Mullet Mad Jack is a fast paced fps shooter from the people over at Hammer95. It’s takes the cyperpunk and retro anime aesthetics and combines them with gameplay that is extremely fast paced. Packaged together with a great soundtrack, refined controls, and tons of extras, Mullet Mad Jack has already cemented itself as a staple in the fps genre.

The gameplay revolves around your need for dopamine: you are on a ten second timer, when you hit zero you die, you add seconds by getting kills in a variety of ways and drinking soda: this games holy corn syrup potion. Combat is this game is tied perfectly to this mechanic, you are given a variety of weapons so take down robotic billionaires and waves of lesser robots, each weapon also receiving upgrades. Each weapon has its purpose and upgrading them makes each weapon a tool of destruction. Infinite ammo on the revolver, a sub machine gun that is laser accurate, an overloaded shotgun, and a few more. Each weapon doesn’t feel tacked on, one of the limited options will fit your play style. Another plus to this game is that melee is a viable option which is not common in the genre: the swords provide high damage and status effects, and melee dashing is downright a necessity to thrive in the dystopian neon hell. Melee dashing refills your timer fully, so scouring the hallways and corridors for melee weapons is a free 10 seconds of life. These ideas paired with some of the best movement in gaming create a homogenous spearhead that leads the rest of the game.

A very refreshing aspect of the game is the level design. Each floor is procedurally generated from a pool of premade rooms and hallways. This on its own would just make the game a memorization puzzle, but the game constantly twists this puzzle as you go up the tower: new enemies and obstacles are added each 10 floors. There are enemies that require melee to defeat, floating bombs, laser walls, parkour sections, the game never runs out of fresh ideas to throw at the player.

Boss fights in this game serve more of a thematic purpose than challenge, which is acceptable, they do have great designs and it does still feeling rewarding defeating them to reach the next set of floors. The only boss I would say is underwhelming is the final boss, it is a long fight but it’s not too difficult and with it being it’s own chapter I would’ve liked an increase in difficulty.

The aesthetics of this game have so much care put into them; the old anime aesthetics mixed with the cyperpunk setting feel retro and refreshing at the same time, you can feel the passion behind all this. The cyperpunk setting helps reinforce the gameplay mechanics and give a sense of purpose to pursuing the next objective. This game also shares the philosophical sentiments of said genre: capitalism ultimately drives 99% of the population obsolete, only billionaires and robots have a foothold in society. Rapid consumerism and the presence of online social status equate humans to just being consumers, which ties to doing all the actions you take in game being over a pair of shoes. Shoes are also given for playing different modes which ties back what the game is saying to how players will try to get every pair, like a good consumer. The anime aesthetics fit in quite well, bringing an aura of cheesy fun that works quite well. The music also does a good job to match the intensity of the gameplay.

Mullet Mad Jack has become a game that should be one of the first recommendations when someone asks “what FPS game should I try to get into the genre?”. The game has such a polish to it, rarely do you find games that fully realize themselves and deliver a truly full and dense experience.

Castlevania review
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is the culmination of all that great ideas from its predecessors and a few new ideas to create truly one of the best experiences in gaming as a whole. Its action, RPG, and horror elements combine to give a robust title that adds freedom of play to a Castlevania we hadn’t seen up to this point.

Castlevania’s before this were pretty straightforward experiences: you march forward till you face Dracula, but here in Symphony of the Night you are forced to back track a multitude of times, this idea only previously explored in the underrated Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest. You need to return to areas once you learn the new abilities offered, suck as transforming into a bat, mist, or wolf, as well as being able to double jump or face tougher enemies, to be able to fully explore the monstrously sized map. This change was inspired by two things: The Legend of Zelda games and the need to add replay value to the game. Symphony of the Night rewards patience in combat, learning enemy attacks, and exploration. Each weapon has their own stat changes and attack feel: knives have short fast attacks, claymore take away your side weapon to deliver long range, sweeping attacks than land heavy blows, shields provide protection from projectiles but also boost your base defense stat. Armor and accessories also provide stat changes and unique abilities such as healing from moving, large stat boosts, or resistance to elements. All of these major changes and overall improvements presented in this title truly make it stand out in the lineup.

Easily the best aspect of the game is the castle. The castle you explore is huge, it feels never ending at times. Between all the rooms, secrets, enemy variety, several changes in scenery and color tone, it adds to the feeling of grandiose scale that is only amplified once you gain access to the inverse castle. The presentation of the inverse castle is also a very exciting move, the late 90’s 3D animation doesn’t look too out of place, hasn’t aged the absolute best but 3D is used very sparingly in the game. The castle itself has a very intricate level of detail on the background and foreground, nothing looks out of place, and in some areas, such has the clock tower, library, and the nightmare region look stunning. Pixel art truly hit a peak, there’s an almost carpenterly attention to detail, it’s almost as if somehow the pixels were carved and painted rather than programmed. This level of art doesn’t just stop at the castle itself, the inhabitants also receive the tender love of meticulous attention to detail and consideration of how each being fits in the world created.

