BallisticNG
Review updated after release
BallisticNG is an homage to the old PS1 generation WipEout games (the original, 2097/XL and 3). For those who haven’t played them, you pilot a jet=powered anti-gravity ship across crazy tracks, using weapons and piloting skill to reach the finish line in first place.
The game really does feel exactly like a WipEout game. The handling is a nearly perfect clone of Wip3out, the teams clearly bring to mind the eight Wip3out teams and even the announcer is straight out of Wip3out.
– Real player with 7977.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Futuristic Retro Games.
BallisticNG is a fun game.
There is a certain satisfaction you get when you manage to weave your way through a complex and tight track in a hover car going at blisteringly fast speeds. Other racers fly with you, leaving their colourful trails in their wake as they try and blow you and each other up in a hectic battle to get first place. The ships you pilot are striking and recognisable and all feel satisfying to pilot once you’ve learned how to fly them properly.
The game has a very simple control scheme, and the game itself follows the concept of “easy to learn, hard to master” to a T. The response to input causes the ships to swing around and really brings out the feeling of weight from the ships you pilot The faster you go, the skill ceiling gets higher and higher as you discover tricks and skips and improve your airbraking and steering skills to help get faster lap times. True tests of skill come often and the difficulty doesn’t often feel cheap. The game is compatible with keyboard and XInput controllers out of the box and you can switch between them seamlessly, as you can have both plugged in at the same time and be able to switch input on the fly.
– Real player with 396.5 hrs in game
Nulldrifters
Fun graphics, cool music, and cheap price. Except the controls are terrible (and never explained, you have to figure them out), there are no options to change settings/key bindings/etc, and there is no multiplayer. Not to say it isn’t entertaining: the challenge of battling the game’s poor controls to try and get a good time is kinda fun. If you think $2 is worth an hour or so in a cheap racing game doing time trials, go for it. Otherwise, forget about Nulldrifters.
– Real player with 8.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Futuristic Singleplayer Games.
I completely forgot I wanted to give this game a recommendation.
It’s pretty barebones but it’s clearly well made and a labour of love for a really low price. If it had netcode and a small but dedicated community it could become a real cult classic.
– Real player with 2.5 hrs in game
Parcel
I’m always looking for good puzzle games and I can tell you Parcel is a true gem, a very clever logic puzzle that is much more intriguing than it looks at first sight. It also goes way beyond just being a “Sokoban clone” because the game world contains laser barriers, robots, remote-controlled interlocked obstacles, and you control several characters with unique abilities who are gradually added to the game as you progress through the levels (so far I’ve encountered the parcel picker, magnet, teleporter, jumper, and remote controller; UPDATE: the final addition is the hammer guy who can remove wall pieces, which adds yet another layer of complexity). The point of each level is to get your characters (and the parcel) to their destination spots, for which they have to interact and cooperate to clear paths and block (or sometimes destroy) enemies. Not every puzzle features all characters; you will mostly have three to five; sometimes you’ll get two or more of the same kind (four magnets, two teleporters, etc).
– Real player with 84.8 hrs in game
Overall 7/10. Recommended for people who like puzzle games with a high difficulty and a high tolerance for frustration. Really interesting mechanics, with 6 different characters that unlock as you progress through several stages, each of which will help you deliver a box (the “parcel” to its destination). Yellow guy = carries a box, Red guy = attracts the box, Green Guy = toggles barriers (for the box), Blue guy = swaps characters (and the box), Orange guy = jumps through barriers (including the box), Purple guy = smashes walls (but not the box). You get TONS of levels, tons of bonus levels, and the puzzles are very difficult so you’ll get your money’s worth based on time. It looks like a dinky little game but it’s not (I spent 30 hours). There’s also little collectibles throughout the game, which is great, but it’s the only little bit of story there is. The cons are the color scheme, which looks like someone turned the constrast and saturation up to maximum, so much that it’s hard to see the characters. Also, the 3/4 view at times blocked accessible pathways and made them look inaccessible. There’s also a limit on the number of times you can use certain powers, which means that even if you have a fantastic, efficient plan, sometimes you’ll be just one swap or jump short and have to start from the beginning, sometimes with an entirely different plan. There’s only one “right” solution, and they even set up the characters in such a way that you never have leftover moves. (Like blocking in the only character that can act first, so you waste two swaps just to be able to start). There’s no leeway or chance for lateral thinking. Still, the levels that weren’t agonizingly frustrating were fun, and overall there were only about 12 of about 80-100 puzzles or so (I’m too lazy to count) that I couldn’t finish or needed a hint on. (Also, there’s no hint system, which sucks.) There’s also an incremental save function which is helpful, but you can’t have multiple save points, so if you are overconfident and save too late in your actions, you’ll have to restart from the beginning. Annoying.
