Penimorta
Penimorta is a delightfully charming yet challenging bullet-hell experience that is chock full of stellar sprite designs and thoughtful level design. The movement is fluid, controls easy to handle, and the presentation of the game itself is quite polished. I was incredibly pleased with Penimorta and would emphatically recommend it, although it had just one minor qualm which I will address later on in the review.
Let’s start with the sprite design. Penimorta’s enemies (and especially its bosses) were incredibly well animated and aesthetically pleasing. The overall quality of the artistic direction of this game is superb, and easily makes it stand out among other similar indie games. The mage (the second boss of the game) had one of the best designs in the game, notably because of how well his appearance changes accompanied his second phase. The enemy attack patterns never felt boring, and were rather refreshing due to the pleasant palate of colors selected for their pellets/bullets. I also appreciated the slight distinctions in color and shape for the enemy bullets as it helped make navigation and movement more refined.
– Real player with 3.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Top-Down Shooter Bullet Hell Games.
This game is great, but the snake boss is the worst thing to happen to humanity. The entire game before the snake boss was easy, I only died around 3 times before it appeared. I hate the snake boss, please make the game more balanced.
Edit #1: Turns out that the warden (the final boss I think) is even worse than the snake. It has basically every negative affect, and for some reason there is a cage it randomly puts on you without any sign, the cage moves randomly too, damaging and blinding you whenever you touch it. I could keep on complaining but that would take a while. But please just balance the game, everything but the last 2 bosses is like 1/8 of the difficulty.
– Real player with 2.9 hrs in game
Action Commando
Action Commando is a Town of Machine spinoff focused entirely on combat. Hub-based world design, inventory management and most of the character interactions have been removed / de-prioritized in favour of fast-paced combat where your only concern is what’s trying to kill you at a given moment. While it lacks the depth of Town of Machine, it works really well as a coffee break, action-packed, top-down shoot’em up. Unlike in its predecessor you don’t have to worry about inventory space and quests - just go forward and blow things up… and it kind of works. The game is pretty short and unfortunately set almost entirely underground which makes the levels blend together but it’s not that big of a deal considering its lenght. Give it a try if you ever feel like mowing down monsters for a few hours.
– Real player with 11.8 hrs in game
A well-crafted, action-focused twin stick shooter with a good dose of humour. It’s a spin-off of Town of Machine that’s set in the same universe. While it uses many of the same assets as ToM, it’s more action-orientated and simpler to play.
Made by single person, its production values are excellent - gameplay, graphics, sound: all are top-notch.
It’s worth playing Town of Machine before this, but not wholly necessary.
– Real player with 9.0 hrs in game
Stalin vs. Martians 4
Stalin vs. Martians 4 is a massively soloplayer action game which tells a story of the conflict between Stalin and the Martians. It has a narrative-based story with a plot and rich dialogues of humorous nature, which beautifully highlight the story’s narrative-based narrative and plot.
Also Stalin vs. Martians 4 is a rather unexpected sequel to 2009’s infamous real-time strategy game. GameSpot named the original Stalin vs. Martians ‘perhaps the worst RTS game ever created’. That’s high praise. You don’t hear it every day.
Well yeah, the original Stalin vs. Martians featured some brilliant, but questionable ideas in the fields of game design, level design and some other designs as well. So we sent most of the original developers to Gulag, we’re making a proper and, which is important, playable game. It is powered by Unreal Engine. And you’re gonna like.
Could you please be a little more serious?
OK, Stalin vs. Martians 4 is an isometric action/shooter game. Which is frankly quite obvious from the screenshots and gameplay videos provided. But it must be understood, that SvM4 is not entirely about the core gameplay. It is more about the overall user experience. In a way, it can be compared to Catherine. Which is essentially a puzzle game, but in fact it is so much more than that.
Even more serious
SvM4 is built around the core gameplay of an isometric shooter, but it is conceived as a pythonesque over-the-top project, that puts a very unlikely protagonist against a very unlikely backdrop. All the time, mission after mission. It’s a sketch comedy about an evil idiotic buffoon. You have Stalin in Candyland, then he emerges in the Lovecraftian setting and fights Cthulhu, then he goes to Mars, then he travels to Ancient Greece, etc. Occasionally the game spoofs other games and introduces absurd mini-games. Sometimes it changes the genre, but within reason. And then you have crazy video intermissions (think of Red Alert or, you know, the original Stalin vs. Martians).
As mentioned above, the game is very narrative-based. Kinda like Firewatch, but, you know, better. It is also very cinematic. So we intend to provide a stable, very cinematic rate of 24 frames per second… Oh, wait. Okay, maybe more if the audience expects a certain digital fidelity in this field.
