Recent reviews by ECE94FSR

Will contain some spoilers*

Volgarr the Viking instantly makes me think of "Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts". It has this very awkward jumping that makes you die soooo many times till you start to get the hang of it.
The controls are tight and not clunky at all.

The game really emphasizes memorization learning boss patterns and enemy positions etc.
The game is very unfair till you learn and abuse the strategies you've made from all of your deaths.
Then you are more and more going to be able to trivialize a lot of places.

Avoiding taking damage is much more important in this game then its sequel. Each equipment adds an hit-point but losing equipment especially the flame sword makes bosses and tougher enemies much more difficult to deal with if you aren't good enough yet with patterns.

The first time I played and went at it I didn't even beat the game. It is a frustrating game that will get a lot easier if you keep at it. I revisited it and beat the C-ending and some time later I went for the A-ending.
Playing side by side with my brother made it much more enjoyable even if he beat it earlier than me.

Its very satisfying to get better at Volgarr.
Going for the A-ending gathering "special lives" by taking enough chests without damage really gives you the true arcade experience.
You play alternative versions of the level with limited amounts of lives that you can increase by grabbing more chests without taking damage and defeating bosses.
If you lose those lives you get back to the normal version of the level so you are better of restarting if you want to beat the alternate path and reach the secret world.

The dev has been very clear with what the game is meant to be and a lot of the critique "lack of checkpoints" etc. is addressed in the sequel.

I find Volgarr the Viking to be a very solid platformer but receives 8/10 due to lack of accessibility which the sequel solves.
Mainly save files as its a bit of a classic issue with the arcade games that you get one play and then you are back without options to really select levels and other conveniences (yes I know you can go to the side to get to next levels).

//ECE//

Will contain some spoilers*

If you liked the first Volgarr game you will probably like the sequel too.
What might be the biggest problem for players who haven't played the first one is the way the jumping works.
If you aren't willing to learn to use it properly you will probably dislike the game.
It has a very special feeling, such that when I returned and decided to beat Volgarr 1 it for a short moment made me think it was input lag lol.
Levels are longer and the equipment is stronger, but holes, lack of oxygen and "special terrain" will insta-kill you.
It has many nice unfair moment like the first game and places you need to memorize to not get rolled.
Once you do its just like in the first game. You become the unfair one and trivialize many enemies and sections :)

As stated above the game in general has become longer and might lose some points with certain people who prefer a shorter game/levels.
However this is made more manageable with the checkpoint system.
As many probably know a frequent complaint about the first one was the lack of checkpoints.
For casuals thinking that the game is too difficult the dev also added another feature know as undead mode.
You become invincible with the exception of falling into holes etc.
I have never used this feature and its presented to you after a certain amounts of continues.
This used to be a forced feature which I really think was good that they changed to be optional.
Those who rather want the arcade feeling can destroy the checkpoints or simply erase the save slot which there are 3 of.
The game is overall an improvement over the first in almost every way.

The maybe most questionable change is the lack of secret world passages which instead has been made to a single world.
You get there by beating the normal levels without a continue.
I believe that Volgarr 1 & 2 are about the same when it comes to difficulty if we don't count the secret world Hel.
It is absolutely brutal. However the dev did a good decision on this, so if you simply beat the level you get the A-ending.
The level has checkpoints and when you die you have to do a cutscene every time and when you select your save you start at the last checkpoint with one life.
This is probably my only complaint about the whole game.
Either you should not need to see the cutscene any more times after the first time or the dev could make you start with max amount of lives instead of one.

Other negatives I find can be left as they are. People can cheat achievements with undead mode and exiting to title and selecting the save apparently takes you to the last checkpoint with all the gear you had. So you can basically beat the game with no continues on you first try by abusing this.
These things are up to everyone to decide on whether to abuse. Games like this you compete with yourself and even if you get to Hel you should be able to beat the game legit if you manage to complete the level anyways.

I managed to 100% the game in a bout 20 hours. I played it side by side with my brother.
We did the same with the first game but not from the start.
To make it like the first game and keep the challenge up we decided to break every checkpoint on our first run.
It was a great experience with lots of stupid deaths, laughs and frustration.

I'd give it 9/10.

//ECE//

Like Mario Party, but a less kids friendly version with more skill based games than luck🔥

Rock and Stone!
"Labour of Love" Lets's Gooo!

Complex and time consuming game with endless possibilities.
Grinding is fun for quite some time thanks to the progression still going on well beyond 100h.
Its also the problem as most wont play this game for hundreds of hours.

