Recent reviews by Sum Ded Guy

It made me go back and play some more Skyrim.

Jokes (and reality aside), this game doesn't quite scratch the same exploration feel that I get in an open-world game like Skyrim. Starfield could be seen more akin to a game like Diablo with randomly generated worlds and dungeons, although in both cases you end up with plenty of repetition with a different layer of paint. The game is still enjoyable and has very impressive audio and visual quality. The primary issue I encountered is that it is difficult to turn off my loot goblin brain which makes storage an immediate challenge and not a fun one at that.

I anticipate that there will be solutions to that problem as I play more and accumulate wealth to build the right ship. On the topic of ships, the builder is incredibly plain, without the ability to rotate parts and requiring them to snap on to other parts which further limits creativity. It sucks to say that these things will be fixed by mods, as I always wish these things were part of the base package, especially when not all these limitations can necessarily be solved for console players.

As of this review BH3 has the majority of the content from BH2 with a bundle of new additions.

The gameplay has been updated by letting you change the form of your ship to destroy previously invincible projectiles and now specifically take out shields from enemies. In addition, there are medium sized enemy ships that are randomized, where in the prior titles it was only bosses that were made procedurally.

One of the most significant changes in this game is that you can turn off the eye-melting lights without affecting your score which is a great accessibility addition.

I'd give this a sideways thumb since its pretty basic. Good sized world to explore, but some mechanics (i.e. multiplayer) are poorly implemented.

More content than anything you can get in Halo Infinite for a fraction of the price.

An update to my review to coincide with the November 2022 update
- Still has greedy monetization, with very few base choices (a few free things have come out since, but not significantly)
- Still pretty slow progression, no alternate progression outside battle pass
- Nowhere near enough aim assist for controller (Halo was made for it, controller should not be balanced against Mouse & Keyboard)
- Consoles have the reticle turn red on opponents, PC does not. Unfair advantage. This is expected to change back in a future update.
- Explosions, fire, and destruction are an immense downgrade from prior Halo titles
- The Spike Grenade spews out party streamers, not spikes
- Vehicle physics are really janky compared to previous titles
- Gameplay of maps is very poor, maps do not flow well compared to previous titles

Positive:
- Performance has greatly improved and can actually run on most pcs now
- Forge has been released, albeit still quite buggy and counter-intuitive controls

I'll start off with the common complaints and my experiences:
- Denuvo: it's still in use but has been dialled back a bit so it should have less impact on CPU usage. I have noticed no difference, but I did not have any issues at launch myself.
- Performance: The new area doesn't appear to be much worse than the other areas in performance. But the Guiding Lands has some really bad spots in the Forest and Coral zones.
- Crashing: I recently had a DX12 crash and the game dropped me back to DX11. I haven't tried going back to DX12, but with only one crash in over 100 hours of gameplay isn't all that bad. First installing Iceborne I did experience start-up crashes due to using Special-K in addition to DX12 which were not compatible. Deleting it and verifying game files solved that issue.
- Mods: Any mods that alter the "common" directory of the game now require specific anti-cheat threads to be disabled, unfortunately this affects visual text mods in addition to gameplay altering mods. All texture and model mods typically work without any issue.
- Save Corruption: This is perhaps the worst issue of them all, and thankfully I had been consistently backing up my save previously. I experienced this twice, once on install and later on with just saves failing to occur. When the saves fail, often I can just spam save and it will eventually sort itself out.

For those interested, here are my PC specifications:
CPU: i5-6600k, base 3.4Ghz, overclocked to 4.4GHz
GPU: GTX 1080 (no overclocks)
RAM: 16 GB 2666MHz
Game installed on 1TB WD SSD
Resolution: 3440x1440

Iceborne brings a lot of new content that justifies its price-point. Not having experienced the same launch issues (primarily regarding performance) as others, I was able to get into the new content quickly. The new location brings in snow deformation tech, which is pretty cool as it interacts with the player and monster. The clutch-claw mechanic is very useful, but too easily became a mandatory tool, as some monsters weak points just can't be hit by melee unless the monster is downed which makes tenderizing mandatory. In addition, not all weapons tenderize on the first hit either, which compounds this gameplay flaw in my opinion.

I really enjoy the QoL improvements, the new gathering hub has access to the smithy and resource center for bounties. Most shops are closer together in the new town, but are still annoying to have to jump around. In this regard, I am mostly missing the quest boards that were found next to each station from the old town. Most low rank armour has been added as possible layered armour now, using materials gathered in the endgame Guiding Lands. The leftover armour should be arriving with the next content update featuring Stygian Zinogre.

Overall I have enjoyed most of my 100+ hours in Iceborne so far, and am greatly looking forward to the new content updates coming down the pipeline.

The game has certainly improved from the perspective of a player who hasn't bought into Bungie's expansion/pass model. There are some annoyances here and there regarding poor balancing of time/reward. Overall the story is rather lackluster, and your enjoyment may vary depending if you are interested in the repetitive style gameplay of a looter-shooter. I would recommend this game even without any of the expansions (I got the game via monthly Humble Bundle).

For those interested, the game does provide a way to purchase store items via an earnable in-game currency. Each week a small selection of store items are made available to purchase this way. I cannot comment on the amount of time it takes to build up said currency, since I don't interact with the store much and easily forget about its existence.

After achieving 100% of achievements and beating Starg's score on the Highest XP leaderboard I feel that I can now leave a review. This is my favourite music based game yet.

Pros:
- Music-generated bosses creates greater diversity between songs
- Music-generated player ships keeps things interesting
- Daily/Lightning challenges help push competitive play
- Ultrawide support for menus and gameplay
- Support for framerates greater than 60

Neutral:
- Melts your eyes
- Stutter caused by screenshot feature (this can be turned off in the settings, but is pretty cool nonetheless)

Cons:
- Very few gameplay statistics (I like numbers & stats, BH2 doesn't give me enough)

Update 2020: Updated Pros/Cons

Been playing on and off since closed beta. Path of Exile provides a fast-pace diablo experience with plenty more complexity that can't be found in Diablo 3. If you're looking for a less forgiving ARPG, this is it.

The most gorgeous Monster Hunter experience.

This version includes a lot of quality of life features that make going back to MH4 a chore. While some aspects of the game are simplified for a more general audience, I believe it still makes for an entertaining expirience.