So after picking it up and playing for a couple hours, I have to say i'm pleasantly surprised by how much i'm enjoying it. If you're a fan of metroidvania (axiom verge, guacamelee) games, then you will really like HEADLANDER. The environments are varied, and the set pieces are pretty cool. It has a vibrant color palette that definitely gives off a retro-arcade style. In terms of game play, the combat centers around plucking off enemies heads, and/or shooting them with lasers, which are varied depending on which color enemy you are, and completing objectives. There are few side objectives. You are either headless, or can stick yourself on to various bodies, human and non-human. You can collect upgrades for your head such as thrust speed, and head health, as well as XP to spend on unlockable upgrades as well. I think the main allure to the game is its style. Its gameplay is fun, however at times its at odds with itself in this department. Combat is either bullet hell, or way too easy. so far, the pros definitely outweigh the cons. Its pretty to look at, and fun to play. its an addicting game!

I started it up to just check it out and ended up playing most of it. At first the combat is unwieldy in that "im not exactly sure what the game expects of me" way, but you pick up on the idea that you body will explode and its about hunting around the battle field frantically ripping heads off and dumping lasers everywhere. It looks like bullet hell more than it is bullet hell, you really don't ever dodge patterns or need to worry too much about it.

The best thing about it is how snappy and polished it is, there isn't much that gets in the way of getting things done. The story is fun and the dialogue is great, in the double fine tradition. The areas are varied, and something fun or different is handed out at a really good pace. The music and style is just FANTASTIC, nailing its aesthetic in a way that adds to the fun of it all. On the whole its maybe the best complete package game they have made to this point.

@mathj The NPCs that have quests for you show up as big blue icons on the map, so you don't need to worry about talking to everyone. I will say that its totally worth talking to people in every new area as they have a good amount of different and unique dialogue. Also talk to people when controlling odder robots like the map station or a dog and they have unique dialogue for that stuff too.

Grabbed it last night, and played to roughly where Alex got to in the quick look.

So far, am really enjoying it. The best way I can describe it, is "breezy". It shifts around a a decent pace, and it's been pretty much good fun.
Have also only found the 1 side quest so far, but the map seems to be open out a little more now, so we shall see.

It's also been fun, just doing the old - game wants me to go left and up, let's go right and down for a bit and see what I can find - loop.

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but the game didn't really do much for me. Things like the art style, the world building, and the humor are great and definitely deserve their praise. The main mechanic of ripping off heads and possessing bodies is cool too, undoubtedly. But some of the mission designs and objectives were really tedious. You can see it in the quick look. They have to go and activate five satellite dishes, alright, no problem. Then it's open 3 locks, then later on it's upload five data robots in this weird chess themed level that was actually really cool, and then it's bring five unique robot bodies to a lday-bot.

Look, I'm no stranger to repetitive tasks in games, but this just kind of muddled the experience for me. I'm about halfway through the game and am struggling to find the will to return to it. There's also the complaint about the cover shooting that I think everyone kind of shares and that's whatever to me.

I don't know. Headlander is okay and all, but I bounced off of it for whatever reason. That being said, I totally understand that people like this game. I know I'm the weird one in this case.

Took me about 6-ish hours to beat. Overall I enjoyed it but there are a couple spots that I genuinely almost hate due to the checkpointing.

@beardslyman: yeah the repetition def got to me a few times, but i liked it enough to look past it. but its definitely noticeable along with the kind of shallow quests.

@mathj: I'm glad I wasn't the only one. Maybe I should just power through it though. It seems stylistically right up my alley.

I found it to be just another Double Fine game which boils down to great idea but poor execution.

I loved the first half of the game and hated the second one. When you get to the moon , the game become a big slog. For some reason, a lot of it is combat-centric and less puzzely. The combat is not great, and it's aggravating when random enemies can two shot you even if you have all health upgrade. The lack of visibility certainly doesn't help. There's also some stupid section where there's a ton of enemies or turrets and the framerate (PS4) goes to shit. The game being not very hard, it's only annoying to have to deal with that many opponents, not challenging.

The checkpointing isn't always great and the level design is not super interesting. Worse is that I encountered three game breaking bug in the last hour, all of them required me to restart the game.

I'm actually super bummed out, cause I liked the game quite a bit when it was mostly puzzle.

@fear_the_booboo: i agree with mostly everything you said but still liked it in spite of itself. they could have done so much more in terms of puzzles though. definitely a case of lost potential, but regardless what was there was good for the most part.