meting out vigilante justice against people who deserve every violent and bloody death you deal. Then you'll find yourself, and your chaacter, questioning why you've agreed to all this. Levels are just right in length to finish in a single session but long enough make it worthwhile. Weapons are varied and the usefulness of each one comes in to play in a rapidly changing situation. Sometimes you want that shotgu but then you'll gladly pass it up for a silent baseball bat. Ammo is in short supply too so you'll have to keep changing weapons. They all last just long enough. You can also buff your charachter with different animal masks you unlock as you play the game. Each one grants one special ability. You'll have to choose well since you can only wear one mask at a time. You'll die A LOT. Over and over but once you've got the mission figured out you'll love breezing through your final attempt like the badass psychopath you need to unleash. And like I said earlier, load times between tries are short. People praise NeuroVoider for the music but Hotline Miami has the best soundtrack as far as I'm concerned. I'll find myself humming tunes from HM as I go about my day. I loved this game and can heartily recommend it.
A lot of people complain that this isn't a pure 90's shooter. AFAICT Pixel Titans didn't say this was Quake, only that it's inspired by Quake. Strafe is more of a rougelike with FPS gameplay. You'll spend the first hour of playing this game hating it. It's not Quake. It's not Doom. The levels are never the same. Boo hoo hoo... So you'll look up a few things online. You'll dig for FAQs. You'll find a few message boards and some half completed guides. You'll do a little reading. Then things start making sense. You'll find out there are at least a dozen weapons, all of them unique and quite powerful. You figure out how to find those elusive secret rooms. You'll get further and further in the game and it'll get fun. By the time you can gun down the enemies on the Icarus you'll make it to the next zone and you'll have a whole new batch of enemies to fight, and you'll start thinking this isn't such a bad game after all... Now you'll be searching everywhere to find those rare items that unlock more feature of the game. You'll figure out why your score matters and what it gives you after each death. You'll be having fun 30 minutes at a time, trying new styles of play and with different goals in mind. That killer soundtrack will get in your head. It's not a perfect game. I've had issues with some graphical glitching that allows me to see through stairways into the next area but nothing game breaking. Strafe takes some getting used to and if you give it a chance and stop expecting it to be Quake, you'll have a good time.
I bought this game shortly after it was first released in the 90's and it was unplayable on my less than optimal machine. 20 years later it still runs like a dog on my much better computer. The missions are too long, the controls are terrible, and the acting is hammy. I've disabled animations, played at lower resolutions, reduced the size of videos and the game still suffers from slowdown. Even worse, sometimes the game runs too fast or keys get stuck forcing my Silencer to jump around the mission zone continuously or some other useless action. The keyboard controls were designed for keyboards made before the advent of Windows keys, so when you touch it by accident you'll drop out to your desktop and be unable to return to the game. Shut it down and load it back up, then fire up your last quick save... I honestly had a better time playing this game on my PS1. Almost all of the issues of low frame rate were fixed on that platform even if the control scheme was just as convoluted. It's a fun bit of nostalgia but it you may very well find yourself just as frustrated with the poor design as you are happy with your trip down memory lane.
