Rack N Ruin

Rack N Ruin is a lot of fun when everything clicks, but these moments just don't happen often enough. If you're into top-down button mashers, then this may be worth a look. Roaming the world, while confusing at times, can feel rewarding when you make new discoveries, and Rack himself is an endearing character. Some poor design choices bog the experience down, however, and it's a real shame – especially when you consider the types of games that clearly inspired this title.

Rack N Ruin might suffer from an abundance of items and enemies, but there's enough worth experiencing in the game's humour, combat and distinct visual design to make it worth a playthrough.

The kind of challenge where things are so boring but you keep tuning out, defines the Rack N Ruin experience. It is not a buggy or glitchy mess, and most things work as intended. The problem with Rack N Ruin is that it sets such a low bar for itself and whoever picks it up, that it leaves no impression at all.

Blending styles and doing something a bit different than the norm is common in the indie space and it's a calculated risk...

Rack N Ruin redeems itself with a second showing on PC, but only if you abandon your controller for the ol' fashioned keyboard and mouse. The black comedic story of a demon set to enslave the earth pops with colorful backgrounds and challenging, fast-paced gameplay and finds redemption in its PC release.

Rack N Ruin is a twin-stick shooter (sort of) with a juvenile appreciation for wanton destruction. The role-reversal, with you as the bad guy, brings up some interesting questions, but the story doesn't take neart enough advantage of that fact. It can be good to be bad, but Rack N Ruin's character isn't all that deep.

Rack N Ruin is the very definition of a "mixed bag". It sports gorgeous visuals and an appealing premise, but is bogged down by its uninspired, repetitive combat, boring puzzle sequences and an overall lack of polish. If you're aching for a modern adventure that pulls from the great titles of the past, you might want to take a quick look, but if entertaining and enjoyable quests are more your thing, this might not be your cup of tea.

Amazing presentation and a wonderfully charismatic main character go a long way to making this worthwhile, but a particularly frustrating, dated brand of difficulty makes seeing this adventure through to the end a big ask for all but the most dedicated.

Sometimes the difficulty is great, but map traversal, checkpoints and cheap deaths should be the most difficult things about the game. Still, Rack N Ruin is good for nostalgia and those looking for a top-down adventure shmup with a challenge.

Overall Rack N Ruin is a game with much unmet potential. After clearing out the same area for the twentieth time, players will realise just how little effect they have on the gaming environment. No single enemy becomes interesting to corrupt or destroy when it is immediately resurrected by walking off the screen and returning. If only there had been a mini-map of some kind to keep track of how the world's individual spaces connect, exploration would be more gratifying. If only the combat had been tweaked to allow greater chance for offensive rather than defensive attack, it would have been more engaging. It all adds up to a game that feels as though it should have been more widely tested before release. There is a kernel of greatness there, but it is hiding within a thick shell of nonsensical game design. Put simply the game doesn't 'play well'.