Recent reviews by Thorandor

Mandatory PSN account? That's not what we fought the bugs for!

Decent game, beautiful soundtrack, marred by performance problems, bad optimisation and the inclusion of micro transactions on launch day without any notice prior to that. Pure shameless greed by Capcom.

For full disclosure, I've racked up over 90 hours on Xbox prior to starting a new play through on Steam.

It is difficult to recommend the game. Starfield lacks the very thing that made Bethesda games great in the first place: interesting and rewarding exploration; a quest or surprising situation around every corner, with unforgettable set pieces. It very much feels like Bethesda was not making any real engine changes since Skyrim and just tried to copy that game design, but added a lot more steps just to make everything that isn't main story more tedious.

That being said, there is a lot of good stuff in there: I like the ship building mechanic, I'm okay with the outpost mechanic, and I really had a few points in the game where I was just amazed by the visuals or what was happening in the story. The main storyline will pick up, and it is fun, overall.

So why do I recommend it?
Overall, I think it is a good game, albeit very, very dated. With mods the game starts to shine, though without you will end up feeling very much like "Skyrim lite in space" (again due to game design decisions and a limiting engine). If that is okay for you, then you'll enjoy the game.

For me, that is okay. I wished it was more, but I'll no doubt finish another playthrough in the next weeks.

AC6 Fires of Rubicon brings things right back to its roots with some changes that definitely suit new players to the Fromsoft games while keeping a deep nostalgic and satisfying mecha gaming experience for older players like myself.

The movement is fluid and fun, customization is still extremely deep and does feel great to get into. I spent 2 or so hours alone tinkering with what I have for designing emblems and decals.

The first boss fight is meant to be an eye opener and get players to see that they’ll have to use every tool available to bring down enemies. Boosting, overboost, quick boost, keeping the pressure on the enemy, aerial combat, and cover will all be crucial elements during fights not only with the giant MTs but certainly when battling other Armored Cores. Perfect way to do it.

Overall, Fires of Rubicon is what I was hoping for and feels like a fresh experience while it kept a lot of its flair from earlier games and bringing some fleshed out combat to the field. This is a great step forward for AC and Fromsoft! Definitely recommend this for a buy.

One last piece of advice: DO THE TUTORIAL! There are rewards for doing so not only in knowledge in strategy. You’ll get some parts to help you along as well!

Awful performance, even on high end systems. Wait for a few patches at least before you consider buying!

Edit: finally completed the game, and it is an absolutely "not recommended" title for me...

Let's talk about the good things:
+ Graphics performance is smooth for me (3080TI, i9-9900k, 4k, 60fps limit, DLSS)
+ Visuals range from "really amazing" in many places to "mediocre"
+ Traversal is fun
+ Soundtrack is not bad

But there are a lot of things I just don't like:
- Main character is bland, boring, doesn't understand (want to understand?) the sh*t she is in and not accepting she's in a different world and culture
- Terrible pacing for the first hours and First Time User Experience
- Awful delays in movement and combat due to awful pop-ups that require waiting time and a button press, and then still a delay before the action resumes
- In-game cutscenes back into action result in 2-4 seconds of waiting time until the character moves (this is also the case on PS5, and seems to have been a game design decision).
- Main Character and Vambrace just don't 'hit it off' in the sense of dialogue feeling anything but in-studio-recorded instead of relaying to what is happening on screen / in the game at that moment (e.g. running away from a dragon, you'd expect some heightened voices, maybe heavy breathing due to exertion --- none of that).
- Super-poor decisions around interacting with the hub city: you cannot use your powers, you cannot parcour, it is a slog to move around
- This. Constant. Stopping. Of. Gameplay. Due. To. Yet. Another. Pop-up. Or. Journal / Archive. Update. STOP IT! LET ME ENJOY THE GAME!

Overall, I will stick with it, but right now it is a DO NOT BUY from me. I got it as part of an AMD Rewards voucher, so I'm glad I didn't 'really' spend money on the game.

For me Steelrising is my favourite example of a soulslike made outside of From Software and sits on a level as Sekiro for me in terms of tone and visual style, as well as accessibility into the genre.

The spectacular alternative history backdrop of France around Louis XVI is a delightful way of getting people interested in the events and people of the French Revolution, and that’s backed with some of the most enjoyable and distinctive level and environment design that I have seen in a long while in this genre, and he soundtrack is one of the best of this year. I love the side quests, I love the characters you interact with, the mechanics work very well (for the most part, I prefer the tight hit boxes of Elden Ring, but hey, you can't have everything). For me, if it hadn't come out in the same year as Elden Ring, then it would have gotten my award for the best soulslike of the year -- actually, let's not mess around, Steelrising IS my soulslike GOTY!

Citizen Sleeper delighted and surprised me. It's wonderful writing and character design bring the story to life, and the tabletop RPG-style resource systems reinforce the feeling that your character is barely scraping by in a Cyberpunk dystopia on the frontier of space. I find myself constantly thinking about the situations and people I met along my first journey on Erlin's Eye, and I can't wait to start another. And another. And another (I am actually on my 4th playthrough). Do not miss this one!

Doesn't hold a candle to the original on PC, most likely because the Remaster is actually a remaster of the X360 version, not the original PC code. Irrespective of that, it still performs poorly, even on an i9-9900k with a 3080ti.

Story wise, it is still the same as before, so it hits quite a bit of the nostalgia, however gunplay and sound definitely do not "feel" like the original, and nor does the suit. It may just be my memory, but the first few chapters on the beach definitely also feel differently paced, which leads me to believe that there were some choices made to reduce some of the slow pacing of the original, but sadly not to any benefit (due to gunplay feeling different and the visuals not being as crisp as the original).

All in all, it is a poor port. I will finish it, as I am already over my 2h and want to keep the trilogy, but definitely not enjoying this game. If you can get it cheap, bite the bullet, otherwise stay clear of it. It just isn't good, and it definitely is not a Remaster. It is a poor enhancement of an even poorer X360 port of the original PC version.

♥♥♥♥ you Ubisoft. Making a game I paid for unplayable because you cannot figure out how to make the game available without your online service is just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ lazy. Stop trying to learn from EA!