Review the game you finished recently.

[Gigabut]

Shotgun King, it is challanging and quick-paced (I did it quick never got the time to read all those texts)

 

[Domingo]

Ratchet & Clank: A Rift Apart (PC)

I probably don't need to get too far into the weeds with this review. It's a platformer/action title with shooting elements mixed in, too. If you like those type of titles, it's about as good as any I've played. There are roughly 20 weapons that can be powered up and upgraded along the way. Of those, at least 12-15 of them are worthwhile. A few seem pointless (or clones of another weapon), but you don't have to bother with them if you don't want. You can do absolutely fine only using 4-5 weapons if you like. The main perk of having so many weapons is mostly so you don't run out of ammo.

On the technical side of things, the graphics for this title = full on amazing. It's one of the best looking games I've ever played in any genre. The sound is killer, too. Especially when it comes to directional audio cues. It also has almost zero loading. There are lots of graphical options to tweak in order to play it on a variety of systems. It has a pile of different scaling algorithms including DLSS frame-generation, too. Frame-gen works amazingly well, too. For a twitchy platformer, you'd never even know it was on. It's just as responsive either way.

The only complaint I have with the game is its length. It's a 12-15 hour game for most people. You might squeeze more out of it if you're going for a platinum trophy or maxing out all of your gear, but that's it. There's a NG+ mode, but it doesn't add/change much. You unlock 2 more weapons and you can power your existing weapons up more, but nothing else changes. Enemies are more spongy, but don't do anything different. The levels are all the same. I would have liked new arena challenges or some changes to the enemies/levels.

Still, the game is really, really good. It's a fun game and it's a hell of a tech demo, too. At this point you can probably find it for $30-40, too. That's a really good price for a game of this quality.

Highly recommended.

 

[ochadd]

Warhammer 40,000: Gladius – Relics of War. Single player only.

Slowest game I've ever played. I was probably 3+ hours into my very first game using Space Marines before realizing that I had only been fighting the wildlife. I thought they were the other team. Finally discovered the other faction and killing one bad guy was comically slow. I'd deploy my entire army completely upgraded with every research completed and it would take multiple rounds to destroy a single aircraft or enemy vehicle. I spent almost half a day, real life 4 hours, sitting at the enemy gates trying to take down defenders. I got bored and ended the game. I bet I would have had another 4 hours of fun-free killing to clean up stragglers.

Started a second game as Necrons because they seemed more powerful. I immediately went out to try and find the enemy base. It would take 3 turns for two infantry squads to kill a pack of wild dogs. When I found the enemy base (Orks) I steam rolled them without issue.

I decided to try my first game again but cheat like crazy. I loaded in and made my entire army max level to try and move things along. Even with all level 10 units it was so boring I stopped playing. I'll probably have to try the other two factions just to see but I have not enjoyed the same so far. Probably 8-10 hours in and only finished two matches. Neither one was fun.

 

[KickAssCop]

FF7 Crisis Core. Solid game. 8/10. It’s PSP roots were evident and I would’ve been pissed off to pay the full price. However, picked this up on discount and it was fine for a 10 hour run. Good to have some prelude to what happens in FF7 games.

 

[KickAssCop]

Finished FF7 Intermission DLC. Was good enough and probably one of the DLCs that should’ve been DLC as incorporating it in main game would’ve been bad.

 

[modi123]

Finished Tiny Tina's Wonderland over the weekend and rather enjoyed it. The blend of tabletop RPG and the usual shoot/loot/scoot worked out pretty well. The known voice actors were a nice surprise and while the story was sort of weak it didn't really hamper anything.

The loot and classes were appropriately themed and the quests and locations all really homed into a 'd&d style session'. The side quests were funny and bordered on even cheeky.

I did like how the Inn changed in relation to the various mini bosses your killed.

If I played D&D anymore I would have considered picking up the actual tabletop rule books.

With only moderate side quest completion my playthrough to the end was about 30ish hours with the game telling me it was 72% complete. I added about 10 more hours moping up side quests and the usual borderlands bric-a-brac achievements and hidden item hunting.

I'll probably clean up last of the marbles and golden dice, and I'll wait for the DLCs to hit discounts before getting those.


View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1286680/Tiny_Tinas_Wonderlands/

 

[theoldseller]

I finished tony hawk pro skater 5 to me it seem rushed and i rather play the other ones.

 

[Flogger23m]

Horizon Forbidden West


One of my more anticipated games, I was looking forward to this as I enjoyed Horizon Zero Dawn quite a bit. Generally, it plays quite nicely although I found it inferior in a number of areas. By the end of the game, I felt like the plot had written itself into an odd place, and makes me hope the next entry in the series is the final one before the series goes off the rails.


Aloy's face got oddly fatter.

