Review the game you finished recently.

[M76]

It has nothing to do with "gun nut" level stuff. It is just dumb and another way to artificially length the game or make people pay up. Quality over quantity. I suppose if the made it 100x bigger, we'd start off with ultra gimped 5 shot mags, then have to find 10, ect.... for each and every weapon!

As I've said already I don't know why do you feel that the game owes you the best equipment from the start. Having progression is not the same as being pay to win. It's a natural progression, if you could get the best weapons from the start it would've been too easy for me. Well arguably it is too easy as it is, on my second try, it seemed childishly easy even with the worst weakest weapons, at the start.

It is the opposite. You can't assess tactics or figure out what went wrong when you're trying to figure out where you magically got teleported to, and where your items and vehicles went.

I think you have a different definition of tactics than me, save whoring and trial and error is not a tactic it's an exploit. Tactics is being tactical as in not running blindly into bases but scouting them out, and finding the best infiltration route without dying in the process. So think of loosing your vehicle as punishment for not being careful enough. If you don't want to play like that fair enough, then this is definitely not your game.

You probably never noticed. It happens fairly often.

I played 100+ hours I think I'd have noticed if it was happening all the time. But I only remember it happening during rebel ops.

... due to where the game decided to place you. "Tactics", yay. This game is as tactical as Gears of War / Unreal Tournament.

The game didn't decide to place you anywhere I think the spawn points were fixed, which is an issue, but far from being game breaking. FarCry3 and many others suffer from the same thing. And UT LOL. It's one thing you don't want to bother with a measured tactical approach, but the game certainly allows it and you can successfully complete it that way.

So you'd like them to further expand the size of the games by 100x with the same 6-7 missions, a map 100x emptier? If it is not utilized to its full potential then it is too big. Just a waste of time doing cut/paste stuff for what must amount to 10,000 times.

I said fallen ghosts, not the base game, the main game never reused the same location twice, which is thanks to it's size.

Anyhow, 5/10 is me being fair, IMO. I'd be tempted to give it a 3/10 but the graphics saving it from being that low.

Looks like I am not the only one who thinks this way either:
https://www.destructoid.com/review-ghost-recon-wildlands-425478.phtml

Yeah, you can find a dozen reviews that failed to recognize the value in the game, that won't make me forget the 100+ hours of fun I had with it.

 

[Pringle]

Woof, thought this was a thread reviewing games. Not reviewing someone's opinion

 

[M76]

Woof, thought this was a thread reviewing games. Not reviewing someone's opinion

I just want to get to the bottom of what triggered them so much about the game, because I honestly can't relate to most of the complaints at all.

Actually I intended the thread to spawn some discussion and not just raw reviews all the way.

 

[Flogger23m]

As I've said already I don't know why do you feel that the game owes you the best equipment from the start.

You're the one who pulled that out of your ass. I never mentioned anything about the "best" at the start. I said it was pathetic that you don't even get each type of weapon at the start, and the few you get are gimped to hell and back. It would be like a racing game making you start with the cheapest model Toyota Yaris. Just because you can make a game a grind doesn't mean you should.

And to artificially length the game they specifically make you unlock the same mags more than once as an example. Or the same grip. Yeah, even if you unlock a damn grip for your rifle you can't put it on your MG. You have to re-unlock the exact item again. LOL.

Having progression is not the same as being pay to win.

There is progression and then there is the pay to realistically unlock all equipment route. The problem with Wildlands is that it is a AAA title at $60, not a free to play game.

It's a natural progression...

Bullshit, you have to divert 1.5-4 KM typically. And multiple times for the exact same item. See above.

I think you have a different definition of tactics than me, save whoring and trial and error is not a tactic it's an exploit.

Nothing tactical about pressing Z and E and magically tagging bad guys either. This is Gear of War, not Rainbow 6 (original titles). If you want to play a shooter with tactics pick up SWAT or something.

Tactics is being tactical as in not running blindly into bases but scouting them out, and finding the best infiltration route without dying in the process.

Congrats, you just described every non-linear shooter out there. I suppose Just Cause, GTA and Mafia are now so full of tactics!

So think of loosing your vehicle as punishment for not being careful enough.

It is called lazy design. Like the same 6-7 missions cut and pasted over and over again, the constant fetch quests, the constant same "steal this truck/plane" for random resources that make absolutely no sense. Apparently, fuel makes you run faster and food allows you to carry more grenades. Like I said, lazy design throughout.

The whole game is lazy. It was clearly created by marketing types to hit all of the "must include" features: Grinding, big long for the hour whores, copy/paste, gameplay from the early 2000s and nothing new.

It is great for those that think they can only play a game if a carrot is dangled in front of their faces. The people who put up with shallow gameplay just so they can get a virtual stick. Must easier to do that than craft a smart mission or make the gameplay actually worth playing.

The game didn't decide to place you anywhere I think the spawn points were fixed, which is an issue...

A bit of an understatement.

It's one thing you don't want to bother with a measured tactical approach, but the game certainly allows it and you can successfully complete it that way.

What? Launching a drone? Calling magical mortars which appear out of thin air? The same "tag and shoot" gimmick from almost a decade back? Third person which allows you to see over walls anyways? Yeah, real measured tactical approach. Much recon, so wow.

Yeah, you can find a dozen reviews that failed to recognize the value in the game, that won't make me forget the 100+ hours of fun I had with it.

Once you've played GTA, Mafia and the other dozens of clones stuck in the year 2003 this just feels like crap. At least Sleeping Dogs took the GTA formula and made fighting mechanics fun to standout.

 

[M76]

You're the one who pulled that out of your ass. I never mentioned anything about the "best" at the start. I said it was pathetic that you don't even get each type of weapon at the start, and the few you get are gimped to hell and back. It would be like a racing game making you start with the cheapest model Toyota Yaris. Just because you can make a game a grind doesn't mean you should.

There are racing games with a campaign mode that actually start with a toyota yaris And usually most racing games will force you to start with the weakest car in the lowest level of races, and you can slowly gradually get up to the more powerful cars. That is progression. I don't know why do you insist on that being a bad thing.

And to artificially length the game they specifically make you unlock the same mags more than once as an example. Or the same grip. Yeah, even if you unlock a damn grip for your rifle you can't put it on your MG. You have to re-unlock the exact item again. LOL.

Making the game longer is only a problem if you don't like the gameplay, I liked it, so I didn't mind it being longer. And it's not like you're forced to unlock all weapons and attachments, I certainly didn't.

There is progression and then there is the pay to realistically unlock all equipment route. The problem with Wildlands is that it is a AAA title at $60, not a free to play game.

There is normal progression in wildlands. I didn't mind not having the best attachments and weapons unlocked at a whim. I can see your point that if you want everything right away then you have to start grinding to unlock a specific weapon. I didn't do that. I played the main missons and whatever got unlocked in the process I used, and it didn't feel lacking it at all.

Bullshit, you have to divert 1.5-4 KM typically. And multiple times for the exact same item. See above.

Sure if you want to see it that way, you can. But remember you choose to focus on getting attachments instead of focusing on the missions. I played the game without going out of my way to unlock items.

Nothing tactical about pressing Z and E and magically tagging bad guys either. This is Gear of War, not Rainbow 6 (original titles). If you want to play a shooter with tactics pick up SWAT or something.

Asserting that scouting out a base is not tactical doesn't make it any less tactical. It's not about tagging with Z/E it's about looking for the best way in, you can do it without tagging anyone. It has as much tactics as you wish to use, and that's what makes it great. That you have a choice.

Congrats, you just described every non-linear shooter out there. I suppose Just Cause, GTA and Mafia are now so full of tactics!

You can't scout out enemy movements and choose a vector of attack in GTA or Mafia. Because all enemy bases will only have a single entrance and you have to clear them by completing a linear corridor mission each time. And you certainly can't choose to go with stealth or kill everyone in them either. You want to hate the game hate it all you want, but don't assert untrue things like it's the same as GTA.

It is called lazy design. Like the same 6-7 missions cut and pasted over and over again, the constant fetch quests, the constant same "steal this truck/plane" for random resources that make absolutely no sense. Apparently, fuel makes you run faster and food allows you to carry more grenades. Like I said, lazy design throughout.

I never thought of it that way, it hasn't even occurred to me until now to try and give meaning to the skill upgrade mechanic in the game. Sure if you think of it that way it's stupid, but I was too busy enjoying the gameplay.

The whole game is lazy. It was clearly created by marketing types to hit all of the "must include" features: Grinding, big long for the hour whores, copy/paste, gameplay from the early 2000s and nothing new.

The level design certainly is not lazy, and that's what sells the game to me, it doesn't matter that the missions have same format, if the different surroundings make it completely unique and thrilling each time.

It is great for those that think they can only play a game if a carrot is dangled in front of their faces. The people who put up with shallow gameplay just so they can get a virtual stick. Must easier to do that than craft a smart mission or make the gameplay actually worth playing.

Wasn't you the one complaining that you can't unlock shit quickly enough? It seems to me you are the one looking for the carrot and getting upset that it is not given to you. Believe it or not I played the game for the sake of the gameplay, that's why I didn't care about running after weapons and other unlockable items.

A bit of an understatement.

Sure it's a big problem, but since many other good games have it, it's kind of unfair to make a big deal out of it just for this game.

What? Launching a drone? Calling magical mortars which appear out of thin air? The same "tag and shoot" gimmick from almost a decade back? Third person which allows you to see over walls anyways? Yeah, real measured tactical approach. Much recon, so wow.

Yes launching a drone is also a tactic. The point is that the game allows you to choose your approach. If you can't appreciate that then as mentioned already this is not a game for you.
So according to you no 3rd person view game can be tactical? It seems to me that you're just being deliberately obtuse at this point.

Once you've played GTA, Mafia and the other dozens of clones stuck in the year 2003 this just feels like crap. At least Sleeping Dogs took the GTA formula and made fighting mechanics fun to standout.

The similarities between this and GTA end with open world, and third person view. The two couldn't be more different. They give a completely different experience, but if you want to see this as a GTA clone then sure you can say it's a crap GTA clone since it doesn't even want to do what GTA does in the first place.