State of Decay Year One Edition, "SoD:YOSE" was a great prequel with interesting mechanics and overall an enjoyable Open World Survival Zombie Apocalypse experience which I would give a 7/10 today.
SoD 2 has made the first game redundant to a large extent. It has removed the most unique mechanic of the first game which had the simulation still running when you exited the game. This used to be an annoyance as you would need to prepare a bit before leaving the survivors to their own device. Building facilities isn't as time demanding as before which makes sense since you could start a build and exit the game before while the simulation was still running. It can still be a bit boring to wait but its a huge improvement over SoD:YOSE.

At first when I played SoD2 I missed a big thing from the first game: the campaign story. However with the Heartland dlc, aswell as the Wilkerson Storyline on a certain map this wasn't a missing feature anymore. The campaign simply wasn't played on the "campaign mode" as a whole. Overall the other enclave and personal missions are of a higher quality compared to the generic ones in SoD:YOSE.

The graphics and the addition of 5 more maps make a refreshing take on the visual aspect and the possible variety of the landscape you can explore and face off on against the zombies.

The 5 difficulties greatly balances the game to what is the most fun or balanced to you, aswell as the additional option to customize the overall difficulty with some option sliders. The progression system is very well made too. You can after upgrading your command facility enough decide to move with your community to any of the other maps and build up once again or you can follow through with one of the 4 leader types and establish a legacy through their quest lines. This adds them to a pool of characters available with their last equipped inventory aswell as skill set/level to chose for a new campaign run. Completing each legacy also unlocks boons for each leader type respectively. You can select up to 2 when you start a new run to get big starting benefits.

The DLCs are pretty good. Heartland serving as the "real campaign" in my opinion and is very well made with the new Plague Walls while Daybreak is good for the rewards and fun for a few hours before it gets repetitive.
They have also a tutorial in the campaign which is good for newer players who haven't played the first game. Otherwise they aren't too different so the transition from the first game isn't that bad.
Blood plague and plague hearts are big new mechanic of the games implemented well and adds a more typical approach to infection that you have to be careful around. It also helps with the feel of progression as you can't make outposts in places that are within the reach of the plague hearts influence and you want to clear the to avoid running into plague zombies. There are two stages to infection and when the bar of the second stage get full you turn into a zombie and the character is lost. While getting plague samples aren't very hard it isn't easy either so you try to be smart.
Cars are more important in this game and can be repaired even if the explode. They now require fuel to run so you need to repair them and refuel them regularly which is realistic and fair given that they are the best equipment in the game.
There is multiplayer which is pretty good, atleast with friends.

Glitches and bugs, while fun at times they can really cripple you and it shows that the game lacks some further polishing. Atleast 2 very grindy achievements. Playing Daybreak for 343 waves is probably 243 waves too much for most people. Surviving in a Dread/Nightmare Zone for 100 days with a single community is no more challenging after 7 days than it is at day 100. For most it will probalby be atleast 100h of boring grind as building up new communities are more fun I would guess to the most people.
The ai is very stupid so I stopped having them as followers when scavenging as they would run and attack juggernauts etc. and die...

In multiplayer if you get too far apart from eachother you teleport to the host.
The dialogues become tedious when they have been repeated 100s of times.
For best perfromance you have to edit the engine file. You can't remove flare lense and film grain in the game settings. Through a guide I changed this and got a lot better performance aswell as the game not being so extremely dark. I played on max settings and no longer hade any issues at all.

SoD2 is a big improvement over the first game. It virtually impoves on everything to some degree except that it naturally requires better hardware than its prequel to run well. Its well worth anything between 15-30€ or above and gives a lot of playtime and has a good amount of replayability. I would give it 9/10, multiplayer could be better and there are plenty of bugs/glitches aswell as some in my opinion unecessarily grindy achievements.

//ECE//

It can be a little fun but I think its more about enjoying music than gameplay in my opinion. You basically take songs you like and import them and they become a guitar hero like game with a quite visual track you travel on with your spacecraft or whatever you wanna call it.
The gameplay offers different difficulties etc. and different classes to play as for some more complexety to a straight forward game.

Audio surf is a decent game with challenging and some mildly entertaining gameplay. I think its worth it to get from a sale for listening to music you like. I would not recommend it to achievement hunters in general as some achievements are vert unappealing. I'm sure there are some that really like the mechanics and gameplay, but I'm not one of them.

