43
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787
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Recent reviews by Blackløch°

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Showing 1-10 of 43 entries
4 people found this review helpful
89.5 hrs on record (4.8 hrs at review time)
Too busy to write a proper review these days and I just want to play - just came here to drop my like into the review abyss. It's a damn great game and I'm not sure about the marks about poor performance since this run perfectly maxed out with my old hamster PC. Game looks and sound great, runs smooth as butter.
Posted November 23, 2022.
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4 people found this review helpful
153.7 hrs on record (110.9 hrs at review time)
Insanely addicting grind!
Posted November 27, 2019. Last edited November 29, 2020.
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14 people found this review helpful
137.2 hrs on record (134.8 hrs at review time)
No Man's Sky has gone far from what it initially was. Every update has included more content and polished the the game even further. This is not a detailed review of game's content or features. I just want to tip my hat to Hello Games as a thank you for putting so much work in the game and never giving up. In my eyes you have redeemed yourself and created an excellent game that has great content for hours and hours.
Posted August 14, 2019.
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212 people found this review helpful
11 people found this review funny
414.3 hrs on record (48.1 hrs at review time)
Early Access Review
A real hunter needs no prey, for prey may, by definition, never hope to win. Therefore, since the hunter would never lose, there is no actual skill involved.
Nay, hunter needs a demon, for lack of a better term.
A true hunter needs another true hunter.
Let the games begin…
- Don Alessandro Guardini

Hunt: Showdown is an atmospheric, old school, western-bayou themed, monster hunt, battle royale. (the official title) Here are my thoughts after 12+ hours of ups and downs with it.

Background
Hunt: Showdown is a game where your task is to recruit bounty hunters, take them into bounty hunt missions, come back from the missions alive, gear up and do it again.

There is some unknown epidemic affecting the living deep in the Louisiana bayous and you’re sent there to hunt down some tough supernatural demons. During the hunt you encounter these creepy, infested humans and dogs that aren’t friendly towards outsiders. Amongst them are other bounty hunters as well, going for the same target as you.

Gameplay
Hunt: Showdown is a pure FPS game, which is the only way to go with a game like this. There are multiple examples of games where the 3rd person view just makes no sense, kills the gameplay and only works as an ‘exploit’. So no, there’s no weird camera angles where you can peek over walls to get an upper hand towards an approaching hunter.

You can go on a bounty hunt Solo, Team up with another random bounty hunter or Invite/Join one of your Steam friend. The game has an in-built VOIP system which works rather nicely. The distance between you and the other person determines how loud your voice can be heard. Everyone can hear you if they’re close enough, so keep that in mind if you’re trying to avoid the attention of other hunters. Even the chat has a radius too, so prepare for some hilarious “OMG, I think he’s near us. I can hear his footsteps.” Comments every now and then. Or the classis “I told you so.” When you shoot someone, and leave his buddy alive.

Every time you go out, your main task is to find clues from your bounty’s location. The bounty hunters have a supernatural skill called dark sight, that helps you with a general direction of these clues. After finding a clue, the highlighted area in your map decreases until finally you get a red marker showing where the target is.

And since you’re not the only one in the hunt, prepare for some conflicts; silly wabbits camping in the bushes, interrupted boss fights, stolen bounties or just a random friendly winchester slug in your forehead – just because. Greed and glory.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1311838356

Progress
The year is 1895 and your bounty hunters are armed with winchesters, revolvers and shotguns from that era. When you recruit a new hunter, you get a list of four random bounty hunters with various weapons, equipment and traits – the better one’s cost a bit more. You can have max 5 hunters in your roster same time and their price ranges between 50 to 150 dollars.

You are then free to equip your hunters with whatever gear you choose, just keeping in mind that if the hunt isn’t going well and your hunter might not come back, you’ll lose him and all his juicy equipment permanently. Luckily basic firearms cost around 4-15 dollars, so there rarely is a point where you can’t afford to gear up your guys.

