Recent reviews by Koter

You owe it to yourself to play this masterpiece if you like immersive sims.

I hate ZeniMax for making Arkane Austin work on a crap co-op shooter and I hate Microsoft even more for punishing the studio for its failure

RIP Tango Gameworks, you deserved better.

To anyone reading, play this game, it rules.

I am not even remotely hesitating when I say this is one of my favorite games of all time. I have a hard time talking about it because I don't want to spoil anything and this is one of those games that I think benefits from jumping in completely blind to all but the genre, which is survival horror.

This is genuinely the most I've been engrossed by and emotionally invested in a survival horror game since Silent Hill 2 which is (imo) the crown jewel of storytelling in the genre. I hold this game in nearly equal regard with what it means to me.

If the idea of a classic Silent Hill game with Resident Evil-style inventory management (adjustable inventory space now for accessibility, if you don't like how low the default limits are,) sounds good to you, and you're willing to let yourself be challenged by the storytelling in the game / piece together your interpretation of the game's narrative, I can't recommend this game enough. It's something that I think everyone will walk away with a different takeaway. Don't let your experience be tainted by hints of story revealed in the reviews or even the store page's description, you owe it to yourself to experience it as blind as possible.

This is one of those times I wish that Steam had a "Mixed" rating for reviews. I love this game to death already, but there are immediate, very apparent issues that need to be addressed for this game to really be great.

-- Background & Positives --

For a bit of background, I am a longtime Halo fan, I've played every single Halo game since I was just a kid, from Halo CE to now. The gameplay in this game is, for lack of a better word, phenomenal. This is the most fun I've had with Halo since Reach over a decade ago.

The TTK in this game feels like Halo, the visuals feel like Halo, everything about this from a gameplay, art, or audio/visual design perspective just oozes Halo to me. 343 absolutely outdid themselves on that front, and it shows in the glowing praise Infinite has received so far, and it's more than deserved. As a longtime fan, this satisfies me greatly.

-- Negatives --

Where my satisfaction ends and my disappointment begins is primarily with the game's progression system (shocking, I know.) The pace at which you earn experience is absolutely glacial. As of the most recent patch, every match awards a minimum of 50xp, with higher rewards being gated entirely behind weekly challenges, which are randomized, limited challenges that rotate out each week. There is no additional reward for performance or placement within a match. This means, assuming that you've exhausted your weekly challenges, you need to play a total of 20 matches to level up one time (every level requires 1000xp.) In a game where matches can last upwards of 15-20 minutes depending on the gamemode and skill levels of the players, an asking time of over 6 hours at maximum (!) to level up a single time past a certain point is pretty ridiculous.

I personally feel the lack of performance-based rewards detracts from the experience of the game as well, as people chasing new cosmetics to customize their Spartans with will frequently prioritize challenge completion over just playing the objective, and when they inevitably lose because of this, there's no real drawback because they still get 50xp anyways. A system in which a higher amount of XP is granted for wins, with additional bonuses on a per-medal basis would be undeniably healthy for the game's longevity and player engagement overall.

On the topic of cosmetics, the battle pass seems pretty unfairly skewed in favor of people who purchase the premium version, with a majority of unlocks in the free tier being challenge swaps or temporary XP boosts. For a free player to unlock a single helmet from the battle pass, the game asks that you level up some 80+ times at the rate previously mentioned, it's not hard to see why that's a bit unfair.

To take this further, even battle pass holders (of which I am one, full disclosure) seem to be getting nickel-and-dimed for the ability to unlock certain armors. For example, the Reach "Commando" armor set can be unlocked in its entirety by someone with the premium battle pass - except for the shoulder pads. The shoulder pads require a separate purchase in the ingame store, or for you to use the Carter prefabricated armor kit, which I feel goes against the spirit of customization that Halo is so well known for after Halo 3. This isn't even to mention that the prices for some of the skins in the store are frankly exorbitant.