 

[KickAssCop]

So I finished Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice and rate it a 4/10. It is quite possibly the worst game I played this year next to Everybody has gone to the rupture.

Story was so cliche and nonsensical. Bitch couldn’t get over her lovers death. Big deal. I liked the ending though for the fact that she didn’t get what she wanted lol.

Combat was absolutely the worst part of the game. I got fed up and put it on easy. It could have been great but combination of camera angle, bitch getting stuck and just sluggish controls ruined it for me.

Walking simulator. I hate it. I hate when they make walking even slower than it should have been. I hate also that the game kept on taking control away from me again and again and again. Camera moving just to show Senua face was retarded.

VO. Quite possibly the worst narrator on the planet. Every time he said Senua it was as if he was running out of breath (Druth). The whole Odin story could have been good if the guy was not trying to overdo it with unnecessary emphasis and sensationalism. Possibly the reason why I found the game unbearable.

Puzzles. One type of puzzle all along the ****ing game. What the ****. Seriously. ****.

Graphics. Overdone nonsense. Were beautiful at times but mostly forgettable and tons of issues like invisible walls, no footsteps or water movement, no environmental damage. Face was ok I guess but I didn’t even find the main bitch good to look at.

Don’t bother. Don’t waste money. Make this a commercial flop so nobody ever tries this shite again.

 

[M76]

It's actually called "This game"? Or am I missing something here.

 

[KickAssCop]

lolfixed.

 

[Flogger23m]

There are racing games with a campaign mode that actually start with a toyota yaris And usually most racing games will force you to start with the weakest car in the lowest level of races, and you can slowly gradually get up to the more powerful cars. That is progression. I don't know why do you insist on that being a bad thing.

Might have been one of the reasons I never cared for that genre.

Making the game longer is only a problem if you don't like the gameplay, I liked it, so I didn't mind it being longer. And it's not like you're forced to unlock all weapons and attachments, I certainly didn't.

Certainly you don't need everything, but by default you don't even get basic equipment. Considering how the locations, buildings, and scenarios are mostly cut/paste you'd at least want to try out different weapons because using the same 3 weapons with no attachments the entire game certainly won't help the already very repetitive nature of it.

There is normal progression in wildlands.

If this is normal SP gaming is dead, IMO.

Sure if you want to see it that way, you can. But remember you choose to focus on getting attachments instead of focusing on the missions.

Big game, dozens of unused map space, 50 something weapons. 50+ hours! Oh, but if you want to actually use any of that content you'll need to run/fly/drive around for a few extra hours and visit more lifeless locales.

You can't scout out enemy movements and choose a vector of attack in GTA or Mafia. Because all enemy bases will only have a single entrance and you have to clear them by completing a linear corridor mission each time.

I must have played a different Mafia and GTA from you. Mafia 3 especially was very similar to Wildlands. Missions were the same few repeating, blobs of enemies in generic pointless locations, big and open where you can watch them walk back and fourth the same path until you died of old age and everything.

And the same gameplay of spending half your time driving from point A to B. At times it felt more like a driving game than a shooting game. Looks like they went off the deep end in one of the DLCs though.

I never thought of it that way, it hasn't even occurred to me until now to try and give meaning to the skill upgrade mechanic in the game. Sure if you think of it that way it's stupid, but I was too busy enjoying the gameplay.

Yeah the game is fun you can totally not go out of your way. Good luck enjoying those 3 weapons and none of those skill points. Want to use a flash bang? Too bad, you didn't steal enough helis or trucks. Want to use a flare? Same problem. Your default options are:

1) Shoot someone in the face with 1 of 3 weapons.
2) Make your buddies shoot them in the face with that drone, which can't mark enemies unless you park it within spitting distance of the enemies (hey, you can grind to improve that via unlocks!).

The level design certainly is not lazy, and that's what sells the game to me, it doesn't matter that the missions have same format, if the different surroundings make it completely unique and thrilling each time.

Once you've seen a few of the camps/villages, you've seen them all. The few missions with unique locations were visited and done within 10 minutes typically. Then it was back to the 3-4 KM drive to the next blob of enemies.

Wasn't you the one complaining that you can't unlock shit quickly enough? It seems to me you are the one looking for the carrot and getting upset that it is not given to you. Believe it or not I played the game for the sake of the gameplay, that's why I didn't care about running after weapons and other unlockable items.

Everything should be unlocked from the start. It seems you prefer to be told how to approach a situation rather than figuring out what works and what will not work, because "that may be too powerful" or something. The only reason the unlocks are so ridiculous is to expand the length of the game. Too many idiots get off to the thought of a high hour count (this is a customer/gamer problem). So the developers cater to the average gamer (who is a fucking idiot) and do anything they can to lengthen the game.

Sure it's a big problem, but since many other good games have it, it's kind of unfair to make a big deal out of it just for this game.

Just because some games are lazy doesn't mean we need another. 3rd person? Lazy. Repeating missions? Lazy. Can't make a compelling experience, so they have to sell on "big & long" gameplay? Lazy. Crappy vehicle physics? Lazy.

The only thing that wasn't lazy was the map's terrian quality, and while nice I don't play games to look at pretty mountains.

Yes launching a drone is also a tactic. The point is that the game allows you to choose your approach.

Not really, read above.

The similarities between this and GTA end with open world, and third person view.

Not really, read above.

General comment on the game, to further lengthen the game they don't have a proper save system and they purposely gimp the helis. So that 1-2 minute transit turns into 15 minutes. Bad physics, respawning SAMs and crashes during flight are all designed to length the game. Then they reset your location, throw your vehicle away and make you run around like a jackass trying to find a transport. I'm sure if even 5% of the players crack and say "fuck this, it is simpler if I just pay with real money to get some diversity in this game" so they can avoid the obscenely long back and fourth times Ubi considers this a win.

And the crashings. Those fucking crashes, without a save system, just make the game such a fucking chore. Add in the other stupid bugs (like a tiny bump into another car killing your VIP) making you replay the entire mission again, re-doing the mission only for it to crash right before the end of your drive. Even if they game didn't crash it would be too much back and fourth, but with the frequent crashes and stupid bugs it becomes that more grading.

In any case I don't plan on changing your mind nor do I care to. If you enjoyed it then that is fine. I was going to grab a screen shot of Far Cry 3 or 4, Watch Dogs and Wildlands to show just how similar they are (driving long distances in cars) to show just how shallow and cookier cutter of a game Wildlands is. But I feel it is pointless because that is what gamers want.

At least Far Cry 3/4 had unique and fun mechanics to make you forget about the constant running back & fourth. And some of the missions were decently crafted. I'm not sure how 5 will hold up if it is just the same games in a different setting.

 

[M76]

I could write a long reply (again) on why the remarks you made are either complete misrepresentation or gross over-exaggerations but I'm tired of arguing, you hate the game I get it. You say it's crap, then I wonder what would you think of this "gem" I found called Sniper Ghost Warrior 3, which is truly a piece of shit.

General comment on the game, to further lengthen the game they don't have a proper save system and they purposely gimp the helis. So that 1-2 minute transit turns into 15 minutes.

But I must reply to this as this might be a key element to your problem. Helis aren't gimped. They can fly fast, you only have to know how to fly them. That's what I meant when I said their physics is actually closer to real world than any other similar game I saw. But I don't blame you for not realizing this. It took me quite a while as well to learn how to properly fly them in the game. So in 15 minutes I think you can cross the entire game world back and forth in one.

 

[Flogger23m]

I could write a long reply (again) on why the remarks you made are either complete misrepresentation or gross over-exaggerations but I'm tired of arguing, you hate the game I get it. You say it's crap, then I wonder what would you think of this "gem" I found called Sniper Ghost Warrior 3, which is truly a piece of shit.

But I must reply to this as this might be a key element to your problem. Helis aren't gimped. They can fly fast, you only have to know how to fly them. That's what I meant when I said their physics is actually closer to real world than any other similar game I saw. But I don't blame you for not realizing this. It took me quite a while as well to learn how to properly fly them in the game. So in 15 minutes I think you can cross the entire game world back and forth in one.

I can fly them just fine, you intentionally are trying to spin this as a "you can't play the game, lulz" argument as usual. My complains about the helis have always been:

1) Bad physics. Land, exit heli, then it jumps off the ground 50 feet into the air and you die in an epic explosion. I'm sorry, that is bullshit. Helicopters are inanimate objects and don't lunge up when the pilot exists them. I suppose you can consider this "hard" gameplay, I consider it shitty physics and lazy developers (not publisher, lazy shitsack developers).

2) Respawning SAMs, covering the landscape. And they respawn, which I mentioned about 10 times now. Which means if you want to use a heli you need to drive around winding roads and canyons to take all 5-7 of them out, then find a heli. Each and every time you enter the map area. It is quicker to just spend 15-20 minutes driving there than assaulting than running and knocking those SAMs out each time. It will probably take you a whole hour to drive around, knock out all the SAMs and escape the non-stop spawning enemies that each base will throw at you. Oh, you can try doing it stealthy, but that will grow into 2-3 hours. Yeah, no thanks, I'm calling it bullshit tactics to artificially lengthen the game.

Edit: I wonder how you will try and justify the the crashing. I suppose that makes it more "tactical" having to repeat the same missions. Not a problem for the l33t! Got to get those hours up there! LOL.

Let me be clear, I don't just hate Wildlands as a game. I hate everything about it and how games like Wildlands ruin the industry. The developers who worked on this are shitbags of the highest order and are the ones responsible for this travesty. You can pin the blame on the publishers all you want, but the developers had the power to quit from day 1.

 

[M76]

I can fly them just fine, you intentionally are trying to spin this as a "you can't play the game, lulz" argument as usual. My complains about the helis have always been:

1) Bad physics. Land, exit heli, then it jumps off the ground 50 feet into the air and you die in an epic explosion. I'm sorry, that is bullshit. Helicopters are inanimate objects and don't lunge up when the pilot exists them. I suppose you can consider this "hard" gameplay, I consider it shitty physics and lazy developers (not publisher, lazy shitsack developers).

2) Respawning SAMs, covering the landscape. And they respawn, which I mentioned about 10 times now. Which means if you want to use a heli you need to drive around winding roads and canyons to take all 5-7 of them out, then find a heli. Each and every time you enter the map area. It is quicker to just spend 15-20 minutes driving there than assaulting than running and knocking those SAMs out each time. It will probably take you a whole hour to drive around, knock out all the SAMs and escape the non-stop spawning enemies that each base will throw at you. Oh, you can try doing it stealthy, but that will grow into 2-3 hours. Yeah, no thanks, I'm calling it bullshit tactics to artificially lengthen the game.

Edit: I wonder how you will try and justify the the crashing. I suppose that makes it more "tactical" having to repeat the same missions. Not a problem for the l33t! Got to get those hours up there! LOL.

Let me be clear, I don't just hate Wildlands as a game. I hate everything about it and how games like Wildlands ruin the industry. The developers who worked on this are shitbags of the highest order and are the ones responsible for this travesty. You can pin the blame on the publishers all you want, but the developers had the power to quit from day 1.

You act as this game personally killed and eaten your family or some shit. I never saw such rage. You're literally just making up things then? I honestly thought that your problem with helis was that they fly too slow, and I tried to explain but you literally tear my face off for even suggesting it? Then that 15 minute flights bullshit was just that? Bullshit? If you made that up, then why should I concern myself with anything else you say?

You're just spewing half truths and misinformation about the game.

So you think I'm the enemy of gaming for liking the game? Cool, at least I know where we stand.

 

[M76]

I was going to ignore this yesterday, but after your reaction I feel obligated to clear up some things.

Might have been one of the reasons I never cared for that genre.

Oh nicely done, you set up a trap and fell into it yourself. That's the forum equivalent of bickering kids on the playground saying "I don't even care"
If you never cared for the genre why did you bring it up as a positive example?

Certainly you don't need everything, but by default you don't even get basic equipment. Considering how the locations, buildings, and scenarios are mostly cut/paste you'd at least want to try out different weapons because using the same 3 weapons with no attachments the entire game certainly won't help the already very repetitive nature of it.

Let's see, you get an assault rifle, a sub machine gun with a silencer, a sidearm (also with a silencer), a basic recon drone, binoculars, frag grenades. If that doesn't qualify as basic equipment I don't know what does.
And I thought long and hard about locations in the game, and no matter how I strained my memory I couldn't recall even two locations that were exactly the same. But I did remember dozens of completely unique and awesome locations. What? They re-used building models in a 160+sq mile game? Say it ain't so!
I already explained. You don't have to use the same 3 weapons, because playing the story missions will land you new weapons and attachments as well. If you're completely lazy and don't even look around on the bases you clear during main story missions even then you get new weapons for defeating each underboss.

If this is normal SP gaming is dead, IMO.

You just became too lazy to be bothered to pick up items scattered around you in the game world. You want to know what's a grind? Endlessly collecting shards and crafting material in DA:I, for virtually no reward. Or hunting animals in FC3.

Big game, dozens of unused map space, 50 something weapons. 50+ hours! Oh, but if you want to actually use any of that content you'll need to run/fly/drive around for a few extra hours and visit more lifeless locales.

There is one region that is not used in the basic game (well it is actually if you have the extra missions DLC that pertain for that particular area) I thought your problem was too many missions, now your complaining that there is not a mission waiting under every shrub? Make up your mind already!
I also explained this already, it's up to you to go out hunting specifically for weapons, you're not obligated to do it. You can finish the entire the game without doing so as I did. Granted I only got my first sniper rifle halfway trough playing like this, but who cares? The game was fun regardless. The sniper rifle is a huge aid that makes the game much easier. Having it earlier would've made easier provinces too easy, and perhaps I would never gotten this hooked to the game like that.

I must have played a different Mafia and GTA from you. Mafia 3 especially was very similar to Wildlands. Missions were the same few repeating, blobs of enemies in generic pointless locations, big and open where you can watch them walk back and fourth the same path until you died of old age and everything.

Yeah you must have, the Mafia3 I played was a letdown with completely enclosed locations where progression was linear, the biggest open area was a cemetery with three rows of graves in it. You could not even think on how to attack as the locations only had one entrance and one exit and you were herded trough a linear corridor between them. GTA V had a few open locations, but nowhere near the scale of wildlands, but even many of those locations were pretty linear, there was only one route you could take. Nothing to think about, just go trough the path set out. The most open mission in GTA I can remember was when you had to kill a bunch of bikers in their camp.

And the same gameplay of spending half your time driving from point A to B. At times it felt more like a driving game than a shooting game. Looks like they went off the deep end in one of the DLCs though.

Even by a generous estimate (assuming my average speed was less than 60mph including the time I was flying) I spent no more than a 20% of the game driving, and note that this includes the numerous chase missions and the narco road DLC, which is about driving fast cars, planes and helicopters. I bet you anything that this figure is at lest 50% in GTA if not more. Half the story takes place while driving in GTA for crying out loud.

Yeah the game is fun you can totally not go out of your way. Good luck enjoying those 3 weapons and none of those skill points. Want to use a flash bang? Too bad, you didn't steal enough helis or trucks. Want to use a flare? Same problem. Your default options are:

I just started a new campaign and after playing maybe an hour I already upgraded a bunch of skills in the game. All I did is collect shit that was within walking distance while doing the assignments. Yeah, it was an unbearable grind, poor me.

1) Shoot someone in the face with 1 of 3 weapons.

Well if you don't like shooting enemies in the face with guns, what are you even doing playing this game?

2) Make your buddies shoot them in the face with that drone, which can't mark enemies unless you park it within spitting distance of the enemies (hey, you can grind to improve that via unlocks!).

You can mark enemies from about 150m (that's at least 450 feet for you yankies), and you can do it with a simple binocular as well. And it's called sync shot for a reason. It's used to kill two enemies close together without alerting the others, you can't take out two enemies at once, you have to use your partners to do it together, yeah it's another tactical element, who would've thought.
Or you can not grind and use the skill points you got during main missions to unlock the skills you want. After playing a while I always had spare skill points in the game.

Once you've seen a few of the camps/villages, you've seen them all. The few missions with unique locations were visited and done within 10 minutes typically. Then it was back to the 3-4 KM drive to the next blob of enemies.

All missions have unique locations, but nice try. Yes early missions are done in 10 minutes then you have to drive 2 minutes to another location (or use fast travel) that's unbearable!

Everything should be unlocked from the start. It seems you prefer to be told how to approach a situation rather than figuring out what works and what will not work, because "that may be too powerful" or something. The only reason the unlocks are so ridiculous is to expand the length of the game. Too many idiots get off to the thought of a high hour count (this is a customer/gamer problem). So the developers cater to the average gamer (who is a fucking idiot) and do anything they can to lengthen the game.

So you also want the entire skill tree unlocked and every item in your inventory in games like skyrim and fallout? The game is literally the opposite of telling you how to approach a situation, it tells you nothing, but most importantly it allows you to do anything you want. But if you have a 500m range sniper rifle from the get go that takes all the challenge away from early missions. It's like having a 600hp uber enchanted supersword in skyrim that can one hit kill a dragon from the beginning. What's the point of that?
The purpose of the game is having fun, not how many hours it has. A game that is not fun won't benefit from being longer, because I won't be around to play any longer after it stops being fun. By your argument gamers would play pong in an infinite loop forever if the level counter never stopped in it. But reality is that they play games because they enjoy it, no matter how unbelievable to you.
I don't like multiplayer games but I don't go around shitting on them, (well maybe a little) and I definitely don't berate people for enjoying it. Live and let live.

Just because some games are lazy doesn't mean we need another. 3rd person? Lazy. Repeating missions? Lazy. Can't make a compelling experience, so they have to sell on "big & long" gameplay? Lazy. Crappy vehicle physics? Lazy.

No, the point was that this game is no worse in this regard than those, so why do you choose to pick on this one? I'll grant you the mission designs (most of the time) are lazy, but it was still fun playing. As for compelling experience, this is one of the most compelling games I played in a long time. The entire world seems believable, and you're not front and center of the story, you're not a superhero, you're actually a believable footsoldier in the bigger scheme of things.
As for crappy vehicle physics I'm the first to hate every game for that, but unfortunately that's not lazy, that's catering to the lowest common denominator, because average joe doesn't like good vehicle physics in an action game. And I'm not excusing them for it, I just don't know what should I do about it? Don't play the game at all? I'd only be punishing myself then. I'd love it to have better physics, I modded GTA IV and V to be more realistic, but it's not possible here. I have other problems with the game as well, no game is without flaws.

The only thing that wasn't lazy was the map's terrian quality, and while nice I don't play games to look at pretty mountains.

I play games to have the complete package and pretty mountains are a part of it. I didn't play skyrim for the pretty scenery, but without it it would've been worthless as well.

Not really, read above.

There is more to being tactical than choosing a weapon, any weapon! And you have already a few choices at the beginning.

Not really, read above.

I did and there were nothing that would convince me that this is the same as GTA, thinking about it only made the differences more clear than ever before.

General comment on the game, to further lengthen the game they don't have a proper save system and they purposely gimp the helis. So that 1-2 minute transit turns into 15 minutes. Bad physics, respawning SAMs and crashes during flight are all designed to length the game. Then they reset your location, throw your vehicle away and make you run around like a jackass trying to find a transport. I'm sure if even 5% of the players crack and say "fuck this, it is simpler if I just pay with real money to get some diversity in this game" so they can avoid the obscenely long back and fourth times Ubi considers this a win.

This is some convoluted logic you have going on here. "They designed it so that dying makes it longer" What do you expect? That failing should also grant you progress? I don't get it. This comes down as if you're saying: " the game is shit, because I can't be bothered to walk after dying" What do you want exactly? To respawn at the exact same location where you died, with all your equipment and vehicle? Then where is the punishment for failing? You have to have some repercussions for dying in the game. And you have to die twice anyway to be transported to the nearest checkpoint. (or three times later in the game)

And the crashings. Those fucking crashes, without a save system, just make the game such a fucking chore. Add in the other stupid bugs (like a tiny bump into another car killing your VIP) making you replay the entire mission again, re-doing the mission only for it to crash right before the end of your drive. Even if they game didn't crash it would be too much back and fourth, but with the frequent crashes and stupid bugs it becomes that more grading.

Yeah crashes are bad, what do you expect me to say, that crashes are part of the game? It's fucking not, and they should fix it or die trying. I just played the game and it crashed for me as well, but this is some next level shit introduced with a patch, because I don't remember it crashing when I played it last time. They also changed the heli controls, and made them shit, but at least they put an option there so you can switch to classic controls from the menu.

In any case I don't plan on changing your mind nor do I care to. If you enjoyed it then that is fine. I was going to grab a screen shot of Far Cry 3 or 4, Watch Dogs and Wildlands to show just how similar they are (driving long distances in cars) to show just how shallow and cookier cutter of a game Wildlands is. But I feel it is pointless because that is what gamers want.

This is like saying Witcher 3 is bad becuae there was DA:I, Skyrim, and others that came before it. My point is that Wildlands is not made good by the similarities it has to other open world games, it's good because of the differences.

At least Far Cry 3/4 had unique and fun mechanics to make you forget about the constant running back & fourth. And some of the missions were decently crafted. I'm not sure how 5 will hold up if it is just the same games in a different setting.

To me FarCry 3 was more grindy than wildlands, do you remember having to hunt dozens of animlas to be able to craft a new weapon pouch? or wallet, or ammo bag, or holster, or whatever you needed multiple animal skins from different animals for each. And I was camping for long minutes at locations to find the damn things, when none was to be found, and I said fuck it, and finished the game without upgrading any carrying capacity. Compared to that walking 50m for a pickup in Wildlands feels like a breeze.

 

[WarriorX]

DOOM(2016)

The good
- Fun gameplay. Good mix of game mechanics. Blowing up demons felt satisfying. Love the old school secret searching, but I am terrible at it lol
- Good pacing. Game is mostly go go action but has a few areas without much combat to provide a break from the action
- Graphics. Game looked great
- Story was decent. Basically enough to drive the plot and give reasons for the character to go to the next objective
- Good selection of classic weapons. Upgrading them into something different was fun.
- Soundtrack. Soundtrack keeps you going!

Neutral
-boss battles. Not sure what could be done to improve them but I guess they wanted to keep the classic feel tot he bosses. Just felt predictable when fighting them.

Disappointments
- AI. Found the AI to be insanely predictable. Not a big deal though for this type of game. Also path finding resulted in some extended sequences as I tried to find the stuck demon to proceed.
- Bugs. Character fell through the world when going for the melee kills. Instant death resulting in having to start from last checkpoint. Missing textures in some areas but would appear if reloading the area.
- check point saves. Not a fan of check point saves. However the pacing of the saves was tolerable.

Overall, really enjoyed the game.

 

[Kinsaras]

Kentucky Route Zero, guess I didn't get it because I didn't enjoy this game. I played all the way through Act 4 since the game was short. I couldn't wait for it to be over. The first act was interesting in its mystery. Act 2 I realize it's going nowhere and started to be a drag. I get what they were going for, an artsy look at life. As a game it just isn't interesting or fun.

 

[M76]

Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 (2017)

Well, here it is, I found it, the worst game of 2017.

So I was stupid. I should have known that a game this new selling for this low price with all DLCs and season pass included ($10) has got to be garbage. But I didn't think. Or rather I thought, well it's a sniper game how bad can it be? Spoiler alert: very. Honestly I can't even be bothered to finish this game it is so terrible, so this will be just a quickie.

I was expecting an open world shooter game similar to Wildlands. Well it's kind of open world, but not really. The game constantly holds your hand, you can't do anything but go exactly where it tells you when it tells you, and shoot who it tells you, from the exact location it tells you, when it tells you. At first I thought nah, it must be just the tutorial mission, it will surely be different when the real action begins. But it's not.
And if that wasn't enough. The physics is non existent, wildlands is a professional simulation compared to this garbage as far as vehicles go. And I still can't get over the fact that going over rough terrain with the buggy makes a sound like there is a huge battle going on in the background. I honestly thought when I first heard it that "at least the game world is alive, there is a battle going on independent from the player" then I slowly realized that's not a battle, that is the sound the suspension of the buggy makes.

But that's not all. The game is running on cryengine, which I began to take as a bad omen. Because as nice as crytek games can look using that engine.3rd party devs usually suck at tapping that potential. Which is as much of a fail on behalf of the engine as the devs using it, because it probably means it's either very hard to tune properly or the documentation and example library is lacking.
So yes, the game looks terrible. The quality is reminiscent of games from the 90s. Honestly that's more of an insult to 90s games than this. Unreal (1) had better atmosphere. Maybe I'm being overly dramatic, but this graphics is definitely not worthy of an AAA game. Maybe I misunderstood and this is not an AAA game? Well, I could excuse the graphics then, but not the other things.
Gunplay is bland as hell, you look trough a scope and aim where it tells you, seems to have zero ballistics simulation, just an offset for bullet drop, and wind, and the bullet doesn't even seem to fly on a realistic trajectory. Effects seems like a constant rather than increasing over distance as bullets decelerate. Wildlands might not have had wind effects, but bullet drop was better modeled in it. It's easy to hit in this game, too easy, even on the hardest difficulty where there is no visual aid. And it tells you that the hardest difficulty you are killed by one hit. Then I can easily drive trough enemy camps showered in bullets just going on my merry way unharmed.

But that's still not the biggest sin of the game. The biggest sin has to be, the clichés. Both the characters and the story are cardboard cutouts, from a cliché book. I honestly can't think of a more 2 dimensional cookie cutter set of characters, and the story is completely unoriginal as well. Every fucking sin from every fucking typical B movie is in this garbage. And all delivered by the most uninspired, bland, monotone VO ever to penetrate my ears. Oh, and the visual character design is hilarious. I honestly thought that it was a girl until it started talking in the intro. WTF? In which universe could that pass off as a boy? And you get introduced to the main characters trough the most annoying, obnoxious, irritating banter ever. I couldn't figure out if the characters were supposed to be jerks or it was just bad writing. Either way it's a sin. But I instantly hated them both, so good job game, now I want to kill the characters who I'm supposed to root for. And don't get me started on the shoehorned in love interest. Well actually the entire character is shoehorned in. What idiots wrote this story? You're free to make the characters fit the narrative, but you immediately back yourself into a corner and come up with stupid shit and have to break suspension of disbelief to bring a character into the story, which shouldn't have been necessary at all if you didn't have to write the most prohibitive backstory ever for her. Bah. Fuck this game.

+

• No redeeming value.

-

• Ugly graphics
• Bad writing
• Annoying characters
• Bad visuals
• Terrible VO
• Bad sound design
• Bad gunplay
  
• Nonexistent physics
• Too easy (on hardest difficulty)
• Stupid cliche-fest of a story, where the writers keep backing themselves into corners, and escaping trough convoluted mind numbing idiocies.

Scoring chart:

graphics/realization: 3/10
story/atmosphere: 0/10
gameplay/controls: 7/10

Overall impression: 3/10

What has been seen cannot be unseen.

 

[M76]

Wolfenstein: The New Order (2014)

I avoided this game for the longest time, in fact I kept avoiding it even after I purchased it. As I purchased it almost exactly 3 years ago for Christmas as a present to my father. But since we shared the steam library it was available for me to play ever since. But I digress. You're not interested in how and when I got the game. The main reason for avoiding was my usual phobia of games that are overhyped. They almost never live up to those inflated expectations. And this game is not the exception unfortunately.

My first impression of the game was that it is very oldschool. It feels at least 10 years behind its time. So it's a shooter reminiscent of HL2. It would've been mighty imprissive if it came out in the mid 2000s. Now, it felt nothing extra. The graphics is dated as well. But the main reason it felt so oldschool is the gameplay and the shooting mechanics. One could argue that it was intentional, but it didn't feel like an homage to oldschool games. I couldn't look at it as a throwback. But these were just my first impressions after the first forty odd minutes of play.

What I found puzzling is that the game doesn't seem to have a style, it's ever changing. It reminded me of dozens of other games, but the similarities are most striking when compared to HL2 and Escape from Butcher Bay. But the problem was that it doesn't try to do better than the games it uses for inspiration. It tries it's hand at everything, but doesn't go all the way. Just as you start to acquire the taste for the thing it makes you do, you find yourself in another chapter doing an entirely different mission. And the fetch quests in the hideout between missions doesn't help at all. They even put a little reference in the game about those errands. I think the devs intended that as a meta joke, but unfortunately the problem is dead serious. Those fetch quests were completely unnecessary and didn't add anything of value to the game nor the story. In fact the entire hideout was unnecessary, or at least not utilized well. It could've been great if you could actually do something meaningful at the hideout, besides your errands, like talk to other resistance members.

As mentioned the game never settles on a style, it started as an on rails shooter, with lots of scripted sequences. Then it was reminding me of codename eagle, and then it moved on to being a corridor shooter, with lots of annoying and unnecessary jump scares. And this all happened in the first 25% of the game. It's not a problem that it's varied, but it was just confusing at times. Especially when it wasn't clear what are you supposed to be doing. Sometimes the game wouldn't give any clues on what to do, while other times it narrated you every step of the way. This inconsistency made the game annoying at times. It is as if every level was made by a completely different team, and they didn't exchange notes.

The shooting itself is fairly good, but the feedback on hits is not clear enough. This also adds to the confusion, when you don't know that you have to shoot an enemy with regular weapons or do something else. Especially when it alternates between the two without any indication like during the final bossfight. But even when fighting regular enemies when they're far away you can't really tell if you're damaging them or not. And unfortunately this goes both ways, there is no clear visual / audible indication when you're getting hurt or how much you're getting hurt. So I constantly had to keep an eye on the HP monitor on the HUD to be able to tell if I'm taking too much damage or I can take it. There is also a constant ammo shortage in the game, enemies drop very little ammo, and picking up the dropped ammo is not automatic, you have to go to all fallen enemies and press the interact key individually on each dropped weapon. That alone probably accounts for a quarter of the alredy short playtime.

I started playing the game on the death incarnate difficulty but I realized that this game has no added value to it when playing on higher difficulties. So after about a third of the way in I decided to drop the difficulty to the easiest, and it changed nothing in terms of enjoyment, the game still felt exactly the same. Unlike some "modern" shooters that become entirely different games when playing on hard/realistic mode. Here the difficulty setting does nothing else but increases hp of enemies and decreases yours. Drastically. And I fucking hate bullet sponge enemies, so playing on the easiest actually made the game more enjoyable as enemies succumbed to shots more realistically. But some are bullet sponges even on easy. And honestly the last few chapters didn't feel a walk in the park even on this difficulty setting. If you walk into enemy fire you still die in just a few short seconds unless you have lots of armor.

There is no way to sugarcoat it, the AI is just extremely dumb in the game. Enemies are very easy to sneak up on, like they have no peripheral vision whatsoever. And even when they detect you, strangely they start walking in the wrong direction and not towards you. You can run up to them almost all the way from behind before going to sneak. The only sign of strategy is from commanders who tend to pull back when detecting you instead of rushing you like all the rest.

I expected the game to have oozes of cool steampunk weapons, instead it has pretty common ones. Pistol, Assault Rifle, Shotgun, Sniper rifle, and some energy rifle you only get on one level. Speaking of which your weapons don't carry over between levels. Which is more odd than annoying. You also get a laser cutter midway trough the game that can be used as a fairly powerful weapon, but it drains energy quickly so only good as a last resort.

The story is not much but it was enjoyable until almost the very end. The game's basic premise is plausible until the brain in a tube sequence. Which seemed completely stupid. No amount of suspension of disbelief gets me to believe that shit. Well actually the secret league of jews was already pretty over the top. Not the fact that there would be a league of super intelligent jews, but that they hide all that knowledge. It makes no sense. Hey we invented this cool thing, you know what we could do with it? Bury it under the ocean where none can find it! It's morally questionable that you'd rather hide knowledge than to use it to better humanity. As the inventions weren't even weapons, and had tons of practical usage scenarios outside of warfare.

My other issue with the story was that most of the time the resistance had no plans, they just relied on the unending luck of Blaskowic! Of course it is just a game that's why you have all that lucky breaks, that's true for any game. But the characters in the story shouldn't plan their moves as if they knew they are in a game, you see my problem? In other games plans are realistic and then they go wrong, and you come out victorious despite the odds. Here the story just simply ignores the odds, and the plans include things like taking over an entire base single-handedly. Of course when you first liberate the resistance it makes sense that you don't have any plans, you're the muscle you crave revenge, and you're alone. But this head in first without any plan attitude remains trough the entire game, and it makes absolutely zero sense.

+

• Atmoshpere
• Some well designed levels
• Throwback to so many other games
• Interesting characters
• Fairly interesting story with some tense moments

-

• graphics
• you're a superman, but even the other characters in the story presume that.
  
• to few and uninteresting weapons
  
• no visual / audible feedback on hits
  
• No consistency to gameplay
  
• No value in higher difficulty settings
  
• Manual ammo collection
  
• Badly utilized hideout
• Some parts are over narrated while other times you get no clue on what you should do
  
• Feels like they wanted to put too much in the game, and ended up half-assing most things.
  
• It's a bronze sword in the iron age.
• Someone please explain to these devs how gravity works.

Score card:

graphics/realization: 4/10
story/atmosphere: 8/10
gameplay/controls: 6/10

Overall impression: 6.5/10

It's not a bad game, because it's not a bad game. But I failed to find anything in it that would justify its cult status.

 

[KickAssCop]

SW BF2 Lootbox Edition. Reviewed on PS4 PRO

SP:

Story: 5/10
Graphics: 7/10
Sound: 8/10
Gameplay: 7/10

Overall: 6/10

MP:

Gameplay: 8/10
Modes: 9/10
Finding a Match: 7/10
Community: 5/10
Progression: 2/10

Overall: 8/10

Even though the game has lootboxes which I despise. If you forget about them, you can have a lot of fun in MP. The lootboxes and grind is real. However, there is enough content to go around. I play it almost daily every night. Either run some small MP matches or participate in galactic assaults. Starfighter Assault alone is worth a purchase IMO. Add to that I can do split screen co op w/ my son in Arcade mode, the game is packed with content. I just wish that leveling up was faster and need for lootboxes was less.

I recommend it since I picked it up for a 30 and have already spent about 20 hours on it. Well worth the bucks.

 

[Archaea]

Wolfenstein shadow of the colossus.
B-

Star Wars Battlefront 2. C+ Single player, A+ multiplayer!

 

[Archaea]

Wolfenstein: The New Order (2014)

View attachment 47547

I avoided this game for the longest time, in fact I kept avoiding it even after I purchased it. As I purchased it almost exactly 3 years ago for Christmas as a present to my father. But since we shared the steam library it was available for me to play ever since. But I digress. You're not interested in how and when I got the game. The main reason for avoiding was my usual phobia of games that are overhyped. They almost never live up to those inflated expectations. And this game is not the exception unfortunately.

My first impression of the game was that it is very oldschool. It feels at least 10 years behind its time. So it's a shooter reminiscent of HL2. It would've been mighty imprissive if it came out in the mid 2000s. Now, it felt nothing extra. The graphics is dated as well. But the main reason it felt so oldschool is the gameplay and the shooting mechanics. One could argue that it was intentional, but it didn't feel like an homage to oldschool games. I couldn't look at it as a throwback. But these were just my first impressions after the first forty odd minutes of play.

What I found puzzling is that the game doesn't seem to have a style, it's ever changing. It reminded me of dozens of other games, but the similarities are most striking when compared to HL2 and Escape from Butcher Bay. But the problem was that it doesn't try to do better than the games it uses for inspiration. It tries it's hand at everything, but doesn't go all the way. Just as you start to acquire the taste for the thing it makes you do, you find yourself in another chapter doing an entirely different mission. And the fetch quests in the hideout between missions doesn't help at all. They even put a little reference in the game about those errands. I think the devs intended that as a meta joke, but unfortunately the problem is dead serious. Those fetch quests were completely unnecessary and didn't add anything of value to the game nor the story. In fact the entire hideout was unnecessary, or at least not utilized well. It could've been great if you could actually do something meaningful at the hideout, besides your errands, like talk to other resistance members.

As mentioned the game never settles on a style, it started as an on rails shooter, with lots of scripted sequences. Then it was reminding me of codename eagle, and then it moved on to being a corridor shooter, with lots of annoying and unnecessary jump scares. And this all happened in the first 25% of the game. It's not a problem that it's varied, but it was just confusing at times. Especially when it wasn't clear what are you supposed to be doing. Sometimes the game wouldn't give any clues on what to do, while other times it narrated you every step of the way. This inconsistency made the game annoying at times. It is as if every level was made by a completely different team, and they didn't exchange notes.

The shooting itself is fairly good, but the feedback on hits is not clear enough. This also adds to the confusion, when you don't know that you have to shoot an enemy with regular weapons or do something else. Especially when it alternates between the two without any indication like during the final bossfight. But even when fighting regular enemies when they're far away you can't really tell if you're damaging them or not. And unfortunately this goes both ways, there is no clear visual / audible indication when you're getting hurt or how much you're getting hurt. So I constantly had to keep an eye on the HP monitor on the HUD to be able to tell if I'm taking too much damage or I can take it. There is also a constant ammo shortage in the game, enemies drop very little ammo, and picking up the dropped ammo is not automatic, you have to go to all fallen enemies and press the interact key individually on each dropped weapon. That alone probably accounts for a quarter of the alredy short playtime.

I started playing the game on the death incarnate difficulty but I realized that this game has no added value to it when playing on higher difficulties. So after about a third of the way in I decided to drop the difficulty to the easiest, and it changed nothing in terms of enjoyment, the game still felt exactly the same. Unlike some "modern" shooters that become entirely different games when playing on hard/realistic mode. Here the difficulty setting does nothing else but increases hp of enemies and decreases yours. Drastically. And I fucking hate bullet sponge enemies, so playing on the easiest actually made the game more enjoyable as enemies succumbed to shots more realistically. But some are bullet sponges even on easy. And honestly the last few chapters didn't feel a walk in the park even on this difficulty setting. If you walk into enemy fire you still die in just a few short seconds unless you have lots of armor.

There is no way to sugarcoat it, the AI is just extremely dumb in the game. Enemies are very easy to sneak up on, like they have no peripheral vision whatsoever. And even when they detect you, strangely they start walking in the wrong direction and not towards you. You can run up to them almost all the way from behind before going to sneak. The only sign of strategy is from commanders who tend to pull back when detecting you instead of rushing you like all the rest.

I expected the game to have oozes of cool steampunk weapons, instead it has pretty common ones. Pistol, Assault Rifle, Shotgun, Sniper rifle, and some energy rifle you only get on one level. Speaking of which your weapons don't carry over between levels. Which is more odd than annoying. You also get a laser cutter midway trough the game that can be used as a fairly powerful weapon, but it drains energy quickly so only good as a last resort.

The story is not much but it was enjoyable until almost the very end. The game's basic premise is plausible until the brain in a tube sequence. Which seemed completely stupid. No amount of suspension of disbelief gets me to believe that shit. Well actually the secret league of jews was already pretty over the top. Not the fact that there would be a league of super intelligent jews, but that they hide all that knowledge. It makes no sense. Hey we invented this cool thing, you know what we could do with it? Bury it under the ocean where none can find it! It's morally questionable that you'd rather hide knowledge than to use it to better humanity. As the inventions weren't even weapons, and had tons of practical usage scenarios outside of warfare.

My other issue with the story was that most of the time the resistance had no plans, they just relied on the unending luck of Blaskowic! Of course it is just a game that's why you have all that lucky breaks, that's true for any game. But the characters in the story shouldn't plan their moves as if they knew they are in a game, you see my problem? In other games plans are realistic and then they go wrong, and you come out victorious despite the odds. Here the story just simply ignores the odds, and the plans include things like taking over an entire base single-handedly. Of course when you first liberate the resistance it makes sense that you don't have any plans, you're the muscle you crave revenge, and you're alone. But this head in first without any plan attitude remains trough the entire game, and it makes absolutely zero sense.

+

• Atmoshpere
• Some well designed levels
• Throwback to so many other games
• Interesting characters
• Fairly interesting story with some tense moments

-

• graphics
• you're a superman, but even the other characters in the story presume that.
  
• to few and uninteresting weapons
  
• no visual / audible feedback on hits
  
• No consistency to gameplay
  
• No value in higher difficulty settings
  
• Manual ammo collection
  
• Badly utilized hideout
• Some parts are over narrated while other times you get no clue on what you should do
  
• Feels like they wanted to put too much in the game, and ended up half-assing most things.
  
• It's a bronze sword in the iron age.
• Someone please explain to these devs how gravity works.

Score card:

graphics/realization: 4/10
story/atmosphere: 8/10
gameplay/controls: 6/10

Overall impression: 6.5/10

It's not a bad game, because it's not a bad game. But I failed to find anything in it that would justify its cult status.

It’s one of the best games I ever played. A+ It has cult status for me and is a benchmark for story and thinking through an alternate reality. I’ve been PC gaming since the last 80s and still think it’s top 5. Sounds like most of your frustrations stem from trying to play the game on the hardest difficulty and being soured early on. Too bad. It’s an excellent game IMO.

 

[M76]

It’s one of the best games I ever played. A+ It has cult status for me and is a benchmark for story and thinking through an alternate reality. I’ve been PC gaming since the last 80s and still think it’s top 5. Sounds like most of your frustrations stem from trying to play the game on the hardest difficulty and being soured early on. Too bad. It’s an excellent game IMO.

I specifically mentioned that changing the difficulty had no effect on the quality of the game. I wasn't frustrated, I just realized that it's not worth putting in the extra effort (playing on harder difficulty). I explained why I disliked the story as well. You can't blame that on some frustration stemming from the game being too hard. It wasn't (too hard), I just wanted to get it over with quicker. Since it didn't seem as good as advertised. And they didn't invent the alternate reality, there were numerous books, and movies with the exact same premise, so if someone is to be credited for that it is definitely not this game.

 

[Archaea]

I specifically mentioned that changing the difficulty had no effect on the quality of the game. I wasn't frustrated, I just realized that it's not worth putting in the extra effort (playing on harder difficulty). I explained why I disliked the story as well. You can't blame that on some frustration stemming from the game being too hard. It wasn't (too hard), I just wanted to get it over with quicker. Since it didn't seem as good as advertised. And they didn't invent the alternate reality, there were numerous books, and movies with the exact same premise, so if someone is to be credited for that it is definitely not this game.

This is your quote from above.

“so playing on the easiestactually made the game more enjoyable asenemies succumbed to shots more realistically.”

 

[Flogger23m]

It’s one of the best games I ever played. A+ It has cult status for me and is a benchmark for story and thinking through an alternate reality. I’ve been PC gaming since the last 80s and still think it’s top 5. Sounds like most of your frustrations stem from trying to play the game on the hardest difficulty and being soured early on. Too bad. It’s an excellent game IMO.

I'm not sure if I'd say that, but it was more than enough to carry the game. Where it excelled in was gameplay. The story was not too serious but I expected that just by watching the trailers. It should have been very clear from the marketing that this game wasn't going to be some technical sci-fi and alternate WWII war plan theory. It did a good job of having enough weapons that had some feeling to them, were fun to use, upgrades that came naturally (you didn't have to divert gameplay much if at all) and varied unique levels. Not one level felt too similar to the last one. Going from a bombed out bridge to a submarine to a space station was a great change of scenery. Especially when most games today have the same mission and objective built around the same pieced together camps, it felt very fun.

I'll gladly take more games like this over the bloated fetch quest running simulators that fill the market today.

 

[M76]

This is your quote from above.

“so playing on the easiestactually made the game more enjoyable asenemies succumbed to shots more realistically.”

Sure, if you want to take it out of context. My point was that higher difficulty didn't make the game better. And no that still doesn't mean I was frustrated by the difficulty. I'm running out of ways of trying to convey that I wasn't frustrated with the game, gameplay was quite good, I just didn't find that extra little something in it, that makes a good game a great game. Maybe because I saw most of it's "aces" elsewhere done better already.

 

[LGBboy]

Elex... it was extremely hard, but extremely good. Better than any AAA game I have played ever since the Witcher 3 / DOS2

 

[M76]

Here's something from a few years ago to welcome 2018, may it be a better year for gaming than 2017 was!

I was doing some shopping and noticed in an unlikely place the box of the collectors edition of

Driver: San Francisco (2011)

And I instantly wanted to own it. This is the way collectors editions should look like. I didn't even care, that it was not the PC version, but the PS3, I instantly purchased it, without any previous knowledge about this particular game. I had known about the old games, I knew that I spent hours just driving aimlessly in the first game, because it's physics were so good (for the time). And that carried over into Driver 3 as well, which I also like for the same reason, and it had nice graphics, and interesting locations. Parallel lines was terrible though, they messed up with trying to create a GTA clone, instead of remaining true to the series roots. The out of car shooter sequences were almost unplayable.

So the series has a checkered past, which includes the second game in the series, that they made a psx exclusive for no good reason, well apart from money ofc. It ran terrible on that weak machine, it was almost a slideshow, and basically it was the same game as the first. It was Driver for Playstation, with worse graphics and often sub 10 FPS. I've never seen a console game run that bad ever since.

If we follow the pattern of: First - Good | Second - Bad | Third - Good | Fourth - Bad | Then this game is ought to be good, right? Of course I didn't think about this when buying the game, that was all thanks to marketing.

I'm not going to drag this further, the game is good. They went back to being a driving game only, with no out of car sequences, or at least not as you'd expect.

The game has an unique way to leap out of reality, while not becoming too idiotic. It does it like this:

Spoiler: minor spoiler for the base premise of the game

The protagonist is seriously injured and is in a coma, and during this he's wreaking havoc in a dream world representation of San Francisco. And then you can leap from car to car, possessing the hapless driver of any vehicle and terrifying the shit out of passengers.

This means that you can assume control of any vehicle within the game world (apart from enemies).
Some might say that this is too much or too unrealistic, but I think it makes for a great change of pace, and gives an interesting twist for the gameplay.

The funniest aspect of this is when you possess the driver of a vehicle, you can hear the conversation between passengers, if there are any. These are really hilarious, I constantly tried to use vehicles with passengers to hear more funny dialogue. And Tanner even teases them sometimes. There is very little repetition among the dialogue, and I exceeded 1000 "leaps" in the game. Of course not all of them had passengers but many.

Arguably the best aspect of the game is car physics, which was always a specialty of reflections. But as I was looking through the credits, I noticed a name, the author of the terep2 tech demo which was basically a driving sandbox from 1997 that used soft-body physics, which is still not commonplace among driving games even now in 2017. It was so ahead of its time. So they had even more talent to make great vehicle physics.

The selection of cars is vast, with a number of classics. And speaking of classics there is a game mode, where you have to recreate classic car chases from movies. Of course the similarities end with the make of the cars involved, but still it's great fun.

Most of the game is made up from side missions, you have very few missions that are connected to the main story. But you can't just focus on that, because for the next story mission to be unlocked you always have to do a few side missions. Of course there are a lot more of them, than what you actually have to do to finish the game. But this game is not about finishing the story, or at least not only. It's mostly about enjoying the driving of unique and exotic wheels. And having a lot of fun with side missions, or just randomly driving around.

+

• Unique way to take control of cars
• Graphics
• Physics
• Controls

-

• The game can't remain fresh, you encounter the same types of challenges/missions again and again throughout it. The thing saving it from becoming boring is the physics.
• From about halfway the story becomes dull and the ending isn't great either.
• Success/failure in challenges mostly depend on luck. Like if enough vehicles came that fit the profile of the mission, or that if the ideal driving line is clear during your run, or a game spawns a semi truck there.

Scoring card:

graphics/realization: 9/10
story/atmosphere: 6/10
gameplay/controls: 10/10

overall impression: 7/10

It's solid game, but far from being ground breaking.

 

[M76]

Mafia II (2010)

I can start with the cliched monologue, that this game was the most anticipated of its time, Why? Because we all know how brilliant the first part of the game was in its time. It had a thrilling and entertaining storyline, with great personal sub-plot for the main character. And despite being a gta style shooter. It was one of if not the most sophisticated driving simulator of its time, with full support for steering wheels, manual clutch pedal, and the realistic force feedback effects, that aren't really beaten to this day.

So the bar was set very high for any sequel, it's not easy to live up to such a predecessor. Let's get one thing straight, Mafia II is not a rival to the GTA series. They're completely different games. The only game Mafia II has to contend with is its own legacy. And I'm not going to double talk, Mafia II just, didn't live up to my expectations. It tries but falls short, mostly because it is unfinished.

So I sat down in front of Mafia II with great expectations, with my steering wheel at the ready. Only to be laughed in the face by the game, You wanted to use a steering wheel? How cute - Yes the only way to play the game on the PC is either by keyboard, or an XBOX360 controller. Which I taken as a personal attack.

After that shock I feared that this means that the vehicle dynamics will be bad as well. But fortunately that aspect of the game is still good. If you choose simulation mode that is. Which leaves us in a very stupid situation. With the keyboard you can't control the cars properly the wheels always spin out when starting, and you're all over the place. The game just cries for a steering wheel.

And on top of that, there is no freeride mode in the game. If you haven't played Mafia, this is the mode, where you can roam freely in the unlocked parts of the city, outside of the story, without stakes, just to enjoy the quality of the simulation and the sights.

But the biggest problem with the game that it's unfinished. They put a lot of effort into implementing upgrade stations for vehicles, you can even repair a broken down car on the side of the road, but all these things are completely unused and unnecessary. And the question just asks itself, how much of the game was actually cut out to save time or withheld for a DLC?

The story feels like it's missing crucial parts. It feels as if at least half of the missions were cut out due to lack of time. There are enormous leaps in the story, without explanation. And characters greet you like you're old pals, who you only met once in the game as far as it is shown to you. The potential is there, the story could be great, if the gaps were filled in. I had a distinctive feeling that the missions were finished maybe up to chapter 2 when the publisher said OK guys it's time for the crunch, the game will be released next holiday no matter what!

It started great, with a movie like opnening, as you walk to your family's home after arriving back to the city after the war. At that point I would've given 10/10 for the game. But the first few real missions were dull and easy. Later the combat gets more interesting, but by then the story gets incoherent due to the gaps in it. The first half of the game the story is great, but gameplay and missions are boring. In the second part gameplay and missions are good, but the story falls apart.

The ending of the story is one of the worst I've ever seen, not by the outcome, but by the lack of building up to it. The last mission comes out of nowhere and the game ends abruptly.

The graphics looks great, especially the summer evenings. The soundtrack is really good as well. Without these I probably would've given the game much less points.

An interesting fact is that as far as I know this was one of the first AAA games that used physx. At the time without a dedicated physx card enabling the physics options in the game slowed down even the best computers to an unplayable speed.

+

• Atmosphere (at the beginning)
• Graphics
• Soundtrack
• Movie like experience (at the beginning)
• Gameplay (towards the end)

-

• Apex physics wouldn't run properly on anything at the time
  
• No steering wheel support
• Stupid kamikaze police AI
  
• 11 hours to finish the story
• A story that starts out good, but completely falls apart later

It's hard to express the game in numbers.It's a terrible disappointment compared to my expectations, and has a lot of untapped potential. But still I enjoyed playing it more than it would seem from my review. But mostly thanks to the graphics and the physics.

Scoring card:

graphics/realization: 9/10
story/atmosphere: 5/10
gameplay/controls: 5/10

overall impression: 7/10

 

[WarriorX]

Red Faction: Armageddon. RF:A was an OK game. Enjoyed the action, destruction and found the story to be passable. The game is very linear with essentially a single path to the objective. The destruction in the game is great. I wish more games had destruction like this game does. Very satisfying blowing up just about every structure you can find.

The game does have a fair share of glitches. My autosave got corrupted a few times and I had to use a manual save to reload from. Also some of the scripted events would not fully play, forcing a reload of the area. Even with all of the reloading, I reached the credits in about 7.5 hours. Good thing too, because any longer and the game would start to become tedious and a chore to play. There is a free form mode that lets you select a level to basically have at it and destroy stuff. Would have preferred more options and large levels but it was about 30 minutes of fun.

Game is basically a playable Michael Bay film, make sure to get it on sale if you plan to buy it.

 

[M76]

I'm slowly exhausting my backlog of reviews, I promise there are not many old ones left.

Grand Theft Auto IV (2008)



I was really looking forward to this game before its release, it was clearly my most anticipated game at the time. Occasionally I would play with the idea that I should buy an XBOX 360 just to be able to play the game, since the PC version was delayed for so long. But in the end common sense prevailed, I waited for the PC version, and boy I was glad that I didn't give in to the dark side. First because there were hardly any interesting exclusive games for the XBOX that would have justified owning one for me.

Second, because the game didn't live up to my expectations. I had a clear idea about the game that it would be a rich sandbox world filled with interesting activities and side quests. Just like in San Andreas, only more and better. I was disappointed to see, that there aren't any worthwhile activities in the game apart from the main story. This reminded me of Assassin's Creed, that's plagued with the same problem. You can't just create a large open word, and put nothing in it for the player to do.

It's not only disappointing compared to San Andreas, but to all the previous GTAs as well. There are no Firefighter activities, no Ambulance activities, no Taxi activities. Only the transport missions you get from Roman, but those are nothing compared to what we had in previous games. There are some races, but most of the time I just got the message that there aren't any races going on right now. And you can't even fail in them, because all your opponents pile up two corners into the race, and you never see them again. From there it's just the menial task of having to drive 10 laps on a long route.

What we have instead of fun challenging activities, is hanging with friends or taking out a girl, but the two are basically the same thing. And these are boring and frustrating distractions, nothing more. You get no fun from these at all. After a few tries I simply ignored their requests to go drinking or do anything. It makes no real difference how big of a pal you are to them. True, some friends grant special abilities that you can call on, but for story missions, where they'd really make a difference they are disabled anyway. You can ask your cop pal, to get rid of your wanted status, but that only works up to a certain wanted level anyway, which you can get rid by yourself easily enough. Or you can get free Taxi from Roman, but that's pointless, because the regular Taxi will take you anywhere for $50 max, and that kind of money can only be a problem in the first few minutes of the game.

Everybody knows that the hardware demands of the game were horrendous, you couldn't max out the graphics even with the best hardware available at the time. But since it looked much better than the console version even on low settings I didn't consider that to be a problem, more of a future proofing of the game.

One usually strong aspect of GTA games is the handling and physics of vehicles, so in that department there is no disappointment, it delivers. Every vehicle moves the way you would expect it to move. There are only two small inconveniences. The first is that the top speed of the vehicles is unrealistic. Almost everything tops out at 60-70mph, even hi end sports cars. And the other thing is that the cars are too durable. Almost indestructible, you can hit a truck head on an continue on like nothing happened. Fortunately on the PC version it's fairly easy to modify these things, so I edited the top speed and durability of cars, to be more realistic. This instantly improved my experience by tenfold.

The length of the main story is commendable. Albeit after finishing it for a second time I've noticed that none of the missions are exceptional. And the blatant scripting is really disappointing. Not so much in the shooting parts, but in the car chases. Until the script runs out, your enemies cars are made of granite, and defy every aspect of physics in the game. Their speed is always matched to you, if you're really good at driving, you can see things like the enemy car accelerating from zero to sixty in 0.1 seconds, or pushing trucks out of the way like they're helium filled balloons. Unfortunately the scripting is necessary otherwise chases would be really short, since the AI driving is very poor. As soon as the script runs out he will crash and die without much effort from you, like in races.

There are some missions in the game where you can decide to kill someone or not. But story wise these don't have much impact. The only difference is that if you spare someone, you can meet them on spontaneous encounter type missions later. Actually these are the only side missions that are funny, so it's better to spare everyone in the hope that you'll get a fun mission later.

Unfortunately the radio stations are much less to my liking than in previous GTAs. The only channel worth listening through once is integrity for fun. But the handling of radio channels in the game is chaotic. You listen to a station, get out of the car, do a mission, get back into a car, and the station will start playing from the point that was five minutes before you last listened to it. So some parts of radio programme you'll hear a thousand times, while you never hear others. Or when I listened to Independence FM (where the game plays your music) sometimes it started playing the same track five times again within 30 minutes.

Another issue is that the triggers work too quickly in the game. You do a mission, and in a few seconds you get a message from a third party saying: "I heard what you did".

+

• Vehicle handling and physics
• Graphics
• The atmosphere of the evening traffic in the city center
• Atmosphere
• The main story is just the right length, it's not too short or so long that it becomes a torture.
• Finally the game world really feels alive, the traffic is not made up of a few scattered vehicles, but sometimes there are really endless rows of cars.

-

• There is hardly anything for you to do besides the main story.
• Some missions are very short and easy, while others are extremely long and difficult, like the bank job
• If you fail a mission, you can only restart from the very beginning, even on multi-part missions.
• In theory there is a way in the game to quickly restart missions after dying, but this is useless, since it makes you start again with the amount of ammo and armor you had when you died. So you must load your previous save anyway, and if you don't already have a full armor and enough ammo, then you have to go to a store, and stock up, then drive to the place where you get the mission, then drive to the place where the actual mission takes place, and prey that you don't fail this time, or you have to start this torture again from the beginning.
• I never found out how to properly throw a grenade in the game, many times Niko doesn't throw but tries to roll the grandee from underhand, but if that happens you have to run for your own life every time.
• The main story is incoherent, you play a small time criminal who takes on any job for any money, which is OK I guess for the start of the game, but when you already have a million credits it doesn't make sense anymore to play errand boy for a few thousand bucks.

If Saints Row had the graphics and physics of GTA, then it would wipe the floor with it. But unfortunately both are one armed giants. One has the looks and the feel, the other has the fun and the content. But because to me physics takes precedence GTA is still the better of the two for me.

This is no more than a mere 7/10, it's a fun game, with great graphics, but nowhere near as fun as GTA3, Vice City, or San Andreas was.

 

[DF-1]

starcraft 2: LoTV (3rd, protoss expansion)
6.0/10

Very bland, boring game. Beginning of each mission is waiting for probes to gather minerals for 5-10 minutes and not be able to do anything else.

Each mission you then send your units to a location on the map and kill everything or maintain control of it or hold out for X minutes. Thats it.

the story was just awful.

The mechanics of the game is still good, but boy did they just not care about making anything else worthwhile it seems.
I don't really think it was worthwhile to see the trilogy through.

 

[M76]

GTA IV: Episodes From Liberty City (2010)

I think this was the last actual retail expansion pack for a game I know of. Am I right? Was there anything after this? Downloadable content completely killed off this market, what do you think? Back in the day almost every successful game eventually got a mission pack. Now what we get is small bits and pieces as paid downloads that seem to have been axed from the base game. But usually no comprehensive new campaigns. If you ask me I'd gladly trade the DLC era for the expansion pack era.

But enough of the reminiscing, let's talk about GTAIV:EFLC - That's a mouthful.
I could repeat many of the things I've written about GTA IV, but I'll try to keep redundancy to a minimum, so if you haven't already, read that review first.
Actually Episodes From Liberty City is two add-ons in one. We get the Lost and Damned, and The Ballad of Gay Tony. Two entirely separate campaigns, and the two couldn't be any more different than they are.

The Lost and the Damned has a much more serious tone. If you're familiar with the TV Show Sons of Anarchy, then you'll feel right at home in this one. Since you're taking on the role of the second in command in a biker gang. And the similarities to the tv show are just beginning there.
On the other hand Ballad of Gay Tony brings back the mood of older GTAs like Vice City, and GTAIII, with much more emphasis on fun. While the story is serious, some characters and the situations you find yourself in are often hilarious. Here you take on the role of the "muscle" with your business partner who is a gay night club owner. As far as gay characters go, this is not the usual stereotypical kind.
It's true to both mission packs that the characters are much better and more developed than those in GTAIV. They're not the two bit thugs that are in there.
It's also a nice touch that sometimes you find yourself in missions from the base game, on the other side, or as a spectator.

The missions are more enjoyable in both of them. I was actually interested in the story of the Lost and the Damned, and had loads of fun with The Ballad Of Gay Tony.
Towards the end TLAD got a bit dry, and the biking got boring (I'm more of a cage guy) so I didn't mind it when it finally ended. On the other hand TBOGT I could've played on for a long time, especially after you get the swat tank, and the rifle with the explosive bullets.

I felt that the two campaigns combined gave about half the gameplay time of GTAIV, which is way more than any DLC I played ever offered.

Another difference compared to the base game is that there are real side missions, not just some very basic activities. You can do one side mission after every main story mission and still don't run out of them before you finish the story. So that's good. Unfortunately they're not that interesting after a while, so after wrapping up the story, I didn't have much motivation to finish all side missions.

They put in a few new radio stations to the game which is a welcome relief for me, because I didn't fancy any of the music in the base game. The new ones I can actually listen to. I didn't have to switch to independence fm all the time. Also some old channels got some new content as well, like Integrity, so it's worth a listen again.

All is left is the accounting of pros and cons,

+

• Vehicle handling and physics
• Graphics
• Story
  
• Atmosphere
• Gameplay/missions
• There are real side missions that are actually enjoyable
• Funnier missions and cutscenes
• New weapons and many new vehicles
• Now, you can restart just the last leg of the mission you failed.

-

• Could've been longer
• A little more challenge wouldn't hurt
• Now, you can restart just the last leg of the mission you failed. But if you don't have enough ammo/armor you still have to start from scratch.

It easily deserves a strong 8/10 score. The game was already pretty good, but this is where the story and the characters have also risen to the appropriate level. I think overall this is better than GTA V as well.

 

[Domingo]

South Park: The Fractured But Whole

It's a very strange game because almost all of the "game" portions are tedious if not outright bad. The core combat system is a turn-based RPG that would have been considered rudimentary 20 years ago. Outside of a couple boss fights, you're literally doing the same thing in all of them, too.
Most of the game you're running around collecting random items (that you only get a 1-line description of) and trying to get other characters to follow you on social media. Quicktime events abound, too.

Yet because the game is such a great representation of the show, it's compelling. The writing, voice acting, graphics, etc. are fantastic. The pacing (using items and different days) is also clever. It has polish galore.

I don't know if I've ever recommended this before, but this is the kind of game you need to watch instead of play. Check out a play-through video and save yourself time and money. I wouldn't even recommend renting it because playing it is no fun. As a game it's probably a 2/10. As a story it's closer to 9.

 

[danc3]

I recently finished a platformer game called Cuphead.
Overall, I would rate it positive.
It has old retro cartoon vibes, fun sounding music and themes. Cool animations, tunes, universe and story. A colorful, but difficult platformer.
For me, it can be frustrating at times, since certain bosses/levels are very difficult, and you have to keep repeating a certain stage over and over.
Takes much practice and tries but can be rewarding. Definitely challenging for me, but I'm sure some people enjoy the bitter struggle.

 

[Denpepe]

I just finished tales from the borderlands (on ps4), while the story was not bad per se, it is far from great, lot's of cameo's of char's from the other games but most of those are kind of forced and more of a fanservice.

But gameplay is almost non existant, it's like watching an interactive movie where you choose a dialogue option every now and then with the odd QTE, animations are pretty awfull, walking ones especially, it was worth the 6 € I payed for it beeing a borderlands fan, not sure I would recommend it to anyone else, but there might be an audience for this kind of "game", it's not me though.

 

[Kinsaras]

I just finished tales from the borderlands (on ps4), while the story was not bad per se, it is far from great, lot's of cameo's of char's from the other games but most of those are kind of forced and more of a fanservice.

Really? That's my favorite Telltale game. Had a Firefly feel to it.

 

[jh24]

I just finished the campaign of Sacrifice. A real-time strategy game made by Shiny Entertainment and released in 2000. Players control wizards who can summon creatures, cast spells, sacrifice souls to their god, and eventually have to desecrate their enemy's altar. (Main base)

There are five gods you can choose from, and there are 9 missions in the campaign. (Plus one final level) Because you often have a choice between multiple gods (especially in the first half of the game) there are dozens of ways you can finish the campaign. Depending on your choices the story will change and replayability is incredible. You often can see events and missions from different perspectives.

With each mission you'll grow stronger and gain new units and spells. Pyro for example is all about superior firepower and fire spells to crush your enemies.

Because you can switch between gods between missions, (although choices become less as the game progresses as some gods will hate you for siding with their rivals) you can end up with a very diverse army.

I really enjoyed playing this game although the controls can be pretty demanding and difficult but it's worth it. The game has an interesting story as the player tries to find his place in a new world.

+ Engaging story.
+ Still looks very nice, but a little rough around the edges.
+ Each god has a great presence and very different armies to play with.
+ Game has a detailed and lengthy tutorial, divided intro three tutorial missions.
+ Lots of replayability with many ways to play through the campaign.
+ Amazing voice acting.

- Steep learning curve, controls can be awkward in the beginning.
- Difficulty spikes in certain missions, forcing you to reload at times.
- Battles can be chaotic with lots of stuff going on.

Sacrifice is available on Steam.

A nice retro review from a gaming channel on Youtube. (Starts at 0:32)

 

[Flogger23m]

Borderlands 2 & DLC.

Where to start with this? It is such a mess of a game in every way possible. It is a good example of how not to make a game. It would be simpler to list what wasn't sub par with the game.

The menu system is horrible. Comparing gear is a chore. Organization is poorly done. Equipping weapons is finicky and often double clicks (I'm using a different mouse from when I first started playing). Sometimes the organization tab stops working when you are trying to sell or buy weapons. Important details are not shown in the inventory screen either.

Progression is horrendous. If you get a good gun expect to use it for hours upon hours. Character skills are slow to upgrade as well. Most skills are almost unnoticeable and you upgrade in increments of 2-5% typically. You can probably finish the entire game and still have most skills left untapped. For a game as long as BL2 it gets very stale very quickly.

Level scaling is equally terrible. I am not sure how Gearbox let this game out the door; it is as if they didn't even beta test the game. If you are a level below a missions level you will die and the mission will be almost impossible. If your level is equal it can be challenging but doable. Two levels lower than your character and the missions can be completed in your sleep. I am not sure what the hell happened here; the game shifts from impossible to easy in an instant.

DLC mission scaling is even more idiotic. DLC is level capped, meaning by the time you finish the main game you will be 1 shot killing enemies. You'd think changing your difficulty would be easy right? Apparently a toggle in the options was too difficult for Gearbox; instead you need to start a new game + mode. Your gear transfers over, great, but not your mission progress. So that means to get essential features such as Sanctuary (to spend Eredium, sell/buy things) you need to replay large portions of the game. Same with the vehicle spawning system. Yes, you cannot properly play the DLC until you replay large portions of the campaign - even if you are not finished with everything yet! I So to get back to Sanctuary you need to juggle between two different "game saves" insane at how stupid the developers were at Gearbox.

Also note on the "New game +" mode - you can't change your character. So if you wanted to play the DLC with a new character you'll have to replay the first few missions again and run into the same level cap problem down the road. You'd think they'd let that slide to change things up. Which leads us to...

Gameplay is very repetitive and sterile. 8-10 hours into the game you've done and seen everything in the game for all practical purposes. Enemies never change (aside from minor re-skins) and you get zero ability to change things up. Gameplay is always walking into an area, bad guys walk out of doors and charge at you. Objectives typically involve fetch quests, killing repeating enemies or pressing the knife slash key (and animation) for an action. Seldom is there anything interesting to watch as a result of your mission. Or do. No option for stealth. No weapon types that require different gameplay. Skills won't open up any new gameplay options after 6 hours of game time.

No game saving. If you click "Quit and Save" it won't actually save your game. You will respawn at the start of the map and all enemies will respawn. This adds to the repetition because often times you have to stop playing the game and do something else. Also, any cool loot items you found on the ground will disappear. Pathetically lame.

Story is shit. Worse than the first game. The ending was so abrupt, hell the diolgue got cut short. The humor is pretty lame to. Seems to cater to 13 year old kids. I very seldom found anything funny. The "jokes" are just so dumb and random.

The guns are boring as hell and essentially randomized reskins with different effects. There are really only 8-9 weapons just reskinned and can't be customized. Which makes getting a good combo a pain; you'll run through a dozen guns which are 99% the same just to find one with a scope you like. They all feel floaty and lifeless as does the movement. Your character also has a habit of getting caught on stairs or other environment objects. Ditto for vehicles.

The artwork sucks to. The maps don't look believable at all; most look like small non-connected standalone maps. The in game map makes zero sense to. Literally areas are random diamonds scattered across it. No connection to their location. At least BL1 created an interesting world to look at that seemed vast.

The game also suffers from performance stuttering (both Intel i5 & Ryzen 1600, GTX 970 and 1070, 8GB and 16GB). Some other odd issues like AI can regularly throw weapons through walls (while you can't), boss AI is occasionally stupid and can easily be beaten due to exploits to name a few.

I can go on more but I will stop here. I am not sure why this game has such a following. It is like Gearbox looked at a manual titled "How To Make A Shallow Game That Sucks" and followed it to the letter. It is underwhelming in literally every aspect.

I'd give it a 6/10 simply because the game didn't have too many bugs in terms of quests, crashing, ect. It just suffers from lack of direction and being a shitty game with zero depth.

 

[Denpepe]

Strangely I found BL2 one of the better games I played in the last decade, the getting stuck on stairs can be annoying but can be remedied by capping fps if it bothers you a lot. It did not happen to me when the game launched presumably because my pc could not run the game fast enough for it to happen.

It fixed what I hated about BL1 where enemies would respawn mid mission and you basically had to start that part over, then after you finished the mission and wanted to return to the main hub you had to kill the mobs again as they already respawned once again.

As for the weapons, I guess that's par for the course, in arpg's like diablo or path of exile 99.9% of all loot is garbage.

Anyways, I just finished Uncharted: the lost legacy, if you liked the previous one you will probably like this one too, it is shorter though, and less varied environnements, after having played the lot of them in the last year, not many surprises in this one, but it's a well made game and a fine entry for the series, did not miss Nathan or Sully one bit.

 

[ChoGGi]

Until Dawn. Took me 12 hours to complete it

So you liked the game, disliked it? What about the game did you like/dislike?

 

[M76]

So you liked the game, disliked it? What about the game did you like/dislike?

I was thinking the same thing. Without any kind of context this could be a diss just as much as it could be praise.