After a hunt ends, you are scored with experience points and money according to your actions in the hunt. Every monster, hunter, boss kill, collected clue etc. rewards points in both categories. If you die in the middle of a hunt, you only get half of the rewards.

With these experience points you level up your total profile level and hunter’s personal level. Profile levels unlock more weapons and equipment in the hunter store, where hunter’s level determines how many upgrade points he has for health and various trait boosts.

As I’m writing this (24th Feb 2018) you can’t pick up any firearms (only melee weapons like hammers, axes etc) when you’re in a hunt. There is no corpse looting (player or npc).
Map is full of randomly scattered supply points, healing kits and weapon storages to keep you going, though trigger happy hunters might face a hard time when the ammo count eventually runs low.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1311840185

What new it brings to the genre?
The main selling point here to me is the balance between PvE and PvP. Fighting the monsters is great, but there’s always that sense of danger looming in the background, knowing you’re not the only one in the Hunt, keeping you on your toes. Should you shoot these foul creatures, maybe try avoiding them all together or use a machete and avoid drawing too much attention?

The main idea here is not the PvP combat, but it is a BIG chunk of the experience and definitely adds some thrill and excitement to the monster hunt. The sounds play a big part in the game: the sounds of scared crows, distant gun shots, footsteps, water splashes, broken glass, metal chains hanging on walls and ceiling, a pack of barking dogs in a kennel or spooked chickens in a coop – just by listening carefully you known a lot what’s happening around you. (Hearing impaired? Sadly there are no indicators or HUD symbols to turn on from the options, but who knows… Maybe at some point.)

It is possible to try avoiding conflicts with other players completely, gather some clues, maybe bash few creepy monster heads in, then extract from the mission with your hunter still alive. You don’t HAVE TO kill the bounty target and deliver the bounty to extraction every time.

Current state
As I’m writing this, there’s currently only one (rather big) map available in game, with two different bounties to hunt. You can choose a day light or night time hunt, which ever suits your playstyle better. There’s few hiccups here and there like in any Early Access title and the dev team keeps updating us very often about the situation (server reboots, maintenance etc.)

I read that there are no plans of account wipes or resets during the further developement (unless some major update or bug prevents bringing the current savegames/profiles to the release version) so your current progress from Early Access stays to the full game.

--

I have enjoyed the game throughly, even when I lose my favorite hunters by some stupid error or just because I got played. I've been doing solo runs, even some very succesfull ones where I manage to take down multiple hunters and deliver the bounty back too. Teaming up with random hunters is nice too, though I still think the game is at it's best when playing with friends.

Very entertaining, has HUGE potential and I'll gladly wait for some new maps and new hunts!
Posted February 24, 2018. Last edited February 24, 2018.
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31 people found this review helpful
12.1 hrs on record (0.7 hrs at review time)
Early Access Review
I've been trying to get on with this game but it's just really, really hard. I have a rather beasty setup that can easily out perform the requirements and a fast Internet connection. Yet the game has a horrible, horrible rubbed banding, teleporting enemies, your characters feels like it's dragging a huge weight which makes him very sluggish to control. I have ping 45 on European server, so I really don't understand how the game acts like this - or how some people can play it.

I bought the game from Steam's winter sale and refunded it already once since it feels like there's no way to actually enjoy playing it. Now I got it as a part of some Fanatical's bundle and decided to give another chance. Sad to see nothing has changed. The situation might be different on US players, don't know really, but just be cautious if you're an euro player.

In paper and some of the gameplay videos the game looks nice and feature rich, but at it's current state I really can't recommend it since it feels literally unplayable.
Posted January 27, 2018.
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30 people found this review helpful
23.6 hrs on record
Early Access Review
GRAV started as a great survival game that was fun, had lots of stuff to do, was visually appealing, sounded nice, the soundtrack was awesome.

But then, then they F'ed up something, server performance on public servers were dreadful and seems they couldn't get over it. They even tried a "relaunch" or "reboot" whatever but the damage was already done.

