Recent reviews by Nennoh

Buying out game exclusives is one thing. Buying out an entire studio just to pull a game off Steam is one of the sleaziest things you could possibly do. Pretty fitting for Tencent's sock-puppet.

In terms of graphics and gameplay, this game is a massive step-up from its predecessor. The visuals and attention to detail is stunning. Maneuvering around a much larger Gotham City, whether you're gliding or driving, is fast, easy and feels great overall.

With the improved combat system, Batman has additional gadgets and movesets to deal with his opponents and can interact with the environment in order to one-shot problematic enemies. Opposing groups now consist of different types of foes that can use a variety of attacks, forcing you to dodge, parry or intercept incoming attackers by stunning or disarming them. Target priority is a must, as enemies can jam, detect or use specialized suits to avoid your bat-vision, setup turrets and even heal fallen comrades. Although you can still get away with button mashing in most fights, these additions make the system feel that much richer by giving you more ways to approach the situation at hand.

Skip this section if you don't want to get spoiled. Story-wise, I found the campaign alright. With Batman stories, it's always the presentation, journey and characters that keep you interested and not the destination, however, this one in particular goes nowhere. We've already experienced Batman's tormented psyche multiple times in the Arkham series that, at this point, feels too familiar. Batman also makes several weird choices throughout the story such as refusing assistance from ANYONE, including the fully equipped and trained police force and his own Bat family that he explicitly created in case something like this were to occur. He has Scarecrow cornered twice, but simply lets him get away to appease the Plot Gods. What takes the cake is Arkham Knight's entire purpose in the story. Despite the claim that this is an original character, it is merely a reskin of Red Hood and a retelling of a familiar story. Even if you're not familiar with Jason Todd's character, the way his story is presented in the game makes it obvious who the masked vigilante is from the start. After spending hours chasing Batman around the City with his militia forces and attempting to kill him multiple times, Arkham Knight finally manages to corner Wayne for one final showdown, where the Knight is revealed to be the one and only Todd (surprise). Jason, the guy that spent God knows how long prepping this whole operation (his whole drive being that he hates Batman and what he stands for) and aiding a disturbed criminal in domestic terrorism, changes his entire ideology in a matter of seconds after Bruce simply apologizes, and even comes back later to briefly aid Batman in his final confrontation with Scarecrow. The high point of the story is without a doubt the Joker; Mark Hamill's performance brings so much levity and joy (despite how insane the character actually is) that I treasured every moment he was on screen.

The campaign's duration and repetitive missions are things that I think held this game back. One of the positives behind the first two titles is that they were straight forward; you had your villains, motivations and a goal. Arkham Knight on the other hand has multiple missions that are copy-pasted Ubisoft style throughout the campaign, usually revolving around the Batmobile, in order to justify its open world design. The biggest offenders are the Most Wanted missions. For example: disarm 20 landmines, chase down 20 vehicles, disable 20 militia checkpoints, locate 17 hostages, find 5 weapon caches, chase down Firefly 3 separate times for 5 minutes each in the exact same manner and so on. Lots of these sidequests do not normally show up on the map and are left to the player if they so choose to find them. Problem is, finding some of these is just too random. Your best bet in-game is to either listen to radio frequencies that occasionally pop up or to explore the map, but I would just recommend finding a detailed map online so as not to waste your time. Riddler's back once more with his riddles, and just like before, it's a pain to collect these and four games in I just gave up on them. It's not worth it in my opinion for an additional 2 minute cut-scene.

As for the Batmobile, it is a welcomed addition. Driving around, using its combat mode or solving a puzzle is fun to do, but as I mentioned before, the Batmobile is forced into a lot of missions which can feel very restrictive. Most of the time, I preferred gliding than driving, as it's the most efficient way to maneuver around the City. Tank fights though, is something this game could have done without. To justify the vehicle combat, Batman can battle militia tanks and drones, which occur too many times in the campaign and take up the majority of your time in side missions. The more progress you make, the more enemies and tanks get thrown your way and the playing field is reduced over time, which forces you to upgrade your vehicle's crucial parts if you wanna stand a chance against some of these during your late game as you will get bombarded from all sides by literally everything.

