Bot Vice

I really like this game! It's a great mix of great pixel graphics and fun and simple game play. It's the kind of game I would love to have in VR, but I don't think it would work because it would be too disorienting. It's a fun overhead cover shooter. I don't know another game that is quite like it. You are literally in a rectangular stage where you can free roam in a line at the bottom of the screen and the enemies are at the top. It sort of reminds me of a space shooter. It basically uses many concepts of an overhead space shooter, but the enemies don't move in a flying motion. They move in either circular motion to throw off your aim, or other random directions which is much different from any space shooter. It's like an evolution of the genre. I really like it. You really need to master it's mechanics of targeting, moving under cover, rolling out of attacks, parrying attacks, and knowing when to deploy which weapons. So many more play options to consider, and it gets chaotic if you concentrate on the wrong enemy. I really felt like this game was challenging but not too difficult. It took me quite a while to beat some stages and the last boss rush stage was a bear, but I was able to persevere. Very satisfying game. Highly Recommend! I've seen other reviews where people are complaining that you can't target precisely, but I think that's part of the game mechanics. Of course if you target an enemy, then hide under cover, you lose your target. If you target, then roll out of an attack you lose your target. And the targeting seems to auto target the closest enemy available at time of target. Makes sense, and you have to understand that the game was designed that way. Don't complain because it doesn't play the way you want it to or you can't precisely target an enemy. I finished the whole game, and all 50 stages, and if you play within the systems of the game, you can beat it. I played on regular difficulty. This game is more about playing defensively and avoiding damage than precisely targeting key enemies.

Botvice presents itself as a simple 2D bullet hell shooter and then quietly rewires the part of your brain that craves this specific kind of punishment until you've consumed somewhere north of a dozen hours without fully understanding how you got there. What it's doing mechanically is not revolutionary. The genre has established rules and Botvice largely respects them, projectiles fill the screen, you find the safe space, you survive by fractions of a second, you die anyway, you try again. The loop is old. The execution is clean enough that the loop doesn't care that it's old. The interesting clinical observation is what happens after. Bullet hell games operate on a very specific neurological reward cycle and Botvice delivers that cycle efficiently enough that by the time you've finished it the appetite has been largely satisfied. Not extinguished, satisfied. The itch has been properly scratched in a way that leaves you not necessarily hungry for the next one immediately, which is either a sign of a complete experience or a sign that the genre extracts something from you that requires recovery time. Possibly both. Worth diagnosing for yourself at sale price. The Steam Deck is the ideal environment for this particular experiment, short sessions, immediate feedback, no commitment required. Pick it up, put it down, come back when the symptoms return. Recommended with the caveat that you may emerge from the other side temporarily cured of wanting anything like it. Whether that's a positive outcome depends entirely on your relationship with the genre going in.

I'm so glad I discovered this little gem. It's as good as challenging. I found references to other games (mostly Mega Man, and maybe even Metal Slug and Contra), which probably explains why I enjoyed it so much. If you like the bullet hell genre (like Enter the Gungeon), you'll definitely enjoy this game as much as I did. The extra missions are appreciated (I still haven't completed them, nor all the challenges). I would definitely buy a sequel to this game (which is very unlikely to exist, but who knows, right?), continuing the plot, featuring a co-op mode, new weapons and upgrades, but well, maybe I'm asking too much.

Overall a decent enough 2D shooter if you can find it on discount. The pixel art is very good, and having voice acting in the game is also a plus (although the enemy voice lines are somewhat lacking). The game's fundamentals are solid, but the enemies have too much health in my opinion, especially considering that you only have 4 lives, and no mid-level continues. I had to drop the difficulty to Easy just to clear stage 2... (One other thing to note is that the native Linux build for this game has broken controller support, regardless if SteamInput is used or not. So if you're a Linux gamer like me, make sure you turn on Proton Experimental before starting the game)

cringy af dialogue and story gameplay is aight, has extra hard levels if you liked it enough.

Pure, intense arcade action. It seems frantic and chaotic but there's a method to it and it gets better as you do, like all harder action games.