METAL GEAR SOLID V: GROUND ZEROES

METAL GEAR SOLID V: GROUND ZEROES

Barebones explanation about this game. This is not a demo!

In the eve of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, I’ll be reviewing Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes because some people still don’t seem to get it at this point (short version at the bottom of the review).

First of all, I’ve played most of the MGS games before this and I love them to death, so my opinion may be a bit biased.

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes is a prologue to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, like way back when there was a pretty short and limited Gran Turismo 5 Prologue but was still sold as a full game. That’s not the case with GZ.

Real player with 38.6 hrs in game


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“You’ve already seen the “Overwhelmingly Positive” user reviews, haven’t you? Why are you here, then? Why do you continue to scroll through them while your memory betrays you? You enjoy reading reviews, that’s why.”

I’ll get straight to the point. This review’s main goal is to address common misconceptions.

Amount of Content:

Ground Zeroes offers 7 missions: one main story, four side missions with different objectives, two extra side missions that are aimed at the fans of the series. Each mission has two difficulty settings (hard unlocks after beating normal), secret collectibles/objectives and unlockable trials (challenges). Throughout all missions you’ll be dealing with only one location: Camp Omega, which is a fairly large facility. Each mission has it’s own time of day.

Real player with 31.7 hrs in game

METAL GEAR SOLID V: GROUND ZEROES on Steam

Ho-Ho-Home Invasion

Ho-Ho-Home Invasion

A fun, charming little indie game for the Christmas season. It’s short, but enjoyable, and really easy to get all of the achievements on. All in all, I’d say it’s one of those rare games that’s worth more than what they’re charging for it.

Let’s be honest, ‘Ho-Ho-Home Invasion’ is not a complicated stealth game. I’d go so far as to say it’s a pretty good introduction to the stealth genre. It has no complex mechanics which on one hand means that it’s easy for even beginners to pick up, but on the other means it lacks depth for anyone more experienced in the genre.

Real player with 3.4 hrs in game


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This game is pretty great, especially for something free. You really get to experience the stress of being a home inva… of being Santa Claus. The 5th level in particular is really well done. It’s the last level, but easily the one that really solidifies the concept with lots of moving parts and things to keep aware of to not be caught.

I played the first few levels with m/k, but finished with controller and felt both work pretty well. I prefer the controller for this one though. The music is fitting, but has some jarring looping. That could have been better, and there’s not a lot of use for the peaking around the corners ability. Since you have the map which lets you see everything around. Maybe a hard mode where it disables the map would make that more useful though. Sometimes your visible overhead view isn’t as useful as the one you see on the map.

Real player with 2.4 hrs in game

Ho-Ho-Home Invasion on Steam

Newton’s Cradle Puzzle Game

Newton’s Cradle Puzzle Game

newton’s cradle is not where baby isaac used to spend his nights before an apple fell on his head, but that metal ball thing you see on important people’s desks and think it’ll never stop. it’s also the inspiration for this puzzle game where you bounce metal balls into each other and try to make them stop where they should in order to reach one of the exits.

Real player with 4.6 hrs in game


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tricky but fun! livestreamed it

Real player with 4.1 hrs in game

Newton's Cradle Puzzle Game on Steam

Make The Jump

Make The Jump

It is not bad for the price I am not complaining.

Real player with 0.7 hrs in game

Make The Jump on Steam

Dungeon Deathball

Dungeon Deathball

Fun tactics game. It plays like into-the-breach-lite.

What this game does better than into the breach:

  • Every turn is more connected. Enemies can only move a small amount and won’t jump across the map and target something else unlike ITB.

  • Enemies can be manipulated easily; A big part of mastering the game involves manipulating enemies which is really fun

  • The orange monsters and goalies chases the ball

  • Cyan monsters that chases players.

  • You can stand in an enemies attack range to make them attack you the next turn

Real player with 102.7 hrs in game

Quick note: My actual playtime at the time of writing this is closer to 8-10 hours, as I’ve been playing it since the first public demo on itch, months before Early Access release.

Dungeon Deathball is a compact, turn-based strategy game, in part inspired by Into the Breach - it shows you exactly what enemies are going to do next turn and also allows you to turn them against each other by pushing them around. Unlike ItB, it’s a very easy game to pick up and play a quick round or two while on a short break.

Real player with 45.2 hrs in game

Dungeon Deathball on Steam

The Black Pepper Crew

The Black Pepper Crew

Undertake bounty hunting missions while fighting thugs on a city filled with criminals and dubious law enforcement agencies. Manage a crew of colorful characters, hire new ones, equip, loot, all that good stuff!

