Recent reviews by auz

One of the best rhythm games of all time.

absolutely stunning

peak gaming

I think I got this in a bundle with a bunch of other games for really cheap. I played it for an hour and forgot about it until recently. It's boring and uninspired, with "realistic" (asset flip?) visuals that aged instantly and "realistic" gameplay mechanics that just add more busywork and tedium to the gameplay loop.

I was reminded of this game after Schedule I came out, which takes the concept of a drug empire management sim and makes it actually fun to play. The publishers of DDS seem to agree, and instead of this being a wake-up call to push the devs to fix their own game (or the sequel), they're launching an investigation into "potential intellectual property infringement," a.k.a., "their drug dealer management game is doing better than ours and we're upset about it."

There's a world where both games can coexist, but Movie Games S.A. does not want to live in a world where they publish both the 2nd and 3rd worst drug management sims on Steam.

King's Field and Cruelty Squad had an esoteric roguelike baby.

I've played Runescape since 2007. I created my lifelong username on this game. I'm still playing it. I've done some of the content many, many times across both games and different accounts. Some of that content gets exhausting, but somehow it never gets boring.
I think OSRS is a grind that you attach your own goals and meaning to. Just play it,

This is very similar to Vampire Survivors in many ways. Isometric view, dodge and shoot enemies, each run has a time limit and you earn a currency to spend on upgrades, characters, and weapons in-between runs. However, so far, 20 Minutes Till Dawn is much harder than VS. I don't know if it's just inherently more difficult, or if I just need more upgrades, or if the balancing is off, but so far it's harder to get a good run going and it's very dependent on your character and weapon choice. I also don't think the difficulty is a bad thing; Vampire Survivors is all about the power trip, murdering hordes of monsters no swet, whereas 20 Minutes Till Dawn is about surviving the horde.

Definitely one of the best management sims/tycoons out there, despite still only being in alpha (beta soon). Grow from a single person running contracts in a garage to a multi-billion dollar tech conglomerate, cornering and monopolizing the entire industry. 10/10

Very fun so far. I'm still in very early game, which is just going through the maps doing quests and dungeons. The dungeons range from fairly standard caves with a boss at the end, to visual and cinematic feasts with surprisingly great cutscenes and set pieces. I haven't been 100% paying attention to the story, but it seems interesting for those who want to read the dialogue.

The early game leveling is slow, but it doesn't feel grindy. I've just been following the main quest, which takes you through the areas with nearly zero backtracking. Sidequests also push you along rather than making you repeat areas. The pacing feels right because of this; you'll never be grinding to catch up to the main story level, but if you just follow along with the story and sidequests you won't be significantly ahead either.

There are a lot of side activities I haven't gone in depth with yet. There are some trade skills (hunting, foraging, mining, logging, fishing, excavating) with different mechanics for each, but I don't know what training these will unlock in the future. There's also map completion rewards similar to Guild Wars 2, which you can fill out by completing dungeons in each difficulty, finding vistas, fighting world bosses, etc. These completion rewards can give big boosts to your roster level, a system that increases the power across all of your characters. There's a ton more mechanics than what I've mentioned here, but this should give an idea of just how many things there are to do before you even reach endgame.

If you're an MMO fan and/or an ARPG fan, play it. I haven't regretted the time I've spent. And if what I've read online is to believed, the game never gets P2W, so you can sink hundreds of hours of your time without paying a single cent.

cut squares. unplayable without mods