Now BitMonster has been silent for a loooong time and sadly it looks likey they've bailed out. I really don't recommend anyone buying this game at this stage - even if the gameplay videos look nice. Your just throwing your money in yet another abandoned Steam Early Access game.
Posted January 12, 2018.
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86 people found this review helpful
3 people found this review funny
326.5 hrs on record (218.6 hrs at review time)
Visually stunning, immersive, fun and very challenging.

That is how I would quickly sum up my experience with the Division. The game has been out almost a year now (9 months as I’m writing this now) and after the initial launch in March 2016, I spent most of my free time after work playing it with my friends and other agents. Now that time has passed, I still get back into it just to have some great coop action and checking out the new content, monthly special assignments and new gear. As I'm writing this review I've managed to push in 200+ hours and I'd like to think I have a pretty good understanding of the game's mechanics and content.

I know some users had their fair share of technical issues, but luckily I have encountered zero problems. Game has been working flawlessly from the start. I get occasional disconnects from game, but I know that’s just my sucky 4G-Internet connection since it happens in other multiplayer games too.
So, let’s dive into the game next.

Background
I like the way the game starts, throwing me in the ruined New York, slowly opening it's story to me like a book. I am one of the activated Division agents, government’s last tools to bring peace back to the streets filled with looters, psychopaths, disease and... Trash.

I hate spoilers a lot so I'm not going into details with where, whens and hows - so I'll leave that part for you to find out yourself if you're interested.

Here's a quick peek in game's story:
https://youtu.be/NjqKMhx1k5w
Setting
The world in the Division is very detailed, good looking and living (as much as a post-apoc world can be.) The map currently available isn't overwhelmingly huge, but it's definitely enough to keep you nailed into your computer for many nights to come. You can spend hours after hours just walking down the streets, enjoying the chaotic sceneries, scouting out the subway stations, exploring abandoned buildings and apartments - while fighting the various hostile factions that make the bad situation even worse.

And like I said before, there's a lot of trash everywhere. Piles of junk people left behind while trying to escape the city in a hurry, abandoned cars, homes, trashed stores and shopping centers. When you see a sickly civilian collapsing into snow for good, rats running around, contaminated areas with huge biohazard warning signs and combine that with very atmospheric ambient city noises – the overall experience is very immersive.

Some of the most resilient New Yorkers never left - or perhaps were too late and now walk around the streets, still trying to survive. They go through the trash piles, try to lock pick cars' doors in hopes for valuables, fight and squabble on the streets, shout from the windows and get in trouble with the local gangs. As a Division agent, you are very often offered a chance to help out these remaining civilians with their troubles, whether it be with just handing out some spare med kits and other resources or solving out some gang related issues.

Progress
As the story opens and you've gone through the soft landing and basic training of Division agents, you're given the freedom to start exploring the ruined city on your own. After talking with the intel officers and exploring the situation map on various safe zones you quickly learn about areas and possibilities around you. There's tons of missions, sidemissions, encounters, collectibles etc. to do and you are free to tackle them in any order you want - alone or with friends.

As you progress, do missions and gain rewards and experience, you unlock new skills for your character and upgrade points that can be spent on upgrading different wings (Medical, Tech, Security) in your base of operations. Each upgrade sounds more or less logical and realistic and it makes sense that when the situation advances, you would like to build up certain commodities and security measures for people living in your base.

Gameplay
Gameplay is only in 3rd person and you can juggle between the left and right shoulder cameras according to the situation at hand. You can zoom in or scope down the enemy for better aim, depending on what kind of mods your current weapon have. The core combat focuses a lot in squad tactics, launching the right skill at the right time and taking care of your buddies while advancing and using the terrain as cover.

The cover system works 99% of the time like it should, though there are some weird spots in game where you just can't take cover behind that cement block or hop over it. Luckily those are quite rare and those accidental deaths because the cover system fell asleep aren't happening all the time.

