Recent reviews by egyFM

Chill and heart-warming. Just the way I like it. ☕

My love for this game knows no bound, and this DLC only makes this already fantastic game even better.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: you gotta play BallisticNG.

Thank you Vonsnake.

This game is good, but missed the opportunity to be great.
I was really hoping for Security Breach to be the episode where the franchise could mature up and stop relying on jumpscares.

I was wrong. The game is an aggression, lacking breathers in-between sequences. Everytime you get out of a sticky situation, you're directly shoved back into another panic, leaving no time to assess what you've just survived.
The problem is this: I cannot understate how incredible the map is. There are details everywhere you look, the place feels massive yet within reach, and the atmosphere is sooo gloomy in its own way, all while exploding with colours - but you can't take it in. It feels like the devs wanted a more atmospheric experience, then were slapped on the wrist and therefore spammed the robots.
Good, but not great.

Speaking of the latter, I love the memorable character design so much. Bonnie is gone, replaced by Montgomery Gator and Vanny the Bunny, and that's a straight upgrade in my humble opinion. Especially Vanny. What a character. The devs had this jarring character, with a great entrance, and she knows exactly where you are, but she's not going to chase you running, just playfully skip along in your direction while your character goes mad. She's paranormal scary. But then the devs ruined it by keeping the patrol robots and other animatronics spawned in, which is such a waste. She should have had her own sequences.
Good, but not great.

Also you're playing Gregory, a small and fragile kid in a large and hostile environment, and you can rely on the help of the big and strong Freddy, although he is a bit dumb and useless. Think about this concept again: since 2015, we've never had to trust an animatronic, and the devs explored how effective this Freddy-Gregory dynamic can be, yet kept its unsettling and uncanny nature apparent. Freddy is a safe armor, however his glowing eyes in the dark will remind you that his kind stems in murder. All that would be great, if not for the duo being separated too often by, all in all, arbitrary reasons. So it's just good.

So many good ideas too. I like the integration of the security cameras at all times - even if the map is meh. I like the omnipresence of hiding spots. I like that one fake jumpscare where you acquire a map. I like the multiple endings and their cutscenes. I like the lore and how everything fits together. I like Sundrop and Moondrop. I like the gun and the fact you can damage the animatronics. But (and that's a shocker, I know) I don't like bugs, and there are a lot of them. People have already talked in great lengths about them so I'll leave it here. Again: good, not great.

The result is a game that numbs you to the point where you just give up and play it frantically like an arcade experience.
However, fear is an emotion that can be enjoyed, like the burn of pepper on your tongue, great horror games making fear very much a blast by pacing themselves. And Security Breach failed to be a great horror game, probably because the devs are afraid of dropping the staple of the FNAF franchise: its abundance of jumpscares. And while it would be absurd to drop them entirely, dear developers, there will be a point where their reinvention will be necessary.

So I recommend the game, but in the state it is when I write this review, it needs two things:
1. A difficulty slider that will completely overhaul the spawns and behaviour of the robots. Let the map spook me.
2. A comprehensive fix of all the bugs.

Other than that, play Security Breach. It's good.

Let's start with the good news.
The port is good, stable, very playable, overall a quality product. The transition from Xbox 360 to PC is smoothly operated.

Now for the bad news. There was a change of developers, and it shows badly. They tried something new, which, why not, but originality means risks, and that didn't work out.

Just too many problems, which all come down to the appalling writing.
The dialogues and events of the storyline are cliché, riskfree and boring. The locations are meh, just like the overall design of the game. How did you manage to make the tank sequences boring. How did you manage to make the powerups forgettable. Why did you rework the controls? Halo Reach had the right balance for them.
The storyline is a mess barely comprehensible and illogical. It just feels like an uncleared first draft. Too many backs-and-forths on Infinity. At one point, we have to destroy a gravity well, which I thought we'd already done that in the early stages of the game, also there are scary orbs in the sky which can destroy everything except they don't... The villain is some Dragon Ball Z stuff from Wish. Obstacles are there arbitrarily. The Covenant is the middle of this, somehow.
I avoided spoilers for nothing. Clear lack of inspiration.

And worst offense of all: the developers didn't respect the characters. Utter crime.
YOU 👏 HAVE 👏 TO 👏 READ 👏 THE 👏 CHARACTER 👏 WORKSHEETS 👏. It's writing 101, even DeviantArt knows this.
Cortana is not some pinup damsel in distress, she's supposed to sit at the top of the UNSC hierarchy. Her authority has to be unquestionable in the army, which btw, is meant to be commanded by competent badasses with grit, who SURELY would never ask the preposterous order of "arrest[ing]" the Master Chief on some poopdeck. One female soldier just checked us out suggestively on arrival, saying "I thought you'd be taller" - oh, I'm sorry ♥♥♥♥♥, the Master Chief's size impressed soldiers in the three previous episode. What a fall from grace for every female in the series.
Oh, and also the Master Chief isn't treated as a legend at all. 117 means "move over, I'm a legend", not "I'm an isekai protagonist". He's meant to be all kabooms, discipline, and no brain, while everybody else does the talking for him because he can only utter 5-words-long sentences. Every piece of the world should signify to the player the state of the story, NOT the Master Chief with one long sentence - it's called "show, don't tell".
I've seen fanfics better than this.

