Recent reviews by raaaaay

Where do I begin? Where's all the hype coming from?

I get it, combat's good, exploration's good, it's a good game.

But wait, there's always SOMETHING to ruin a good game, isn't there? Now where was I? Where do I begin?

First of all, the messages. You can't turn them off, oooohhhh no. They're there. You'd have to physically unplug your machine from the internet if you want to turn them off. Normally this wouldn't be a big problem, besides the fugly, immersion-breaking aspect of it. But the devs didn't think of the trolls that are inevitably going to be lurking EVERYWHERE on the internet. Case in point, there's a lever that I need to pull. Crucial point in the game. I need to pull the lever. I really really need to pull the lever, it's how to progress the game. But guess what? There's a message right on top of the lever, that says "try the lever". Now BECAUSE OF THAT MESSAGE, I can't pull the lever. That's completely broken the game for me. There's not progression. I can't pull the lever. I can't proceed. Great idea devs, GREAT IDEA!

I don't even know where to stop. I mean, the completely cryptic menus, upgrade system, or how to play the game at all. I mean, I get it, it doesn't hold your hands, like Farcry or any other open world game does. And for that, I love it! It's a beautiful game, and there's so much going for it. I'd love this game! If not for the fact that YOU CAN'T TURN OFF ONLINE MODE! Sorry I digress. The menus, the level-ups, the EVERYTHING. I came home from work to RELAX AND PLAY A GAME, not to DO ANOTHER DEGREE IN ELDEN RING.

I seriously regret all the hours I wasted in this game. It had so much potential, but it squanders all of that in the name of, which ever deluded executive it was who made it IMPOSSIBLE TO PLAY OFFLINE. It's a SINGLE PLAYER GAME. LET ME PLAY OFFLINE. WITHOUT ALL OF THE "MESSAGES" FROM THE INTERNET TROLLS.

TLDR: Avoid at all costs. Worst £50 I've ever spent.

Janky quest system. Really reeeeally not clear where I should go at any time, and the deal breaker is the absolutely wrong, incorrect, and misleading waypoints, for example in the "Weapons on a rampage" side mission. Just a boring waste of time. I played the original FF7 and this is such a disappointment.

Age of Crash 4. Something that's absolutely non-negotiable for any game is that it crashes. There's absolutely no excuse, especially for a ranked game. There you are, playing very well, for once, against the enemies in a ranked team match, with your friends, and just suddenly, for no reason, you crash and lose the match. There's no excuse for that. It's the worst game in the world.

If you've just got the game and haven't crashed yet, trust me, you will. You'll crash after the first 2 hours of play-time, you know, after the time at which you're officially allowed to refund for the game. The first 2 hours are great! Good game play, good story, the works. But AFTER that, it'll crash, all the time. I haven't even played multiplayer yet, just the single-player campaign, and now it's crashing on my 10th hour and I can't do anything about it.

Good one Activision. Nice money grab. Nice scam. Never saw this one coming. This is the last game I'm buying from you scum of the Earth.

By the way, I have a beast of a PC with all the mainstream hardware. RTX 3080 and all. Still crashes. I should just have heeded the reviews. Trust the reviews people. IT CRASHES. Do NOT buy. Not even on sale.

I paid money for this game. I can't remember, like £16? For all the characters. I'm not downvoting this game because of the toxic community. I mean sure, the community is the most toxic you can possibly imagine, but I've been a gamer for decades now, and I'm expecting all that ♥♥♥♥. It's cool, nothing out of the ordinary. People are going to be toxic, it's fine.

What's absolutely inexcusable is the bugs. I'm not even talking about the network lags, because that may well be due to my network connection. I'm talking about real bugs, like UI bugs in the menu, or some times the dash button randomly causes taunt on the Xbox controller, or often there will be FPS lag. Not network lag, frame-per-second lag. I don't know why. I have a beast of a machine. In fact, I have 2 beasts of machines, and I get FPS lag on both of them. This is such a simple game, and to be experiencing these kinds of stupid bugs is simply inexcusable, especially in a competitive environment.

I never, NEVER played a game more than once. You know what I played 3 times? Far Cry 3. Why? Great story, great character development, great graphics (for the time), and great character development. Oh, and, great character development, especially the main character. Oops, did I say "great character development" a couple more times than I should have? Well, I meant it. What these Ubisoft guys didn't realise, to my surprise, is that main character development is VERY IMPORTANT. More specifically, in Far Cry 3, the MAIN CHARACTER SPEAKS!!!! But in this one, (and to be honest, in Far Cry 5 too,) the main character doesn't speak. I don't feel like I'm playing anyone in particular. Ubisoft went: "Let's be politically correct, let's allow the player to choose either gender! Oh wait but that means we'd have to have two voice actors and potentially two slightly different story lines! Hmmm... I know! Let's just have one story line, and make sure the main character never speaks!" With so much experience in making games, I'm genuinely surprised that Ubisoft hasn't figured out that if the main character doesn't speak, the game ISN'T IMMERSIVE AT ALL. We've seen it in GTA3, and we've seen how GTA Vice City, San Andreas, 4, and 5, have made it all better by giving life to the first person by at least letting him/her to speak! How did Ubisoft (of all publishers) not notice that!? This game (and Far Cry 5) is bland, I'm not engaged in this, it's BORING. I've endured all of Far Cry 5 only with the help of a friend (we played multiplayer for the whole game). But this piece of ♥♥♥♥? This I can't endure. I've played like 5% of the game, and I quit. Ubisoft: Please understand this SIMPLE concept: Please understand that the main character needs to have a voice! I don't care if it's male, female, hermaphrodite, asexual, whatever! It needs a narrative, an audible one. How have you not learnt this yet??? Why do you think Far Cry 3 was great? Hell, I even loved Far Cry Primal? Why? BECAUSE THE MAIN CHARACTER HAD A VOICE!!!! Decide on the sex, the race, or whatever, of the main character. I don't give a ♥♥♥♥. Just, GIVE THE MAIN CHARACTER A VOICE!

