Recent reviews by Zols

This and pinball fx 3/pinball M are the best place's for pinball on steam. TPA is dead in the water (with most of its tables delisted) and that wont change. Zaccaria pinball if your looking for retro table's with a focus on EU pinball tables. Just make sure to keep an eye on your g-card temps when using this version (i recommend MSI afterburner, been using it for decade's, lets you see cpu/gpu temps and control gpu fan speed). I generally set my gpu fan speed to 70% of max and its good to go from there.

Generally 2 table's go on sale every week and during seasonal sale's all the table's go on sale (unless one of the tables was released very very recently) and there are 3 free table's which you can play. The only con id say about this version that i experience is that the game will sometime's reset what i have the nudge control set to, back to default which is annoying and happens every so often (i like to play with right ctrl set as my middle nudge). Other then that the game runs perfectly fine for me.

Thumbs up from me, has provided me with lots of fun, moments where i yelled BS, cried no no no, and raised my hands up in victory from getting a score in the top 100 or higher. Definitely fun to be had here in my opinion.

Oh and one last little timbit of info. This version (pinball FX) and pinball M are the one's zen is still releasing new pinball table's for. They are no longer releasing pinball table's on pinball FX 3 as a heads up since it is the older version of the 3.

This is not an ease game. Their are no "lives" like in other old school shooters like this. No check points. You die, game over, start back at the beginning, 00000 permanent progression. Your health bar constantly deplete's and you need fuel which drops from enemies.

Their are unlockable characters, but you need to beat bosses without taking a hit to unlock them. Dont know if they are better then the default character, so cant say much about them. Im giving this a thumbs up because i personally like the game and do enjoy playing it despite my lack time clocked into it. The default price of 20 bucks after taxes where i am is a bit much ill admit for the content, guessing its 14.99 american, so what, 16/17 bucks after taxes im guessing. Best to wait for a sale in my opinion.

100% though you will very easily find out if this game is for you before the 2h refund window expire's, so your money is safe in the event you find this game is not for you. Fair warning though, the game has the "profile feature's limited" tag, which means the game has not sold enough copies to show off steam achievements on your profile and it wont register as one of your "games" in you games tab on your profile as a heads up. This is unlikely to change due to how old the game is now.

Also its single player only as a heads up. Figured id put that peice of info here since i know multiplayer is a big thing for many even though its not for me what so ever (tis what happens when you get told to entertain yourself/learn to play by yourself all the time as a kid and you dont get along too well with your older sister during your childhood years).

Thats all i got to say about this fun little indie title. Good luck, you'll need it! (says Zols in his best smash tv announcer voice).

Fun rail shooter except for a few issue's. The first is no steam cloud which means you have to manually back up your save file (which is not hard to do, just copy it then upload it to your email's free cloud, just type in run into the bottom left search bar on your window's pc, then click on the run system that will show up, then type in %APPDATA% and make sure its all caps, it does matter, then go to istomgames folder then find your save file).

The game loop's infinitely between 3 stages and a few "special bonus" rounds. Their is no bosses. The objective is a generic get as high a score as you can before you die. with online leaderboards. In order to get high score's you need to work on chaining headshots together and making each shot hit. Game uses permanent progression upgrade's which you will need to get high score's (stats to increase headshot score bonus, more life, larger clip, ect) which again, means you MUST back up your save file to what ever cloud service you have.

Their is also a "rank" system in the game aka lvl. The higher your lvl, the more red bullets you get access too which give more score for head shots. Bewarned though, apparently once you get past rank 20, their is a bug that can reduce how many red bullets you have access too back to just 1 and mess/destroy any gold you have earned through out your play (i cant confirm this personally, but their are threads about the bug still persisting to this day and the dev has been MIA since 2018 when i checked his post history so the game is dead in terms of patch's/work being done on the game it seems).

However your rank will only increase if you do certain "goals" which you can view on the game start menu which can be easily avoided/skipped if you will. There is no co-op. Also, the odd rare time, a friendly npc will pop up right infront of you and not move, blocking your vision/ability to hit stuff and its possible to take dmg no matter what you do since enemy projectiles can hit you with the friendly npc blocking you and go right through the friendly npc hitting you. This is purely RNG if it happens but it is rare as a heads up so its not too big of a deal.

