As somebody who is usually quite critical of boomer shooters, Prodeus pretty much fits with how I want these kind of games to be; hard hitting, highly dynamic and varied shooters with a strong audiovisual character. But despite its unique qualities, Prodeus' fundamentals are a bit too reliant on its influences, to the point of limiting its potential.

First things first, this game simply looks amazing. The mix of classic Doom faux-3D style sprites and id Tech 4-esque 3D graphics never feels anything less than pleasing. It's very cool that they allow you to customize some aspects of the art style, like having 3D models or 2D sprites for the enemies. I also love the gore-y details, like blood and viscera dripping from splatters on the ceiling.

The dark, somewhat edgy atmosphere of the levels are supported quite well by the ambient soundtrack. The only part of the audiovisual experience that I don't enjoy is the metal soundtrack, which usually pops up in the more elaborate enemy encounters. These tracks are just not interesting enough.

The gameplay is as you would expect from a game like this. Run and dodge projectiles, avoid getting too close to melee enemies, pick the right weapon for the job, and try to maintain your accuracy as you move around. Prodeus particularly draws inspiration from Doom 2016, and it's very visible. Its enemy types, weapons, level design philosophy, and so on. It's not a bad thing to copy one of the most popular and influential shooter in modern times, but I really wished Prodeus had more original ideas to spice up its fundamentals. Sometimes it can feel like a merely neat-er version of Doom 2016, rather than being a new game.

I do appreciate how tight the main campaign is compared to its contemporaries. The individual levels feel more than distinct enough from each other, and it never feels like the game is just repeating the same tricks. For the most part, the pace and length of these levels are also very digestible, and most of them never overstays their welcome. It's also quite short, maybe no longer than 8 hours. Not to mention the absolute lack of intrusive non-fundamental elements, like story or lore.

I think a lot of boomer shooters overrate how good their gameplay loop really is, and end up boring me with just a bunch of uninspiring enemy encounters that feel endless. There's also a lot of them that design their exploration to be a bit too cryptic, and it would ruin the pace of the levels. Prodeus never does any of this, and it's nice to finally find a boomer shooter that fits me like a glove.

I still have to complain about the campaign's lackluster ending, but that's probably the only thing that's definitely bad about it. The quality of the levels themselves are not exactly mindblowing, but none of them are obviously bad. It's a consistently fun campaign overall.

As it stands, Prodeus' highly focused execution of its ideas are more than strong enough to carry itself above most of its peers. It's not original enough to set its own legacy, but it does solidfy the strength of its influences.

Ah tough one to review, 6 seems a bit harsh, but 7 feels a tad generous. First off some context, my ps plus extra subscription expires in September and I have been looking for games to play on that tier to justify my sub that I haven’t really used as much as I expected. A bigger budget metroidvania with a shortish 10 hour platinum trophy, so I took the jump.

What we have here is an Ori-guacamelee knock off that is not as good as either of those games. The Ori style platforming is servicable with a good dash and decent movement upgrades. But some of the design just feels off with platforming. Some jumps are weirdly placed, wall jumps never quite feel perfect etc. it’s all competent which is a word I’ll use a lot but nothing spectacular. The combat is similiarily fine, get locked in a room constantly switching between different colour enemies ala guacamelee. Like that game I grew very tired of it by the end and dropped to easy. But I didn’t hate and some upgrades made it more fun.

Map is very linear and very little back tracking. The map is revealed when you enter an area which is a weird choice since then you can lose track of where you have and have not gone but not a huge issue. Very often auto saves make mis timed jumps bearable. But when an area has no check points my goodness can this game test your patience. One hit spikes are literally everywhere and the slightest touch can kill you. Very silly that it is explicitly mentioned in options that difficulty does not affect one hit kills. I would be surprised if 90% of deaths were a result of those and not the combat.

Story was fine can tell it’s personal for the creator which is nice and applaud him for this vision. Bosses were good decent changes and not too hard.

Unfortunately the million deaths from bad design or one hit kills has me saying “why am I playing this right now” far too many times and it really tested my patience debating sunk cost fallacy throughout the 10 hour journey. Cherry on top was game crashing on the final blow of the boss so had to do that again.

Im coming off harsh and I feel bad cause the game is decent in parts but really there are such better offerings in this genre not sure why I would recommend this over anything else other than it being free on a subscription service. Also they need to fix the dead stick after every exit from the map

I am delighted that I had the opportunity to play and finish Super Mario Land 2 at the age of 42. I recently picked up an Analogue Pocket and wanted to play this game since I’ve heard great things.

I think this game is still fun despite it being an old game. The thing that stood out to me was how creative the worlds were. This is not your same old biome’s that most platformers, including the bulk of Mario games, puts on repeat. Instead you’ll be travelling inside a whale, visiting Halloween land, floating in space, and traversing a world of giant household items.

The game reminds me of what I love best about Nintendo. When they throw away the book and take a chance with their IP’s, they often strike on something special. This game is no exception, and it reminds me of Super Mario Odyssey in that way. Both games ooze with love and passion. I imagine the developers being locked away with the only rule being, “make the Mario game you’ve always wanted.”

This is the first ever 11/10. Sorry, video games. And our base-10 number system. You are now both obsolete.

One day maybe I'll come to grips with the fact that Nintendo dropped one of the best games of all time, went radio silent for 6 years, and then dropped an even better sequel. When I played Breath of the Wild, I called it a 10, so I'm going to leave it at that, but frankly Tears of the Kingdom improves every single aspect of Breath of the Wild so much I don't think I could ever bring myself to play the first game again.

I think Eiji Aonuma has earned a long, happy retirement after this, and he's obviously trained Hidemaro Fujibayashi to adequately take his place in the future. Zelda is at its best when it has reinvented itself, it always has been. Tears of the Kingdom is a reinvention of a reinvention. It's hard to believe video games will ever get better than this, but that's what I said 6 years ago - and how delighted I am to be proved wrong.

I first played Super Mario World when I got my SNES in the 90's. I have played through the game several times over the years and recently decided to 100% the game. It was everything I remembered and holds up extremely well, it is truly a timeless game. The power ups are fun especially the different Yoshis. There is a good mix of difficulties between the levels. The worlds are varied and introduce many unforgettable enemies, many of which show up in future games. I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys 2D Mario games.

Lil' Guardsman is a fun puzzle/adventure game that has wonderful and whimsical artwork which does a grand job at hiding the game's serious nature that it has sometimes!

Your guard shifts let you interact with a variety of characters who present different challenges with the tools given to you as a Guardsman. You can give them truth spray to get informed of their true intentions, a x-ray machine or metal detector to see if they have anything suspicious on them, or you can also use a whip if you'd like! Because why not! These all present different options of ways to achieve a 3 or 4-star rating for that specific guest, which is fun. Sometimes, the way you achieve those 3 or 4 stars is a bit confusing though.

Your character, Lil, is a 12-year old who does have some tough things going on, and some of that stuff gets discovered more as you go through the game which I am glad we got that type of character development as the game progressed.

Overall, Lil Guardsman is a jolly time and not too long! Not perfect in some ways, but still a fun time!