Recent reviews by Macross

waste of braincells

Might honestly be the best RPG of all time

Firaxis knocked it out of the park with the combat, it's addictive. There's a good amoutn of variety in characters used, the particle effects, sound design and animation all gives a real kinetic feel to the attacks done, the combat system is fun and intuitive, and the writing isn't half bad either for a marvel game, it's pretty funny at times and i enjoyed a lot of the characters, and the fleshing out of them. The main concern is the main hub but you don't have to go exploring it all too much if you don't feel like it, i certainly did it. Buy Jake's game.

Normally, I have plenty of tolerance for the single player, open world, collectathon, clear out bases ubisoft tower kind of stuff. I'm a fan of the far cry games for the most part. But this game is just dreadful with little to no redeeming factors about it. 10 Hours in and I'm completely disinterested in the story, no characters seem even remotely sympathetic or even likable, least of our schizophrenic main character who while grumpy for the most part blurts out in bizzare fits of rage whenever he's close to a side objective or when he hears the radio comes on.
The combat is at most fine, easy and uncomplicated. But it's not deep, it's not engaging and it's not new in any way. The crafting part of the game adds nothing as you will either collect the parts like candy which adds up to it being nothing more than a timesink running up to some oddly placed kerosense canister and holding E, which just ruins the world building when you see all the obvious game-y placements of these.
The world of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, oregon? Isnt especially interesting either. It's some woods, and roads. The frequent blue questionmarks add up to you walking up to a random corpse somewhere and looting it for a reward extremely not worth the time to stop.

I've tried and tried to find something redeemable about this game, and i've found nothing. At least the bike is kind of cool but the only reason that's the best part of the game is because it lets you get through it faster.

I don't really want to give *any* kind of story spoiler so I'll tell you this, you're an amnesiac cop. If that was the premise alone i'd roll my eyes as well, but this game has a lot of things going for it. It's not an "epic" in that it will take you 100s of hours to complete, the story itself is relatively straightforward, even if it does branch in interesting ways. What makes disco elysium, to me, so special is in all the small details. As a game driven entirely by very few systems, that all rely on clicking, it isn't a game if the sole thing you search for in an RPG is a ton of stats, buffs and items. Though there are those in a sense; the games main progression system is based on inner turmoil. 24 (I think?) parts of your brain, divided into four categories. Things like logic, empathy, hand-to-eye coordination and endurance will enhance your chances to pass skill checks, but most interestingly is how you are constantly thinking, and the amount of points you put into these skills will determine what you think. In that sense you are uniquely roleplaying in that you can structure your brain.
The game has fantastic writing with a world that draws in even someone as averse to lore as me, with a lot of political commentary that refreshingly enough has things to say. You're encouraged to dive into the deep, whether that be more along the lines of evola or kropotkin is up to you (although i don't think anarchism is represented as much as communism is)
God, I could write so much more about this game but honestly, just go into it. It'll be worth every second.

God this game is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good
If you're not getting it you're doing yourself a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ disservice

Great art, Characters, dialogue, music, and most of all, atmosphere. Bit on the short side but really, if you're feeling blue and looking for a game to maybe take your mind of things while downing some beer, I can't see a better option than this.
Please do get it.

At the time of this review, there have been four levels released in total. Two intro levels along with Paris in the intro pack, and Sapienza.

Hitman took a quick nosedive after absolution. The game was panned by critics and fans alike, for not being a very good hitman game. It was story focused instead of the pseudo-sandbox like game like Blood Money, which had you try to kill targets in a level in a variety of ways.

This game, I'll just call it Hitman since it for some reason doesn't have a title (I hate when an established franchise does this, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stop it) is trying to return to its roots. The main reason most people give this game a miss is the business model, along with the always online. I'm not a fan of the online part, honestly. It doesn't bother me too much, servers seem stable and my internet is the same but I'd like the option to go offline. With denuvo, this game shouldn't worry that much about pirates.

The part where they release one level each month (Which you can buy separately, though you need to have bought all the previous levels to play the latest one AFAIK) is a source of controversy, but in my opinion if the levels keep the same high standard as Paris and Sapienza, it's justifiable. If you're not hooked, i'd suggest waiting for all levels to come out before making a decision about buying it or not.

Now, for the actual game. The performance, at least on Sapienza, is a bit lackluster. It doesn't look amazing but it does have a lot going on, the framerate hovers on about 50 for me (FYI, my setup is a 980, i7 4790k and 16gb DDR3 RAM) which is definitely playable but could be better. This is on very high settings.

The gameplay is reminiscent of Absolution, there's the same way to subdue, throw things at people and interact with objects, but it has been very much refined. The shooting is more satisfying, the objects give a nice "Thud" when you hit people with them, and the movement is good, although being in cover can at times be a bit finnicky. Luckily you don't spend that much time in cover, since hitman is all about hiding in open sight using disguises.

The level design is honestly some of the best I've seen from any game so far, sprawling, big levels with every area having something of interest. NPCs having conversations (sometimes with useful information, others mostly funny), a lot of very small but great details that adds to atmosphere (A guy greets you differently depending on your disguise for instance) and over all it feels so very living. Pretty much everything makes sense, although you know, there are sometimes things that were obviously made for gameplay reasons. Which is fine, it works great.
Lots of paths, lots of interesting ways to kill your target. Opportunities are the easiest ones, I strongly suggest turning them to "Minimal" in options, or you'll find your first playthrough very droll as you are stringed along a series of objective markers. Though there's always very creative ways to get your target which isn't necessarily suggested by the game.

There's also a story going on, though it's not that pronounced, mostly background dialogue along with a cutscene at the end of each mission.

Hitman is shaping up to be amazing so far, and I REALLY hope that the next couple of levels keep the same or higher standard. Because if so, I would go so far as to say that it outshines blood money,

I've played Payday 2 for a while, and I've enjoyed it. But this isn't okay overkill, your DLC practices were already iffy, but now you've stepped over the line and added gameplay changing skins that you can only get from microtransactions in a game which already cost money to buy, and has tons of DLC.
It's not okay and I've uninstalled it. I have zero interest in continuing to play this game, even if you somehow rectify it.

No online play currently, rather poor performance (Runs choppy on a 980 and i7 4790k at max) for simplistic graphics, bit of a pain to play even locally without some workarounds (Can only really connect two controllers to the computer in addition to mouse and keyboard). It also seems to lack any kind of Player vs Bot mode to redeem it. You can spawn bots, but it's done through a workaround and it doesn't work in the same manner as when you're playing actual players (even if it's set to three rounds, they disappear after being eliminated once.)
It's a fun game for sure but until it's more ready I'd say give it a miss.