Also, to buy upgrade's you need to get gold which can be obtained by shooting backs of gold you come across during game play (1 bag of gold = 1 gold coin to spend in the store) and you get a few hundred of gold coins for completing "goals" during game play which increases your rank.

Overall though the game is fun if you were/are a fan of old school arcade rail shooters like house of the dead, terminator 2 judgement day ect. Id suggest waiting for a sale though since, in my opinion, the base price is a bit much for a game with no steam cloud that is no longer being worked on and an MIA dev who's last game was released and last message on steam forums was 6 years ago.

Regardless of the issue's listed, im giving the game a thumbs up personally since i have found this game to be enjoyable, even more so since the old school rail shooters arent (and most likely never will be, although their is the house of the dead remake but its review's state it may/may not work for ones pc and has its own issue's and its a remake, not the original arcade version) being released on steam that were big in the arcade's back in the day.

Another VS clone but your in space. In terms of difficulty, id say its in the middle out of the vs clones out their, so harder then VS but not as hard as others such as bounty of one. Generic permanent progression, difficulty increases (you unlock astrology signs and you "equip" them, more you equip, the harder it becomes, but you do get a slight buff to compensate). Game has special challenge mode's you can do that disable the permanent upgrades. Everything is automatic. However it seems the fps is capped at 60 even if you increase the max frame rate via nvidia control panel.

Multiple different ships to choose from, but it seems the default ship is the best/most balanced one (at least in my opinion). Game sadly hasint sold enough copies though to be able to put steam achiev's in showcase. Run's are done in 20 mins per it seems with a boss every couple of mins. Also has random events that can spawn during game play, complete them to get extra stuff to help you during your run, like hearts to heal, upgrade your weapons ect. Will easily find out if this is worth keeping with in the 2h steam refund time limit.

Thumbs up from me.

Whelp, now that ive had my fill of the game after finally managing to kill olmec AND ESCAPING WITH MY LIFE INTACT, on my 5-6th time on making it to olmec, ive died/clocked in many many attempts at this point at the game as a whole, its time for a review (mainly because all the recent reviews ive seen arent really review's and are just "game is gud, play it, or game is hard, but fun")

This game is an unforgiving platformer that gets harder the deeper you get. As you explore you will collect gems/gold that you will use to buy items in the various kinds of shops that you will come across during your adventure's. You buy equipment such as bombs, ropes, equipment that give's you access to new abilities like the jet pack giving you temp flight, the cape that slows your descent, glue to make your bombs stick to stuff and so on, to help you along the way.

There are no puzzles in this game either like i saw in another review. There are secret doors but thats about it beside's the game's "secret" last stage "hell" which involves you getting 4 (i think) items to unlock it. Wont go into much about it but their are guide's about it in the guide section. It is an extra 3 stages + boss stage that give's a slightly different ending to the default one.

That all being said, this game has stuff that will hurt you that you wont find in the vast majority of games out there. Here is a list of some of the ways that you can take damage from or straight up die.

1. Rocks/arrows/broken arrows being ricocheted back at you from being too close to an explosion.

2. Contact damage

3. Being knocked down/stun locked to death by certain enemies.

4. All explosions will kill you (from what ive seen, maybe you can survive if you have 10+ health, i dunno).

5. Being squished to death (watch out for the blocks that look like the ceiling spiky dude's that fall from ceilings in the mario games, they are in the temple world except they will charge you both vertically and horizontally, you will survive if they touch you, but if they squish you vs the wall/ground your DED).

6. The pink circle's the anubis dude's in the temple lvl shoot out will 1 shot you.

7. The bug's the mummy in the temple lvl spits out will knock you back and deal 2 dmg a hit but since he spits them out inb swarms, if you get caught in the swarm, your most likely DED.

