Recent reviews by Gearhead

"Alright ramblers, let's get rambling."

Honestly? For a game that's reaching it's tenth anniversary next year I would say Payday 2 aged fantastically well, though my only real gripe would be the money that stacks up for buying DLC. However? If you join a lobby who owns the DLC, you don't have to worry about that restriction--Guns? Little out of luck there. If you want to dip your toe in, I highly recommend the legacy edition, as it includes all content prior to the new "Campaigns" that Overkill has begun to do over the past few years. (Esp. on sale!)

With that, I suppose I have two suggestions: If you feel like you need a bit more information on an active heist, look into Wolfhud, and well... No one said robbing is fun solo--play with friends for more fun and chaos!

Outer Wilds: The game where the true difficulty is trying to talk to your friends (or tell them) about the game without spoiling anything they don't know already.

For me, my playthrough of Outer Wilds took place over both console and PC over two years--I received a free copy of it on console and played through about... 8 hours or so, got stuck on a puzzle, and didn't come back to it until I kind of forgot about it--until a friend mentioned Outer Wilds and how they enjoyed the experience, which brought it back into the spotlight for me. Picking myself up another copy of the game on Steam, I sat down and worked through the story once more, finally reaching the finale and just having a quiet moment--when the credits rolled, I needed about half an hour to just right myself.

However, that's my story--you're looking for a review of the game. One of the most difficult things about Outer Wilds is not the puzzles, but trying to talk to others to try to get them to try the game for themselves. Different people have different elements of this game that they enjoy: whether it be the technological intricacies of the entire solar system (There's a few documentaries about this, and they're great!), the homeliness of Timber Hearth and the vibe of their space exploration company Outer Wilds Ventures, the puzzles of the game, the story of the civilization that came before, the absolutely wonderful soundtrack (Come on Mobius, give us the Echoes of the Eye soundtrack already!) or sometimes just the raw emotions that this game has been able to evoke from its players.

Outer Wilds at its core, is walking simulator, exploration game, puzzle game, and a physics sandbox all rolled up into one game. You begin at Timber Hearth--mostly a tutorial area that you can spend as much time as you want at, as on a first playthrough the physics simulation hasn't begun yet fully. As you venture through and talk to the residents of the Hatchling's (a common name given to the protagonist by players) village, pieces and tidbits of the solar system you are about to embark on are offered to you, like leads in a crime case (except you know, it's not a crime at hand).

Through the tutorial area, the game teaches the player organically a lot of the core game mechanics, but the fun thing? You can skip ALL of the tutorials if you want to try to learn from trial and error if you'd like, and that's the beauty of this game. Everyone is going to have different experiences with this game, as the game's progression isn't a straight line, but rather a mix of a spider web and puzzle pieces to be put into play. There is a linear story to be told, but you have to explore to find the puzzle pieces of this line presented--if you get stuck on a puzzle, try coming back to it later! It'll still be waiting. As well, there isn't any form of item progression such as upgrades and the sort (Which I know can be a turn-off for some people who want a tangible unlock to let them see how far they came), but rather the "upgrades" are effectively knowledge. There are no true item gates needed to unlock new sections of the game (If I say any more it would be spoiler territory--you'll know what I mean when you get there), as the entirety of the game is open to you (Heck, you can beat the game within 20 minutes if you wanted, AND you get an achievement for it!).

However, I do understand that some might not find this to be their cup of tea (for some it might be the mechanics getting in the way of the story they want to know, or maybe vice versa--or maybe it might be everyone's favorite place, Dark Bramble), and I understand that. Everyone has their own tastes, and if you THINK you might be interested, I would say go ahead and give the game a shot--that's part of life isn't it? Learning through trial and error.

Anyways, the same friend that got me to jump back into this wonderful game describes Outer Wilds as "There are two kinds of people: those who haven't played it, and those who say it's the best game release of 2019 and 2020." I would probably say there's three with the third being "Those who tried it and didn't think it was their cup of tea", but I'd say theirs is a less wordy version of the saying.

But uh... yeah. This is my review--dunno if it'll help anyone who's deciding on this game, but hey, it's here.

To be honest, I ended up playing FO4 for just a small while, then stopped playing for a year, but coming back, it's still surprisingly good. Yes, it might not have the branching story NV offers, but it's still a solid crisp game (most of the time)

I heavily enjoyed this game, and it isn't what you think it is, but rather somethinng else relating to it. out of 10, I give this a 9.5 out of 10 ONLY because I didn't get to do what I think (NO SPOILERS!)

Enjoyed the game highly. I wish the story was longer, but you might forget about it if you play with friends

Amazing