Recent reviews by 776861743f

As an insurance investigator in the 1800s, you have to uncover the mystery surrounding the lost ship Obra Dinn, using only your notebook, a clock that reveals snapshots of past events, and your reasoning skills. If you found the premise and the unique monochrome artstyle intriguing, I recommend that you stop reading this review and go play the game. I promise you will not be disappointed and you should go into this experience blind.

If you still need to be convinced, I divulge a little bit of additional information. The story is revealed to have a Lovecraftian twist early on, but the game focuses on having an eerie aesthetic rather than a scary or thrilling one. Most of the gameplay will essentially happen in your head. Moving around the ship and writing in the notebook are the only actions that the player can really perform in the game. To progress through the story, you will need to correctly deduce the fates of the ship's passengers and crew by visiting memories to view frozen scenes and listen to snippets of audio. The information you are provided is not presented in chronological order and is not guaranteed to be relevant, which makes progression more disjointed and complex, but also more rewarding. As you fill out the notebook and discover the truth, you are sure to feel a sense of satisfaction and curiosity.

The visuals, the music, and the plot all combine to form a unique experience that showcases the power of video games as a story-telling medium. My only complaint would be the inclusion of the "Captain Did It" achievement, which is pointless and adds nothing to the experience other than forcing an additional time-wasting play-through. In summary, I think this is must-play game for anyone that is even remotely interested in the mystery and detective genre. This game makes you feel like Sherlock Holmes.

My personal rating: 10/10

In my eyes, this game was doomed to fail from the beginning because it was an overambitious idea considering the resources and talent that the developer had available. After having completed the entire campaign and explored some of the DLC content, I felt that this "finished" product is closer to what I would expect from an alpha demo build shown during an internal business meeting. As other reviews have already stated many times, the game can be described as essentially repeating the same mission over and over, only with slightly different objectives, constraints, and map layout. That is not inherently a problem, as long as the gameplay is interesting enough to draw the player into this loop, such as with games like Left 4 Dead 2 and Risk of Rain 2.

Unfortunately, that is where Extinction really failed for me: the gameplay is so limiting that it becomes boring within an hour. Your character technically has two ways to attack, but only one of them is actually useful. Killing the smaller enemies, the Jackals, essentially involves spamming that one attack 1 to 4 times, and even though dodging is possible, it is not necessary most of the time. Killing the giant enemies, the Ravenii, requires targeting their exposed necks with a fully charged attack. The Ravenii can wear any combination of armor items, but they all function almost identically and can only be destroyed with one specific approach. You do not even necessarily need to bother dismantling all their armor or dismembering their limbs - as long as you rescue civilians or kill Jackals to charge your attack and expose a Ravenii's neck, you can execute it. As you keep playing, you will eventually realize that every encounter is so formulaic that every mission will feel identical. The progression is nothing noteworthy either: upgrading just slightly improves the character's abilities instead of introducing new ones. There is no tactical planning involved, no combination of abilities, no adapting to unfamiliar scenarios... Keep in mind that killing these giants is supposed to be the focus of the entire game, and it's as simple as targeting the same weak points repeatedly.

The other components of the game are not terrible, but nothing is impressive enough to justify slogging through the mind-numbing gameplay loop. The traversal mechanics are limited and frustrating, especially considering how easily you can get stuck trying to climb buildings or giants and how awkward the targeting system can be. The story is passable, but if you were to combine the fragments of conversations and cut scenes sparsely scattered across the campaign, you would realize that it would all fit into a 10-page comic book. The voice acting was good, but there is not much of it featured. The visual style is distinct, but the graphics are much lower quality than one might expect based on the 2018 release date and its impressive cinematic trailer. Additionally, the lack of design variance between the levels makes everything look monotonous after a while. The 2D art of the cut scenes and user interface looks a bit amateur in my opinion, but that could be chalked up to personal preferences.

Honestly, I think that if the developers had narrowed down their scope to only making a short campaign with more curated level designs and more complex fighting mechanics, then this game could have been an acceptable AA game at a $30 price point. I suspect that a lot of time and resources were wasted on making the lackluster procedural level generation system and rewrapping campaign content into the uninspired DLC game modes. I am shocked that Extinction was initially released as a full-price $60 single-player game featuring an approximately 7-hour campaign stuffed with randomized filler content and mediocre graphics in the same year as God of War and Red Dead Redemption 2. Even worse, Extinction came out two months after the 2018 remake of the famous giant-slaying game that inspired it, Shadow of the Colossus, which was released at a $40 price and received critical acclaim. Overall, I consider Extinction a cautionary tale of how detached management decisions can be from the reality of the gaming industry. Even if you find the giant-slaying concept intriguing, I recommend that you skip this game and consider alternative options.