8. Lava obviously and the pit in the ice world.

9. Being frozen by the wolly mammoth's in the ice world and them then walking into you and you going POP.

Also, the shop keepers are very temperamental. It's like "Hey, even though your at the top of the lvl and im located at the bottom, past your ability to look down and see/locate any monsters and act accordingly, because this monster some how damaged me or the monster triggered a trap and the trap hit me, im blaming you 100% and gonna lay the smack down on your candy ass boy! YER DED!" (this happened to me 3-5 times during my many run throughs and it sucks since if you piss off the shopkeeper, their will ALWAYS be one at the exit of the lvl with a shot gun that will do everything in his power to kill you).

If you use a bomb inside, above or a bit behind his shop, it will set him off and he will again label you a terrorist and will hunt you down. It is also slightly uncommon for an arrow trap to be positioned right infront of the entrance to his shop, so again, if you or something trigger's it, and the arrow so much as bop's him on the shoulder, he and all of his shop keeper buddies, will begin their witch hunt for you.

This also applies if you pick up the golden head statue thingy and set off the rolling rock, that rock makes the shop keeper go splat, again, it will ignite the war with the shop keepers. Now, if your wondering if their is an ease way to deal with the shop keepers, whelp, their is a guide in the guide section that gives some good ideas. From my personal experience, if you got the sticky bomb item, if you can land 1 sticky bomb on them, it should (i believe, might be wrong) take them out in 1 go. Having the jet pack helps in this regard too in dealing with them during the one run where i managed to make it to olmec after waging war with them.

Also, you should know, some review's have talked about getting softlocked and being forced to restart. This can 100% happen (had it happen to me at least once, or possible twice i think, cant recall, i got ded alot during this game since it only take's 1 mistake alot of the time to die regardless of your hp total). It generally happen's when you run out of ropes and bombs or your out of 1 of the 2 and only got 1 left of the other and you get a very ugly level lay out.

But ya, the amount of way's you can die/straight up be like "Whelp, im boned" is truely astounding. Their is so much to learn when playing this game. Even in my victory run, i still learned about how the olmec fight worked. Cause i tried the strat where you walk right up to the head of the knocked out bird dude and mimic'ed the "tight fight all the way down" strat that i saw most youtuber's do, but it did not work for me cause unlike all the vid's i saw, olmec ended up spawning toads all the damn time and did not kill them by spawning them inside of him when he rose upwards (seriously, be wary of some of the youtube vid's, it looks ease because they got lucky with spawns or were able to spam ropes and kill the monsters or had almost no monsters to kill in regards to this strat).

Ended up dying as olmec fell into the lava 4 times because i either had WAY too many mobs above me and not enough ropes to deal with them, or could not hit them with the ropes/time i had access too.

Ended up going with the strat where you kill the knocked out bird dude then run all the way to the right near the exit and discovered you would be out of olmec's aggro range and discovered if your out of his aggro range, he wont spawn monsters, then i used my large bomb supply (had 20 bombs on me with 1 rope left at this point) and made as good a pit as i could into the lava, then lured olmec over, got to the edge to the point where your character does the "teeter over the edge" animation, then down he dropped.... but i did not make the hole good enough lol, thankfully still had 13 bombs left, tossed 1 down (thankfully made a good throw, and it was normal bombs, i avoided the sticky bombs since i felt they might be problamatic for this strat) and down he went.

But ya, at the end of the day, this is not an ease game at all, and due to lvl layout being random, sometime's it can be much harder then normal. Id also recommend watching the store pag vid, it offers alot of insight in terms of some of the game's secrets and how some stuff works. Oh, and i should also inform you, you can throw anything straight or close to straight up and down, everything get's throw in a curve of some fashion, which can make setting off traps a pain in the ass some time's.

Also, the game does NOT have steam cloud, so you will have to manually back up your save file as a heads up (spelunky 2 has steam cloud, but not this one). Now, do i recommend this game? Whelp, id say wait for a sale first since it's generally always MUCH cheaper during any seasonal sale/when it is on sale when compared to its default price, since the game is 11 years old.

But over all, if your up for a challenge and somewhat like platformers, and the game is on sale, id say yes, id recommend it, but i must state, the game is NOT by any means ease (assuming your playing the game the way its meant to be played, vanilla style and not modding it to make it easer because apparently their are many mods out their for this game). So be prepared to die and say "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥! That is such ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ damnit!" or drop a few F bombs on more then one occasion because chance's are, it will happen with you dying. 7/10 stars, hard game.