To be honest, this game is average for a early 2010s release. But the cover says "Halo"; average is not enough.
I suppose people have already lashed out on this poor performance more exhaustively and I'm just rehearsing the classics with the stuff I was able to pick up in a sole playthrough. The MCC didn't need this junk but hey, it's there and functional so... Enjoy, maybe. 🤷‍♂️

Tetris is the king of the puzzle games. The thing practically made the GameBoy sell for 10 years, the longest running console in History.

And with such notoriety, you didn't necessarily need to improve on the formula. Game sold! Why spend money trying to improve when it's already perfect?

So over the years, we've seen the licence get adapted for garbage mediums. Java. Apps on smartphones. Facebook gigs. Adaptations on stupid consoles. Quick cashgrabs. Still, the licence remained draped in glory.
Now the other game developers, they noticed this. They started to make a move. Polarium. Bejeweled. Puzzle League. Lumines. Puyo Puyo. They kept coming out, improving their own formulas, gaining on prestige. And they got closer and closer to equaling Tetris. But today, the King gets up, stops with the f2p ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on smartphones, and reminds everybody that Tetris is worthy of the biggest AAA status in the world of puzzle games.

What does the King want? VR gameplay? So be it. A breathtaking OST? Granted. Dazzling visuals? Of course. A ranked coop online gameplay? Yes. Brand new modes which expand on a formula which has been already vastly expanded upon? Everything, for the King.

Did the King need that much effort, that much gold, silk and majesty? Would it take away from the fact that the very basis of Tetris is fun? Did it really need an upgrade of this magnitude? No.
But every once in a while, the lion has to show the jackals, who he is.

And for that, the man in charge was Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Creator of Lumines. His fingerprints are all over this: music, visuals and gameplay work in perfect harmony, ready to get you into a trance, losing the tracking of time, getting you addicted. And all the while, you can feel the profound respect he has for the King, and the job that bestowed upon him to give him new, majestic clothes.

Really nice RPG. Really, really nice RPG.

Omori plays like if you mixed together Earthbound, Undertale, Chrono Trigger and classic RPG Maker horror games in a bowl. The combat system is simple and innovative enough that it takes some bit of thinking, but not so much that it would get in the way of what really shines: the lore. Do not spoil yourself before playing this.

Omocat really succeeded in giving the story a steady pace and tension, all by having gameplay, soundtrack and aesthetic work together in absolute perfect balance. The music is just right. It all results in a masterclass of video game storytelling, timed to precision, ready to hit you right in the feels.

There is no doubt in my mind that Omori has outclassed the RPG Maker horror games which inspired its creators. So go ahead: this is something special.

This is the most outlandish arcade racing game I have ever played. As well as one of the most challenging.

The controls are unlike anything you've ever played before. They are super counter-intuitive, require you to unlearn everything you ever knew about racing games to replace it with this game's logic. That makes for a great challenge, one which is very rewarding once you get it right. No nervous hectic racing gameplay here, it's all about threading the needle, judging the apex, the racing line, and the behaviour of the car. Lovely.

The line-up of cars is exceptional. Never have I ever played a racing game where the cars handle so differently from one another. From one car to the other, the difference can be like night and day. They really explored the twin-stick concept to its fullest. This game always changes shape in the way it controls.

And it's all wrapped up in this gorgeous aesthetic and simple soundtrack.
You gotta give it a go. You'll never see this anywhere else.

I've played a lot of those survival not-Minecraft games in my time.
And so far, I've never felt the need to recommend against any of them. Far from it.

But 7 Days to Die looks and plays like crap. Which was fine when I was watching Markiplier make a let's play of it back in 2013. However, 7 years later, this is not enough. My RX470 shouldn't be spinning its fans like it wants to take off at the lowest settings, with 16GB of RAM, all for N64 graphics and abysmal optimisation.
Half of my playtime is just me trying to basically log into a vanilla game, only to have the loading screen freeze on me and call Task Manager to the rescue. And once I was finally in by sheer luck, I fell through the floor five times, had my teammates and zombies frozen in place on my screen, had entire sections of buildings missing, had ladders reject me, had the arrows of my bow just fly through the zombies, and had my game crash. Oh, and there's no swimming animation.

I've been patient. I've given this game plenty of chances. Thankfully, this game was gifted to me.
But if you paid 20+ bucks for this, in my opinion, you've been ripped off.

CrossCode is an action-RPG set in an MMORPG world.
And this is an incredible game.

One with a brilliant scenario, flawlessly paced, which hits you right in the feels, an uncompromising attention to detail, and perfect level design. The gameplay is quite simple, yet makes for some great action-packed sequences. The game is long, and can be quite frustrating at times - but it's far beyond worth it. This game is the fruit of passionate devs, deeply in love with cult classic RPGs and MMOs, caring immensely about their craft, and it shows.

I wish I could disclose more, but this would spoil the fun.
It is optimised for both keyboard and controllers, though I would recommend the latter. DualShock 4 prompts are available for once. Whichever you choose, I cannot recommend this game enough.

So I bought this controller about a year and a half before this review, and I've had plenty of time to use it, so here are my thoughts.
It's great, and unlike anything you've every played with. It makes you rediscover games you already knew with a standard controller, and support for it is excellent. I love it.
It took a full month to get shipped though. But once it gets to your home, you'll find it was worth the wait. Like many things Valve, if you think about it.