Recent reviews by kadonbeir

I'M DOING MY PART!

EDIT:

WE DIVE TOGETHER OR WE DON'T DIVE AT ALL!

Changing to a positive review as the community has beaten the Sonytomaton threat and is rallying around Arrowhead. Maybe, *just* maybe they'll think about this when they do multi-platform releases in the future.

Insanely difficult, but the game has one awesome aesthetic and art design going for it. The world building is just enough, but absolutely leaves you wanting more.

As for the game itself? I suck at it :D But it's a lot of fun to blunder around with your fleet. Desiging "real" and not cheese ships is difficult, but custom ship designs are absolutely one of the keys to winning the main story.

I know the constant flashing and obscuration (and ridiculous sound) in the earlier versions of the game were a bit much, but I thought it added to this immersion feel the creators wanted to go for.

An amazingly underrated game, and another homerun for Remedy. I had a lot of of fun with it though the DirectX12 stuff was a bit annoying with the slow-loading textures. Game is super beautiful when it is working. To be fair running it in DirectX11 wasn't all that bad and ofc smoothed frame-rates up.

Other than that, it's very SCP-inspired, and some things will mess with your head, but that's the point. The attention to detail in the world is very good and both DLC's were fun and invigorating, especially the very Alan Wake referencing AWE DLC. That one took a lot of time and effort, but it was worth it and good to see Alan Wake still has a place in the Remedy-verse :D

Hades is an interesting game that runs on the action, die, repeat premise while you grow stronger over time and learn to defeat various mini-bosses and bosses. The art style is unique, bold, and I enjoy it immensely combined with smooth and slick animation. The voice acting is stellar and the story interesting, but I've not gone far enough to get a look at the bigger picture at work in Hades.

Simply a fun, funny, and entertaining take on Ancient Greek myths, the Underworld, and trying to escape from Dear Ol' Dad.

If you're aching hard for the "Future War/War Against the Machines" that T1/T2 only gave you those little tastes of, go ahead and get this now and satisfy your itch.

If not that pressing to you, well hit it up on a sale and whatnot.

Gameplay: Pretty uninspired, typical FPS affair, I'd say on lines with nuFallout and Metro in feel. In totality, nothing to write home about, but the various boss fights (some you can trigger, like say... attacking an HK Aerial circling overhead that you don't have to) still retain some intensity. There's a bit of a holdover with the "shoot 'em in the glowy bits" trope, but then again, I guess it makes sense for the Terminator Universe. The AI is undeniably dumb, as much as getting in close to The Machines is terrifying (They more or less will grab you and instakill you 90% of the time), you can shoot them, run away some, and hide, and the relentless Terminators stand around and look where they last saw you then resume their regular patrol. Kills a bit of the atmosphere there. The RPG and survival/crafting elements are cool and help you get more stuff, and gain some useful abilities (like using Skynet plasma weapons), but I don't think they have the impact they should, it feels more like it was added as a gimmick for the sake of progression. Which is fine, I just wish there was a bit more granularity to it and bit more in choices. I found myself with more than enough resources to whip together whatever I needed, or to sell and buy what I did need in Normal difficulty. Some more "on the strings" survival that it feels like in the very beginning of the game throughout would help those matters along IMO.

Graphics: Not wall shattering, but looks all right. Hard shadows are kind of annoying, so I wish there was more time spent into lighting, because I think it's very important as: everything at night is a sorta blue/gray slurry of color. Normally, this would be a bad thing, but it's great, since this captures the look you're expecting for the setting. HK's and T-800 series look just like you expect they should, and when you aren't in the games Terminator finding "Ultravision" nothing like pairs of those glowing red eyes coming at you out of the dark, especially if there's many.

Atmosphere/Faithfulness: So here's what the player-base is ranting and raving about. This is the full fledged ride through The Future War/War Against the Machines that you've wanted since Reese's flashbacks in T1 and the introduction of T2. The environments created match the imagery we get in the films, the plots of T1 and T2 are followed: Judgement Day happens, survivors are sent reeling, The War Against the Machines begins, this game takes place near the end of it all, John Connor rallies The Resistance and his Tech-Com members to attack Skynet in one last all out assault, defeating Skynet, but not before the Terminators are sent back in time, so the war must be fought and won in the past (ala T1 and T2).