A lot of people say it's like Bioshock. Let me be clear, it's not as good as Bioshock, not nearly. Not in gameplay, story, graphics, nor anything. OK, perhaps combat mechanics; that's pretty good. So, it's not Bioshock. BUT, it's still worth the money. Others say it's overlooked and underrated, but I think it gets just the attention it deserves. Something about it doesn't feel like an instant classic like Bioshock is (among many others). Still, a good few hours of great fun for (let's be honest) a small price (especially when it's on sale). I can't complain.

I can't recommend this game, and I say this with a heavy heart and plenty of guilt. Let me be clear, it is an absolutely brilliant game. No other game has kept me at the edge of my seat as much as this (with the possible exception of Tomb Raider). The thing is, while many of you may love it, it's just not my kind of game. Now let me explain myself so you can decide whether you want this game; which, if you're the kind of gamer like me, you won't.

The kind of games I loved: Call of Juarez Gun Slinger, Bioshock, FarCry, Tomb Raider, Metro (2033 and Last Light), Dishonoured. What do they have in common? You can kill stuff! And in some cases (Call of Juarez and FarCry) it's quite satisfying to do so. There are games like Alien Isolation where you're the prey rather than the hunter (Tomb Raider, Metro), but in Tomb Raider and Metro, you can still kill stuff, which makes you feel much less helpless. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the violent kind of gamer (I've never killed a living soul in Dishonoured unless the game storyline dictated), but what ruins the gaming experience in Alien Isolation is not just that you can't kill the Alien, it's that much of the time when you die, you feel that it's not your fault! Sometimes the Alien will just turn up in your face for no reason at all, and you have to restart all the way from the last save point ages ago (OK, maybe like 10 minutes ago, but that's ages). Furthermore, you can't help but feel really lonely (which I also felt in Metro), which I don't like. I don't mind scary stuff, I love a good jump-scare in fact! But it's the loneliness that really gets to me.

Final verdict. You may love this game. But it won't give you the warmth of a escapist world like FarCry or Just Cause 2 or Trine 2, nor the comfort of constant conversation and company like Bioshock Infinite, nor the satisfaction of shooting and killing stuff like Call of Juarez, nor the feelings of accomplishment you get from stealth-killer games like FarCry and Splinter Cell. However it will scare the ♥♥♥♥ out of you, it will keep you on your toes at all times, and it has a hell of a good storyline like Tomb Raider (but doesn't quite compare up to the great Tomb Raider, in my opinion).

Usually I'm a connoisseur in games and I'd give a long review describing why this game is bad. But for some reason, this game has a mysterious way of being bad. Everything was right, the story plot, FPS, aliens, and so on. But amazingly, it's ♥♥♥♥! Combat is ♥♥♥♥; story would have been good but is somehow ♥♥♥♥; it just has an overwhelming talent of being boring! How can someone make such a classic storyline so boring!?!? That takes a special kind of talent. I've played the old (and I mean OLD) AVP and AVP2, and they were both pretty good games. But this one has really taught me that even one of the best plots can be ruined by lousy game design.

I say I would recommend this game with a hint of reluctance. It's a good game, storyline is good (but not great). The only thing that pisses me off is the combat system. I prefer an FPS in which everything dies more quickly, like Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (now THAT's a great game). I don't mean make the game easier, as I always like playing games on hardest mode. What I mean is, shooting the same ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing for ages waiting for it to dies gets boring after a while. Headshots don't seem to make much difference either. They could have made it so that enemies take much fewer hits to kill, and the protagonist is much easier to kill too (less health). Granted, you do get the sniper rifle which (when upgraded) gives you one shot kills, which is great. BUT you don't get the sniper until quite late on in the game. Also, because each enemy takes so many shots to kill, you often find yourself running out of ammo. Sure, there are ammo crates all over the place, but you can't hold that much ammo so I find myself running out of ammo whenever I'm faced with a big enemy that takes a lot of shots to kill.

All in all, the fact that enemies take a lot of shots to kill, and that they usually quite fast and move around a lot, make the combat system a little bit annoying. Otherwise, not a bad game at all. I have tons of other FPS games to recommend instead of this one though.