Recent reviews by Extramrdo

Dear goodness is this a bland platformer. The story goes out of its way to be too disinterested in what it is, and never stops trying to make me feel like I'm wasting my time.

This makes me nostalgic for a time I was born juuuust too late to explore, but stands on its own legs as a valid game regardless of the fluff.

Mod it until it crashes every other loading screen. Remember that you don't like it crashing that much, but come to realize that you can't pull a single mod out of the load order without drastically bricking every subsystem known to man, and a few known to lakelurks. Weep, and never finish the NCR run that's 6+ years in the making.

Found a shotgun that, on hitting an enemy, doomed them to explode forever until they died. Guess how I died?

That's right, someone picking up a wand I'd dropped and sniping me out of the air.

I feel like the world design is just like the game design: there's a clear focus: go downwards. But there's so much more to the world than just the dungeon; there's side biomes to explore, optional hidden bosses, etc., and it's the same way with the game mechanics. Yes, you could just shoot the spiders, but you could also lure them over to a minecart, kick it so it crushes them, and get double gold. You can then pour water on the minecart so it rusts, and... that doesn't really do much for you, but it's neat.

it's okay
At first I hated the controls, but came to appreciate them once I realized they're part of the larger narrative. You're a military AI, of course shooting your gun is a primary function, and mundane tasks are difficult.

Pretty good game. If you're reading this, you haven't been following Starbound from the Startbound, so know that while "things used to be better," they're still really good. If you like collecting things, or explicitly not collecting things but exploring, or fighting crime, or mining underground... you'll enjoy this game.

It's like Far Cry, but a great setting that really feels like Mars, and instead of climbing towers, you bring them down to your level. If there's anything I can find to complain about, other than a few specific quirks, it's that breaking things feels too good. You're supposed to be fighting "for the people" but it's really hard when you can walk into someone's home, see all the walls they have, and have to think hard about confiscating these walls with your sledgehammer and bombs. On the one hand, civilian. On the other hand, walls.

oh and sometimes bad guys shoot at you and at REALLY CONVENIENT TIMES civilians decide they had a machine gun on their back and hey there's that sledgehammer guy let's shoot with him. I say REALLY CONVENIENT, but it happens often enough that you feel like the people support you and your wanton vendetta against all things taller than dirt. And they're not useless, either. They don't help you break buildings, but they turn "oh god I'm surrounded by gunmen" into a fair firefight.

All in all: 9/10 first 2 hours, breaking things is its own reward and boy oh buddy is there a lot to break.

Free 4x4 park, need I say more?

This masterpiece has the single-most terrifying spell in any game I have ever played.

You and your friends take up arms against the sudden, new menace that has already exterminated half of your village. A necromancer - a single necromancer - has seized the ample supply of your ancestors in the catacombs and raised an army of abominations. Your squad takes patrol in the hall of chieftans, where your chief, and his chief before him, and his chief before him, they all rest, having lived valiant lives. The rhythmic rattling of the wretched rawboned ruffians relates your irresistable restless repose. The undead army clatters around the corner and without hesitation or coordination, impales your only companion upon dozens of spears and swords, each stolen from what were once your countrymen.

Before your friend's remains can even hit the ground, the flesh explodes off of him, coating the floor and ceiling in an irreverent splat of gore. The skeleton beneath his skin spares no time in seizing the sword it had held in flesh just moments ago, and turning it on you. To your credit, your quick reflexes enable you to take your pitchfork and impale the unholy wretch joyriding with your friend's remains, and each sharpened point of your tool would have left a mortal wound had this beast blood. That said, the move is infinitely more effective when used on you instead.

You stare down at the sword reamed through your gut. It still has the notches from when you used to play as a child, pretending to be a fully fledged Knight of the Righteous Order. You can't think of a better sword to perish on. In your final moments, you know these vile constructs have no mercy, no compassion, but you still pray for some miracle of kindness. You gurgle out, "Tell my family..." through a mouth filling with blood. The viscous vitals seeping through your teeth are, to your surprise, not the sanguine scarlet of sacrifice, but instead a pure, cool, crisp, refreshing, calcium-enriched white.

You stare in horror as you slump over, hitting the ground as your legs grow weak and soft. A little girl, caught in the midst of this madness, playfully strolls over to you, seemingly unphased by the senseless and systematic slaughter surrounding you both. Your sad gaze tries desperately to usher her out of here, far from this place, to where she might be safe from this unceasing horror, but no. The little fuzzy girl kneels down and whispers a simple incantation: "Calcify!" She cups her hands in your gaping mortal wound and eagerly laps at your refreshing milk blood. Neither the absurd horror of the act, nor the realization that beneath the facade of cute innocence lies the mad mind of the mastermind of mayhem and carnage, can keep you from witnessing her impossible rise to evil, but still you find it hard to watch. Your shoulders literally cannot hold you up to see. Your bones, you realize too late, are deliquescing into the very milk this daughter of Satan slurps.

As the life fades from your dissolving eyes, a skeleton leans down and plays you a single note on his trumpet.

This game is better than it has any right to be. The tutorial starts out getting you to think it's going to be an artsy parkour game, but then the first level adds guns and boost and all sorts of extras to the formula, and it just works.

And now I'm going into one of the optional Battle Challenges and it's seriously kicking my rump? This is the game I've needed my entire life.