Defunct

Defunct — это приключенческий инди-платформер с упором на скорость, поток и физику. По состоянию на 2026 год игра считается классикой среди скоростных платформеров, предлагая уникальную механику перемещения. Дайте мне уже награду сообщества, я уже устал эти обзоры клепать.

Um jogo de exploração 3D bem relaxante, onde o jogador controla um robô monociclo. Nesse jogo, é possível pegar velocidade rapidamente nas descidas ao pressionar o gatilho RT, mas com a desvantagem de ocorrer desaceleração rápida se o gatilho continuar sendo pressionado nas subidas. Acelerar até o final das rampas faz o robô pular mais alto. Quanto maior a velocidade, mais alto e longe o robô irá. Além disso, é possível aderir às paredes e aos tetos ao segurar o botão Y. Essas técnicas são importantes para coletar muitos dos itens colecionáveis opcionais. A maioria das fases são focadas em progredir com velocidade, coletando os itens de turbo e as poções de velocidade. Algumas fases possuem alguns puzzles envolvendo ativar alguns interruptores vermelhos, mas nada complexo demais. O jogo é curto, os checkpoints são abundantes, e as vidas extras infinitas. Uma ótima jogatina para servir de pano de fundo enquanto se ouve algum podcast.

"Defunct" is an ancient (10 year old) action/racing/3D platformer game made for the Playstation 4 (later ported to Nintendo Switch) and also apparently shoved onto Steam as an afterthought. You take on the role of a broken robot and you need to traverse a cartoony low poly landscape, a post apocalyptic Earth ruled by robots. You fall out of your cargo ship and you have to make your way back, but your motor is busted for your unicycle robot designed wheel (huh) so you need to rely on your "gravity" engine. This is an interesting and okay gimmick. Basically it increases the force of gravity on you, if you're rolling uphill, pushing the gravity button slows you down (bad) but if you're downhill, it speeds you up. Thus the core game gimmick is established... knowing when to push down to speed yourself up and race over the lumpy terrain. A few people complained the game lacked polish but I didn't find that to be the case... yes, there's a lot of elements of low production values that make it hard to recommend, but the game did "work" and I didn't find it that clunky (although the tutorial was lacking it didn't take long to work out what I was supposed to be doing). On the upside, the game does feature customisable controls and resolution, so at least some of the basic, minimum requirements have been met. Unfortunately there's a number of other technical defects and shortcomings which contribute to the game being difficult to recommend to gamers. Because this is designed for consoles, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the inferior console gaming appliances that the game was designed for. These are unfortunate compromises and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was a second thought for the console-centric developers. The game is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for consoles forces upon a game. Once more, console peasants have made gaming worse for everyone. The graphics aren't great. Low poly assets with extremely muddy textures make this look like a game from 2006, not 2016. And definitely not 2026. That will understandably a turn off for a lot of gamers, and it's a big contributor to the failure of the game to attract gamers. Gaming is a primarily visual medium, and if developers want to succeed, they must understand that it's not an area for compromise. You deserve better than compromises. These flaws make this game fall far short of the professional standards we expect from a modern PC game. Let's look at the price and what kind of value this actually offers gamers. Should you buy this game? Is it one of the best of the 140,000+ games on Steam? Defunct has the almost scam-like price of around $7 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam. For comparison, the $7 asking price for this game could get you games like "Doom Eternal", "Final Fantasy XIV Online" or "Prey". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this. Unfortunately Steam reviewers aren't presented with a "Maybe" option... if they did, that's what I'd choose. This isn't a completely bad game, but it's also not one of the best. As always, if you read my review and you can overlook the negatives I've called out, or they just aren't important to you, then by all means go ahead and buy this.

The entire story takes about an hour and a half to complete if you do no size content (puzzles and collectables). It's a cute little story with little depth about a damaged robot falling from home & racing to get back with the help of a few PlanetSide dwellers. It's a near silent experience but reminiscent of 2000's mascot games like Ratchet & Clank, Jak or Tak in aesthetics. [H3]Controller Support[/h3] If you plan to play on controller, a few menus require keyboard & mouse input to access including the unlockables menu in level select. During gameplay your gamepads buttons won't be displayed in tutorial tooltips instead opting for keyboard & mouse, leading to an inconvenient learning experience. [H3]Gameplay[/H3] The gameplay is momentum based. You'll need to find a balance and connect with some awkward controls in conjunction with the inclines & declines to gain & maintain speed and control throughout the levels. Momentum can be lost swiftly if you aren't utilising the weight shifting controls near perfectly which could cause frustration during certain levels as you forage for a decline to regain speed. [H3]Replayability [/H3] There is replayability here if you're one to challenge yourself for better times or others via the level select screen & time trial mode; further evident by the various speed runs uploaded on the internet, a featured run at Games Done Quick in 2016 and steam discussions, whether the community remains is unknown but you can challenge yourself. There's also the unlockables menu where you can change your robots colours & view tricks, both earned by gathering collectables during each level, collectables that are either hidden in secret areas or require agility to obtain. [H3]Conclusion[/H3] Despite enjoying the world & aesthetics of Defunct, the gameplay was not for me which is why I chose to not recommend the title as it's very short and the controls are troublesome. [B]While I had issues with the controls & content I believe those who enjoy testing themselves, improving on time trials & competing with others could find themselves enjoying Defunct given they can enjoy the momentum controls. To those people I recommend picking it up during sales for $1.12AUD.[\b]

