GTFO (Early Access)

Silly title. Amazing game.

This first person horror survival game is best played cooperatively with up to three allies. Set in some horrible and dark facility crawling with ugly monsters who are for the most part, asleep - you are tasked with various jobs such as lugging heavy objects past doors with alarms, turning on reactors and other very loud objectives.

Before dropping into a level you are free to select your load out to whatever suits you. Just know there are no other weapons to pick up during a level and there are no special skills to unlock. There is no character progression, and you can't buy better ways or unlock skills to finish missions. Everything relies on player cooperation, coordination and ultimately skill.

Watch those corners...

The levels don't even scale. They are balanced for a party of four, but you can still beat them solo if you have the patience, the talent and the balls to do so. Everyone always starts with a heavy hammer too, which is really useful for bopping heads while the monsters sleep. And these are truly monsters. If just eight of the weakest ones come for you at the same time, you will already be in big trouble unless you are skilled. Some maps send these in clusters of thirty plus.

Now this game is not for everyone and plays best if you have friends to go in with you, and more importantly, all of you must have the patience to keep retrying missions because you will fail. A lot. In my current 37 hours of play time, my group of three have only beaten one map. If that scares you then stay away from this game. For everyone else, I give this five giants out of five.

Insight: Stop moving/killing when things flash red if you want to maintain stealth, unless you are sure you can wipe them out before they scream.

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Blaugust Bonus: "What type of content do you feel is severely underrated?" -Roger Edwards

Games like this, where there is no progression at all outside story/map advancement. No "better" armor. No "better" weapons than whatever you pick to start with. No better skills to earn or unlock. No different classes, no different "roles". I've always disliked "roles" anyway. With enough effort, everyone should be able to do everything just like in real life. No wussy wallet warrior methods to help. Everyone is given equal footing, and everything depends on your own mastery of the game.

I'd like to mention that in the earlier story arcs, the combat in Mabinogi was much like this as well. A level 1 character controlled by a competent player could absolutely win against "overpowered" foes which is why I really enjoyed it back then.

LISA: To Build a Boat

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

When Brad's naked and unequipped crew arrive at the next village they meet Tardy, brother of Fardy, who tells them the girl stole his boat and sailed to a nearby island. They can give chase, but must first assemble a boat of their own. To begin, they climb to the top of the mountain and defeat the American Football Gang there - making great use of Shocklord's AOE and Clint's debilitating attacks.

Those shoulder pads make his charges deadly!

Their leader, Buff, is disillusioned by his teams' weakness and joins Brad's instead - helping him take down the mountain titan higher up and providing a tool kit necessary to build the boat. Next, they visit the Pretty Boys again where Clint outshines their leader and takes his fine cloth. Alas Queen Roger, previously their hostage, had been killed and sold to RANDO's gang, to make their super RANDO rations. The Pretty Boys are all executed for this.

Collecting wood is next on the agenda so the team travels to the nearby hills where there is exactly one tree remaining. This is fiercely guarded by natives who are all killed, with Olan's rapid fire arrow taking down their chief. Brad then chops down the last tree on the hill, and perhaps on the continent with a single Armstrong chop. Brad is a terrible and awful person.

Brad hates it when I type that sentence, and so when Beastborn is kidnapped by the Motorcycle Crew while the team rests, he mounts a rescue mission to save his slave and prove me wrong.

Insight: If Brad suffers from withdrawal, use his fireball skills instead.

LISA: Pretty Boys

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

Not far from the Roulette Gang base, the gang finds themselves in a swamp and in the presence of Yazan the samurai and his cat, Kat. He says the girl is rumored to be in the area agrees to guide the team to a nearby outpost that features a bar - where Birdie the drunk joins, a brothel - where Queen Roger joins after Brad "helps them out" and a dojo where a Tigerman is killing everyone.

Exactly like this.

It is a long fight, but Brad's gang takes him down and enslaves him. Since Tigerman sounds stupid, Brad renames him to Guin. The party then proceeds across the snake filled swamp to a construction site, easily running over the construction crew with a stolen bulldozer. When faced with an enemy bulldozer, Queen Roger - high on Joy - destroys it with a club!

Too bad shortly afterwards the Queen is kidnapped by "the pretty boys" group, and while Brad goes there to negotiate - he finds he cannot pay the steep ransom so abandons the Queen to them. Brad and company then fight on through a village full of zombie creeps - subjects of joy experiments - who are easily distracted by Kat's cuteness, and fight their way down a dark cave to face a monstrous neck titan... and win. Brad feels that he might not be so terrible or awful after all.

Then he remembers he is currently under the effects of Joy.

Insight: Yazan's three wishes is great when he is taking Joy. Otherwise, Kat has a lot of debuffs.