Sidenote: You just gotta love Batman's denial when operating the Bat-Tank. The same artillery used to decimate buildings and other vehicles also happens to be equipped with suppression rounds and tasers every time it runs someone over.

DLC wise, if you don't care for the skins and just want the few short story packs, I recommend getting them on sale, as they're mostly challenge maps with story-related elements and each episode lasts for about 30 minutes, except for Batgirl's that clocks in about an hour or so.

TL;DR: There are lots of improvements and new additions to the series and I did have a lot of fun, but lots of missions drag out for far too long and the story overstays its welcome. If you're a fan of the series and enjoy the Batman universe, give this one a go.

It's hard to say whether this game is worth to anyone who's not a fan of the Arkham franchise, as at this point the player has experienced everything the series has to offer. Although the IP was made by a different team, lots of elements, such as assets, models and sound effects, were re-purposed for this game, minus the original voice actors. You use almost the exact same gadgets, face off against similar, but slightly re-skinned enemies in familiar environments. The story's decent, I did enjoy some of the performance, Troy Baker did a very good job in Mark Hamill's place. This time around you're exploring Gotham City rather than its prison, meaning the world map is slightly larger, but it also feels like its downside. There's not that much to do outside the core missions, making it a hassle to travel from point to point (even with fast travel) and leaving the City looking like a frozen wasteland. Combat is slightly more forgiving, if it makes any difference, however I did like the shock gloves you get near the end of the game, it feels so satisfying to break through rows of enemies with ease after improving your combat skills over the course of your campaign. Riddler's trophies are easier to acquire this time around, making it feel less like a chore, but you don't get anything for completing them besides an achievement. There are also numerous bugs that occasionally pop up, some of them that I've encountered include random game crashes mid transition, Batman getting stuck in random objects and the environment or outright clipping through the entire world and failure to interact with objects or people of interest.

Overall, it's a game made for the fans. I did enjoy my time with it, but I'd like to emphasize on some of its weaker points for the sake of the review. If you enjoy Arkham games, I say give this one a try.

Really fun experience, especially with friends, and one of the better rogue-like, early-access titles you'll find on Steam.

Unless you're a fan of the series, I cannot recommend this game on its own, mainly because of the awful port. While mine worked fine for the most part, it did end up crashing twice, and it only gets better, cause the game lacks an auto-save feature, meaning that you're forced to run to a checkpoint every few minutes just to be cautious and avoid having to redo the same mission.

While it has some amusing mini-games scattered across the sandbox, you'll be repeating these same missions over and over again as there's really nothing else to do and if you're a completionist, you'll have to replay every single thing cause all the bonus conditions are not available until you beat the mission for the first time. The game doesn't even give you your winnings directly. Instead, it scatters the earnings across the open-world, forcing you to go and fetch it piece by piece. If you'd still like to buy it, I recommend getting it with one of STORM's bundles.

This product is seen as an "in-between" game and rightfully so, as it only offers a small side story, 3 original animations and an interesting arena combat system only present in this installment, but that's as unique as this game gets. There's no main quest besides clearing out these same arena missions over and over again with the handicap increasing over each challenge to make it more difficult. Bigger characters roster and more polished mechanics are seen in future installments. Let's not forget to mention that this is the only one out on Steam that's capped at 30 FPS and has fairly decent load times compared to even its predecessors. Unless you're a fan of the series, I cannot recommend this game on its own.

This game's not worth 13 bucks when all you do is jump for 2 hours from point A to point B in an empty, desolate world using two clunky abilities that are not consistent.

For example: you have no air control, the super jump fails to go off sometimes leaving you to plummet to your doom, the hook randomly decides not to work and its reach changes pending on what object you're trying to attach it to. In poorly lit areas, it tends to be difficult to even find your path as it's either obscured or it simply blends in with the background.