– Real player with 48.3 hrs in game
Ampersand
–-{Graphics}—
☐ Masterpiece
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Will do
☐ Bad
✓ Awful
☐ Paint.exe
—{Gameplay}—
☐ Try not to get addicted
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Nothing special
☐ Ehh
☐ Bad
✓ Just don’t
—{Audio}—
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
✓ Earrape
—{Audience}—
✓ Kids
☐ Teens
☐ Adults
☐ Everyone
—{PC Requirements}—
✓ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Minimum
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
—{Difficulity}—
✓ Just press a bunch of buttons
– Real player with 15.1 hrs in game
After completing the ENTIRE game, i can now give a review.
So the game starts off with Samuel D Jenson a long time mechanic who has always wanted to race. He was so sick of being in the pits of the race instead of actually racing. Well, this all changes. On Febuary 26th 2094 Sam gets his big break. in the middle of the Spacetona 500, sponsored by Sprint and Can-Am, the driver experiences some heartbreaking tragedy as his grandmother passes away and is announced over the comms inside the ship. Feeling undetermined he pulls into the pits and resignes as driver for the m&m’s car number 18. As the crew and managers scramble to find someone you volenter as the driver, and is accepted. Now the game starts when you are thrown into the race and you end up winning. 3 weeks later you find out the driver has killed himself.
– Real player with 7.8 hrs in game
Botology
I thought nothing could go wrong by picking a random game from my library to play, I was wrong. Botology is too much of a masterpiece for me to handle, this game which came out of nowhere truly stands up against modern RPG’s like Witcher 3 and Skyrim. What is Botology about? Well, you are David, a man with high engineering education who was admitted to the Botology company as a trainee. David is ready to start work performance, and is tasked by the overseeing blonde Linda (who is voice acted by talented and beautiful Katee Sackhoff btw) to go down to sector zero and check for the engineers or something which were apparently too busy to send their reports. As a brave David is about to step into the elevator that goes straight down to sector zero, Linda calls him to let him know that they combine business with pleasure, and no this was not an invitation to have sex to david’s desmise. Instead he finds himself in a suit of harmor that would rival that of Master Chief and Samus, and a sick ass gun to go with it, essential tools to locating the lazy engineers which can be heard munching on cookies if you pay enough attention. Oh but you thought that was all? This brilliant game is about to throw another plot twist at you, as David receives an urgent call from the guy that does reddit narration videos, telling him something has gone terribly wrong, everyone died and the droids went crazy. Not even that slick fox Linda upstairs can be reached at this point, as David realizes he alone must face the wrath of droids and look for any survivors. From this point on I decided to quit the game, as I found it to be too emotional and disrespectful of women, as it implies Linda is too scared to go down the elevator herself since she’s a woman, having to go all the way of hiring an experienced engineer to do it. Regardless of its rooted mysogonistic values, this is still a brilliant game and it will leave you thinking about it long after you finish it. Why is this company called botology? Why did the droids go crazy? Why couldn’t david just get an IT degree instead of this shit and go work for google? Does linda want to smash or not? Why do I own over 1400 games that I don’t even play? Are these antidepressants even working? Is this bridge tall enough? But above all, how did a small indie studio get the reddit narration guy for voice acting?? Impressive work, I hope to see more great content like this on steam from black lime studio, and recommend botology to all my friends.
– Real player with 6.5 hrs in game
Public Review on behalf of the Opium Pulses Steam group
Disclaimer: The copy of this game was provided by Orlygift . Thank you for making this review possible!
Few words about the game
Botology is a game where… I’m not even sure what’s going on as it’s explained with twisted and badly translated english. Intro tries to explain bits of backstory but it’s hard to catch up even there. When you get into a proper game finally, you just go forward, without any clear instructions, just walk and hope you’ll get somewhere. Once you get gun and some kind of objective… oh boy that’s where fun begins. By fun, I mean grind at every corner. Literally. One of the most repetitive games I have seen in a while. Only thing that is good(ish) is music in main menu, that’s all.