Whelp, giving this game a thumbs up because i had a decent time playing it, but their are definitely some bugs and some things are not explained too well. So ill do my best here to list the issue's with the game as someone that has finished it on the hardest setting, solo and this year compared to most of the other old reviews.

The first bugs i encountered were in the swamp levels. If you end up taking/using the attack drones, you will eventually come across an escort quest. The drone's will focus the escort non-stop until you finish it making them useless. Also, if you place a turret down during the escort quest, the little girl will just stand infront of the turret and not move until you either place it down far away from her, or its destroyed. Also, the drones/turret will cause the boss that spawns from finishing the little girl escort quest to go invisible/not spawn at all, forcing you to reload (game saves right before boss fight so its not too bad).

Also, the drones do NOT like teleport pads (theirs only 2-3 you encounter for side quests) and disappear after teleporting. Will have to wait for their timers to run out to respawn them. Also their is 1 lvl where the drones wont go down certain hall ways either. But over all, its fine, finished the game using drones/turrets with no issue other then that.

Another bug is that, for some of the big melee dudes, even if they are frozen or dead on the ground, they can still sometimes bug out and cause contact damage to you. Thus making melee not really viable (unless your playing the game on the easier settings, and even then, this game is not all that hard to tell you the truth, even on the hardest setting).

Another issue i found, is that when ever i minimized the game from full screen mode to check something on the net, my gpu temp's would constantly go up (and this was with my gpu fan running at 75% of its max speed in an air conditioned room). I let it get up to 77 celsius before it became apparent it would not stop going up. It stops once you put the game back to normal full screen mode, but yeah, be warned, the game does NOT like to be alt tabbed or you gpu temps will sky rocket regardless if you got your gpu fan on max speed in a cool room or not. So be sure to keep an eye on your gpu temp when ever you got this game minimized with what ever program you use, be it evga, msi afterburner ect. That being said, gpu temp remained around 55-59 celsius generally most of the time during game play on full screen with gpu fan speed at 75% (i use a geforce 980 TI 6 gig card, so ya she's a bit old, but still gets the job done).

Thats about pretty much all the issue's i encountered during my play through of the game. Game does have co-op and saves a fair amount (each time you run by an old school camera, as in, the very first camera's in existence, the camera takes a picture and the game saves or when finish a quest).

The quests in the game are basic and not hard to do except for the last side quest in the second last level (you some how have to match up sounds produced by 3 shields and then match them up to the sound a horn makes, except the sounds the shield's make are 100% different from the sound the horn makes and i could not find anything online showing how to finish it, but its not an issue, you will easily have all you need to beat the push over of a last boss at the end by this point anyway).

Also the last safe code is a bit of a pain, the riddle/puzzle is worded very very poorly/incorrectly you could even say, to help you figure it out properly, even after discussing it and showing it to some buddies of mine, seeing what chatGPT had to say and a few days later (after i had just ended up using the russian guide in the guide section to solve it cause i had had enough of it by this point) putting the math riddle/problem infront of my old man who is a retired high school math teacher, none of them could figure it out with the info provided by the sign infront of it and all said that made no sense when i showed them the actual answer.

Also forgot to mention, there is no option to rebind keys for either controller or mouse/keyboard in the games options menu as a heads up.

The only other issue i have with the game other then everything i have written about so far, is the fact the only way to tell when you take damage is via the health bar. Your character does not make any noise (at least not from what i could tell) and your character does not have any sort of bleed animation when getting hit either. So that can be a bit of an annoyance sometimes. Oh, and the ending to the game is abrupt, short, and not explained in terms of "Why did that just happen and cut off their and go straight to the credits". I wont spoil it, but, ya, it will 100% make you go "Wow, that's it? That's what happens? Huh.... ok then, that's it i guess, onto the next game in my steam library".

