Recent reviews by Pancake

LET ME TELL YE A SALTY TALE

CAPTAIN WAYNE BE ONE OF THE FUNNEST BOOMER SHOOTERS I'VE LAID ME SORE EYES ON

THE MOVEMENT BE SIMPLE, BUT FUN AS HELL. THE ANIMATION BE BEAUTIFUL, EVERY FRAME A MASTERPEIECE

THE GUNPLAY BE SATISFYING, NOT A WEAPON GOES UNUSED

THE GAME OOZES CHARM LIKE A SQUID INK

THERE BE A CAMPAIGN, BUT AN ENDLESS ARENA WITH MANY O' MAP

12 BILLION SHRIMP MUST BE ATE

Granvir is a great mech game that I'm willing to bet you're sleeping on.

While rough around the edges, the core gameplay is good and the sheer volume of build options offered by the game means you can always find something new to try out. The campaign structure and freeform exploration aspects are fun, and I really enjoy the 'downtime' hour mechanic used in between mission spaces. 10 player coop to boot is also crazy and a welcome change to the normal "4 players or bust" coop. It feels a lot like a streamlined, simplified Mechwarrior 5 kind of game complete with financial and unit management for your group. While it certainly lacks the flair and impact of that kind of game, it makes up for it in being quicker and faster to navigate. The controls, while binding them can be tedious, feel responsive and I've never had a mech do something I didn't want it to or struggle to maneuver mid-combat. With a lot (and I mean a *lot*) of parts to use, randomized mission structure, modular evolving enemies, and a surprising amount of various side mission or vendor interactions, there's a lot to like about Granvir.

The game is definitely not without faults. The key bindings getting shifted any time you change parts or resume a campaign is annoying, and the sound design leaves much to be desired. While the game runs smoothly, I did encounter a crash or two (especially when rejoining a suspended campaign). The game could use more heads up about certain mission objectives, and while the Minecraft Beacon ping can help, "where the hell is my friend" is a common issue even with Radar modules installed. It would be nice to see a bit more navigation baked into the base HUD, like a floating waypoint and audio cue for player pings. The other major gripe I found with co-op is the Squad Inventory lock mechanic. While I can understand there might be a technical limitation for its inclusion, it feels very janky and it would be nice to have a host option to turn it off. In addition, it would be nice to see who is and is not readied up on the deployment screen, beyond just a pilot count.

Overall, I think Granvir has a lot of potential and is certainly worth your time. If you're unsure, the Zero Front demo is a great starting point and much of what you unlock there carries into the full game. I hope to see the game get fleshed out and polished more in the future.

A fun little environmental puzzle game, short but sweet. The mouse controls for hacking felt a little stiff, but it didn't hamper the overall experience.

Control is urban fantasy at its finest. While the RPG stat-grind mod drops and Board randomized-sidequest system really didn't speak to me (it felt like assigning abitrary replay value to a mostly one-shot story), the story and world of Control is worth experiencing firsthand.

The unbridled whimsy of a physics-based crustacean destroying shareholder value.

NOTE: This review is for the Early Access version of Mycopunk, I plan on revising it once the game reaches 1.0 state.

Mycopunk is a fantastically fun multiplayer shooter that takes clear inspiration from games that came before it, combining them to create a unique and addicting experience all its own. Its like taking the coop randomized mission structure and comradery of Deep Rock Galactic, mixing it with Destiny-inspired movement and gunplay, and adding a randomized modding structure that lets you create guns straight out of a game like Loadout. All of this is wrapped up in a movement-shooter base that feels satisfying to control, while looking like a crazy visual mix of a Borderlands and Cruelty Squad. The game can be a little rough around the edges, but is plenty of fun and the modding system leaves a lot of room open for wacky buildcrafting. All four classes feel about equal in strength, coming down mostly to what flavor of movement shooter you prefer, and what support tools you like to use, There are some weapons that are clearly way stronger than others, but the developers are continuously tweaking mod numbers and functions to give all guns their time in the spotlight. The game also had possibly the best respawn / revive mechanic I've seen in a coop game. The soundtrack also absolutely RIPS.

Above all else, Mycopunk is doing Early Access right. Like DRG before it, Pigeons at Play have released what could be considered a complete product at base, and are using EA to expand and refine the in-game systems, add new content, and continue to refine the base gameplay to elevate the experience overall. I eagerly look forward to what comes next for Mycopunk.

This review was made based on the demo provided for Next Fest 2025.

Overall, this game can be a blast and I think has a lot of potential. The core gameplay loop is very fun, but the demo is certainly lacking in polish. I'm excited to see it get fleshed out in the future. I like that the game has more accessible flight controls for KBM and traditional controllers, but getting to plug in an actual Radiomaster radio and go to town on autofire is really fun.