The gunplay works really well, combat feels and sounds nice and I really do enjoy it a lot. But remember, carrying a big gun is only half of the act. You also need to look badass while doing it and luckily the Division has a lot of cosmetic gear for you to play with.

Missions: PvE and PvP
The missions in Division are divided in three groups. Encounters, Story Missions and Incursions. Due to Steam’s review limits, I can’t go into great detail about these mission types but to keep it short; there’s an overwhelming amount of stuff to do and by doing these you unlock new gear, skills and equipment for your agent.

Dark Zone is a war zone in the middle of New York, where gangs roam and even other agents can turn hostile towards you in hopes of loot.

Gearing up!
As you do missions in Division and progress with the story, you unlock new gear and craftable recipes. Your agent has a gear rank, which basically means – the better gear you have, the higher your rank is. The game slowly gives you better and higher rank gear and by equipping these you increase your total rank. Once your total rank goes up, game starts to drop even higher rank gear – so you find yourself switching and trading for better gear pretty much all the time.

If you are familiar with other multiplayer games, most of the gear is color coded to give you quick info about it’s quality. Grey items are pretty much trash, green is slightly better, then you get blue & purple and gold stuff is pretty much the best. Now, there’s also bright green gear that are parts of Gear Sets. The more parts of same Gear Set you wear, the better the benefits are. And there’s quite a lot of different types of Gear Sets available in game now. You can of course combine these Gear Set and choose to have couple perks from various sets.

When you do missions in Division, keep your eyes open for special named gold gear too. These are high end gear usually tied to the Division’s storyline, named after special NPC characters. There’s also rare weapons like AA-12 autoshotguns or Thompsons. Finding these more rare goldies usually means grinding same mobs or missions over and over again, so if you accidentally find one you might want to keep it.


--

Division might have had a rough start with some technical issues during release, but I have enjoyed it without hiccups. It has a lot of content, it’s fun alone & with friends and playing with other agents works nicely without a hassle. It has great PvE and PvP content and the solid updates and new content keeps it’s rolling ahead.

After the launch there’s been two major DLCs that bring lots of new content in game:

The Underground DLC adds endless hours of randomly generated close quarters missions within New York’s sewers.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/494630/

Survival DLC adds a new game mode that throws you in the cold, stormy New York streets wounded, with no gear and surrounded with gangs. There’s lots of new great loot available in here.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/556470/

A BIG, fat and juicy recommendation from me.
Posted December 28, 2016. Last edited December 28, 2016.
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583 people found this review helpful
20 people found this review funny
52.3 hrs on record (23.5 hrs at review time)
Early Access Review
Astroneer is a planet and space exploration game with a mixture of crafting and survival elements on procedurally generated planets. It was finally released in Steam's Eearly Access in 16th December and I have been anxiously waiting for this game for a long time. When I saw the first pictures and trailers, it instantly gave me the sense of freedom and exploration on a grand scale that I have been craving. And of course, I have been very excited these past days when we all can finally set out to seek our destiny in this curious universum.

As I'm writing this review the game is still in very early development stage and weird bugs and nasty surprises are bound to happen. I was fully aware of this and knew the current annoyances would not keep me from having fun!

Gameplay
So, it all starts with you selecting your hero and landing down to an unexplored planet. Game briefly gives you couple tips how to do things and after that you're on your own. When I got the game, it wasn't even released yet and I enjoyed very much the fact that there were no guides around or too much hand holding within the game. You had to figure stuff out yourself and the system on the background is quite unique and requires at least some focusing for it to be mastered.

Your tasks in the game vary between material collecting for crafting, base building and expanding, researching new types of tech and building more complex stuff. At first you jog around like a humble space peasant, dropping down lifesaving tether lines that lead into resource sites and tunnels. Then you start driving around in small rovers, then bigger trucks and you can even hook these into each other to make trailer combinations. Soon your tether worries are over and your vehicles own life support is enough to keep your lungs well oxygenized!

All the vehicles and the various gizmos you can install into them require power of course and you can juice them up with solar panels, wind turbines and extra batteries to keep going on. You can scoop up some energy nodes from ground too - or use a bio fueled generator on your vehicle to give it a boost of energy.