Overall though, despite all of this, i did enjoy playing through the game. Plus since i got the game cheap and the current deal of the game+dlc for under 5/at 5 bucks bucks after taxes (which im guessing is the same for many others since the canadian dollar is worth less then both the american dollar and euro as of writing this review) means you 100% (assuming you play through the game fully to the end) will get 1 hour of gameplay/fun for each dollar spent it and some. Sadly though their is nothing else after having beaten the game. So it is pretty much a 1 and done once you are done with the story.

That conclude's this review. Hopefully this will help whoever reads this to decide if this game is worth spending the money on. That's all i got to say regarding this game. Peace out.

Decent retro style gauntlet like game. Has "story" mode and endless/survival mode. Game is basic in terms of controls, no dash, just hold down 1 button and attack (game has auto aim but you can manual aim for when auto aim is not targeting what you want). Game has 8 characters in total with 4 unlocked at the start, getting the other 4 you need to get hero card's via the game's story mode to unlock them (need to collect like 15-20 hero cards per hero to unlock).

Although the forums arent active, the dev does keep an eye on them for when their is issue's with the game and does patch it when needed. Keyboard keys can be rebinded and if you wanna rebind controller keys (which in all honestly i dont think is needed, you just press and hold down x/square and use the pad/left joystick to move, but to each their own) the only option is to do so via steams controller reconfig.

Can turn off the blood/flesh bits if thats not your thing in options. Their is no option to disable screen shake from what i can tell, but its not that bad. Items sold in shops have no mouse overs though, so from what i can tell is this:

Health potions = an extra health bar, dmg is applied to that extra health bar (which is invis) until it runs out
All types of shields = dmg reduction for a set amount of dmg until shield is destroyed
Glass monicle thingy = shows secret areas with light particle

Their is 3-4 more that you can buy in shop but i am not sure what they do. You can not hold more then 1 of each item. Also, their is no last/final boss fight in this game (it does have mini boss fights though which become spawnable enemies once you beat them during the main campaign). So dont bother "saving" items/gold, just use them when you need them. You also find gems during your run that are used for either healing or buying stage warps. If you want to see game play of the game to see what its like, watch the second video on the store page.

As for if its worth the default price, that is something you will have to decide (although with steams 2h refund policy, you will easily find out if the game is for you before the 2h window is up). That being said, the dev give's great deals when it comes to sales for all of his games, as such, i would suggest waiting for a sale for this one, unless it looks like something you would play a ton of. Also, game IS 2 player (dev just forgot to add the co-cop tag), it has local co-op. Lastly, from what i can tell, it just has 1 difficulty setting - normal.

Overall, game gets a thumbs up for me (even more so since i got it on sale for a great price).

Fun little indie game (in my opinion anyway). Seems like decent chunk of the neg review's are about not being able to figure out what does what. Ya.... tis clear some did not bother to try mousing over stuff (or click on the stats to get a description). Granted if your new to gaming/not use to mouse overs (or just not one to think outside the box as the saying goes) i can see this being an issue. All the stats have mouse overs and if you see a symbol (like the element symbol which is an atom) in a skill, that means the element stat effects that skill and so on. Not hard to put 2 and 2 together.

Granted ya, the game is kinda basic in terms of graphics, what you see on the store page is what you get in that regard. Game has endless mode. Lots of permanent upgrade's/progression in that regards if your into that kind of thing. Ive managed to beat the first and second difficulty settings and im still don't have 2h clocked into the game, so you will be able to find out if this game is for you before the 2h refund window close's so if its not for you, you can just get your money back.

Might be wise to wait for a sale, since even i think the default price is a bit much for what it is. Tis nice though if your looking for something to just zone out too while playing since you can set the skills to activate whenever they are up so you dont gotta do anything.

Thumbs up from me, but i can 100% see how some people would find this too boring/not for them. But as i said above, you will easily find out if this is for you before the refund window runs out (unless you buy it and let it sit in you steam library and dont touch it).

Tabletop dungeons and dragons meets match 3 (also has futuristic story setting). Game has real time pause so you can plan moves/combos and has co op. Has endless mode. Only thing it seems to be lacking is steam achievements in regards to things like "Beat (insert campaign here) on difficulty X" or "Beat (insert campaign here) with out using pause".