When it comes to gameplay it is generally fun, and not too different from the first game. You have a variety of weapon types at your disposal. Bows, disc launchers, spikes/javelins, tripwires, projectile launchers, and a few others. There are several elements which must be used against certain types of enemies, all of which have weaknesses or resistances. Most of these weapon types are fun to use, although there are some clear winners. I found that HFW had some balancing issues with certain weapons being impractical and others being much better. Multiple gameplay features return, except for the worse. Component tearing, which is necessary to secure specific crafting parts, is a much larger focus in HFW. This limits your practical weapon choice as you need to tear of components constantly. The grind for resources never subsides even by the end of the game. If you choose to upgrade some weapons it will be a long time before you can upgrade others. If you decide to upgrade spike throwers, you may be unable to upgrade disc tearing weapons for many, many hours. The result is you use fewer weapon types.


Knocking off specific components becomes more of a chore than a fun gameplay mechanic.

Essentially, all the annoying things about Horizon Zero Dawn became more annoying. Component tearing and upgrading felt organic in HZD. It does not in HFW. Even doing most of the side quests and errands (smaller side quests) will require lots of deviation to find specific crafting parts. This made the game feel unnecessarily grindy at times and the gameplay monotone compared to its predecessor.


Despite shortcomings taking on the large machines is still fun.

The player, Aloy, returns but she is clumsier this time around. One of my big complaints is that the dodge and jumping animations are a bit too slow. She is constantly being thrown around on the ground, even by the most basic of enemies. Even enemy humans can move at unnatural speeds. Sometimes you can dodge, but before the dodge animation completes she is being smacked and goes flying. Often you can get hit a second time during the get up animation and go flying again. Aloy is quite small and realistically should be tossed around by giant robots, but it does not play nicely. Her dodge and weapon readying needed to be sped up. The game isn't necessarily hard and I seldom died. But you will simply spend a lot of time seeing Aloy tossed around and getting up. Compared to the first game the fighting is clearly inferior. The good parts largely remain. Taking down large machines and ripping off components to disable weapons, setting traps, and mixing different types is still fun. Capturing and riding robots into combat is fun. New large machines are introduced, and some of them can be a bit of a challenge to take down at first. Nothing outrageous though. Some of the harder machines have quite the menacing look to them to, which helps make them standout compared to the more average ones.
Quest quality is decent. There are main quests, side quests and errands (shorter side quests). All are voiced and generally quite high in quality. Although several of them can be a bit boring. The ratio of main mission to side missions has increased in favor of side missions/errands, which hurt the narrative pacing. While the voice acting and animations are up to par even in the smaller errands some of them feel quite meaningless and don't add much of value. The main missions are of course more interesting.


Aloy gets tossed around like a leaf in the wind.

When it comes to story writing and delivery HFW falls a bit short, especially compared to the first game. Without much of the mystery in HZD, Forbidden West feels a bit flat in comparison. The antagonists are not that interesting. If anything, they are too stereotypical evil/bad. The enemies are predictably bad without any nuance. Story delivery feels more like a checklist of things to do than a naturally flowing adventure. Like many modern games there are a lot of words, but not a lot of substance. Lore building is also mediocre at best. One of the things that made HZD standout was the world/lore building. Factions were more intricate and played a more pivotal role in the story. In HFW we are introduced to more factions, although they seem like generic post polyptych people you find in almost every game/TV show. They are savages, and made to be bigger savages than those in the first game. They have a reputation for killing outsiders on sight, yet open up with a few sentences. They end up agreeing with the character very quickly and makes them feel quite poorly done with the differences between each other largely being cosmetic. Thoroughly video game average and disappointing.


Generic post apolyptic character design and tropes are common and uninteresting.


Exploration is okay. There are some interesting sights to see which naturally draws the player towards them although again, this is not as good as the first game. Generally, you go to a place once and then it becomes a bit meaningless after the quest or two is finished. I much preferred having a central area of significance like Meridian in HZD. I found the terrain fun enough to traverse.

There are other side activities like underground cauldrons and bandit camps. The cauldrons are certainly fun; the bandit camps less so.

The expansion is more of the same, though it introduces one of the most forced romantic relationships I've ever seen in a video game. To make matters worse said romantic interest is quite a bland if not outright annoying character. She does not add any value and their commentary can be grating at times. I assume this was a diversity type checkbox requirement. The SJW values of the first game return though I found it to be a bit toned down.

Graphically I found it to be quite amazing. Textures are nice and detailed as are characters. Vegetation, foliage, ground and terrain objects look stunning. Lighting looks amazing, which is aided by the excellent art direction. Water behavior looks better than most games. Forested areas can be decently dense, and the draw distance seems to be further than most games which helps reduce pop in. Clouds and sky look amazing. When it comes to performance, I found that it runs very well given the graphical quality. Lows would be high 60s, highs 100+, an average of around 80 frame rates. I did not use DLSS. I did not experience stuttering. I did not experience much if any bugs. This is an excellent performing game given the graphical quality.


Amazing graphics and art style.

Sounds and music score are nice. A few high-powered machines have their own battle music, which is a nice touch. Voice acting is of course good.

Overall, a high quality, fun game that unfortunately decided to emphasize the bad parts of open world game design too much and neglect a strong narrative with compelling enemies.

7.5 / 10

 

[Domingo]

I still feel like Horizon Forbidden West repeatedly doubled down on the (few) bad things in the original. I loved the first game, but I got sick of Forbidden West's weapon system really, really quickly.