Features
• A follow-up to one of the craziest games in history
• Campy humor, insane concept and ridiculous storyline
• A “sketch comedy” approach with a variety of settings and mini-games
• Fast-paced isometric combat
• Physics-based destruction system (“Katamari Damacy in reverse”)
• At least 12 levels, separated by absolutely insane video intermissions
• Narrative-based missions (“Firewatch on drugs”)
• Some of the levels include mini-games, some are just switching
the genre, because why not?
• Character upgrades, crazy weapons and special abilities
• Ranks system which defines the progress through the game
• Survival mode
• The bestest soundtrack ever
• Actual gameplay
The game may also feature nudity if we’ll be able to find someone nude. (Which is unlikely).
Read More: Best Top-Down Shooter Comedy Games.
Shadowgrounds Survivor
Shadowgrounds Survivor is the unmistakable sequel to previous years top down horde mode shooter Shadowgrounds. Unmistakable because if you didn’t see the title you’d be hard pressed to tell them apart.
That’s not to say Survivor doesn’t introduce a few new features, multiple playable characters and a more detailed level progression makes the game a good deal more engaging as you go along. The storyline is as was in the original utterly forgettable and can be easily ignored.
The greatest strength of Shadowgrounds Survivor is once again it’s use of atmospheric lightning which does a good job at turning otherwise bland encounters with the alien horde into something a little more suspenseful, lending somewhat from the horror genre.
– Real player with 22.5 hrs in game
Like its immediate predecessor, Survivor is a top-down shooter that hearkens back to the days of Smash TV and Total Carnage, except that there is a much more detailed plot and a heavy nod to role-playing games. As opposed to the blanket machine-part upgrade system of Shadowgrounds, Survivor has implemented a more refined approach, with unique class abilities, general class abilities and weapon abilities tailored to each of the three characters.
Basic gameplay is still kill or be killed, run and gun, etc. Every kill nets you some experience, which is banked toward increased levels, and each level brings with it some upgrade points. Weapon upgrade parts are still found on the battlefield, dropped by enemies, but now you also get class-specific abilities and character tweaks. These are what increase with each level. Using the marine as an example, you’ll be able to buy quick weapon reloads, tough skin and fragmentation grenades. This is in addition to the basic set of character improvements that all three avatars have: radar display, increased health, critical hits, and an “auto-doctor” that will dose you with a health kit (if you have one stockpiled) if you fall below 50% health at any time.
– Real player with 9.0 hrs in game
Gladii
If your gaming group is into this genre and style its a great little game night addition. Not sure how the difficulty scales but with 3 players its plenty hard still!
– Real player with 2.9 hrs in game
Brings back memories of playing old school beat’em ups at the arcade, except no need for quarters. Borderline impossible to play some of the characters alone, which limits replayability if you don’t have a couple of friends to play with. Overall it was surprisingly enjoyable, though definitely needs some more polish.
– Real player with 1.2 hrs in game
POSTAL
I Regret Nothing
POSTAL is one of those games, even after all these years, you can still pick it up and truly appreciate for what it is and how it affected the view of video games back in 1997. Unlike it’s sequel POSTAL 2, this game is extremely dark, (in which HATRED tried to do and then some, but personally found it to try too hard.) Postal is an isometric top-down shooter where your goal is to kill all enemies (or 90% of them) in the map and move onto the next area. Due to what a lot of people believed, you don’t actually have to kill innocent people! Though what’s the fun in that? … It’s not, it’s painful trying to complete the game without killing any innocent people.
– Real player with 51.1 hrs in game
Having played this games series to completion (well, almost: what, you mean to tell me that you actually got all the way through Postal 3?!), I feel that reviewing them all is necessary. This game, however, is going to be difficult to review. It’s not that it’s a badly made game or that I hate it (on the contrary). The problem is that it’s such a disturbing game that I may end up on a watchlist for recommending it. Whatever! Here it goes.
The first installment of the Postal series is of humble origins, provided that your definition of “humble origins” involves being banned in 14 countries, being blacklisted by most major retailers and being mentioned by Senator Joe Lieberman to the Senate as one of the “three worst things in American society” (the other two being Marilyn Manson and Calvin Klein underwear ads). Postal is a game about a guy (the Postal Dude) being bombarded with demonic mental images and voices convincing him to murder society as a whole. Each level is a neighborhood, truckstop, air force base, shopping mart, etc. of innocent people and hostile people (“hostile” being cops, government agents, well-armed vigilantes and other people who are merely trying to stop a madman with weapons from murdering everybody). You are instructed to kill at least 80-90% of the hostile people before progressing to the next level. Unlike the succeeding two games, the only morality choice you’re really given is whether you want to kill only the people trying to kill you or kill everybody.
