If you've ever played a Housemarque developed game, you have an idea of what to expect here; tight twin - stick mechanics, a flashy sci - fi aesthetic punctuated by bright neon colors (the game's HDR implementation is beautiful), a pounding techno soundtrack, larger than
life boss encounters, the robotic female voice that announces your upgrades... Nex Machina delivers everything you've come to expect from the Finnish developer.
Adding a Dead Space-esque dismemberment system to the mix kept combat interesting as I waded through the various enemies and larger - than -
life bosses I encountered on my journey.
Not exact matches
The
bosses showcase a sense of scale, with one
encounter involving a towering statue that comes to
life.
And when you
encounter the final
boss for the last time, be prepared to put up the fight of your
life.
When the series went to
life bars in Sly 2 and 3 they did something more subtle: everytime you die in
boss encounters, the game slightly decreases the amount of damage you take with each hit and increases the damage enemies take with each hit.
Not only do you have a meagre three punts at blasting through a level, but you have to deal with a
boss encounter that requires you to figure out a specific technique and execute it perfectly on the same budget of
lives.
Combat is perfectly crafted with every swing, slash and stab deadly enough to end your
life — especially when you
encounter any of the gorgeously realised
bosses, whether it's the gigantic spider or the mangle of reinvigorated corpses.
We now launch with four ARKs — including the Norse & Scottish Highland - Inspired «Ragnarok» -, five
bosses, over one hundred creatures to tame and
encounter, the inclusion of the Primitive + alternate game mode & Procedural ARKs, hundreds of mods, total User Interface overhauls, general performance enhancements, bug fixes, quality of
life improvements, countless additional gameplay plus story elements, and... a toilet.