There are countless enemies with a flawless design, such has the incredibly designed book enemy found in the library, using 2.5 animation and using a real photo taken which is implemented into the attack, which provides an unsettling nature to what is otherwise a throw away enemy in any other game. The butterfly enemies, the witch enemies, the fish enemies, the knights that reside on the stairs, the classic Medusa heads, all fit in the world and have very fluid animation as well as not pulling the player out of the world. The same can be said for the bosses.

The bosses in this game act as either great set pieces, or foreshadowing to future strength. The first boss fight you encounter is two enemies you’ll face as normal enemies in the reverse castle. Using this tactic for bosses really drives home how powerful you become, from facing one of each at once is a legitimate boss fight versus later in game where most players up to that point will be killing them in one to three hits. The other bosses that aren’t like this have some spectacular design. One moment that particularly stands out in my mind is going against Legion, or Grandloon. Legion is a floating orb of bodies you have to knock off an eye with tentacles that shoot lasers when exposed. The music is great, the idea of a boss dropping tens of humans down to shamble towards you makes for a true horror experience. The succubus, Death, Beezlebub, Galgamoth, the Richter fight, Scylla, Dracula, and the other bosses truly stand on their own in terms of design and gameplay.

Symphony of the Night plays as an action RPG, the RPG elements coming in when it’s time to change around stats, level grind, use items and companions called Familiars, and equip new weapons or armor. Gameplay runs incredibly smooth, Alucard simply flows through all the levels, backdashing is quite helpful, and once you get all the transformations unlocked, navigating the castle is a breeze. Symphony of the Night is quite frankly one of the smoothest handling games you’ll ever play. The sub weapons range from pellet shooters to majorly overpowered, but being able to experiment adds another layer to combat. The weapons you choose to use do more than simple stat changes; shorter weapons swing faster, some weapons do better against certain enemy types, some weapons are just a fat boost in attack, there is a wide variety of weapons to use and test out. If you simply explore what the world has to offer you’ll find plenty of weapons that scale right at enemy level (but nothing is stopping you from buying the $4000 sword in the beginning to get you through the first castle). The game seriously rewards trying new things and exploring the world to find the weapons that fits the current situation. I personally did not struggle with finding weapons that helped me slice through whatever was in my way.

The sound design needs its own praise, the music by Michiru Yamane provides arguably one of the best video game soundtracks ever. Dance of Pearls, Departed Ways, Death’s Ballad, and so many more tracks are pure bliss. Michiru Yamane was in college when she was approached by Konami to make the music for Symphony of the Night. Using her extremely in-depth studying of Bach, she was able to create these ethereal orchestral ballads that provide an aura of gothic royalty, delicate terror, and a sense of adventure. These tracks are also prepared with rock and jazz tunes that mix-up the palette of the soundtrack which can provide much needed energy. Hats off to her, this soundtrack is amazing and she deserved her spot in Konami, which she was hired on after this release. The folley of the world around you, the sounds of enemies, and this amazing soundtrack completely suck you into the world.

There are several small secret events that happen that don’t provide towards plot or combat, but add to the mystic of the world. The prayer room interactions are a prime example; the room has a unique and truly haunting song playing, sitting in the chairs summoning ghost women and priests was simply a treat to be able to experience. The fairy singing and secret song if you sit for a while with her is part of the fine detail that needs to be present in more games. This game just packs lots of small details and hidden away surprises that just add character to an already passionate game. The world building in the game is excellent, nothing short of masterful.

Overall this is an amazing package around the board, almost flawless in my opinion. This is a must play, a truly one of a kind experience that has aged gracefully. Any flaw this game has is so minuscule that it can be disregarded. If you can, you should play this.

They Don’t Sleep is a management game centered around surviving waves of zombies through day-night cycles until you repair a vehicle to flee to safety, all while you have to gather supplies and watch over not only yourself, but you infant son. They Don’t Sleep finds a great balance between giving you space to watch over your health stats and making you feel like the world is closing in on you. The addition of a roguelike leveling system makes each attempt feel worth giving your all, since the next loop will be easier.