From my own experience in game design in Unity, I do have some issues and potential features I'd like to suggest.
1) The UI design feels a bit lacking. The aesthetic is alright but I feel like the flow of menus could be improved. The text in the unlocks tab (attached to the nodes themselves) range from small to unreadably minuscule. I do not know how the menus handle on standard controller, since i was using a radio controller and had to use a mouse for navigation anyways.
2) There's a lack of audio feedback entirely from the UI. Sounds of clicking, holding, moving things, switching menus, etc is currently missing and it feels very devoid of feedback for anything you do. These two issues I hope to see improved as the game gets closer to release.
3) I think the notorious stock Unity doppler effect is present on things like carrier ships exploding, either way its not working.
4) Some animations seem to get cut off by objective wave changes, with enemies blinking out of existence or capital ship animations being cut off early.
5) For FPV radio controllers, it would be cool to eventually be able to adjust response rates, even if it is a direct input. I fly with higher rates than the game uses, so I find myself needing to deflect the stick way further to make the turns I'm expecting.
6) The game currently only has a master audio slider. It would be nice to break that up into music, sound effects, etc. The game currently lacks a soundtrack for missions which would be cool to see, but I'm also perfectly happy bringing in my own music for it.

Overall, the core gameplay is tight and fun, and I think this has a lot of potential. I look forward to seeing a more refined version come down the line.

It's peak.

Aww ♥♥♥♥, here comes Pacman.

Re-PAC is overall a great remake of a classic PS1 gem, with lots of extra goodies, quality of life changes, and bonus content attached. The revamped boss fights feel much more fun and fast-paced than the original, and the polish across the entire game is great.

The only thing I can knock Re-PAC for (outside of the weird Ms. Pacman legal meta context) is that the games lighting leads to your shadow not being a proper consistent indicator of where you are going to land. It's not an extreme issue, but the shadow does dislocate a bit on some stages and makes some of the later game platforming a tad bit more difficult than before. It doesn't break the experience, however.

Void Crew is a very fun co-op spaceship management and combat game that has scratched an itch I've had since Warframe's Railjack mode tumultuously flopped on what it promised. The core game loop is simple and fun, easy to understand, and provided plenty of good times to be enjoyed with friends. While the game does have ship loadouts and options to cater to solo players, this isn't a game I would recommend playing with less than three people as it can get difficult to manage without a helping hand. You will NEED a player on the helm at all times outside of some EVA missions, and it's helpful to have a dedicated Gunner and EVA / Engineer with you for other tasks.

Overall, the game is in a very good spot. The gameplay is fun with plenty of room to add more content, the visuals and sound design are stellar (no pun intended), and the game is on a very strong foundation. I look forward to seeing what the developers choose to add going forward, as the base game content outside of the cosmetic loot pool can be unlocked in a fairly short amount of time.

I only have a few real gripes with Void Crew:

1) The Destroyer in its current state isn't quite there. Its hypothetically possible to run with 3-4 people , but quickly runs into the 'Barotrauma issue' where everything critical to your mission is spaced much farther apart compared to the Frigate. It means that while you might have the right amount of hands for the job in theory, it can quickly fall apart if anything goes wrong (things will go wrong). I feel like its much better to play with 5 or 6 people modded, as the space better accompanies an increase in player count. I will have to see how the introduction of new "big" modules later on impacts this.

2) There doesn't seem to be any good reason to actually spec into Engineer. Engineer GAMEPLAY is very fun, but most of Engineer's best skills are in the first tier and are up for grabs by anyone, with his second best skills being not far behind and more than comfortably multi-classable with Scavenger. It's action skill is handy especially on the Destroyer, but without the maximum upgrades feels quite underwhelming compared to Gunner and Pilot's skills out of the box. Even for how simple Scavenger's action skill is, its use as a reusable movement tool means you can replace Engie's skill with Scav's and not miss out on much outside of the final upgrades to it. The ability to repair in the Void is neat at first, but quickly becomes useless as past the first loop, the Void becomes more dangerous than normal space and you'll want to leave quickly in case of Interdiction. Beyodn that, most of Engie's skills are focused on Enhancements, which is a cool system but not quite cool enough to warrant it being half of Engie's kit. I'd love to see some of their skills compressed to make way for new, more substantial higher tree skills. Maybe the ability to Enhance weapons, or getting more HP back from repairing breaches, or the ability to repair minor breaches from within the ship? There's a lot of potential to make full-speccing into Engineer more worthwhile.

3) The always-online portion of the game feels a bit unnecesary and has caused a couple of good runs to falter due to hosting errors, softlocks, and other issues related to having to change "hosts" or leaving and rejoining mid-run. I'm not sure what advantage it offers the game, but I hope to see more bug fixing relating to hosting in the future.

Overall, I love Void Crew. It scratches an itch I've had for a while, and despite some of my gripes I hope to see the game flourish with additional content and fixes in the future.