Bounties will appear for you to hunt down! Choose the crew and gear carefully and proceed to fight bandits on a randomly generated but carefully designed map. Loot, cash and improve your chances for that big bounty!

Every crew member has a set of unique abilities that they can perform. Combine this abilities to perform the ultimate strategy!

New crew members will be appearing to hire, and if you liked them, you can offer them a contract to stay permanently on your crew!

Heal, equip armor or change how the abilities work by equipping different kinds of gear on your characters. Loot will be appearing along the missions, and very special items will be waiting for your crew on each boss fight!

Some things you’ll find on The Black Pepper Crew:

  • Strategy its built on thinking rather than recklessly passing through. Characters don’t level up but rely on other crew members and gear to defeat its enemies.

  • Each bounty mission has its own location, boss, item reward and the levels are procedurally generated for more replayability.

  • The crew has 4 main characters but can be expanded as you permanently hire new members. Each character has its own backstory, abilities and colorful design.

  • Lots of items! Heal items, armor, consumables and special gear that change the way abilities work.

  • A jazzy soundtrack that takes from several musical genres to add to the atmosphere on each mission.

  • This is a game to be replayed many times! Try new strategies, outperform your previous playthroughs, try “no gear” runs, you name it!

The Black Pepper Crew on Steam

Unitied

Unitied

As others have said, it’s short but sweet. Some of the later levels are quite tricky (or at least they were for me) but never quite spilled over into “demented frustration” territory. You really can’t go wrong for the price, and in fact I think it’s being sold for less than it’s worth.

According to Steam I’ve got 200 games in my collection and I think this is my first Steam review, so take what you want from that!

Well done to the developer, and thanks to John at Buried Treasure for pointing me in this direction.

Real player with 6.1 hrs in game

A fun little sliding puzzle game that can be more challenging than it looks at first sight. With its smooth minimalistic art style, it kept me hooked for a couple of hours while listening to its somber thinking track.

Nevertheless, from my experience the track only plays once before going silent on every new session, and I also received the achievement before completing the last level. Other than that, you’ll get your money’s worth, more so since it’s quite cheap already.

Real player with 3.3 hrs in game

Unitied on Steam

Bad Business

Bad Business

Your enemy are Door, Camera & unclear Crosshair.

Oh, I forget a stupid achievement, die 1000 times? LOL.

Real player with 7.5 hrs in game

that thang fun man

Real player with 4.1 hrs in game

Bad Business on Steam

Nullum

Nullum

Simple visual game, no text, windowed mode included, has low-key but repetitive soundtrack. On each level, you have to clear the board by combining numbered tiles. There are only a few levels that require you to do anything at all different, so the game is the same through all levels. Game needs a dark mode, has a blinding white background. The difficulty didn’t increase linearly and some of the latter levels seemed easier than earlier levels. There are only 40 levels, and the latter levels aren’t terribly difficult, so this isn’t something that will keep you occupied for months (I finished all levels in a total of 6 hours). I wanted something challenging but not brain-wracking that would take my mind away from the kind of thinking I use for language-based studying, and this worked fairly well.

Real player with 6.3 hrs in game

A quick puzzle game with minimalist design and relaxing atmosphere. It follows basic logic, but can actually be quite challenging to solve if you don’t open your mind a bit. Great game!

Real player with 4.4 hrs in game

Nullum on Steam

Brain Break

Brain Break

A challenging and interesting puzzle. Very similar to the old games on push-button phones, which is very nice. A beautiful and pleasant picture to the eye. Good animation. A large number of levels that can put you in a dead end. I thought about some levels for more than half an hour. Good musical accompaniment, sometimes even calms down when you do not know how to pass the level. The game as a whole turned out to be very interesting and not bad, even considering that it is a puzzle. I hope the authors will add more and more levels over time, because the game has sunk into my soul. Very good game, I recommend it. I liked everything, and given its price, this is a great game that fully deserves this amount.

Real player with 3.6 hrs in game

An entertaining and exciting puzzle game called “brain break”, in which you need to place the cubes in the cells assigned to them. The game is made in a simple and concise style, which is very combined with the musical accompaniment. At first glance, everything is simple, but then it only becomes more difficult. The first levels are introductory, and the next ones will be more and more difficult. A variety of levels in the game is enough to take you a couple of hours to complete. Buy and try out the game definitely recommend, it is 100% justifies its name.

Real player with 1.6 hrs in game

Brain Break on Steam