Freefall '95

I recently flew on a commercial airliner for business. I felt lucky I got to sit in the front row with a window seat so I could stretch my legs and not be bothered by other people scooching by with their ass in my face so they can go pee or worse. When we got airborne naturally I busted out my deck and this was the first and only game I ended up playing on that flight. Little did I know at the time but the older gentleman sitting next to me in the middle seat was the flight Marshall and he was keeping tabs on me. At first he was making friendly small talk trying to get me to reveal small details about myself. I was getting annoyed. I wanted to play this brilliant indie game but he was so insistent. I got a high score of 38k on the first level by lighting myself on fire and getting bit by 5 snakes and that's when things started to take a nose dive. "Listen slim, I just got a high score of 38k, I don't want to be rude, but can you maybe gab the woman's ear off next to you and not mine? Can't you see I'm busy playing Freefall '95?" I asked him dismissively before returning my gaze to this glorious game. He spit on the floor of the plane, unbuckled his seat belt, stood up, pulled out his revolver from his ankle holster, pointed it at my face and said: "What I see is a terrorist practicing terror on their terror practice device." Then he ♥♥♥♥♥♥ the hammer of his gun back and stared me straight in the eyes while I looked up at him like a deer in headlights and everybody around us who heard was cheering him on for being a hero and saving them. Even the stewardess looked at me like I was Satan and refused to take my drink order even though I had done nothing wrong. He handcuffed me, read me my rights, and instructed me that upon landing I would be escorted to the nearest black site to "await my trial" as a suspected terrorist. He also said he would be confiscating my terror device and instead of putting it away in a bag as evidence for the rest of the flight he was glued to it like a mosquito sinking down deeper into a jar of honey. He couldn't stop playing it. He even got up and took it with him to the bathroom. I was pleading with him to let me go and that this was all just a misunderstanding but he put his headphones on to ignore me and to listen to the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥' soundtrack. Right before we descended to land he makes a fist and exclaims to himself "YUSS!" as he taps me on the shoulder and shows me the screen. He got a high score of 39k and a dumb smug smile on his twisted mustached face to go with it. Now I'm writing this from my cell using a phone that was smuggled in by some ungodly means and still smells please send help.

This is not a hard no. Certain people will enjoy this. Given that Steam still has no in-between yes or no and this game at the time of writing has 0 negative reviews, I will throw in some observations that may put people off. + Nice tunes + Good price + Flash game vibes + Some character customization (unnecessary in this type of game, but appreciated) * Meta game progression in terms of HP, abilities, score multiplier, etc. - Lots of objectives like "land into a specific object" or "collect these specific items from the map", given that you are given no directions you end up moving around at random until you come upon these. A certain perk helps, but doesn't completely remove the issue - Grabbing debris to boost off of it feels unnecessarily risky, not only because anything nearby can hit you, but you are at the mercy of whether the debris starts spinning like mad or refusing to spin at all - Challenge mode has walls which can be used to cheese some of the challenges by drifting into a wall and almost bringing down momentum to a complete halt - Anytime the level objective has to do with "find X special items" in large amounts, I feel like the only time I succeed these is when I get lucky and find them in suitcases. I know some of them are stable items on the map but not only are they far away from each other, some of them are too time-consuming to grab - Roguelike mode essentially has the same levels as story/challenge modes but you have objectives like "find 6 wallets + 5 cell phones + do X tricks" etc, each objective giving you a passive/active ability as a reward. Success comes partly down to remembering maps so that you know exactly which direction has the most cell phones for instance, but the amount you need to collect is not the same each time. Combine this with suitcases dropping random items and frustration is unavoidable, given that one of the (optional) objectives of a roguelike mode is to not fail a single objective in any level - In the base game, things like snakes/alcohol/fire obscure visiblity, more so the more of these you collect in a short period of time, which is manageable in campaign levels, but absolutely terrible in the punishing roguelike mode (which is what they realised, having added a roguelike mode specific perk that has a chance to negate this visibility debuff) The demo available gives some idea of the gameplay which gives a good initial impression. It's just that I felt the experience got worse the further I played and the more these things started to grind my gears.

So here I am Doing everything I can Holding on to what I am Pretending I'm a superman! 10/10 game rules

Playing this, I realised we should normalise saying rad again over sick or cool. PS: I'm playing it on PC, and right away, I can see that the experience will be tenfold better on a handheld.

Freefall '95 does everything an indie game should. In a world where AAA games regurgitate themes and gameplay of every other top selling franchise, we can look to folks like S-Bend Games to give us something a little more personal. Freefall '95 has you skydiving out of a plane wreckage, busting sick move into sick move, collecting chips, getting bitten by snakes, and zig zagging through the debris laden air in search of special items. It's fun from the first play, but the level challenges and global leaderboard will have coming back time and time again. Bravo S-Bend Games! (ignore the game time on this review, I played the demo for yonks (In Australia that means a long time))

The concept itself is very fun, and the upgrades you can get are neat. Music is good, though would prefer something more aggressive. I don't see myself playing it more than I already have. And I wouldn't recommend it at 12$. The gameplay loop is either trying to get a high score, seeking out various hidden items similar to the "secret tape" in Tony Hawk games, or finding duplicates of the same item. All in a checklist format. I often found myself obliterating the high score challenges quickly, and having fun. Only to tediously surf around in the sky looking for items run after run with no reason to do tricks. These challenges make up more than half the game, and are not very fun at all. They are boring. The game introduces higher difficulties, but on getting to the final level of the second difficulty, it felt 95% the same so I wasn't interested in playing further.

Basically a cozy lil launcher game that would be perfectly at home at Newgrounds or an Adult Swim Ipod game. It has immediate pick up and play appeal, and the mechanics work together very well. I'm on the last stage of the first run. Just playing slow personally i enjoy how the game could be played in a 100% completion grind style or just blast through. The only thing comparable is THPS

Yes it is real! Shout out to mud!

woah, there's a story?

Within four minutes of starting the tutorial on the DEMO, I exited the demo, uninstalled it, and immediately purchased the full version of the game. It was that bloody good and one could tell by the execution that the entire product (and not merely the opening minutes of the tutorial!) was likely to be a top-quality experience. This seemingly impulsive choice was, in fact, based upon careful consideration and observation of the craftmanship and dedication poured into the very small slice of game that i initially experienced. The quality, execution, and presentation of the core mechanics were so polished and confidently designed that I knew almost instantly the developers understood exactly what kind of experience they wanted to create. Don't be fooled—this is not merely a gimmicky bullet hell(ish?) game built around a single clever idea. There is an incredible amount of thought behind every development decision. From the responsiveness of the controls to the way the mechanics are introduced and expanded upon, everything feels deliberate. The game doesn't just throw flashy effects and overwhelming chaos at the player; it carefully builds a gameplay loop that is engaging, intuitive, and surprisingly satisfying to master. Furthermore, the accessibility options are *chef's kiss* TOP notch so that ALL players can enjoy this wonderful experience -s those accustomed to my reviews already know this matters a GREAT deal to me and myriad of others. It's rare for a demo to convince me to buy a game before I've even finished it AND bump it up to the top of my play queue (eclipsing god-tier games like Pragmata and Lego Batman), but Freefall 95 managed exactly that. Enough about the demo, what about the actual bloody game? I'm pleased to say that the remaining 96% of the game maintains the same level of quality displayed during those opening minutes of the Demo tutorial (man that's crazy!), then this is a title that deserves far more attention than its premise alone might initially suggest.