Managing your supplies and status bars requires you to constantly be thinking on your feet and setting priorities on what can wait. Staying in the house to replenish a need such as hunger or rest will leave your fences at risk, which will cause a reset in the loop when a fence hits 0% health. If you stay outside to fend off zombies too long, you or your son will have their needs be at greater risk, especially your son since he needs to constantly be fed and have his diaper changed. Do either of these too long, you will run out of supplies, which will require you to run out to scavenge resources. They Don’t Sleep perfects this constant struggle of self care and risk, you need to scavenge to get parts for your vehicle to reach endgame, but you can’t just sprint to the end, there is a sort of grind and waiting game to the process which does not grow stale on multiple loops. Narratively the rogue like elements are unique, the main character has no idea why the loops occur, but she will remember each loop to further improve. Having the loop be a random glitch in the universe is refreshing, leaving some elements unexplained is something many titles of today sorely lack.

Graphically the game is your standard indie pixel look, everything looks how it should which all that really matters, there is no questioning what piece of furniture you are looking at. Sonically the game is also standard, no real complaints in this department. Movement feels good, especially when you get your fitness upgraded to max level.

A very welcoming aspect of the game is that the leveling system is actually bulletproof; there are no perks that are useless. Some will definitely be more useful to upgrade earlier than other such as fitness and parenting, but what happens is that the less useful perks in the beginning become vital to surviving late game such as cooking and stress management. Too often we see perks and leveling have some branches that you can 100% skip, but They Don’t Sleep strives for quality over quantity.

The new game+ section provides a tweak to the original formula that provides a new set of challenges, such as the fence number being lower, the vehicle needing more parts, and the space for zombies to travel is shorter. The levels earned beforehand make this manageable but still make it challenging enough to play. Being able to add modifiers to the game to offer a new challenge is something I normally do not do in roguelikes unless it is required, but in this instance it works well.

They Don’t Sleep is a prime example of why I sift through a ton of indie games to find the diamonds in the rough. Digging through unity asset flips to find games such as this is what makes sitting through mid worth it. I would highly recommend They Don’t Sleep.

Post Void is essentially a fentanyl shooter that takes the adrenaline idea of bright and scattered visuals with adrenaline pumping gameplay to make a product that probably needs narcan.

Visually, this game is a sensory overload. The lighting is extremely bright and colorful, the enemies look like sleep paralysis demons that explode into gory bits when shot, the levels have a 50’s interior design which combine well with the king and winding layout of the levels to add an uncanny feeling. You can question what you are seeing and shooting, but you have to make it to the end of the level in a dead sprint.

Combat is brutal in this game. Your health is constantly draining, you gain health by killing enemies; these two parts force the player to engage in combat instead of just sprinting through to the end. You can skip enemies but not all. 3/4 weapons feel great to use: the handgun you start with, the SMG, and the shotgun are great. The knife could be better but since you don’t need to use it, it’s not a major deal. The gameplay is structured like a rogue-like: you reach the end goal of each level and you get to pick 1 of 3 randomized perks, they mostly deal with what weapon you can swap to, general weapons upgrades, and movement upgrades. Most of them are useful, there’s only two I’m not a big fan of but again, not a big deal. Enemy variety is actually really good, in terms of visual and gameplay. Every enemy provides a threat and all of them are balanced perfectly.

The game is fairly short, you can beat it in with 30 minutes to a hour, but for the price it is worth it. The narrative just gives context to what you are doing, which is all you really need, nothing bad but nothing mind blowing. The music fits well to add the feeling of being at 200bpm while making enemies splatter on screen. Controlling the game feels like gliding down a water slide, the movement feels buttery smooth when sprinting down hallways.

For the price, Post Void packs a heavy punch. Elevator pitch for this game would be: pack your lip with crack and LSD and be John Wick.

My first experience with this game comes from hearing people online bashing this game. Particularly, a video saying that besides Castlevania 64, this game was the worst in the franchise. After beating Castlevania 1, I was a bit worried about playing this game considering what I’ve heard. I am happy to say that not only did this game exceed expectations, this game turned out to be a fantastic experience. Although not perfect, this game was extremely good and worth playing.

Taking a completely different approach from the first game, Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest is more of a RPG, with leveling systems, a day and night cycle, more than one ending, NPC’s, merchants, and needing key items to progress in the game. The game is essentially a very long, straight horizontal line but the game cleverly adds sub routes and requires backtracking to unlock and use key items to get farther in the story. You upgrade your whip, collect sub weapons that you can choose through a menu, there are several optional sub weapons you may not even encounter in your first play through, although the only one truly required to progress is in the first town to buy. You talk to NPC’s to get hints on where to go and what to do, but please just use a guide, the biggest flaw of this game is the bad translations that actually make the game extremely hard if you don’t know what you are doing, in particular the puzzle with the red crystal and cliff has such a bad translation of you followed what the NPC says, you will not progress the story. This game focuses more on backtracking, level grinding, some dungeon crawling, and atmosphere more than a gauntlet of boss battles compared to the first game.

