Recent reviews by Cymbal

Player Unknown's Battlegrounds is a great IDEA. A great game, not so much.

After 250 hours I can finally put my thoughts into words.

100 players descend onto an island, or now, with the addition of an extra map at this time, a desert. The island is populated with weapons of all sorts. Sniper rifles, machine guns, pistols. Players will likely spend their first 10 to 15 minutes searching for these weapons, armour and a backpack to cram it all into. Some locations on the map are more desirable due to their 'loot' spawns. Military Island as it is known is often packed to the brim with weopens, high level armour and everything a survivor could want. Yet, dropping at these locations are desperately more dangerous, as with higher loot spawns and better items, comes more opposition.

The game is spiced up with the addition of an every decreasing map size. With a sort of force-field that closes in around the play area every 2 minutes. The force field acts a sort of electocuted fence that drains the players health if they remain outside of the designated play zone. The damage increases with each circle. This forces players into confrontation, eventually finding themselves in a radius smaller than 200 metres, fighting it out to be the inevitable winner of the battle royale.

The end goal of the game is to be the final man of 100 left standing, or the final group in duos or squads. The illusive 'Chicken Dinner' as it is known in the PUBG community.

The game modes currently are third person and first person, both with their respective duos, squads and solos. Each of these offering a slightly different feeling, with frantic gunfights in squads having a sharper edge to them, with the threat of fire coming from multiple angles.

A fantastic concept, based on the 2000 Japanese film aplty named Battle Royale, Battlegrounds is a fun game. Incredibly frustrating at times, it can often feel that the player isn't versing up against 100 other individuals but facing up against the game itself. If someone were to ask me whether or not I recommend Battlegrounds, I would have to take some time and think.

The game has a fun core idea, based heavily on H1Z1 popular battle royale spinoff, known as King of The Hill.

The games creative head, who's online alias is the titular Player Unknown, is a man who has some very grandeous ideas. Brendan Greene, or Player Unknown, was the original creative mind behind H1Z1's battle royale mode. The man no doubt has great ideas. From my impressions of him through his actions as a creative lead, he seems to be a man seemingly wishing for the best for his game. His brain-child, it would seem. A lot of his great ideas though, he just can't seem to get to work right within the games engine. With a majority of the original maps assets being bought on the Unreal Engine store and the core engine of the game being based on the ARMA engine, it was always expected to be an uphill battle, especially mechanics wise. The clunky nature makes the game thoroughly frustrating.

At it's core, Battlegrounds is a fun game, a game that I enjoy playing on occasion with a close group of friends. However, that does not make it a good game.

Poor shooting mechanics that can often be incredibly frustrating are an issue that I find myself falling flat on my face over almost every time I play the game, I can't count how many times I was convinced that I should have come out on top of a skirmish, or where I had found myself dying in a situation where I should have clearly held the upper hand.

This isn't even to mention the immense issue that is currently present with almost every server, espeically the Oceanic one, being plagued by hackers. Aimbotters, health hacks and everything someone could dream of are rampant in the game. A frustrating thing to be sure,

There has rarely been an occasion where I have felt that I was bested by an actual player who was better than me, rather than the game itself besting me with it's awful mechanics and glitchy systems.

I've fallen through walls, drowned in staircases, been killed by over a million hackers but still, I keep coming back.

I don't enjoy the experience of the game, persay. I enoy playing with my friends. I can almost compare the game to how I felt after many hours of League of Legends.

If you come into the game expecting good core mechanics, nice gunplay and an opmtimised game with minimal hackers, then you're looking at the wrong game. If you have a good core group of friends that are enjoyable to play with, you will have a good time, I can almost guarantee that.


So, in finality, I would recommend you buy this game. It's fun. I enjoy playing with my friends and, although frustrating, those occasional wins have me coming back every now and again.

For me though, I think I'll put Player Unknown's Battlegrounds on the shelf for a while and hope for someone else to come along and take what is a strong core idea and make a better game.

Probably the most fun you can have with remote controlled jet fuelled soccer cars

This is one of those games. The ones on Steam that don't look like they fit in, and that's alright.

Secret of the Magic Crystal is a game that one of my friends bought me as a joke, a joke that I perpetuated to the point where I would say "Who wants a quick session of Secret of the Magic Crystal?". Of course joking.

However, it never accured to me to actually play the game. So, one lazy afternoon, I sat down and played 40 minutes of Secret of the Magic Crystal. Now I don't know how many of you have played 40 minutes of Secret of the Magic Crystal. But by god was it the worst experience of pony raising I've ever had. I got so immersed, that those 40 minutes, only felt like 39.

P.S. - I would recommend this game for your 3-8 year old daughter, as anyone else is not the intended demographic.

This is the game that I have the most hours on. Some people would say it is the game that I have wasted 800, almost 900, hours on. That is not what I would say.

Team Fortress 2 is my favourite multiplayer experience, you can have almost any type of player in the same game. From the guy going for his 20 kill streak, or the guy sitting in the corner with his buddie eating a sandvich as a heavy. That is what is so great about Team Fortress 2. And the hats are pretty sweet too.

A game that is inspired by the mechanics of Telltales flagship series, The Walking Dead, but finds it's own path with interesting characters and an intriguing story. Mixed with an interesting time rewinding mechanic the game feels new and exciting in comparison to other story driven point and click games. Unlike Telltales games Life Is Strange does not rely on button mashing to include action into it's game-play to spice up the often dialogue driven world, it uses its time rewind mechanic to provide a new and interesting take on the genre of story driven point and click adventure games.

Beautiful as well as thought provoking, the stylistic choices in Life Is Strange give it a unique feel to other games of today, Adding to it's beauty is its wonderful soundtrack, that makes the world of Life Is Strange a more wistful experience.

Currently Life Is Strange Episodes 1 and 2 are released and I am eagerly awaiting Episode 3, having bought the season pass for $16 dollars after finishing the first episode on a whim when I happened to have a spare $5 dollars in my Steam wallet. All I can say is that my purchase was well worth the price to enjoy this story, as it is more than just a game.

Intelligent and witty, it knows what it is and it uses this to it's advantage. Short and humorous, based on the mod of the same name.

An excellent adventure into daily life in the office.

The quintessential zombie shooter, Left 4 Dead 2 improves on the first games formula. Including the original cast and maps from the first game, Left 4 Dead 2 has become one of my favourite games of all time.

Including melee weapons and improved game mechanics, this game has given me hours of countless fun. I would recommend it to all of my friends, because who doesn't love killing zombies?