✌ Johnny Rocket

✌ Johnny Rocket

It is honestly beyond me how someone could price this game above 1-2 dollars. (Let alone offer a monthly LICENSE for internet cafes!!!!!)

It’s buggy and un-polished.

It can be finished in less than 15 minutes.

And the worst of all is that the trailer on steam is GROSSLY misleading!! There’s no punching or grabbing opponents and connecting different moves together, creating combos etc. You just dash and shoot. That’s it.

I definitely don’t recommend it at it’s original price.

It’s barely a “maybe” if it drops at $1 - $2.

Real player with 2.3 hrs in game


Read More: Best Metroidvania Shoot 'Em Up Games.


Johnny Rocket is a funny, frustrating, short and simplistic experience. I was drawn to this game due to its great minimalist animation and humor, but the game’s brief playtime and somewhat aggravating mechanics hold it back from being an experience I would recommend to others.

While I still enjoyed moments of this game and found myself laughing at some of its enemy designs (especially the Nazi Seal enemy..) the difficulty level and overall gameplay left me wanting much more out of the title.

Real player with 1.5 hrs in game

✌ Johnny Rocket on Steam

Omega-Altro

Omega-Altro

Young mercenary Rita was called by some organisation on the mission: piloting and shooting! What secrets this mission has?

Fly and explore the underground sectors, find and enter rooms, shoot the enemies, and find switchers to advance!

  • Pixel graphics

  • Lander mechanics

  • Platformer

  • Metroidvania

  • Dungeons


Read More: Best Metroidvania 2D Games.


Omega-Altro on Steam

Carebotz

Carebotz

This game is a breath of fresh air to me mainly because of its controls. It’s been a long time since I’ve played something similar and while flying around needed a little time for me to get used to, it was fun to learn and after I got used to it, became second nature.

At first you only have a traditional fast-firing but low-damage weapon, but trust me, it’s worth progressing - you’ll have a whole arsenal of weapons to choose from before you know it, and prioritize according to your situation and preferences. When you master it, you can even figure out some tricky combos that are satisfying to pull off, such as when using the boost jump and the rocket in quick succession, it’ll fly quicker than the minigun pellets. Deciding on which upgrades to spend your currencies on is a fun way to customize your things.

Real player with 23.9 hrs in game


Read More: Best Metroidvania Shoot 'Em Up Games.


Surprisingly entertaining.

I play with keyboard and it is a little clunky but the fights are very enjoyable even without controller.

The story-bits do not make too much sense, the thrill of toip-down-asteroid/souls-likey fights and traps, the great music and the stylish/functional graphics make this game a worthy one.

Should be a great purchase eveb with the full price tag.

(I got 25% off)

I had 2 minor issues with the game, a tiny bug of missing text and a clear way to see which part of my ship is forward.

Real player with 11.7 hrs in game

Carebotz on Steam

Space Hole 2018

Space Hole 2018

I’ve only played about 3 hours now, and I can tell I’m nowhere near completing this game. Space Hole 2018 is visually stunning. It plays a lot like the Super Monkey Ball series, but is a lot less annoying in every respect. Minor game mechanics make the game much more enjoyable, plus you gain these new mechanics throughout the game which gives a sense of achievement and growth. The soundtrack is great too. Overall, this is an awesome, relaxing, psychedellic game that is definitely worth the listed $3.

Real player with 27.0 hrs in game

This seems to be what Sam Atlas was aiming for all along. This newest Space Hole has a lot more of the Antichamber vibe and is overall a great improvement on 2016. Here’s why.


Pros

  • Visually a lot more interesting now. Full on psychedelia, the inner workings of a mass hadron collider, giant chess sets, hypercubes, Saturday Night Fever disco floors the lot.

  • More varied levels this time. Not just a get from point A to point B anymore. You sometimes need to exit your ball and fly around to scope out the large levels to see where you are supposed to be heading and work out a strategy.

Real player with 21.3 hrs in game

Space Hole 2018 on Steam

Secrets of Rætikon

Secrets of Rætikon

Secrets of Raetikon

Released in 2014, Secrets of Raetikon is a 2D adventure puzzle game created by Austrian developer Broken Rules. Set in an uncharted area of the Alpine mountain range, players assume the role of a native bird who uncovers the remains of an ancient civilisation.

Secrets of Raetikon uses an open world environment with a heavy emphasis on exploration, item collection and puzzle solving. The primary objective is to retrieve seven mysterious shard fragments and return them to a central location. Each piece is protected by a combination of hostile wildlife, hazardous surroundings and environmental based puzzles.