If you like what you see, feel free to get it, but keep in mind that's all there is to it.

Mirror's Edge is a fun little parkour-based platformer with a very simple, yet sharp, art-style. Although its level design is linear, a few open areas allow you to traverse obstacles and tackle enemies at your own pace. With that said, the game can feel like it overstayed its welcome as its simple design leads to a lot of repetition and almost identical environments considering that it lasts roughly around 4 to 6 hours.

The mechanics are serviceable, but very constricted, requiring precise timing in order to execute your move. For instance; jumping across hurdles requires you to be centered when facing them, some obstacles can only be approached from a single angle, certain pipes can only be gripped in one spot, you might fail a jump if you're not looking above your desired location despite physically being thrusted in the same direction and overshooting the designated area often leads to failure. Their flaws are much more prominent indoors, as clustered chapters limit your movement.

The story, what little of it there is, centers around your standard 'Evil Corp.' who abuse their power to torment their citizens in a very ambiguous manner so that EA can pretend they're selling you something more than shiny visuals and a fancy mechanic.

Overall, it's a fun game, but it has its flaws. If you're looking to buy it, keep in mind that this is all there is to it.

For its time, Spec Ops: The Line was a really innovative approach and a welcomed change to an over-saturated market of shooters and at first glance it looks just like that, yet another installment in multitude of franchises revolving around military shooters, which makes me think it was done on purpose so as to subvert the players' expectations. Although it's not perfect, it has a very mature look at war and conflict as a whole with its gritty approach, moral gray areas, dark undertones and excellent foreshadowing.

Its gameplay, however, is notorious for being clunky and frustrating to work with. The game offers little to no control configuration which is a big problem, as the regular mouse sensitivity is all over the place and multiple actions are bound to a single button, such as sprint and taking cover, that can't be separated meaning that the game often has conflicting inputs, leading to a lot of struggle and death at the hands of faulty mechanics. It's for this that I recommend experiencing the game on a standard or lower difficulty, with anything above for people who like playing with odds stacked against them.

On Suicide and Fubar difficulties, enemies punish you for the slightest of things, even if they don't always make sense. For example; sometimes you'll be out in the open for a few seconds and not get hit once, but other times you'll get one shot before you even get a chance to peek. This is only complicated more with the lack of ammunition to make it more realistic for lower levels, but frustrating on higher ones as it takes you forever to gun down a single enemy and often creates long and grueling stalemates.

Sidenote, its multiplayer is a joke. You can tell it's tacked on just for the sake of having one because, apparently, the game can't be a military shooter without it these days. Even if you manage to get enough players to experience it to its fullest, it's riddled with bugs and poor net code with no consideration for balance whatsoever. Its mechanics are directly ported over from the campaign meaning that you're playing a fast-paced mode with stiff controls and pistols that act like sniper rifles.

Overall, if you're looking for a good single-player story driven experience, I highly suggest going for it, you won't be disappointed.

Machine for Pigs has a well-built steam punk-esque atmosphere thanks to the fitting visual design, enjoyable writing and an eerie soundtrack, but this is as good as it gets. The overall game feels like a step down from the original Amnesia title, The Dark Descent, with its short, linear gameplay, recycled enemies, overbearing pig symbolism and simplistic fetch quests that pass themselves off as puzzles. The exclusion of the inventory system means health is self-replenishable and you no longer have to manage your light source as it's practically infinite, but the trade off is that the game's areas are poorly lit, making it difficult to navigate certain levels even with the lantern in hand. Enemies are primarily seen in the background and can be directly encountered about 5 or 6 times in total, which is the only time they pose somewhat of a threat to the player. They can easily be avoided, seeing as the enemy A.I. rarely reacts to your light source and position; it might even fail to notice you whilst standing two inches from their position and if it does, rest assure that you can outrun it.

Overall, it's not an awful game per say, but it sure is a step down from its predecessor. If you're a fan of the original and a game collector, then I suggest having a go at it, but try getting it during a sale, as I don't feel the content justifies the price tag.