My personal rating: 3.5/10

A great way to experience D&D gameplay through video games. Very fun playing this with friends!

This was a potentially interesting roguelike game that unfortunately is not worth your time or money. The player is suddenly put in a post-apocalyptic world filled with zombies that can all kill you with one hit. Supplies are limited, but your speed and maneuverability will likely allow you to reserve the use of your resources and weapons for emergencies. You are provided certain checkpoints between levels, where your previous inventory is stored and partly available for you to use in your next adventure. However, you might face a type of "soft-lock" situation where you did not carry over an inventory that made the next level feasible, forcing you to restart the campaign or constantly die until you perfect your current run. Moreover, you are the whims of the level generation's randomness, potentially stuck as you extensively search for the keycode required to progress, hidden on some corpse in the corner of the map. As you progress, new enemies and scenarios will be introduced, but the gameplay loop feels like it boils down to running away from zombies, knocking out or killing zombies, and looting until you can find a weapon to replace the one that just broke. Eventually, I started to feel like the success of my runs was more related to my loot than my skill or strategy. Even worse, the game was plagued with bugs that would add to my frustration each time I played.

The game's potential is diminished when you check the more recent Steam discussion posts and realize that the developer is openly admitting to this being a dead game. For example, the developer's responses to certain bug reports or gameplay questions in the 2020-2022 period essentially state that the game's code is no longer available/clear to the main "developer" and that none of the original programmers are working with the development team. You can even find posts where the developer is discovering how the code works as they are trying to help out players! How such absurd circumstances came to be is unclear to me, but I do not think the player has the responsibility to decrypt the drama going on behind the scenes. Even worse, the game's price on Steam was increased from the already overinflated $30 price to $35, despite being a very short indie game filled with bugs and with no future support. Even if this game is on sale, I would recommend that you avoid it and spend your money elsewhere.

My personal rating: 3/10

As a person that really enjoyed the vanilla version of Mount & Blade: Warband, I consider Bannerlord to be a significant upgrade. It features enhanced graphics, more robust animations, additional skill mechanics, improved UI, and various other features. There are a few small features that did not cross over, such as feasts, though I believe that those were unimportant in the grand scheme of things. There are still some bugs or quirks that you will likely encounter, but these are to be expected in a sandbox simulation game. I understand that the developer TaleWorlds Entertainment has been working on this project for a long time and has been promising many things, but I was not invested enough to feel "betrayed" by what other players have labelled an incomplete product. In summary, if you are looking to get into the medieval strategy simulator genre or a reasonable upgrade to your copy of Warband, this game will be well-suited for you. If you desire to perfectly transfer your modded Warband experience or to play through a cohesive RPG story, then I recommend that you first watch some gameplay videos before committing to this purchase.

My personal rating: 8/10.

Note: I have only played in single-player mode.

An amazing adventure filled with creative design and charming visuals. The fun puzzles, the ever-changing mechanics, and the beautiful scenery combine to make this game a joy to experience with another person. The co-op aspect is thoroughly implemented, as your partner is not simply another version of you; they represent an entirely different character and you are always required to work together to progress. This game will always keep you engaged, with experiences ranging from hectic boss fights to hilarious Easter eggs.

My personal rating: 10/10

Somehow, this game managed to be perfect for me in every way. The mysterious and eerie world, which was clearly inspired by the SCP Foundation project, set up an extremely intriguing atmosphere. As I progressed through the plot, I felt like I was living through one of the darker Doctor Who episodes or a modernized version of a Gothic fiction book. The visuals fit the aura of the game wonderfully, with a mostly muted color palette, reserving bright colors for paranormal objects and powers. Every step of the way, I was completely engrossed in the story. I tried to absorb every environmental detail, every voice recording, every conversational remark, and every discarded document. I wanted to find every secret - I loved Control so much that I did not want to miss a single piece of information. Some might not enjoy the slightly fragmented and abstract approach Remedy Entertainment have in their storytelling, but it is quite on par with their other games.

In terms of gameplay, the player is afforded quite a bit of leeway. The abilities, specializations, weapons, and upgrades you can choose to focus on are quite numerous. The enemy variety also forces players to reconsider strategies and approach difficult encounters a bit more carefully, though I never felt that anything was unfair. Some of the progression mechanics started to feel a bit useless towards the end of the game, as if I had hit some character power cap too early, but I also was completing every side mission and optional objective as soon as possible. I will admit that I encountered a few bugs and glitches, but it was not very disruptive.