Also does not seem to be any option to rebind keys from what i can tell in game options (if it is their, i am definitely not seeing it). You use keys 1-5 and the f keys f1-f5. F keys for spells and 1-5 for weapons. Game is labeled as having controller support, but from what ive played of it so far, you 100% want to use the mouse. This is not the type of game for a controller. The story is a bit lacking in terms of the amount of text (wish they added another paragraph or 2 to it) but what is their, i found to be decent and enjoyable to read.

Now is it worth the default price in my opinion? Whelp, for us canadian's its 12.99 before taxes, with taxes your looking at 14.50 roughly. As with any game, comes down to if your able to get 1 hour of gameplay/fun for each 1 dollar spent. So far, from how much i am enjoying it and the fact it has an endless mode, i believe i will get my moneys worth.

So far, my 1.8 hours ive clocked in is after having done the tutorial and the first campaign story and thats with fiddling with the controls and a bit of idle time as well looking for certain pieces of info. So its a safe bet you will find out if the game is for you well before you reach the 2 hour refund time limit. Thus making it a safe investment in that regard.

Not much more to say really, vid's on store page and pics shows you the core of the game play. Overall, i give the game a thumbs up. Both casuals and hardcore gamers can enjoy this in my opinion since you can choose to use real time pause or not and their is a difficulty meter setting as well for a more intense or laid back experience (the meter ranges from 1-11 with 8 being the default difficulty setting) and the steam achievements can be earned by all with out much trouble it seems.

The only real gripe i have, is that i cant pick dwarf for every single medieval fantasy based story >.<. Thats pretty much it, all i got left to say is, Rock and Stone brother/Long live bruenor battlehammer and the gutbuster brigade! Bwahahahaha!

Edit: Fair warning for those that choose to play through the game on the hardest setting. You can get through pretty much all but the last campaign without converting diamonds for gold (i was able to do it, its very very doable). But come the last campaign, the word "extreme" that is put in brackets, is put in their by the dev for a reason (unless your playing it on id say, 8 or less, in which case ignore this warning). Its no joke on 11 difficulty setting.

And lastly, endless mode and dice mode dont "save" when you quit, so once you start, be sure you got the time to do it till you die.

Slight new take on pang. Can change controller rebinds in options menu and turn off screen shake. Difficulty starts off on "normal" then if you want to do a level on a harder difficulty you just beat it again for a max of 3 difficulty settings in total. Game has endless mode and story mode. Also, unlike pang where you die in 1 hit, in this game your character has a health bar and enemies do drop health occasionally, thus making this game much more casual friendly then pang. Then their is the story and..... well, it's rather basic shall we say, and the voice acting for the story sounds like it was done using AI.

Game has a shop that you can buy different armor, each with its own stats (need to press a button to show stats in store). You can buy extra lives and 1 type of key in the store (their are multiple types of keys and each chest needs a certain key to open it, find the key with the symbol matching the chest on the map to open it). Game difficulty increases by default if you play the game in co op. Sadly, the game has'int sold enough copies for steam achievements to show up on achievement showcase, but they are their anyway.

Game can run on a potato and will cause little heating to pc components, so safe for ghetto laptops and so on. Can't go wrong for the price since its 5.50 canadian after taxes so id say its worth it. Even more so if its on sale and your into this type of game. Only con id say is the story but lets face the truth, no one is gonna play this for the story nor care about it. Game gets a thumbs up from me.

Edit: Tried out endless mode. Gives you 9 levels to choose from and each level you pick between 2-4 guns that you start with (you only get to pick 1 and thats it, you stick with it the entire run /yawn factor over 9000). Enemies come in waves. Their are NO power ups of any kind, no health drops, no aoe dmg attack meter drop, no different gun drops, no nothing. Except gold. You start out with 5 lives.

It seems to give you 3 different waves with 1 special mob every 2 waves then it repeats. Higher your combo, more points you get per kill. Rather ease in all honestly and rather boring too. One of the few endless modes ive tried and legit did not like/found boring as hell. But its better then nothing at least so i am grateful it at least is their. Just wish their was more to it.