What I like especially in Astroneer is how your vehicles have certain type of equipment slots and the possibilities of you micro managing them. You can play around with them whenever you like, tear your cargo and items down and change everythings' places on a whim.

I had this scenario dozen times, where my truck was full of supplies, miles deep in the underground tunnels and heading back home. The vehicles store up only so much energy, so eventually I ran out of juice. I tear down a fully loaded cargo module, drop it on the ground while I grab a generator from my suit's shoulder, slam it in the truck's side and give it some time to recharge batteries. Once I'm good to go, I snap the cargo module back on and keep on truckin. Later on, I of course fine tuned my truck with solar panels, a wind turbine and a generator with enough biofuel to go with it.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=820419404

The World
The graphic style, animations and visual effects are all very appealing. I love the edgy, simplified and clean style of the game and it all ties well together with the soundtrack. The soundtrack is there, but it's not really stealing away your attention from the game itself - and yet after hours and hours of listening to it you still don't get annoyed by it.

I visited all the seven planets the game currently has and they all have their own biome and special weather effects and dangers. The terrain on a barren planet is dusty, sandy and well… Barren, with little vegetation. Arctic planet has a chilly and very rough terrain, where moving around in vehicle is pretty much impossible. And all this time when you adventure on various planets, you can see the other planets in midst of starts when you look up into the night sky.

It took me 24 hours in 3 different days to rummage through most of the current content and to figure out all the bells and whistles. I would have done it probably sooner too, but I had to start a fresh game 3 times due to one savegame file not loading up anymore and on the second savegame my character was stuck inside a building. (Can't destroy buildings or anything you build at least for now) Again, nasty early access symptoms but nothing major to worry about. System Era has been pushing out solid patches on daily bases and they DO listen to your troubles as long you report the bugs on a proper channel: their own forums.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=820434992

Crafting & Building
Crafting in Astroneer in pretty simple and straight forward. You build various kinds of workstations and they all serve their own purpose. Smelter smelts ores, Printer "prints" various modules and items on resource materials, Vehicle Bay allows you to build Rovers, Trucks, Shuttles and even Spaceships that can punch through starting planets' orbit to expand your colony into other planets. Research station unlocks new technologies like new vehicles, gear, modules etc.

Like vehicles, these workstations require energy too - and of course resources depending on what you're about to build. You can fine tune your bases energy needs with solar panels, wind turbines and extra energy bank. Solar panels don't generate energy at night, wind turbines won't spin if there's no wind. Yeah, duh. But I like the attention to these details. And these are all detachable, movable items so you can switch their places depending on your base needs and they fit in vehicles too.

The starting planet's surface has more than plenty of basic materials available. The harder metals are underground and there's tunnel entrances almost everywhere to be found. The rarest materials can only be found via researching various strange items found in the world. They can be in a form of giant seeds, roots, crates, glowy rocks etc. Once you get off the starting planet, these rare materials can also be found on planet's surface areas and they require more advanced drilling mechanisms for you to collect them.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=821109136


--

At the moment - once you have unlocked all the tech and built most things, there's really no "need" to leave the starting planet. Not much will change in the game - the planets all have the same materials so the only valid reason at the moment is to see the sights and explore new areas. I have no idea about the game's future plans, but I do see it brightly lit. Astroneer is one of those 'good vibe games', where you can truly relax, have fun by yourself or with friends and family. Game has no violence: you don't shoot or smack or kill anything in it - though the nature and elements on planets vary and they can kill you if you're not cautious enough. Luckily death is no permanent, so just jog back to the unlucky previous You and you can save your precious items and continue your adventures.

I am eagerly waiting for some minor bug fixes that gave grey hairs to my cute Astronaut and of course more content - any and all kinds of! I want to keep playing Astroneer more.
Posted December 19, 2016. Last edited December 28, 2016.
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91 people found this review helpful
6 people found this review funny
24.9 hrs on record (16.7 hrs at review time)
Early Access Review
"Don't shoot! I'm friendly!"
Oh please. I was eating beans before you had even spawned.