[h1]Decent speedrun-y platformer with good gameplay, just very short and not all that remarkable...[/h1] Okay so, uh! I bought this game all the way back in 2020. And played it a little bit back then. I found out about it because I saw a video comparing it to Sonic (and with good reason, this is the kind of ♥♥♥♥ Sonic pretends [i]and fails[/i] to be despite having 100x the budget). I played through it back then, beat the story, I think I went back and got a couple of the collectibles? But then I kinda got bored and stopped. I had 2 hours of playtime. Today I saw it on my library again, remembered [i]"Oh right, THAT game!"[/i], realized I never really did any of the collectibles or achievements in the game and figured I'd give it another go. 5 hours later I 100%ed the game. I'll say, uh... It does deliver on its promise, at least! It's a speedy, physics-based platformer, with super tight gameplay and minimal jank! There IS still some jank here and there, mind you, you might occasionally collide with level geometry in weird ways, especially as you're getting the hang of the controls, but it's a far cry from the usual Sonic fare of [i]"press one button, clip through the level and die instantly"[/i]. Your controls are responsive, fluid, and they always function. You'll pretty much never feel like it ate your inputs and playing around with the physics to build up and maintain speed while doing gigantic leaps using that built-up momentum is INCREDIBLY satisfying, almost all interactions with the terrain work pretty much how you'd expect them to. It is a bit weird? You essentially don't just "move" normally, you have sort-of-kind-of-half-tank controls. You can steer yourself with the stick and all that, and brake by holding down, but if you're at a dead stop you'll need to use the B button to enable your (damaged) thrusters which move you forward very slowly but allow you to go up steep slopes. You use the right trigger to [i]"gravitize"[/i] which greatly multiplies the speed you gain or lose from the terrain under you (essentially a giant multiplier to your natural rolling physics). This also greatly amplifies your gravity in the air, allowing you nigh-complete control over your trajectory once you're up in the air. You jump with the A button, you have a double jump, and of course, your speed and slope angle greatly modify your jump arcs. You also get a very visible line showing a prediction of where you'll land with your current speed and direction, making steering your jumps super intuitive, combined with gravitizing to affect that angle even more. Then about halfway-ish through the game you unlock boosting with the left trigger, charged by going over specific puddles of energy whatever liquid or by grabbing flask pickups of that same liquid. You can boost in the ground or in the air, it's super smooth, and it allows you even MORE air control if you use it while airborne. You'll see it in the little line showing your arc ahead of you, it feels great. So like... The gameplay's excellent! Genuinely! I've said it already but this really [i]is[/i] what Sonic should play like, this is the level of control fluidity and functioning physics that franchise should have for the prices they charge and for how they market themselves! I could never take that away from this game! That said. Remember how I said I had 2 hours of playtime when I beat this in 2020 and then stopped? Yeah, that was fully blind, playing like an idiot, fumbling around the terrain, AND going back to do a couple side things at the end before getting bored and stopping. I beat the game in well under two hours. You have a set of collectibles you can get that unlock... more trick animations (there's a trick button but it doesn't really do anything, just animations), and a handful of colors for your robot. They can be a bit cryptic to find at points, especially in the more wide open areas. You also have a set of par times for each stage if you wanna play them in time attack mode, which is probably where this game is at its best. But yeah, just [i]look at my playtime[/i]. I came back to this game entirely rusty on the controls and still beat all the side challenges in 5-ish hours more. Combined with that, I'm pretty sure part of the reason I dropped it without doing the side content back then (even though I found the gameplay super well made) is just how... unremarkable this game feels overall? Like don't get me wrong, it looks fine for a low-budget indie from 10 years ago, the environments are big, I like the character designs and how the dilapidated environments look and such. It looks fine! But it's just so... [b]boring[/b] presentation-wise, I'm not sure how else to describe it. The [b]visuals[/b] are fine but there's nothing that really pops out at you or makes this game feel unique, the [b]music[/b] is fine but also extremely laid back, without much "oomph" to it, and I can barely remember any of the melodies even though I just finished 100%ing it. The [b]story[/b] is so barebones it might as well not even be there. (you're some scrap robot or whatever riding some airship, no idea who you work for, you accidentally get dumped with the trash while trying to get your engine repaired, you spend 1-ish hour of gameplay chasing after it on foot so you can get back to your robot buddies, you live happily ever after, there, I summarized it, there's no characters, nothing more than that is shown or explained) That and also, for some reason this game has a weird amount of performance issues? I'm not even on the same 2015 rig I was on back in 2020. I have an [b]RTX 3060ti[/b] and a 10th gen i9, got both seven years after this game came out. I'm playing the game at 1080/60, textures and shadows on high, draw distance on the lowish-medium setting I already had it on back then... and I notice weird framedrops throughout. When autosaving, when grinding on rails, when heading into an open area, a lot of arbitrary things just make this game lag and microstutter. There's NO reason why a game like this should have performance issues on my original rig from around its time of release, let alone my current rig. So it's like... This game makes for a genuinely wonderful tech demo! It's an excellent gameplay base and set of mechanics to work with! You could have something great here! But the game's over before it begins, the presentation is terribly uninteresting and not very memorable, and for some reason it has optimization problems even on a modern rig. I enjoyed my time with it enough, doing the time trials was pretty fun (aside from the few times where the physics started acting up and cost me a run), but like... It's hard to recommend this game as-is. I know it's pretty cheap (definitely cheaper than back then, I think it was like $10-15 originally?), but even then... Idunno, it left me feeling a bit empty, as much as I did enjoy the gameplay. Maybe on sale? It's an alright experience, again, I liked it, but idunno if it's worth more than like a dollar or two tops with its content and level of polish. That's why I can't really say I fully recommend it.

8/10 great indie game. Runs well enough, good controls and good graphics on top of that. Story is meh but the game is really fun so it doesn't matter, give this a try!

Another one of those games I started playing before I became a completionist. I didn't like it, so getting to perfect it was a chore but I managed to find out how to mark it as done. Finally!