Real player with 15.4 hrs in game

Story Review

Plummeting down at sonic speeds towards the ground and saving myself from becoming a splattering heap of blood, my first moments of this new and strange world were quite horrifying. It was strange that despite my near death experience I couldn’t help but feel that these lands felt promising in being a tranquil place to live the rest of my life. Unsure of what was to become of me…

The world looked incredibly strange, full of triangle shaped forms, from the trees,caves and sculptures down to the animals themselves. Unsure of my surroundings I had to familiarize myself with what would be useful. Finding red triangles I noticed made me healthier while the blue triangles when gathered enough saved my life. Funny how these items were of similar shape and resemblance to my environment. Forming together a sort of harmony.

Real player with 14.6 hrs in game

Secrets of Rætikon on Steam

Owlboy

Owlboy

Nine years is a large chunk of anybody’s lifetime, for those of us lucky to see a century, it’s almost a tenth of the precious, finite time we get to spend on this planet. I’ve been following the progress of this game since the first few morsels were public and admit to having forgotten about the game several times until inevitably finding more little delicious crumbs to follow until arriving at the 1st of November and a metaphorical cake, responsible for the delicious line of crumbs that preceded it waited to be eaten.

Real player with 26.9 hrs in game

Revered, exalted, wise. These are just a few of the words I would use to describe Owlboy.

The developer D-Pad Studio took about a decade to make this game from conception to finish, and thankfully their efforts have made a masterpiece. I honestly would put Owlboy among the high echelons of indie games and other amazing games that have come before it. I am talking Shovel Knight, Binding of Isaac, Limbo, Fez; games that have shaped modern PC gaming as we know it. They have combined spectacular story telling, fantastic characters, dazzling design/artstyle, and from beginning to end enjoyable gameplay. This game was an absolute treat to play and is easily one of my choices for best game of the year, 2016.

Real player with 24.6 hrs in game

Owlboy on Steam

Terrene - An Evidence Of Life Game

Terrene - An Evidence Of Life Game

Welcome

I am someone who grew up with a lot of (actual) floppy disk games and stuff like that. Back then there was no such thing as DLC or updates to keep someone coming back. A game had to be hard but fair and stand on its own merits in order to make it worth a purchase. Think about any time you have been playing a roguelike, RPG, JRPG, ARPG, or Action game and have received a big upgrade, character gets stronger, you feel stronger. This is what I am trying to convey here. In order for a game to feel worth it to me I need to feel like that game respects my time as a gamer, this is even more important the older you get.

Real player with 55.3 hrs in game

This game was unexpectedly immersive. It also weaves together a few different genre styles in a very cohesive way.

You play as an astronaut tasked with collecting resources from a procedurally generated planet. Your main hub is a static station in space; where you park your spacecraft, store resources, and upgrade things.

From there, you use your spacecraft to travel back and forth between your hub and the planet. Your ship is equipped with weaponry, and that’s where the shmup aspect comes in. You’ll be tackling asteroids, and a good variety of enemies ranging from small to boss-level.

Real player with 27.8 hrs in game

Terrene - An Evidence Of Life Game on Steam

Earth Analog

Earth Analog

I’ve completed the game. I’m not sure how long it took, maybe 30 hours, although I made some planets more difficult than they needed to be.

You play this game for the bizzare worlds that you visit.  Some really are spectacular including a giant torus, a  pulsating neutron star, an asteroid that is repeatedly expanding and contracting and a spherical fractal generated landscape.

I saw many people complaining about the control system and yes it did take a bit of time to be used to.  But once I got my head round it, it was fine.  Although I still found landing a bit awkward.  A better tutorial would certainly help which I read is on the way (Q2 2021).  I also see that the same update will include mod support so I’m looking forward to seeing what crazyness people come up with.

Real player with 51.1 hrs in game

About 13 hours in I finished the main story and I gotta say this game is definitely more about the journey than the destination, but man the journey is pretty. Game play mainly consists of exploration, resource gathering, and simple puzzle solving. The main attraction here are the worlds you’ll be visiting, you’ll see everything from mars like rocky barren worlds to endless fields of cubes to things straight of a psychadelic fever dream. On your journey through the story you’ll find upgrades for your ship (HIGHLY recommended you do these), strange artifacts, and the occasional planetary anomaly (think of the ocean planet from interstellar). Movement is newtonian physics based but with the latest patches it’s incredibly forgiving if you misjudge your distance to an object or speed since retro thrusters are so powerful. All in all it’s an ambitious little indie game that offers a bevy of strange new worlds to explore, if you’re into that sort of thing then this game might just be for you.

Real player with 16.2 hrs in game

Earth Analog on Steam