I bought Miscreated from -50% sale, thought to myself "Sure, it's been on my wishlist for a long time now. Why not?"

I wasn't expecting much since I've been crawling through all sorts of survival games in the past and they all seem to revolve around the same idea:
- Major catastrophic scenario / Post Apocalypse
- Hunger, thirst, weapons
- More PvP than PvE
- Zombies / Mutants

And Miscreated fits right in there. You are a survivor, scavenging for gear, food and crafting materials - trying to make the best out of a bad situation. You're surrounded by mutants and other players, also known as "the bandits". I know, I know. There are good guys there too. (until you give them a weapon and accidentally turn your back on them)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=814723346
Hells, we've all seen this scenario by now. What makes this game different from that one certain zombie mod over a war simulation game or it's standalone offspring, is that Miscreated is actually built just for this. It's not a "somewhat working" adaptation of some other game and it feels damn good to play a zombie survival game that actually has a fluent inventory system, very nice graphics and great performance all around.

The world seems detailed, the ambient sounds, light and shadow effects etc. but as I'm writing this (December 2016) it's still missing the wildlife, weather system and the "feel of danger". The world feels huge and the current player cap of 36 players feels very low on such a big place. It almost feels like you need a drop of luck to even see another player, though I guess that makes to post apoc feel more like, well post apoc.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=816586578
Your only actual threat at the moment are the other players - there's only a few squishy mutants walking around and you see them quite rarely. I did see some bigger tankish variations too but only once. I'm optimistic these things will get more attention in later development.

There's enough of different types of gear, clothing, vehicles and gunporn in game already which makes Miscreated in it's current state very much playable and enjoyable. Oh, and from what I've gathered you make a character into a server and it stays on that server. Take that fools! There is no server hopping, moving into a good position, then switching on to another server to grind the same loot over and over again.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=815859553

--

Of course the game is nowhere near complete being in early access, but I do see a lot of potential in it already. From what I've seen and tested, many of the mechanics in game at the moment do work nicely and the vehicles & base building is a nice addition too. I'm eagerly waiting for more content to the game.

If you're a survival game fanatic like me and like to see the sights before the riffraff settles in, I think now is the perfect opportunity to give this game a spin - and for a wallet friendly -50% price!
Posted December 9, 2016. Last edited December 28, 2016.
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14 people found this review helpful
7.3 hrs on record
 "Great&safe fun and nice sceneries for young adventurers."

I bought this game so we could play this together with my 3 years old daughter and she was very excited about it. I knew it from the start that some of the puzzles would obviously be too complex for her but I didn't mind. It was clearly stated that the game is best suited for ages 4-8, but I thought we could still have fun with it. I thought this would be a perfect first game for her and besides playing the game, it would be a great opportunity to teach her how to move mouse cursor, where to click to make Teddy move etc.

The game itself is visually very pleasing and seemed to hold my daughter’s attention very well. The art style is great, game scales up nicely to 3440x1440 monitors (not even most recent games do that) and the sounds are spot on. Since we don’t speak English native, I had to do some translation for my daughter but that didn’t seem to matter. I can't really judge the story from adult's perspective but I could tell she was enjoying it and ready to bombard me with questions whenever something happened. One big plus here is that there's no violence in game, no pushing, poking, banging or hitting.

All in all, game is simple and easy enough for children to understand, though some of the puzzles might require adults help. The puzzles/minigames can be played again in the main menu after you have completed the story once. Some of them were really fun in my daughter’s opinion and we played most of the puzzles through at least 1-2 times.

Steam says I've played this almost 6 hours but the actual play time (not card idling) is only 1.5 hours, which we played in 3 shorter sessions.


--

Safe fun in a form of point & click game for the younger gamers.
Posted July 21, 2016.
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Showing 1-10 of 43 entries