– Real player with 29.7 hrs in game
Shadowgrounds
Hi, everybody. I played this game ‘round 5 hours, killed first boss (2 lvls finished) and so what I got about it:
What’s good:
-
Free Camera. It’s really comfortable. If you turn it on, of course
-
Gameplay. So it’s good and not so good meanwhile. About bad sides of that I’ll tell later, but right now: it’s not complicated too much and it’s easy enough. You are not needed to pick “right weapon” to kill special enemy, Kill ‘em with any thing you like ;-)
-
Not too complicated plot. On first view, it’s a real bad, but if you’ll look at the game like Alien Shooter clone, so that’s enough =)
– Real player with 14.0 hrs in game
This is an old top down shooter game so there maybe glitches and bugs running this on modern machine.
First of all, the most annoying part of the game is 6 out of 10 run it will gives an error saying “Failed to find Steam”.. the devs know of this problem but said “It’s Steam’s problem not ours.” Yeah, this is the only game i played having this problem so yes, you’re expecting us to believe that. The problem here is the game is having trouble getting the path to our installed steam folder. Especially those who didn’t install steam on their main drive.
– Real player with 11.9 hrs in game
Area 51 Defense
This game has changed a lot since early access. Now I like the enemy wave system very much. The difficulty level is now a more rewarding experience. I strongly recommend playing, if this was not already the right game the latest update made this the right game.
– Real player with 7.3 hrs in game
DIEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
– Real player with 0.2 hrs in game
Armed to the Gears
Armed to the Gears:
It all started with the discovery of the Neutronium base element from a deep excavation in 2029, somewhere near a place named Main City. Neutrium turns out to be a powerful new energy that can be used to power batteries and equipment for hundreds of years. This type of energy is always useful for military purposes, and the countries that have access to the Neutrium start a race to develop the ultimate automated warfare unit. The citizens of the world take to the streets to raise their concerns, but the world turns to chaos, leading to the rise of three terrible factions. The worst of the three, the Ministry, wins the race and now controls the world with these ultimate machines of war. That is, until a rebellion of hackers plans to use the machines against the Ministry. It’s going to be Armed to the Gears!
*– [Real player with 8.9 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198003030375)*
Don't get me wrong with this review, I DID have fun… but there are several things wrong with this game. That being said... i only had like 5.5 hrs ACTUAL time played on campaign..... watched a movie with the wife and went to get more beer while the game was still running. (New Predator movie rocks btw). This game does not suck. I know it is in alpha. I want to like this game more, byt they have a lot of work to do
_Upgrading is confusing at first.. I feel it should be seperated from the turret menu_
*– [Real player with 8.0 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197995840361)*
---
## ARRIVAL: ZERO EARTH
Aliens have invaded the earth and you have to assemble an army of local townspeople to fight them!
* Set in Finland during the Winter in the '90s
* Roguelike gameplay
* Quick, about 20-minutes long sessions
* Control one large army thru different procedurally generated levels
* Collect items to gain new abilities
* Different Unit types to build your army from
**DIFFERENT UNIT TYPES:**
* **ASSAULT RIFLE UNIT** _(Rynnäkkökiväärijoukkue)_ - A group of local army reserve enthusiasts
* **PSYCHIC WIZARDS** _(Meediovelhot)_ - Psychics, great at tarot card readings, also able to shoot lightnings with 100% accuracy
* **FIRE ARROW UNIT** _(Tulinuolijoukkue)_ - Members of the local archers sports club, able to shoot flaming arrows
* **SNIPER UNIT** _(Tarkka-ampujajoukkue)_ - Don't be surprised when the snow starts to speak
* **BAZOOKA UNIT** _(Sinkojoukkue)_ - Ability to take down larger enemies with ease
* **MINE UNIT** _(Ilmamiinoittajajoukkue)_ - Able to deploy deadly floating air mines
* **KINETIC ROD UNIT** _(Puhelinpylväsjoukkue)_ - Secret Finnish army research technology to place hardened over-size telephone poles on orbit
* **METEOROID STORM UNIT** _(Meteoriittimyrskyjoukkue)_ - Psychics able to command celestial objects and to turn them into deadly projectiles
_NOTE: some of these unit types may be subject to change, also more will be available in the final game_
---