The graphical improvement from Castlevania 1 and 2 is astounding. The backgrounds are gorgeous and high quality given the time, they hold up perfectly. The enemy designs work really well, Dracula himself has a fantastic design. Unlike a lot of games from this era of gaming, the items in game actually look like what they are, you don’t have to really guess what each one is based on look. The UI is very clean, any information you need is in the pause menu which cleans up the screen. The only thing you see is your health when playing, it really declutters the screen and lets you enjoy all the visuals this game has to offer.

The game handles well; I played through the anniversary collection on Steam, the game control wise doesn’t suffer, you can adjust the controls in the collection since the collection itself seems to have swapped buttons, but for a nearly 40 year old game, it holds up well. The game sound also holds up well, the 8-bit music sounds great and doesn’t get old, in game sounds fit well and are pleasing to the ear. Overall the age of this game does nothing to hinder the experience in the modern time.

The combat is well fleshed out; once you get a few items, the combat is pretty versatile. Pairing your sub weapons with your whip feels really good and not forced in the system. Running the flame whip with sacred flames feels like you are the terminator sent back to medieval times to hunt Dracula. I also enjoy that the game does not tell you everything and lets you figure out what weapons and items do and if the cost hearts. This game heavily rewards experimentation and thinking outside the box.

If I were to have complaints about the game, the translation, as previously mentioned, is the biggest flaw of the game. I cannot stress enough, use a guide. I would also say that the two boss fights before Dracula are too easy. Also the ring item does nothing, which is lame.

I am very happy to say the Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest is a fantastic game, one I will revisit, and is far better than its perception given to it in the modern time (the game upon release was reviewed positively, and held that perception until the AVGN review, the timing of the review and how early internet content sharing was, tanked the games image). This game is worth seeing past its flaws and has aged gracefully.

Alan Wake 2 is a blend of psychedelic visuals with equally mend-melting plot points that is able to keep the player interested and confused until the end. Impressive sound design, a modern horror control scheme and play style that has taken a chokehold on the space thanks to Resident Evil 2 Remake, with some spectacular voice work and facial capturing does a good job at immersing you in the worlds this game presents.

Arguably the best aspect of this game is the characters, how they are portrayed in the story and on screen. The voice acting really carries the weight of the dialogue and overall unhinged plot points in the story. The three biggest roles are voiced well, Saga Anderson and Alex Casey ground the heightened reality while Alan Wake plays into the more abstract concepts in the story. All the side characters do good as well, adding to both the groundedness or the more fantastical side. The facial capturing and characters models are some of the best we’ve seen so far, they are believable, the movement of faces is fluid and natural and the cutscenes mirror that as well, the models never look stiff.

The visuals are also a thing of beauty, the use of neon color in a realistic environment works well and personally I could play a whole game in just the Dark Place, the architecture changes, color use, sound use, and the main gimmick work so well together I was very pleased. The mix of the in game visuals and real life footage is jarring but in a good way, it really throws you for a loop the first time through.

The Dark Place needs its own section in this review. The Dark Place uses a gimmick that allows you to change the environment to progress, which fits in narratively and thematically, it was exciting to try out different options to solve puzzles and progress. It is one of my favorite video game locations ever, the aesthetics and game mechanics work so well.

The story does a good job at keeping you guessing, while not feeling cheap. At times it can feel convoluting but in my opinion it is ultimately satisfying. I think Saga’s story was more engaging emotionally while Alan’s played as a bridge between the main conflict and Saga, which I think serves its purpose well.

The actual gameplay does leave a little to be desired in a few aspects but far from bad by any means. The game uses the all too familiar RE2R style of camera, movement, and gunplay, which does work in this game but it brings into question when will this trick run its course. Combat feels impactful and thankfully the characters move at a good pace for the amount of traversing you do. Puzzles in this game is really a 50/50. Puzzles that progress the game are rewarding, it feels good to solve them, but puzzles that are found scattered around the open world are often too easy, except for one or two, there will be no challenge to complete which is a shame but not the end of the world. Saga’s and Alan’s main gimmick is interesting, I enjoyed both and thought they were engaging. I do however Alan had more weapons to use, his combat began to feel too cyclical by the end, but I cannot say the same for Saga, who has a great arsenal at her disposal.

Dialogue in this game can get repetitive, the words dark and light are used so much it sounds like the literary equivalent to an epileptic jumpscare. I am pretty certain there was also some grammatical errors in the dialogue as well, but the voice acting makes up for it.