Audio & Sound: I mean, sounds good, I think that's pretty much regular these days, but then again sometimes games manage to find a way to muck that up. The Sound Design is tops, everything sounds great, and the plasma weapon sounds are fully the same sound effects from T1 and T2.

Plot Spoilers follow, but the illustration of meshing the plot of this game with the films follows:
The player's character, Jacob Rivers, plays a key role, as he and other Resistance members down the first T-850 (as the game puts it, which is a highly plasma weapon resistant T-800 variant), which is the first living tissue, neuralnet processor equipped model encountered by The Resistance (our beloved Model 101, "Arnie" being a T-800 infiltrator of the same design). He eventually is given the option to steal the processor from The Resistance and deliver it to a rogue scientist who proclaims it key to his being able to reprogram Cyberdyne combat units. In the game's finale, Rivers joins Connor for the "hallway walk" from the bunker see in T2's intro, as the final assault on Skynet's Central Core is conducted, the player plays through what I consider the climax of the game as you assault Skynet with fellow Resistance members with the help of a captured and reprogrammed HK Tank. At the end, a Tech-Com unit succeeds in destroying the core, killing Skynet and the Machines, but not before three machines are sent back into the past: A T-800 Model 101 to 1984 (T1), The T-1000 prototype to 1995 (T2), and a T-850 to the recent past to terminate Rivers due to his importance to the victory over The Machines and in the past. As we know, and Connor explains, Kyle Reese must go back to take out the first terminator, no soldier can match the T-1000 and so with the processor stolen by Rivers, a T-800 Model 101 is sent back to deal with the T-1000, and Connor finally offers Rivers (the player really) the option to go back in time after the third Terminator sent to kill him, knowing it vital for the result of the war remaining true).

Though while not groundbreaking in any way: it's a fun ride through the Future War with the parts of the lore that seem to be most embraced by Terminator fans.

As a player of the original tabletop versions, I found this a decently faithful transfer to vidya. However, there are caveats:
-It is not a perfect, super crunchy rendition of the rules, I imagined HBS wanted to gain more fans for the universe and maybe lure them into getting in on the TT game.
-I too had massive issues with loading times, no matter what I did or changed or shutdown to improve them (to include clearing out the savegames). This was the only real annoying part of the entire equation.
-I personally had issues with some aspects (like being able to custom save games, rather than a new slot for every save), and many have been corrected since in patches.

+The Mod community has been unbelievable for the game and there is plenty out there if you want to expand and explore the galaxy and blow up giant robots. They can streamline parts of the game that are annoying, let you just go on a sandbox merc campaign, as well as opening up the entire Inner Sphere, graphics changes, rules changes (for more or less crunch) and on and on.

Beautiful game, great story that you affect with choices, actions, and wins/losses in certain battles. The hand drawn animation is beautifully done; the soundtrack is straight up heartbreaking; the story fresh, entertaining, gripping, and depressing; and the game's combat and RPG mechanics are different, yet simple, intuitive, and just crunchy enough without getting too involved.

EDIT: Ignore hours on record, I played almost all of this game at a time when I had no ISP.

A piece of art in the video game industry. I thank KP for taking the time to make sure the port to PC was a proper one, as well as optimizing it. With that goes the fact that so far, it looks to be a polished and tested game. Since MGS fans have been waiting years for this installment it makes sense. All the mini-games and systems related to Mother Base are going to be very familiar, but it does give you ways to get resources/GMP while you focus on accomplishing the missions/side ops.

Graphics are solid for what they are but the optimization does make it look relatively decent while running smoothly. Sounds are what I expected, but the 80's hit soundtrack is awesome. Collect the casettes so you can take it with you whereever you roam.

D-Puppy alone should make this GOTY (I kid). I can't wait to get to the end of the main story line and see the ride Kojima has been leading us towards through his game series.

I can't put it down and that is a good thing.