//ECE//

NOTE: I base this review on the solo experience with the Campaign as a whole.
As someone who has spent nearly 2000 hours at Apex Legends I became curios about this game when I heard about it being so extremely good and worth it just for the campaign alone. I started the campaign and played through it on Master difficulty (hardest). Of course it wasn't easy but it was useful to do the training course and beat the time for the achievement to get better at the movement.
Fantasic visuals, graphics and and atmosphere overall.
Great and intersting story which I would say the setting looks something like a mix between Halo and CoD series. Nice bosses and challenging enemies while still feeling fair and well balanced.
Fast paced fps with amazing gunplay and movement.
Very satisfying with weapons, enemies and characters and abilities being so familiar as an Apex Player. While mechs aren't in Apex Legends they were very nice too.
Hackers ruining the multiplayer of Titan Falls so for the solo experience I can't find any cons.

Titanfall 2 is a solid 10/10 and one of the best games I've played in any genre. While I exclusively base my review on the campaign I have no doubt that when the multiplayer works properly that the same can be said about it.
Its well worth the asking price even if you play the campaign quickly on a low difficulty, I only played it on Master once and went back to clean up some achievements but it was an amazing experience.

//ECE//

Is a very fast paced, chaotic and good looking top down vehicular combat racing game.
There are a few different cars/terrain vehicles/hovercrafts to chose from/unlock and all have a slightly different handling. There are few different boost items available and a good amount of different offensive and defensive weapons aswell. The campaign is great and features a few different game modes and can be played cooperatively. There's also online play available. I played through almost the whole campaign with my brother and mostly enjoyed the journey. While there's some skill involved I also feel that there are some heavy RNG moments included. For instance its rubberbanding and you can easily early in a game get too far behind a bot and never be able to get ahead again as you will be stuck between the bots constantly preventing you from getting back.
When I 100% the game I uninstalled the game and while just under 10 hours is decent game time I think you can get a lot more time from the game if you play it with friends as its easy to play and enjoy.

BlazeRush is a good game and from what I got out of the 9 hours I played to 100% the game I would give it 7/10. The visuals are good, the campaign is great and the vehicular combat is excellent. A little bit too much RNG which can get frustrating with the challenges of the camapaign, otherwise I lack enough multiplayer gaming to give it a better rating compared to something like Toybox Turbos where I have spent way more time and what I consider to be a comparable game in a sense.
The asking price for 9:99€ is fair, but I would pick it up on a sale if you play it by yourself as these game are the best played with others, especially couch Co-Op.

//ECE//

Is a city builder simulation with management focused on transports. You have a few means of transportation availble: Busses, trolleys, trams, waterbuses and trains. The game is designed towards taking loans and with different transportation being better than other. Trains are the best and trams follow a bit behind while the others aren't nearly as good with profit.

Stunning visuals and simple easy to learn gameplay overall. While it isn't great the game has a campaign which I think is good for games like this. There are tutorials available which is great as the game at first can feel a bit overwhelming with the UI etc. It has multiplayer which is cool.

The economy doesn't make any sense at all sometimes. I have a decent amount of profit and I still magically can end up losing money. When I have very high loans I seem to pay them off fine without getting as much losses as I should meaning that loans don't seem to claculate the interest correctly. Mostly You do the same thing over and over again and while building and making lines can be fun it doesn't feel rewarding enough. I took my time and made lines I could keep track on so I could manage it all a bit better. There is some tweaking you can do to make the lines better with time tables but overall it doesn't provide enough to build up a transportation system that makes sense and keeps the citizens happy.
I don't like multiplayer achievements, but most importantly I don't like when multiplayer doesn't work. After many tries and almost giving up I managed to solve the issue by using the Asus Router App and enabling Open-nat with the rules selected for Cities in Motion 2 Steam version. This seems to be a big issue for many people that normal portforwarding etc. doesn't seem to work properly.
Game balance pretty much makes building metros and tramstations so much better that you only use the other means of transportation for visuals or coverage with bad profits.
Another big issue is when you build. I took my loans and built a huge metro system when I exit pause it doesnt work since it allowed me to build a too sharp turn which means I don't have a fully connected track. I can't take another loan and I can't earn any profits so I have to restart. Same goes if you accidently sell something or add something by mistake. There are no "redo options" in this game so you can essentially have to restart a map because of a missclick.
Some of the missions I couldn't complete no matter how I built the lines or whatever transports I used. While not breaking the game it sure makes the temporary missions annoying if you keep getting ones that don't work.

I got this game for free by a friend and while I enjoyed surprisingly well I would only give it a 5/10 despite spending 90 hours on it (a decent amount was AFK) . The gameplay feels underwhelming and while its alright for sandbox play it isn't anything special. The big points of the game goes to the graphics. At the highest setting the game looks amazing with great details zooming in and looking at the city close-up. I don't recommend the game, its pretty cheap at a sale and I doubt it gets much better with dlcs so only consider it if you really are into these kind of games.

//ECE//