Midnight Fight Express

I was waiting for this game for a while ever since the very first announcement because it looked like a blast to play. Now that I HAVE played it, I'm disappointed both with it and with myself for having any expectations. Beyond lazy. You probably thought Tenet was too loud but the main theme to this game is Trucks In Place from the Tenet OST but with more Jai Paul sidechaining but you like it because it reminds you of Hotline Miami, doesn't it? Anyway, instantly, from the placeholder devkit loading screens and the nothing presentation and every facet of the game from the moment you start it up being generic, I was out of it but I've forgiven games for much worse. If it's fun, it'll make up for the bad plotting and awful Steamjank UI, right? But it's not fun. It's got that typical "well X did it, so we'll do it too" checklist style of game design with bland, linear levels broken up by ugly menus and even uglier "cutscene" breaks with your quippy drone, the emphasis on the gameplay being to rack up combos for max score while edgelord YouTube techno-makers supply the bumpin' tunes. After the tutorial and first level, I felt like I was going to fall asleep.

Mash X until you have to time Y and then hit LB, repeat until you find a guy you have to HOLD X against and then it's safe to repeat the previous loop, run into the next room so you don't lose that multiplier and do it again. Now, there are loads of games that play like this but that's kind of the problem. Those games made their names by introducing this flavor of "so what if it's basic, it looks and sounds kewl" to gamers and the ones that came after are pretenders who expose themselves when they have nothing new to offer. If there's no character to care about or an interesting narrative, you're left with the bones of the game which are exactly like its predecessors which you're either going to go back to or you're done with that for now. Simply making it longer than Ruiner doesn't make it "more than Ruiner." You have to have your own style. Like Ruiner. When all you can do is replace a unique style with more of the same, you're a boring person who makes boring games. If you like MFX or however the fans might abbreviate it, cool, have fun and don't let anyone stop you. I liked the Syndicate reboot. But, please, be honest about how the game is mostly unfinished ideas with gross-looking assets and bad punctuation and do NOT give these people money.