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This user has reviewed 4 games. Awesome! You can edit your reviews directly on game pages.
Clash: Artifacts of Chaos - Zeno Edition
Created on 11 March, 2026 13:56
Clash: Artifacts of Chaos - Zeno Edition

An angry mustard man and his bird son

No others have made games quite as distinctive as ACE Team. These are games with weird atavistic designs and kooky ideas that strive to be, at the very least, interesting. The Eternal Cylinder and Zeno Clash 1 in particular are favorites of mine. Clash: AoC is an unfortunate title. It should have been called Zeno Clash 3. Where the previous 2 games marinated in weirdness and not much of a cogent story, Clash is, by comparison, penned and performed in a most excellent manner. A ronin and cub story binds the oddball world of Zenozoik, where player-character Pseudo will find himself the guardian of a young bird creature called The Boy, a Ronald Searle animal sketch come to life who attracts all manner of hot-tempered weirdos inhabiting Zenozoik. Before every fight the One Law is invoked -- among the civilized at least -- which initiates an unforgiving minigame involving dice and the game's titular artifacts. Win and Pseudo gets a mild advantage. Lose and a fight might start with an enemy breaking a tree branch on Pseudo's back. Unlike Zeno Clash 1 and 2, Clash is now a 3rd person brawler. Combat is more robust than the previous two games, and yet there is still some unsatisfying looseness that reminds me of Zeno Clash 2. Overall, I still prefer the simplicity and feel of the original (which had guns), but that was a much shorter game, and combat is all the same good enough fun. Clash has an oddball-rich appearance because of hatching lines that are layered on top of fairly detailed 3D models. It can look like a pulpy 70s or 80s illustration at times. This effect also happens to look best at 4K, which is a bit unfortunate, but its intensity can be adjusted by the player. The game's soundtrack matches its appearance and is worth highlighting at over 2 hours of material, and there's a surprising number of vocal performances that are sung in a fictional language (in particular, the track titled "Hope" sticks out to me). At the time of writing Clash is on sale for a paltry $3. I think it's worth trying at the least for the storytelling, which is well done and partly penned by the guy behind The Talos Principle.

1 gamers found this review helpful
Clash: Artifacts of Chaos
Created on 11 March, 2026 08:07
Updated on 11 March, 2026 08:37
Clash: Artifacts of Chaos

An angry mustard man and his bird son

No others have made games quite as distinctive as ACE Team. These are games with weird atavistic designs and kooky ideas that strive to be, at the very least, interesting. The Eternal Cylinder and Zeno Clash 1 in particular are favorites of mine. Clash: AoC is an unfortunate title. It should have been called Zeno Clash 3. Where the previous 2 games marinated in weirdness and not much of a cogent story, Clash is, by comparison, penned and performed in a most excellent manner. A ronin and cub story binds the oddball world of Zenozoik, where player-character Pseudo will find himself the guardian of a young bird creature called The Boy, a Ronald Searle animal sketch come to life who attracts all manner of hot-tempered weirdos inhabiting Zenozoik. Before every fight the One Law is invoked -- among the civilized at least -- which initiates an unforgiving minigame involving dice and the game's titular artifacts. Win and Pseudo gets a mild advantage. Lose and a fight might start with an enemy breaking a tree branch on Pseudo's back. Unlike Zeno Clash 1 and 2, Clash is now a 3rd person brawler. Combat is more robust than the previous two games, and yet there is still some unsatisfying looseness that reminds me of Zeno Clash 2. Overall, I still prefer the simplicity and feel of the original (which had guns), but that was a much shorter game, and combat is all the same good enough fun. Clash has an oddball-rich appearance because of hatching lines that are layered on top of fairly detailed 3D models. It can look like a pulpy 70s or 80s illustration at times. This effect also happens to look best at 4K, which is a bit unfortunate, but its intensity can be adjusted by the player. The game's soundtrack matches its appearance and is worth highlighting at over 2 hours of material, and there's a surprising number of vocal performances that are sung in a fictional language (in particular, the track titled "Hope" sticks out to me). At the time of writing Clash is on sale for a paltry $3. I think it's worth trying at the least for the storytelling, which is well done and partly penned by the guy behind The Talos Principle.

5 gamers found this review helpful
Labyrinth Of The Demon King
Created on 21 June, 2025 15:38
Labyrinth Of The Demon King

Stylish and not much else.

This King's Field-like carries a confident, grungy aesthetic that recalls the low-fidelity horror of old Playstation games. But its presentation makes cover for a shallow game with no edge or interesting ideas. The game's premise, that of entering a corrupted feudal Japanese estate/castle to uncover a source of evil, feels stuck in first gear from the outset. There's no tension or escalation in its design (nor storytelling). The first hour passes much like the last. I wandered, lost, more than a couple of times. It wasn't a puzzle (there's scarcely any) or demons that stumped me: it was sliding doors that looked like walls. Despite its grotesque appearance, the game's combat is neat and tidy, as are the levels that give the feeling of being in a labyrinth, but are in fact dull interiors filled with imposter doors. (Nothing evokes fear of the unknown like a clearly marked map). Some ideas are half-kidnapped from other games and left to shamble. There are level transition door animations, but these are make-believe loading screens, and there's too much brawling to evoke terror for most of its playtime, so I began skipping them entirely not an hour in. Demons reappear between levels, but the game respawns the annoying ones, so there's hardly even a meta cheesing strategy. One persistent nonthreatening horror became so familiar that, when the opportunity to banish it forever came up, I merely shrugged--I was at the finale anyway. The sense of adventure or descent into madness from 1 hour spent in a Thief or Dark Souls level is not found in this game's entirety. Nor are the combat tactics/attrition and variety of RPG dungeon crawlers. I do not wholly regret my time with LoTDK, but it is a letdown. The older, rougher games it draws inspiration from are all more worthy of attention.

5 gamers found this review helpful
Created on 17 May, 2011 11:58