Regarding the customization itself, I think it's a bit absurd that you can't mix and match cosmetics between armor cores (or that the armor core system exists to begin with.) It just puts another damper on what would otherwise be a great customization system with insane amounts of player expression. It's really sad to see this, especially when the game's bots aren't bound by the same restrictions when their armor sets are generated for a match.

My final major complaint is the lack of selectable playlists when playing online. As of the time of writing this review, there are four options when joining a multiplayer game: Quick Play (similar to social playlists from earlier games,) Ranked Arena, Big Team Battle, and Bot Bootcamp (a mode dedicated to 4 players against a team of AI-controlled bots.) There isn't currently a way to select a specific playlist within any of these modes, like specifically queuing for Big Team Slayer, etc. This leads to an even larger influx of people who ignore the objective in more focused modes like CTF, Oddball, and the like. This is a massive issue that needs to be fixed quickly, and is frankly the only negative feeling I harbor towards the gameplay itself. It is very easy to become burned out from the matches in which your teammates don't properly play the objective, or leave in hopes of getting into a match with a gamemode they like, leaving your team with a liability of a bot in their place.

-- Conclusion --

I do love this game, but I can't recommend the multiplayer component in good conscience until these issues are addressed properly. I do know that 343 is working on a fix for progression currently (pushing back campaign co-op and forge mode further as a result, unfortunately.) and I commend them for how responsive their community team has been at gathering feedback. It's just unfortunate these things turned out like this in an otherwise true return to form for the series, and I'm sure that must be really hard for a lot of the devs at 343 to see. I want to see every facet of this game reflect the care and love put in to the parts receiving praise from the community, and I think it can happen with how responsive they are. The whole situation seems backwards after how well they had things nailed down by the end of MCC, and there's not much I can say on what happened internally with these systems as a result, but I know for a damn fact I'm ready to change this to as glowing of a positive review as it should be when that time comes. I hope for the best.

I don't typically write reviews on games, as it's kinda hard to express my thoughts on a game without rambling, but I'll make an exception here. This is genuinely one of the best games that I have ever played. I have hundreds of hours in the PlayStation version of the game, and probably will have hundreds more in the Steam release by the time I'm finished.

RDR2 is one of those games where every single time you think you've seen everything or found every secret there's some other hidden little bit of content hidden in the world. Beyond this, the game has an incredible narrative with unforgettable characters, moments, and writing. Through and through, this game is a love letter to westerns.

The game also has some of the best interaction with NPCs i've seen in a game, accompanied by a morals system that actually feels impactful. Alongside the narrative, the game really does a fantastic job of instilling a sense of consequence for your actions in you. This is one of very few games that I think does a good job of making you actually feel bad when you do bad things, which I think deserves a ton of credit.

Be aware that the PC version of the game is not without its flaws, and generally requires pretty beefy hardware to run well, which could potentially turn some people off of playing it. If you do have a console but your PC can't run it, I would recommend trying the console version instead.

Another thing worth mentioning is that this game has a (very true to a western) slow pace, which can be understandably off-putting. Everything is weighty almost to a fault. It will work well for some people, and probably be frustrating for others.

At the end of the day though, I seriously recommend this game. Especially to anyone who likes westerns or is just looking for a really good story.

Half Life 2: Update provides overhauled graphics to HL2 including enhanced lighting and shading effects, better water & fog, as well as many other things. This paired with a kickass Community Commentary, where the mod developers and several members of Did You Know Gaming and Ross Scott provide insight into the area you are in, while also discussing some of the finer details and cut content, which is a very intriguing thing to hear about while playing. A majority of the time, these commentaries aren't intrusive, and stop NPCs from proceeding without you as you observe the environment and listen to whoever might be doing the current commentary. Overall, I would reccomend this to both HL2 players looking to experience the game in a heightened visual state, as well as new players who have never experienced the game at all.