In conclusion, I think that anyone interested in supernatural/horror sci-fi plots should try playing Control, because it might very well be the game that scratches their itch for a story-rich experience.

My personal rating: 9.5/10

I purchased this DLC after fully completing everything in the base game. My overall opinion is that nobody should buy Truth Quest unless they feel that they need to get all of the Steam achievements or that they are obsessed with repetitive cycle of chomping/slamming/evading everything that moves.

There are a few positive reviews that disagree with the complaints relating to bugs and optimization, but in my experience these complaints were all justified. On an RTX 3080, there was a noticeable FPS decrease after activating the DLC, which is especially disappointing considering a GTX 970 meets the recommended system requirements. The UI lag that many other users reported was also present in my playthrough. Many gameplay bugs were introduced, the worst of all being a consistent freeze when getting near the final boss while wearing certain gear, forcing me to change my build just so that I could actually maneuver my shark.

In terms of content, the story relied heavily on the entertaining narration of Chris Parnell, but the plot was extremely one-dimensional compared to the main questline. The entire DLC can be characterized as an overdone satire of conspiracy theorists that overstays its welcome. Moreover, the majority of the gameplay relies on recycled content; the end-game "cleanup" you did to retrieve those last achievements is essentially extended. For example, a large portion of the new objectives requires you to do the exact same thing in different locations: consume 10 sailors without any real justification. The only new mechanics that were important were the inclusion of a slightly different radiation-focused build and the increase in enemy difficulty.

Another major complaint is the amount of content provided for the price. In my opinion, it makes no sense to charge more than a third of the base game price for a lazy side quest mission. The base game takes less than 11 hours to fully complete, but it is honestly quite enjoyable due to character and plot progression. Going through Truth Quest felt like going through a long checklist of boring tasks, with the exception of some challenging fights, just to access a few audio files that mainly consisted of hackneyed jokes.

One criticized aspect of the DLC that I grew to appreciate was the inclusion of the Time Trials. The aerial maneuvers required to complete them were initially frustrating, but I noticed that they forced me to gain a better understanding of the (sometimes janky) movement controls.

My personal rating: 4.5/10.

Somehow, every aspect of this game was satisfying for me. The story, which presents the quite human struggles of the relationship between a father and son in the context of gods and myths, was captivating and touching. I have not played the previous games in the series, which sometimes meant that I could not appreciate references to well-established lore, though I believe the introduction of the Norse realm allows the plot to keep both new and old players engaged. The gravitas of emotional scenes was amplified by the superb acting, the epic soundtrack, and the unconventional single-shot camera approach. The use of only one camera take for the entire game is even more impressive when considering how naturally the designers manage to show off the plethora of detailed and surreal areas featured in this realm. I also appreciated the dark tones highlighted in the mythology and history you learn throughout the game, which further reinforce the harsh reality that exists in such a deceptively exciting world.

In terms of gameplay, I generally enjoyed all the mechanics. There are some balanced RPG elements included with a variety of options for skill progression and equipment builds. Improving Kratos is necessary to beat harder enemies and to advance in the story, but the game does not force players to waste time grinding to achieve this. The controls feel very fluid and the combat system is expansive. The difficulty of certain bosses can at times feel frustrating and unfair, but many will likely consider this a rewarding aspect of the fights.

Other users reported technical issues, such as memory leaks, but the developers have been quickly releasing patches and I did not experience any even on release day. The graphical performance was excellent and I cannot remember losing any frames while playing with a 4K resolution. As many reviews already mention, this is a PC port done right. If you have not played this on a PlayStation already, I heavily encourage you check this out.

My personal rating: 9.5/10

An enjoyable Star Wars experience focused on light-saber swordplay and light parkour mechanics. The excellent soundtrack and beautiful visuals perfectly matched the atmosphere I expected in a Star Wars game. The story itself was good; though slightly predictable and cliche, I appreciated the mysterious aspect of exploring ancient history. Many open world games tend to stretch gameplay time with a plethora of pointless collectibles, but I felt that Fallen Order's collectibles were well-balanced and rewarding. The map system was not as unintuitive as others made it sound, though it was not really helpful when trying to achieve full completion at the end of the game. Additionally, the absence of a teleport system makes revisiting areas a chore. The main issue of the game for me was the amount of bugs. There were constant physics and graphics glitches, most of which resulted in frustrating deaths when exploring and some immersion-breaking situations. I also experienced a very random crash while walking. The performance was very good on a high-end PC, though I did not really try to push the game's limits. Overall, I recommend this game if you feel intrigued by the trailers, but I would not classify it as a "must play" game.

My personal rating: 7.5/10