The sound design is great, I thought the musical choices and arrangements drive home the moods being presented, the world sounds real and living, I just wish the foley was more present, walking on items often delivers no noise which a disappointment but nothing major.

One final critique would be that this game should’ve had some more time to polish. Two to three more months in the oven would've really helped. I experienced a few minor glitches and bugs, but nothing game breaking but immersion breaking which is why these issues and the others stated holds the game back from the coveted 5/5.

Overall, I would consider this game one of the better big budget horror games we’ve gotten in the past few years. While not perfect, any critiques mentioned get overshadowed by the towering positives, a well deserved 4.5/5.

I was pleasantly surprised by this game. The atmosphere is perfectly crafted due to great visuals which benefit from the low lighting and, in my opinion, easy some of the best sound design in gaming ever. The balancing in the game will keep the threats as serious threats throughout the entire game.

You play as a French solider in WW1 who becomes trapped in a bunker system, with the main goal being to escape by blowing up a blocked path. Easier said than done, you have scarce resources, your resources are not overpowered, the game is very dark with you either having light from a gas generator that eats a full tank in 5 real time minutes or a crank flashlight that makes a ton of noise, has a 30 second light cycle before needing to be cranked again, and can't be held while preforming certain actions, and on top of all this is a beast that tracks sound throughout the entire bunker system and pursues sound using its own tunnel system, and the cherry on top is that it is unkillable. You collect several tools to complete certain tasks that enable you to get resources to escape.

The best aspect of this game is the sound design, truly some the best ever in the industry. There's water driping, bombs going off above you which causes dirt to fall and the blast vibrate through your controller, screen, and through the speakers. The Foley work in this game is amazing, footsteps, fabric moving, wood planks moving, rocks or crates sliding, bottles clanking, just amazing work I cannot sing its praise enough. You use sound a lot to locate the beast which you can hear traveling through the walls and walking around, which works really well, it is actually pretty easy to tell where the beast is. This is very important considering the game restricts your visibility heavily. When there is music, it is effective in conveying the themes and emotions of what's going on, Once again, the sound team did a historically amazing job, a 10/10 in sound.

The gameplay feels good, you feel really human, which is very important to convey how weak you are compared to what's going on around you. Tasks take more button inputs than the average game, a reload requires you told hold down a button and then use the trigger to load in each individual bullet as opposed to a quick button press, the crank flashlight requires you to hold the flashlight button per crank as compared to a single button press, healing requires both triggers, in general, anything not involving movement or picking up items into your inventory requires more inputs which is something that makes you put more thought into what you are doing and immerses you into the game. The game also lets you be creative with how you handle situations: there is several ways to evade the beast (shoot at it, explosives, sprint away, run then crouch to sneak away, misdirect, use traps preset in the game by past soldiers, hide behind cover or in a cupboard or under a desk or bed), several ways to get rid of rats temporarily or permanently (wave a torch, gas or explosives, burn body with gas and lighter, use the beast to scare the rats, run or jump over, or use meat to distract) and several ways to open wooden doors (destroy with explosives, throw heavy world items, get the beast to destroy it) and pretty much every other non major decision is left up to you.

I find the simple plot helps add to the horror by forcing the player to have to find what they need on their own to progress, the natural guidance of the game doesn't handhold but also doesn't abandon you, which I can appreciate. The lore in the world takes on the common horror tactic of using notes found around the world to tell the bigger picture which works in this context since they are soldiers photos and diary entries and notices.

The world design paired with the sound design makes a great atmosphere to play in. The world is highly detailed and pretty realistic. Anything that does not match the main areas really do shock the player and increases the fish out of water feeling you get while playing. Placing the game in the dark or fog or smoke makes the backtracking keep the environment's loom still feel new because you only really remember a select few landmarks and the direction to go rather than remembering an entire room. Most of the time I knew where I was based solely off of how many times I turned a certain direction rather than the visual character of the room I'm in.

If I were to critique anything it would be the loading transitions between areas of the bunker breaking immersion, but it really isn’t that big of an issue. A minor problem but I would be remiss to not mention it.

I can see myself giving this a 5/5 in the future, I had a fantastic time with this game, I can't praise this game enough, go play this if you haven't.

Do not like the antisemitic things involved in this game at all, it is not funny and extremely unnecessary. Bad game play. Only reason why I was made aware of this was a coupon for this game from steam and seemed like an easy 100% at first glance (I played by swiping while watching youtube to put in perspective of how mindless this game is) but I do not recommend at all. I regret spending my time with this game and only wrote this review to warn other people to not play this game, antisemitism is not funny.