– Real player with 5.0 hrs in game
Lightfield HYPER Edition
It’s a very unique game. Calm one if you are not into a tight time trial. The menu navigation and time trial being always ready on the map makes the game flow extremely smooth. When you have it running on your computer, it’s hard not to just casually throw yourself in another time trial that won’t result in any meaningful records.
The ship has a very simple control, it can pitch and yaw but not roll – flip and 360 but no barrel roll. You can use ‘snap’ aligning it to a surface to indirectly roll without snapping to the surface.
– Real player with 34.7 hrs in game
Great creative racing game in space, looks like Daft Punk and TRON.
Campaign mode that starts out tutorial-like but quickly becomes challenging. This will humble you and teach you patience at hyperspeed.
A free-roam/time-trial/exploration mode, XP to be gathered, new tracks to unlock.
I am hoping there will be more online players in the near future. This game deserves more players.
Good if you like:
tough games with simple controls
adrenaline
mariokart and wipeout and mario
new ideas
neon
Worth the price most definitely.
– Real player with 29.9 hrs in game
Neon City Riders
I first saw this game at PAX East 2019 and loved the few minutes I played of it. I’m not an over ambitious gamer so I didn’t opt for “old school” hard mode. The difficulty was perfect for me and I enjoyed taking the weekend to play it. This game is too new and too indie to have any guides but there is a a drone you can get to help you find all the hidden items if you get stuck. The music is great and the art aesthetic is awesome. They avoid having the numerous baddies feel repetitive by offering several different designs of the same style bad guy/gal. Can’t wait to see what else this group makes!
– Real player with 20.4 hrs in game
** Disclaimer: I was a Kickstarter backer. **
This was a really fun Zelda-like beat-em-up! The game has a lot to explore, a lot to fight, and a bunch of puzzles on the easy-to-moderate difficulty side. It looks great, really living up to its namesake, and it also sounds great with every area and boss getting their own tune! The story isn’t particularly in-depth or surprising, but every gang leader has their own little story, making them seem somewhat relatable. English obviously isn’t the developer’s first language, but I don’t feel it ever got in the way of the story or quests. I mostly just corrected the grammar in my mind and moved on.
– Real player with 16.0 hrs in game
Tri6: Infinite
Summary
A futuristic endless runner/racer that pits you against a progressively more difficult series of procedurally generated obstacles at an increasingly fast pace. Earn unlockables and compete in global leaderboards while vibing to the vaguely Tron-like visuals.
What is it?
In Tri6 Infinite you control one of three vehicles with differing characteristics through an endless series of procedurally generated tunnels filled with twists, turns, obstacles, and opponents, all of which exists in “cyberspace.”
– Real player with 2.6 hrs in game
Schönes Indie Spiel aus Nürnberg!
– Real player with 0.1 hrs in game
Access Denied
Game Summary:
The title suggests a game more dark than what it turns out to be, as it’s a very laid-back, take your pace puzzle game. As you progress through the game, different puzzle boxes will appear in front of you with no explanation as to the objective or rules for each puzzle. However, the game presents the different styles of puzzles to you gently, with most of them being self-explanatory. Sometimes it can be hard to discern your exact objective, but sometimes figuring out the objective is part of a good puzzle.
– Real player with 11.8 hrs in game
I’m on the fence about recommending this or not, but in the end I’ll go with “Not Recommended”.
This game has a very nice graphics style that I like, and the concept was nice (a lab that just brings you a bunch of puzzles to solve), but the puzzles themselves range from being:
- Not even Puzzles. (Literally took 10 seconds to “solve” a few?)
- Simply “Trial and Error” exercizes.
- Illogical or just outright confusing as to what they were looking for. (I finished some and have NO idea how I did cuz in my mind I was still working on it!)
– Real player with 5.6 hrs in game
Cologne
That a nice racing game
– Real player with 9.1 hrs in game
Very good for an indie game. It’s simple, but really entertaining. The felling you get from going through all those track, each with unique styling and themesong - it really gives you chills :D. I hope this “arena mode” will get developed further, I also hope for new levels in the future ;).
– Real player with 6.3 hrs in game