 

[lopoetve]

I still feel like Horizon Forbidden West repeatedly doubled down on the (few) bad things in the original. I loved the first game, but I got sick of Forbidden West's weapon system really, really quickly.

I started it on my PS5 before remembering why I hated HZD on PS4 (And loved it on PC - works amazing with a mouse). I was starting to get the same feel. Lots more crafting, lots more hunting for specific ammo, etc...

 

[lopoetve]

Elden Ring, Aka Miyazaki finally wanted to swim in liquid cash and sold out.

See my reviews on the Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and other Fromsoft games. Play one of those instead. My mom said "don't say anything if you can't say something nice," so... It's kinda pretty?

Every other part of the game sucks ass. Brutal ass. Look, just take your cock or other associated genitalia, put it on an anvil, and hit it with a hammer. You'll have more fun. Or if you want an open world shithole, go play an Ubisoft game I guess - I dunno, none of them are any good anyway.

F. 3/10 because it's pretty and there are a couple of fun fights.

Uninstalled at 10 hours. Fuck that shit.

Because I said I would - I got 100% achievements on the damned thing, and will update my review - slightly - as a result.

I'll begrudgingly give it a 6/10 once I completed it and wrapped every side quest, every boss, every THING there was to do in this ... mess.

The good:
1. It's pretty. It really is. They made a very good looking game.
2. The music is astoundingly good. And since it's open world, you actually get music in most places - this was always a slight annoyance with other Souls games, which tend to only have music for the hub (firelink/Majula/etc) and bosses - and many times, those boss fights go so fast (or are so furious) you can't actually listen to it. The music is excellent - and has so many different thematic styles, I wish it'd had been in other games intstead. Radagon to Elden Beast is such a transition in style and music - it just ~works~.
3. The legacy dungeons are solid. They feel like a more open-ended souls section, with multiple paths that all lead to the same end, but they feel RIGHT. Places like Stormveil, Castle Morne, Raya Lucaria - even Leyendell feel like souls should. They're a blast.
4. Something about it makes me WANT to like it.
5. A small handful of the characters are awesome (Gideon!).

The ok:
1. There are 165 bosses. Most are copy paste. Even major story bosses are copy paste. You liked fighting Godrick? Here's Godefroy! It's the EXACT same boss, only blue, and has only one phase. Oh look, another crucible knight! This one spits fire twice instead of once. While true of all other souls games (Asylum/Stray/Firesage demon, etc) - this was egregious. You will hit the same boss at LEAST 8-10 times on a 100% playthrough (the misbegotton, shades, crucible knights, and others are especially egregious).
2. The open world means NG+ runs to knock out achievements are fast. You can whack two remembrance bosses, dash to Leyendell, and then just punch your way through in < 10 hours.
3. SOME bosses are actually damned good. Elden beast is fun. Radagon is a bastard but fun. I'll be damned if I understand Malekieth or some of the others, but they're still fun. Mastering the crucible knights was an achievement. Mastering the dragons/etc - felt good.
4. With a 100% guide, getting around and going to the right place isn't bad. Not great, but not bad.
5. The smart thing to do is murder every merchant you come to. This centralizes their shops. This is dumb. Walking miles to get to a shop - dumber.

The bad:
1. It's an open world. Find me a good one. I'll wait. HOURS spent running around on a horse to get places. Hours spent backtracking for quests. Even with fast travel, so much time wandering around to pick things up - and the world is huge. It's empty - but huge. There's no benefit to the game with this other than being the buzzword of the day.
2. Even on an A-B-C dash, you're going to have to slog through sections between legacy dungeons. Things like consecrated snowfield and mountaintops of the giants are just huge "this sucks" sections where you're dodging massive enemies (fuck runebears), while just trying to get to a warp gate to move on. They're too long and happen too often for it to work. Places where the open world passages work (Limgrave, Leyendell) are rare.
3. Platforming. Miyazaki has ALWAYS been bad at platforming. I don't know why he keeps trying. He's VERY bad at it. And this time they gave him a jump button. Combine with the open world, and figuring out where to go (no really, ignore the streets, you're just climbing on the rooftops the entire way (cough Leyendell) to get where you're going) is a nightmare at times. Think Anor Londo with the butress, only it's EVERYWHERE. Add in the platforming weakness, and ... yeah. There's a whole pile of guides on how to get to a certain ending trigger - that go into almost pixel-perfect maps of where to stand and roll so you fall right. This is a normal part of the game!
4. It lacks the charm. Filling an open world vs a curated experience is hard - and this isn't a skill that From has.
5. The bosses. The sheer amount of "streamer bait" on this one is just nuts. It's designed to be flashy. If you like watching streams - it's a blast, as you can tell what's coming - but it's really designed to be shown off, not played. Master the exact dodge timing so it looks flashy! It's not about your combat style, it's about what the game wants to show you.

 

[Flogger23m]

I still feel like Horizon Forbidden West repeatedly doubled down on the (few) bad things in the original. I loved the first game, but I got sick of Forbidden West's weapon system really, really quickly.

The first game felt more diverse and less repetitive. I too felt the options were not as good for the reasons I explained above.