S.O.R.N.

A bite-sized Armored Core game. Poorly optimized and way too easy, but it's 100% free and clearly had a lot of love put into it.

id say the best part is the walk cycle, the controls lack game feel, the impact of player choices feel small and insignificant, along with the animations, feeling floaty and no impact. story feels good, I liked the voicing. I'd rather watch the story than play it. the few times I will lever say that for a game with story. menu-ing sucks, it feels rather unfinished, although it does feel very polished in every way but player experience. it felt to janky to tell but I believe it felt a smooth fps.

Lasers and Robots, what more can I ask for

its sorn-tastic!

i've only gotten through the first mission so far but i like what i have seen so far. good voice acting and the movement feels nice

I was paid with a stick of Cinnamon Trident Gum to say the game is good

Plot wise, each of the main three missions do have their own fully voiced cinematics. There is additional voice communications throughout the gameplay of the missions as well. The story... it feels like you've been dropped into maybe the latter half of a much larger sequence of events. Things are a bit confusing and lack context as this appears to be a vignette of sorts, and things aren't helped along by the fact that the characters have an approach I'd only describe as "anime cool guy" inwhichcase they keep information from eachother. Gameplay wise, we've got three campaign missions. The Wall, The Lab and the Rig. There is also a side missions, unrelated to the plot, named Excavation Site. The Wall and the Lab missions are mostly corridors through sci-fi tech facilities, the Rig is a big network of docks, and the Excavation Site is a much more open plain of mining quarry. Every story mission ends with a boss fight, and a reward of gears and crystals. The gears also drop from all enemies while the crystals are collected from... crystals. These are our shop currencies for new items. There are three mech setups, made up of torso, arms and legs, along with 6 different weapons. We start with a Proto suit, which is the all rounder. The spider mech or Quad as it's called here is the speedy suit, and the tank set is called the Tread. The suits all have their own stats. Weapon wise we've got minigun, railgun, laser, cannon, charge pistol, and shotgun. You only have to get these once and you can dual wield, which is cool. Oh, and there's also unchangeable melee sword attack and some extra shoulder mounted missiles. The actual game feel while playing is pretty decent. While you can still feel a little bit of jank, it's definitely formidable for a free super indie project like this. When I used the quad mech I felt really floaty and slippery. Mostly you'll dodge around, locking onto enemies and shooting until their health bar reaches zero. When yours starts to get low you get a set of 3 heals, until you reach a health station to recharge. There doesn't seem to be an ammo limit, however. Enemy variety is pretty good. You've got weak little flying drones, turrets, shieldy boys that have a powerful laser when they drop their defenses, some more humanoid mechs that gas up a room with toxic pink fumes, tanks and boss fights. I do kinda wish the boss fights had more specialized mechanics and attack patterns. I think the only one that really felt unique in that aspect was the big whale. The first boss was really cheesed with melee while the second was more of a chase. The third, being the whale, was much more of a spectacle. I liked how the whole platform rolled around in the waves. Visually, I think is the high point of this one for me. While yes, certain elements like the UI are very basic, the general visual style was pretty cool and felt unique. The starting mech looks very defining and unique. Kinda reminds me of a muppet. The environments themselves seemed to have an interesting texture. Things simultaneously appeared rounded and smoothed but there also seems to be some sort of... shading filter that produces a gritty dither and a slight comic booky celshaded look, too. I find this very appealing as it adds a lot of character to what would probably be more boring and plain low poly assets. The skybox on the last stage also especially looks cool, with the clouds forming so quickly. Final thoughts? This one is actually pretty decent. It's FREE so there really isn't any barrier of entry here. You can just pull it up and play and for me, it hits on several of the notes that make me enjoy mech games albeit I do wish there was more. I think it has unique and fun mech design, and I appreciate the devs for trying so hard for a cinematic experience with cutscenes and voice work, even if it does fall short. I think there's a great groundwork present in this simple one hour long game and I really hope the folks over at Sentinel Games stick to this concept and are able to make something grander, something fully realized, as I can really tell from SORN, we just need to let them cook. full review on video here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtpdVoPTrco