523 replies to this topic

[General]

DMC: Devil May Cry - 7,5/10

First positive thing I noticed about the game while I first start playing it was : sound, its very high quality and carefully implemented.

" Well, for the record Capcom did a very bad job at DMC series, as if it was a test subject, each game came completely unrelated of each other except some minor references. It was impossible to follow up to the series and understand something.
Timeline is so fucked up it is impossible to keep a record on whats going on and when. "

But now we have this, a prequel, a chance to start DMC once again properly, it happened to be better than I expect it to. While game is very creative and fun in many ways, some childish uncreative dialogues ruins it. Story overall is good enough, actually pretty good in some parts, but just for the sake of making Dante look more badass, it turns into childish at some parts.

Oh and there is that camera issue which makes you think that they did forget about coding camera stuff. But you get used to it after a while.

I am sure they will make a sequel though I am not sure how they gonna do this without passing over footprints of DMC1-2-3-4... And if they prepare story better next time it well may become an unforgottable experience.

[Alias]

Tomb Raider (2013)

Let me just start off by saying this is one of the most consistently good games of the last few years and a good case for why remakes and reboots can be a lot better than sequels.

First off, everything looks absolutely gorgeous. If you can sacrifice the framerate for it, turning on the hair (especially in the windy sections) is mindblowing. You traverse through the island and while some places use quite similar assets, the level design is quite a bit better than average so that these similar assets lend themselves to many different and diverse scenarios. The weather effects are very decent too, considering how much of a part they play throughout the story. The camera angles are very well done, considering how badly dodgy cameras plague this genre, it is nice to see someone doing it right for a change.

In terms of gameplay, it plays extremely well for a port (given the same people who ported Deus Ex: HR did this, I'm not surprised), and the controls never feel clunky, even through the numerous quick time events (and there are many of them), normally I'm not a fan of QTEs but they are very well implemented here – spaced out well between story sections, well designed and not so long that it is tiring, but not so short that it feels pointless. Overall, you can tell they have put a lot of effort into making them and some of the setpieces you get during these QTEs are quite amazing. As I'll mention later in the story section, it is very well paced. You acquire the major weapon upgrades just at the right times and the smaller salvage-based weapon upgrades are another great way of progressive customisation. The skills are overall very well done as well, they all have specific uses – unlike Far Cry 3 for instance, where half of the skill tree is pretty useless.

There is a nice amount of secondary content to collect as well, nothing absurd like the 100 feathers in Assassin's Creed, for example, there's usually around 10 collectibles per section plus each section has a special challenge which I felt kept each new area nice and fresh, a great addition. It tends to take the best gameplay elements from the previous titles in the series, and a few other franchises like Uncharted and Assassin's Creed to make a very pleasurable game to play. It was pretty easy at times, I would have liked some of it to be harder – but considering this is quite the untapped market these days I'm not surprised at them being cautious.

The characterisation is another very strong point, the character development of Lara as the progress through the game is paced extremely well (although there are some niggling issues between the actions you do in game, and those of the character, but this is such a minor thing). The voice acting (minus the fact I would've liked the Maori bloke to be voiced by a Kiwi, but oh well) and mocap is superb and you legitimately feel an intense sense of loss whenever you die ingame, as the death sequences are numerous and quite brutal, it definitely does a good job at giving you an idea of the stakes at hand. The writing is reasonable as well, for game standards – definitely above average. Another niggling issue here is the secondary characters are pretty cardboard, however given how little screen time they are given it isn't particularly surprising.

The storyline is a reasonable length, took me around 15 hours or so to complete. I feel it could have been a little longer, but hey, considering the quality of what is there I shouldn't be complaining. It starts and ends well, so they're definitely building on top of this for a sequel (and if they continue this quality, I won't be complaining about sequels). There are a few generic cliches here and there, but they aren't anything terribly distracting. Overall, it is well written, and unlike many games doesn't fall to pieces during the conclusion.

Overall it takes all the best parts of the old Tomb Raider games, Uncharted and Assassin's Creed and combines them into a very polished and very fun game. There are some minor flaws here and there, but this is about as close to flawless as flawless gets. It's nice to see a proper British (and female at that) protagonist for a change (who has character depth too!), instead of the sea of generic macho-man Americanos (I'm looking at you Nathan Drake) that pollute the current market.

9.5/10. Seriously give it a try, easily best of 2013 for me so far. Blows pretty much every game of 2012 out of the water. I sort of feel like Far Cry 3 is pretty obsolete now – Tomb Raider does the story-driven island survival far better than it does, and Just Cause 2 does the open-world do-what-you-want island better, but hey, that's just my opinion.

Edited by Alias, 07 March 2013 - 15:24.

[Libains]

Alias, on 07 March 2013 - 15:20, said:

Tomb Raider (2013)

[Lots of text from someone who's opinion of games I can usually empathise with]

Shame it's mother's day and I'm trying to save money at the best of times, but this game has seriously been on my wishlist for a while, and combined with The Last of Us, is seriously pushing me towards a cheapo PS3 right now :(

[Alias]

Libains, on 07 March 2013 - 17:08, said:

Alias, on 07 March 2013 - 15:20, said:

Tomb Raider (2013)

[Lots of text from someone who's opinion of games I can usually empathise with]

Shame it's mother's day and I'm trying to save money at the best of times, but this game has seriously been on my wishlist for a while, and combined with The Last of Us, is seriously pushing me towards a cheapo PS3 right now :(

There's a PC port – and a very good one at that. It's on Steam.

[Libains]

Alias, on 07 March 2013 - 17:24, said:

Libains, on 07 March 2013 - 17:08, said:

Alias, on 07 March 2013 - 15:20, said:

Tomb Raider (2013)

[Lots of text from someone who's opinion of games I can usually empathise with]

Shame it's mother's day and I'm trying to save money at the best of times, but this game has seriously been on my wishlist for a while, and combined with The Last of Us, is seriously pushing me towards a cheapo PS3 right now :(

There's a PC port – and a very good one at that. It's on Steam.

Stupid shitty laptop can't run it, and main PC is down the other end of the country :'( Glad the port is good though

[Ion Cannon!]

Bioshock infinite, as close to gaming perfection as you can get.

I won't actually tell you much about this, as I think it's better you discover as much of it for yourself, and oh boy is there a lot to discover. I'm a completionist and even I couldn't find everything! I've clocked about 24hrs from start to finish so for an FPS its lengthy
so it's lengthy for an FPS - and do yourself a favour, play on hard. Though admittedly I had to turn it down to medium for the final battle, which was then to easy

The only negatives are.

No manual saves
Limited to holding two weapons at a time, though the ammo is held regardless.

positives.

Everything else.

Seriously, buy this game! 98/100

Edited by Ion Cannon!, 31 March 2013 - 21:12.

[Raven]

Alias, on 07 March 2013 - 15:20, said:

Tomb Raider (2013)

Let me just start off by saying this is one of the most consistently good games of the last few years and a good case for why remakes and reboots can be a lot better than sequels.

First off, everything looks absolutely gorgeous. If you can sacrifice the framerate for it, turning on the hair (especially in the windy sections) is mindblowing. You traverse through the island and while some places use quite similar assets, the level design is quite a bit better than average so that these similar assets lend themselves to many different and diverse scenarios. The weather effects are very decent too, considering how much of a part they play throughout the story. The camera angles are very well done, considering how badly dodgy cameras plague this genre, it is nice to see someone doing it right for a change.

In terms of gameplay, it plays extremely well for a port (given the same people who ported Deus Ex: HR did this, I'm not surprised), and the controls never feel clunky, even through the numerous quick time events (and there are many of them), normally I'm not a fan of QTEs but they are very well implemented here – spaced out well between story sections, well designed and not so long that it is tiring, but not so short that it feels pointless. Overall, you can tell they have put a lot of effort into making them and some of the setpieces you get during these QTEs are quite amazing. As I'll mention later in the story section, it is very well paced. You acquire the major weapon upgrades just at the right times and the smaller salvage-based weapon upgrades are another great way of progressive customisation. The skills are overall very well done as well, they all have specific uses – unlike Far Cry 3 for instance, where half of the skill tree is pretty useless.

There is a nice amount of secondary content to collect as well, nothing absurd like the 100 feathers in Assassin's Creed, for example, there's usually around 10 collectibles per section plus each section has a special challenge which I felt kept each new area nice and fresh, a great addition. It tends to take the best gameplay elements from the previous titles in the series, and a few other franchises like Uncharted and Assassin's Creed to make a very pleasurable game to play. It was pretty easy at times, I would have liked some of it to be harder – but considering this is quite the untapped market these days I'm not surprised at them being cautious.

The characterisation is another very strong point, the character development of Lara as the progress through the game is paced extremely well (although there are some niggling issues between the actions you do in game, and those of the character, but this is such a minor thing). The voice acting (minus the fact I would've liked the Maori bloke to be voiced by a Kiwi, but oh well) and mocap is superb and you legitimately feel an intense sense of loss whenever you die ingame, as the death sequences are numerous and quite brutal, it definitely does a good job at giving you an idea of the stakes at hand. The writing is reasonable as well, for game standards – definitely above average. Another niggling issue here is the secondary characters are pretty cardboard, however given how little screen time they are given it isn't particularly surprising.

The storyline is a reasonable length, took me around 15 hours or so to complete. I feel it could have been a little longer, but hey, considering the quality of what is there I shouldn't be complaining. It starts and ends well, so they're definitely building on top of this for a sequel (and if they continue this quality, I won't be complaining about sequels). There are a few generic cliches here and there, but they aren't anything terribly distracting. Overall, it is well written, and unlike many games doesn't fall to pieces during the conclusion.

Overall it takes all the best parts of the old Tomb Raider games, Uncharted and Assassin's Creed and combines them into a very polished and very fun game. There are some minor flaws here and there, but this is about as close to flawless as flawless gets. It's nice to see a proper British (and female at that) protagonist for a change (who has character depth too!), instead of the sea of generic macho-man Americanos (I'm looking at you Nathan Drake) that pollute the current market.

9.5/10. Seriously give it a try, easily best of 2013 for me so far. Blows pretty much every game of 2012 out of the water. I sort of feel like Far Cry 3 is pretty obsolete now – Tomb Raider does the story-driven island survival far better than it does, and Just Cause 2 does the open-world do-what-you-want island better, but hey, that's just my opinion.

I always looked at TR games as playing second fiddle to Uncharted games although TR is an older franchise. But I agree with most of what you are saying. Sometimes it feels like they have copied Uncharted. But when you play it a bit its more like they have taken inspiration from the Uncharted series. Its different and feels awesome. I have been playing Titan Quest so much and wanted to finish that damn thing (in the last few hours of it i think) but I always went back to TR and I finished it while TQ is still unfinished.

I did not feel the graphics to be beautiful as you mention Alias. Were you playing on DX11? Actually Uncharted had better graphics than this (the PC version of TR on 1080p)

---------------------------------------------

Ion Cannon!, on 31 March 2013 - 21:06, said:

Bioshock infinite, as close to gaming perfection as you can get.

I won't actually tell you much about this, as I think it's better you discover as much of it for yourself, and oh boy is there a lot to discover. I'm a completionist and even I couldn't find everything! I've clocked about 24hrs from start to finish so for an FPS its lengthy
so it's lengthy for an FPS - and do yourself a favour, play on hard. Though admittedly I had to turn it down to medium for the final battle, which was then to easy

The only negatives are.

No manual saves
Limited to holding two weapons at a time, though the ammo is held regardless.

positives.

Everything else.

Seriously, buy this game! 98/100

I am dying to play this after seeing all the reviews but short on funds for the moment :(.

btw Greenman gaming has TR 25% for Easter.

Edited by Raven, 01 April 2013 - 03:06.

[Alias]

Raven, on 01 April 2013 - 03:05, said:

I always looked at TR games as playing second fiddle to Uncharted games although TR is an older franchise. But I agree with most of what you are saying. Sometimes it feels like they have copied Uncharted. But when you play it a bit its more like they have taken inspiration from the Uncharted series. Its different and feels awesome. I have been playing Titan Quest so much and wanted to finish that damn thing (in the last few hours of it i think) but I always went back to TR and I finished it while TQ is still unfinished.


I did not feel the graphics to be beautiful as you mention Alias. Were you playing on DX11? Actually Uncharted had better graphics than this (the PC version of TR on 1080p)

And Uncharted copied Tomb Raider to a certain extent, the process has just gone full circle. This is how innovation should be, inspiration bouncing back and forth between different creative minds. It's definitely taken the best bits from both series and combined it into an amalgam of the two. One of the only things I wished there was more of in Tomb Raider was Tombs, ironically. The rest of the game was exceptional as I mentioned in my post.

I had it on DX11, with everything maxed including the hair on full (which really is the standout) running at 1080p. It ran fine on my ~3 year old 5870 at max.

Ion Cannon!, on 31 March 2013 - 21:06, said:

Bioshock infinite, as close to gaming perfection as you can get.

I won't actually tell you much about this, as I think it's better you discover as much of it for yourself, and oh boy is there a lot to discover. I'm a completionist and even I couldn't find everything! I've clocked about 24hrs from start to finish so for an FPS its lengthy
so it's lengthy for an FPS - and do yourself a favour, play on hard. Though admittedly I had to turn it down to medium for the final battle, which was then to easy

The only negatives are.

No manual saves
Limited to holding two weapons at a time, though the ammo is held regardless.

positives.

Everything else.

Seriously, buy this game! 98/100

I've got to pretty much agree with every single thing you've said, although I think you may have stretched the time out a little bit too long. I managed to finish it in around 16 hours, doing almost all of the sidequests as well (pretty sure I explored the entire map). I'll try and keep this mostly spoiler free, but for optimum experience don't read anything I put in spoiler tags as it may reduce the enjoyment you get from playing it, this game is truly an experience that you should have with minimal input from outside sources until you've finished it.

The storyline is by far the best in any game I've played since (obviously) the first Bioshock, Ken Levine is truly a storytelling genius. If you have any love of singleplayer games at all, even if you don't particularly like FPS you need to play it. It has easily shot straight to game of the year 2013 (and if I'm thinking correctly, it's currently the game of this decade as well). I did find the writing a little thin in the middle third, but the first and the last third are easily some of the best in history. Seriously - you should drop whatever you're doing and play this through sooner rather than later.

Spoiler

And of course, as with the first game, there is one hell of a very well executed twist.

I found a couple of niggling issues like you did, the lack of manual saves did tick me off a bit as I'm so used to quicksaving from the original Bioshock. Even on hard, I found it a little easier than the first game as well, never really felt hard-pressed for ammo like you did in the first game and even when you do, you have so much money and ammunition is so cheap (unlike the first game, where it was quite costly) it's fairly easy to stay at full stocks, not to mention Elizabeth keeping you at full for most of the game.

I did find reasonably quickly (around 40% of the way through) that there was an ideal combination of weapons (which means you don't really need to worry about the two weapon limit), clothing/gear and vigor so that sort of made the gameplay a little less interesting, but the environments and the enemies were varied enough that most of the time I completely forgot about that fact and just absorbed into the game.

Despite the minor issues, there are only two or three games of this quality every decade, so I think this score is more than well deserved.
10/10

[Raven]

Alias, on 02 April 2013 - 12:14, said:

Raven, on 01 April 2013 - 03:05, said:

I always looked at TR games as playing second fiddle to Uncharted games although TR is an older franchise. But I agree with most of what you are saying. Sometimes it feels like they have copied Uncharted. But when you play it a bit its more like they have taken inspiration from the Uncharted series. Its different and feels awesome. I have been playing Titan Quest so much and wanted to finish that damn thing (in the last few hours of it i think) but I always went back to TR and I finished it while TQ is still unfinished.


I did not feel the graphics to be beautiful as you mention Alias. Were you playing on DX11? Actually Uncharted had better graphics than this (the PC version of TR on 1080p)

And Uncharted copied Tomb Raider to a certain extent, the process has just gone full circle. This is how innovation should be, inspiration bouncing back and forth between different creative minds. It's definitely taken the best bits from both series and combined it into an amalgam of the two. One of the only things I wished there was more of in Tomb Raider was Tombs, ironically. The rest of the game was exceptional as I mentioned in my post.

I had it on DX11, with everything maxed including the hair on full (which really is the standout) running at 1080p. It ran fine on my ~3 year old 5870 at max.

Perhaps my lack DX10 is the problem then.

Damn I want the infinite so badly now...

[SquigPie]

Spoiler

Bioshock Infinite was a dissappointment in my opinion, the setting and its people felt like bland footnotes in the second half of the game, and everyone seemed to forget that they weren't in the original universe anymore. The dimension travel thing was a tumour that killed the plot and Songbird was a cutscene cameo. Gameplay was nothing in particular. Fun but not amazing.

Edited by Bob, 04 April 2013 - 10:29.

[Alias]

Spoiler tags might be nice for those who haven't played it yet.

Each to their own, I don't really agree with you on that – I mean it's not the first Bioshock, because that was, like Half Life, a revolutionary step that can only happen once. However, just about the only thing from the first Bioshock I was left wanting in this was multiple endings and inventory/ammunition management being an actual part of the gameplay.

[Slightly Wonky Robob]

Alias, on 04 April 2013 - 03:01, said:

Spoiler tags might be nice for those who haven't played it yet.

I concur.

[Chyros]

Receiver - 6,5/10

It was almost inevitable I'd buy this, for course. A gun simulator indie game available on steam, it costs very little but provides a fun distraction.

The player is in a colourful, blocky level consisting of map elements that seem to be randomly put together to create random levels. The player is given one pistol; either a Colt M1911, a Smith & Wesson revolver, or a Glock 17, one to three magazines with a random amount of bullets, a tape player, and sometimes a flashlight, and you start at a random location. The whole game is very minimalist; there are only two enemies (a stationary gun turret and a small flying drone), all level elements are low-detailed and quite blocky, and the objective isn't much more complicated than Slender; find 11 cassette tapes. These tapes, when played, give you clues about what's going on.

The main thing that makes the game stand out is the staggering attention to detail on the weapons; it's a true gun nut game. There is no reload button; to reload, you will need to pull up the weapon, pull out the magazine, put it away, pull out a different magazine, insert it into the weapon, and if necessary, pull back the slide, all manually, and yes, all with different keys. The magazines need to be manually refilled with bullets and magazine management is actually an important part of the game. You can even pull the slide back partially to inspect the chamber to see whether it's loaded or not, without ejecting a casing in the case there was. Of course you can also cock the hammer, put on the safety, holster the weapon, etc. etc. etc. In terms of gun handling, I don't know any game that comes anywhere near the realism levels of this game. The attention to detail is AMAZING.

The game itself is extremely hard. Everything kills you instantly; a single bullet from a turret, a single zap from a drone, falls from small heights, and even accidental bullet ricochets of your own weapon. There is no health bar and no recovery, because any amount of hurt kills you immediately. The drones give off a short bleep before they engage, but have very fast reaction times, so if you hear a bleep but don't see an enemy, run back immediately or you'll inevitably die. The drones have to be hit quite accurately; bullets might simply ricochet off or they might immobilise the enemy but not destroy them, making them still able to kill you if you go into their line of sight. Furthermore you don't get much help; bullets are quite scarce and managing them well is absolutely critical. The controls are very complicated and take some getting used to, but once mastered, it's not that hard.

Overall, if you are a gun nut or like indie games that pose a considerable challenge, Receiver is a fun, cheap little thingy to waste some time on. If not, give it a pass.

Gameplay:

[Chyros]

Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition - 9/10

A PC version of Mortal Kombat 2011 with added goodies, this is as far as I'm aware the first reentry of a major fighting game franchise to the PC in many years. As I have a penchant for fighting games and MK in particular, I had to get it - particularly as it seemed to be extremely well done.

And it is! I'm delighted to say they've actually really looked at the game and focused on how to make it better to play - as far as I'm aware they've never actually done this before. As a result, they've gone back to 2D-style fighting, ditching the failed 3D sidestep-like gameplay, completely overhauled the combo system, and went for an actually useful raster of characters. The second means that most characters don't have preset combos longer than 3, sometimes 4, hits. In order to make longer combos, you need to chain additional hits like air hits and special moves, somewhat more like in games like One Must Fall and Killer Instinct. Altogether this new combo system works much better, relying less on memorising annoying key combinations, and much more relying on intuition. They also added many more gametypes to add variety, including one where four random modifiers affect all gameplay (for instance full super meter, no jumping, that sort of thing).

The character roster is also much better. They basically went for all the favourite characters and ditched all the annoying, insignificant morons they introduced over the years in Deception, Deadly Alliance and so forth. Furthermore, they made the characters look and feel special; the visuals are pretty amazing. To top it off, they even included retro skins and models so if, like me, you prefer the loose-fitting, simple MK1 costumes on the ninjas, you can. The only character I think they made look and sound like a right moron is Raiden, who looks like a thick-lipped retard and most of his badass sound effects are missing (still says "Give me my money!" and "Freddy bought a car!" when doing his torpedo move, though ).

And then, there's the addition of a Super Meter - an attribute that made games like The Last Blade and other SNK games such good fighting games, and which has been conspicuously absent from MK games until now. The super Meter has three levels that you fill up during fighting; using up one bar allows you to perform a more powerful version of any of your special moves (usually extra damage, higher hit chance or both), two bars allows you to do a combo breaker, and using up all three allows you to do an X-ray move; essentially a very powerful special move where a lot of bones get broken. It's called such because you get to see inside the victim's body, so you can see bones and organs being destroyed. To do all this, they had to model all characters not just on the outside, but with layers of skin, bones, and organs, and you can see that other races have different internal body structures and skeletons from this as well. No more characters exploding into 10 arms and twelve skulls like in older games! This development also has the added benefit of making it possible to develop even more brutal Fatalities, which are possibly the best they ever made. For an example of an X-ray move, see the video below.



All in all, if you like fighting games, I highly recommend this. It's cracking great fun, and plays very well! Combining the strengths of the old games with many new innovations that immensely improve gameplay, this one came out very well.

[General]

XCOM : Enemy Within 9/10

It is one of the best dlcs around. It really does improve a lot of thing and make an already good game even better. Only weak side is that it doesn't come up with a new story, though it adds something to it but it basically the same thing anyway.
Now only thing missing in XCOM is a proper story. If they are gonna do a sequel to this game; all they have to do is focusing on story first. Then they can add some new enemies, tech and weapons and perhaps improve the graphics a little bit. There you have it, a perfect game. But if they scratch what they did with the dlc and do something completely new; they will ruin it.

Edited by General, 30 November 2013 - 18:13.

[samster01]

Risk of Rain Review
http://youtu.be/Cia3haHicFU
(Risk of Rain Steam Release Trailer).

Playtime = 20 hours (As of when I started writing the review).

Characters Unlocked = 4 out of 10

Longest Time Survived = 44 Minutes

Risk of rain is a 2D side-scrolling rouge-like-like shooter where the player is tasked with defeating monsters, and reaching the teleporter to advance to the next level, so they can ultimately escape the planet.

They do this by using 4 main skills bound to the Z, X, C, V keys.

Z - typically your characters main attack move. (No Cooldown).
X - Some form of stun. (3-4 seconds).
C - Mobility or protection. (3-8 seconds).
V - Heavy damage. (8-15 seconds).

Now I say "typically main attack" since the game features 10 different characters, all with their own unique skillsets. As of this review I have only unlocked 3 new characters,but they each play completely differently. The starting character the Commando, relies on his speed, range and dodge roll ( C ) to survive. The next character players will likely unlock is the slow, shotgun wielding, Enforcer. His playstyle involves hunkering down in a quiet corner using his riot-shield to block damage from one side ( C ).

Your characters skillset, however, is only half of the games combat. As you kill monsters you'll be awarded coins and exp. Exp levels up your character, increasing your health and base damage. Pretty standard.

Coins can be spent to unlock Item Chests and repair damaged Drones around the environment. Item variety is huge, some items heal you when out of combat, others cause electricity to arc from your character, give you more gold when killing enemies, infect your character with a transmissible disease that is passed on when touched, and literally hundreds of other effects.

Now you might think the logical way to progress through the game is to farm the monsters, slowly gaining more gold so you can open all the Item Chests in each level? This strategy is complicated by RoR's difficulty bar. The bar starts on very easy and ramps up one notch every minute of time survived, eventually reaching ludicrous levels of difficulty.

This means that in every run of the game the player is forced to make a meaningful choice:

Do I stay in the level longer collecting more items, becoming more powerful, whilst my enemies do the same?

Or

Do I collect a few cheap items before quickly fighting the Boss, risking being under-levelled and under-powered for the following levels?

Often a balance of the two approaches works best. The player needs items to compete with the tougher, more damaging monsters from later levels, but staying in a level for more than 10 minutes is usually dangerous.

In conclusion RoR has plenty of replayability. The game features comprehensive item and monster logs which gradually get filled in as you play the game. The items in particular are described in a darkly comic fashion. Certain characters have to be found by exploring specific levels, others are unlocked by beating the game multiple times. Plenty of content to keep the player coming back for more.

RoR = 9-10

Note: I haven't touched the co-op portion of the game yet but I understand that it requires port forwarding in order to work correctly.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that the game has a fantastic soundtrack that really helps sell the games tone and atmosphere.

Edited by samster01, 06 December 2013 - 17:57.

[Chyros]

^Bought this game on the autumn sale recently, I agree with this review, it's simple but actually quite fun. Can get ridiculously hard but is definitely worth a shot. Cheap, but effective, essentially. 7,5/10

Edited by Chyros, 06 December 2013 - 22:45.

[Chyros]

Crimsonland - 7/10

A remake of an old top-down shooter game also called Crimsonland, this version is almost exactly the same, except it adds some new stuff, the graphics are improved (but very similar) and most of all, is compatible with OSes later than Win 98 . Free for those who bought the original and not that expensive to begin with, this is one of those little games that you can spend some time on while you're waiting for something, or you can spend a LOT of time with if you want, especially if you're on a good streak.

Unassuming as hell, the game literally doesn't ahve a shred of a story. It's just you in a box with a bunch of aliens spawning. They drop weapons and bonuses and you go on a killing spree. There are a whole bunch of game modes, including a campaign where you unlock new toys to play with, and a survival mode where you level up, and each time you do, you choose from one of four random perks that gives you the standard increased damage or speed or whatever, or something more exotic. There's a wide variety of interesting perks to choose from and they're all quite fun.

There's also a ton of weapons. A few are familiar ones - you always start off with a pistol, and there's an assault rifle and an uzi. But things quickly escalate into a variety of more noteworthy weapons such as three different types of flamethrowers, a sonic gun, a bunch of different rocket launchers, plasma weapons, ion weapons, and gauss guns. Generally speaking there's a rifle, cannon, shotgun and minigun of each of these, so yes, that means you can get an ion cannon, plasma rifle, or gauss shotgun (!) or gauss minigun (!!). All the weapons are a lot of fun and quite interesting, especially when combined with interesting perks. All of the weapons have their own pros and cons; some of the weapons really take names, but they might leave you very vulnerable while reloading for instance.

The resulting carnage is ridiculous and usually pretty much the whole screen is red with blood . The game can be a bit spammy with enemies, but essentially it's just a bit of fun to be had .

[TheDR]

Papers Please



Pseudo-soviet border simulator. You are a border guard and you have to check papers and passports. Of course you can take bribes, do shady deals and detain people for extra cash. The game isn't morally obtuse, if you do the 'bad path' it doesn't mean the game will punish you. Most of the choices end up being rather ambiguous so it gets tricky to choose. What I thought would be the problem with the game is where it excels.

The actual game play is surprisingly fun. It becomes a game of memory and quick mouse actions. Chucking the passport onto the right space on the desk where you can instantly slap down an approving stamp. The mechanics switch up and evolve as you play so you are always on your toes. If you get a 'bad' ending you can always restart at any of the days you previously passed to change your decisions or just to see what would happen you followed a plot line. For a game with simple sprites, the characters are really engaging. By the end of the game you'll get angry with people not getting passports out straight away and you will sympathise with those in complex administration.

I played the game locally with a friend (one of us checked numbers, the other checked weights and manned the desk). It was really fun playing the game with another person and I would definitely recommend that. However I imagine single player would be just as good.

[Chyros]

Doom 4 (2016) X/10

As some of you might know, I'm a massive fan of the original Doom, as well as Doom 2. As one of the most important and influential games of all time (generally credited with popularising the FPS genre) and certainly the most pivotal PC game of all time, this game, being a hardcore PC gamer who grew up in the 90s and who mostly plays shooters nowadays, this game is quite dear to me. I've played those two games so much, and absolutely love them to bits. I have a Doom t-shirt, and now a massive Doom poster as well. Doom 3 was an interesting horror experience at the time, but ultimately a poor successor to the series. And now, years later, Doom 4 comes out, made by different people in a different era, 23 years after the original which was responsible for countless gameplay innovations, the birth of a genre, and even PC gaming in general. To make matters worse, Brutal Doom has been a hugely popular phenomenon for several years now. Made by a Doom fan much more hardcore even than me, a true visionary who managed to elevate the game to an entirely new level while retaining everything that made Doom, Doom, with an abundance of extremely impressive metal remakes of the entire Doom soundtrack available, this mod is hugely entertaining to play even for a 2017 game. In the face of classic Doom's immeasurable legacy, and Brutal Doom's outstanding remaster, how could Doom 4 possibly stack up?

To my amazement, initial reviews called it spectacular. Tales of spectacular gameplay and a very Doom-like feeling circulated around. I dismissed this as blah-blah; after all, even just looking at it, it doesn't look anything like Doom (the first boxart they came up with was especially terrible). And then players reviewed it, and they still liked it. Loved it, even. Even now the reviews are highly positive. Could there possibly a speck of truth to this? Could the new game really be Doom? Recently, Steam gave a massive discount, and I decided to take the plunge.

I was prepared to hate this game. I more or less knew I would. So, I decided to just try to enjoy it as a game, rather trying to enjoy it as Doom. Note that I'm three paragraphs in and I still haven't torn this game to shreds, which is saying something.

The truth is, I like it. It's fun. It's the type of visceral thrill that you'd associate with Doom. Ultra-macho gameplay and atmosphere, and many core gameplay from the original are still in place. The player still runs at 80 km per hour. The entire Doom arsenal is back, plus a few originals. Most of the monsters do, too. Gore and gibs abound. Metal soundtrack overlaying it all. There are even still armour shards and health vials lying around everywhere, and the inexplicable ammo cashes dotted around Hell. There are tons of easter eggs and references throughout the game. It really WANTS to be Doom. But still, it's not.

The game was developed by id software, just like the original, and Bethesda has also chimed in. But John Romero, John Carmack, Tom Hall and Bobby Prince are gone, and id is not now what it used to be. These people love Doom, but they don't love it in the same way. Moreover, Bethesda's influence has left a strong imprint that's almost orthogonal to the game. Weapon mods, upgrade points in several currencies, upgrade trees, activated abilities, cooldowns, collectibles, customisation, a huge bunch of challenges, mission objectives, and even a whole storyline arcing through everything, with flashbacks and the whole nine yards.

These elements varyingly add some variety to the gameplay, but many also really detract from it. An enormous amount of time is spent just platform jumping and climbing onto ledges. The challenges really distract from the gamefeel, and in some cases you're actually pulled away to a separate arena; the worst decision they could've made for this as it kills the flow of the game completely. The story doesn't just make no sense, but actually strongly detracts from the character of the protagonist in my opinion. The weapons feel weak and impotent, and the game clearly revolves now more on finishing off enemies with melee moves than blasting them apart with your kickass arsenal. The levels, while extremely gorgeous, make combat feel boring and repetitive, and are badly designed in places. The gameplay is a weird amalgam between a classic shooter that simultaneously tries to be an arena shooter which doesn't work all that well in my opinion. The game features Haste and Quad Damage powerups - what, is this Quake now? And even the soundtrack, although it contains some very subtle references to the original soundtrack, feels boring and bland; a particularly cardinal sin considering how amazing the original soundtracks by Bobby Prince were. There's a lot to hate in this game.

But I don't. I don't hate it. I think it's fun. I probably won't play it much more than just this one playthrough (~8 h with full exploration), but I enjoyed playing it while I did, despite all the problems. The truth is, gaming has moved on. Gaming demands checkpoints and a narrative and customisation and skill points and all that jazz. I guess Doom 4 is basically what Doom would've been like if it had been released in 2016. No longer an innovator, or a giant leap for mankind. Just a fun little game. And that's not a bad position to be in .

Edited by Chyros, 28 May 2017 - 01:02.

[Krieger22]

Watch Dogs 2.

It's actually good.

The main characters are actually likeable and are permitted by the story to take sensible, or at least in-character courses of action. No more "enter focus mode after when it would have actually been useful".

The plot, while definitely ripped from the headlines with plenty of wish fulfillment going on (let's face it, the history of online activist movements that didn't dissolve into various flavors of bigotry almost instantly is a very short one), has plenty of standout writing and setpieces. However, the tone can undercut some of the stakes, and the seriousness of the death of a storyline character is undercut by said character's chronic underuse, excellence of acting during actual appearances asides.

Gameplay is greatly improved by the addition of the drones for remote interaction, albeit at the cost of making the online "destroy these items" missions comically easy once you have fully researched drone abilities and IED or electroshock device quantity upgrades. The large scale hacks such as blackouts or mass distractions now use a cooldown instead of requiring crafting, which is nice, although I have yet to encounter a single situation where the mass vehicle hack would have been useful. The added non-lethal options are very welcome, although I feel that Marcus still carries way too much ammunition for lethal weapons to encourage clever use of hacking instead. He's carrying, what, 13 20 round magazines of 7.62x51 for the Not!G3? Also, bodies cannot be dragged out of sight, so using the lure function on hackable environmental objects or your throwables is the only way to set up ambushes for lone guards without risking someone stumbling upon their body.

The Bay Area is an absolutely beautiful environment to take in, even on low graphical settings. It's possible to just wander the streets (or parks, or seas) for hours, taking in the sights and sounds and the occasional overheard phone or text conversation. Sure, you'll be running about it a lot to get collectibles, but the views make it worth your while.

The licensed soundtrack is diverse and fitting, if you don't mind the underrepresentation of Bay Area rap and hip-hop too much. The composed soundtrack by Hudson Mohawke... there really isn't a bad track in the lot.

It's just fun. The people working on this game clearly had fun making it, and it shows. It certainly is quite the shame that the first game's general averageness hurt interest in this game, because Ubisoft Montreal has caught on to what makes the premise work.

[General]

Warhammer 40.000 Dawn of War 3 - 6/10

This review is solely based on campaign mode:

My impression when i first started to play the game was: "WHOA! Amazing! Now thats how a warhammer 40k game should be!"
Design and animations are amazing, sound and music also is. So what is the issue? Everything looks and sounds great so why it is not 10/10 or 9/10 atleast?
Gameplay... It is just not fun at all. I am saying this as a person whom spent hundreds of hours playing previous Dawn of War games.
It is soulless, it is as boring as a real war could get. Storyline is very serious. Space Marines and Eldar look incredibly serious and suits to the story but Orks ruin it(I guess it is their purpose to ruin things so they succeed on it atleast) they just don't fit in. It is like producers wanted to include Orks just for the sake of how popular they are.
I enjoyed playing as Space Marines and Eldar versus each other and get involved into the story but everytime i played Orks or againist Orks, it felt ridiculous. I know Orks in DoW universe kinda meant to but this time they kinda overdone it and they don't fit in with the dark atmopshere and the story of the game.
For those who liked Last Stand from the previous Warhammer games: There is a nice surprise for you at the end of the campaign.

I liked the new setting, it had a lot of promise but fails to deliver it fully. Maybe after an expansion or two, by adding new factions, it can get playable. Currently it isn't worth the price. Perfection isn't always equal to fun in games and thats the part this game failed.

Edited by General, 03 July 2017 - 12:19.

[General]

Doom 4 (2016) 7/10

While Chyros' review is a pretty much spot on, i think we still need another review made by a non Doom fan! I didn't play the first Doom games, first Doom game i played was Doom 3 and i enjoyed it, wasn't amazing or anything but was fun to complete once. This game is pretty much the same, fun to finish once, but better than Doom 3 in every aspect.

Story:
As a person who cares a lot about single player/campaign storyline, the story satisfied my need. Again, wasn't great but was satisfactory. It was intriguing and actually it was fun and interesting to read the data logs scattered around in the game. In the story, there is a connection with Doom 3 story, so if you didn't play Doom 3 or payed attention to its story (which wasn't that good, so why should you anyway!) then you might miss some of the points in this one.

Visual Design:
Mars Building/Environment:
Absolutely gorgeous and detailed, it gives the feel it aims to give.

Creatures:
Models overall look good but there is an endless way to design demons and they ended up designing demons with almost identical facial structures? It gets boring to watch to finish off the creatures with very similiar physical features, over and over again.

"HELL":
Again, out of the countless ways to design the damn Hell, they came up with this one? It doesn't feel like Hell at all. It feels more like a destroyed and desolated alien world. Some places in Mars actually looked much spookier than Hell, with human remains and blood contrasting on metal surface. That should give you an idea about how badly they designed the Hell.
Scenery looks great, but it isn't Hell.
Completely disappointed me on this one since i really wanted to see a good Hell design. Considering how game development advanced and seeing how they designed first levels so well, my expectations for it was quite high.

Weapons:
Lovely, especially the animation when the player gets hold on a new weapon for the first time.

Sound/Music:
Almost lame, nothing special. Zombies make a lot more noise than your weapons do. In fact, i think they are the loudest things in the whole game... You can hear them coming from 10 miles away while you don't notice a Hell Knight until it starts pounding you.
For the music, it starts good, then gets worse(If it was the other way around, would have been acceptable) and doesnt fit to the gameplay. It feels more like you muted the in game music and playing a random metal track in the background.

Gameplay:
Despite all the flaws, it is fun to finish. It took around 10 hours. Could be completed much faster but i took my time reading logs,checking scenery and looking for secret areas.

Conclusion: I don't see myself playing it again unless if they release an expansion pack. But then again, i won't get it if they release it with full game price, would not worth it.

[General]

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen 8/10

I didn't read the reviews before purchasing the game so i expected a new story or continuation of the story of XCOM 2, it hit me hard when i realized it is the same story with an added enemy faction: Chosen.(Similiar to Enemy Within)

However, they did a good job by adding Chosen. Their interaction with your characters makes it worth finishing the game again. Honestly, i felt sad for finishing them off, game was much more fun with them being around, added another level of immersion to it, and another layer of difficulty which makes you think even more before making your move. I finished the game on normal difficulty and at times it got a bit difficult in missions with Chosen in it. Perhaps i could have failed to finish the game successfully if i didn't reload the game after losing a few of my units. I know thats not how you supposed to experience XCOM but i just wanted to see if the story could go in a different manner.

Also they added 3 new friendly faction/unique class: Reapers,Skirmishers and Templars (Basically the friendly version of the Chosen: Melee, Sniper and Psionic specialists)

I know zombies are overused and milked like hell in video games, but i liked the way they implemented it in this expansion.

If you played previous XCOM games for its unique difficult gameplay only and liked it, then you will love this one. But if you need a good story to finish a single player game just like i do, then it doesn't worth the current price. But get it when it is on % 30-50 sale, it will definitely worth it that way.

Edit: After giving it a try on Commander difficulty with Ironman enabled, i have to say this is the way the game meant to be played. Gameplay is so much more fun and addicting. It is very punishing though, doesn't forgive a mistake. One wrong move can make you lose your entire squad. Couldn't finish it on my first 2 attempts.

Edited by Generay, 06 November 2017 - 06:56.