Recent reviews by Osiris

TL;DR as I know it's a long post - "Elden Ring has risen to one of my all time favourites alongside Bloodborne, God of War, Lost Odyssey, FF14, Hades and Endless Space 2 (just to give you an idea of the experiences I typically enjoy and the biases that come with them!!). A solid 9/10, potentially 9.5 but I'll have to give it some more thought!!"

I want to critique this game in my review, but I love it as seen above. Please bear that in mind.

The game is incredibly good, and I could rehash a lot of the praise from other reviews, but I feel it would be better if I inform those yet to try it on a few things that might make this purchase NOT for you instead. This doesn't mean I don't like the game. Far from it! Really enjoyed it and I am close to 100%'ing it (just need NG+ for the other endings). But there ARE problems with the game that may inform your decision when deciding to make that purchase, and it does feel relevant to mention these in a review.

- The PC port issues. They are still there and they are INCONSISTENT. I have a high end system. Some days I can go with not a single stutter. Sometimes the game decides that it will tank itself to sub 5 fps every few seconds in a fight. Sometimes opening the menu causes it to crash. Sometimes it does not crash for a straight 10 hours. I have never encountered such butchered performance before. Not even Cyberpunk (that was just consistently poor-performing)

- Gank Fights. This might surprise you to mention, but the game definitely...idk how to put this. It does imo start to get a little bit 'filler content' in a sense? Don't get me wrong, more content is better than none, but at some point the game just decides that every cave will just have two random minibosses in it with no consideration for the design of the fight as a whole. People GRILLED Dark Souls 2 for this, and it is the same here but without mention. There is a particular gank fight that is hard, but FAIR as it haves the two bosses weave in and out of each other, releasing aggro in the same manner as the Demon Princes from Dark Souls 3. That was great! A fair challenge. The majority of the rest of the gank fights? Just cheap, no thought to them. Really saps the fun out of discovering hidden locations in the latter half of the game in my opinion.

- Inherent Game Balance. It's kinda not great? It's hard to work out why. Build variety has always been a thing in FromSoft games besides Sekiro, and Elden Ring has the greatest variety of the bunch! But it's not the existence of OP weapons or builds that make the balance seem off to me. Far from it, I actually think there's so many OP builds that it is a positive! No, the balance comes from Ashes. Ashes are collectable summoning spells essentially. They allow you to summon creatures, mobs, NPCs etc into a fight, there's lots to collect and you can upgrade them. The game is clearly DESIGNED around them which is really cool IMO! BUT...some of them really really trivialise boss encounters. Insanely so. You might think "WELL DONT SUMMON THEM THEN!". But the game is designed with them in mind. Not summoning them sometimes is akin to not parrying in Sekiro, or not using Trick Attacks in Bloodborne, or doing a broken straight sword soul level 1 run in Dark Souls 3. It is a self-inflicted handicap to the design, it shouldn't really be the answer. Without them, some fights are BRUTAL. Sometimes in a SATISFYING way, definitely! I made a habit not to summon in the first few tries of some bosses and it felt great but only really in select Main Story 'Big Bosses' at endgame. Now for the majority of them? Especially the gank encounters? You summon or you perish until you either over level the encounter or perfect the fight. And for many cases it is not fun. I will be doing a full no-ash NG+ run next for the last achievement I plan to get, so maybe when I truly play the game without them this may change. But as it stands? They need tuning down imo. Without them makes this one of the harder FromSoft games. With them it kinda removes that pride of victory that is the FromSoft go-to for these games, ya know? I could not level them up. But again, a self-inflicting handicap is not the answer to overcoming an aspect of game design. It is important to recognise that I believe

That's kind of my only few gripes I have! The open world is STELLAR - the best of the best! Combat is FUN, almost every weapon does something really cool even if they aren't very good. Armour sets in this game are FANTASTIC. Some of the bosses in this game are SPECTACULAR. But it is not without its flaws - something this community loves to point out in other games but never itself. Elden Ring has risen to one of my all time favourites alongside Bloodborne, God of War, Lost Odyssey, FF14, Hades and Endless Space 2 (just to give you an idea of the experiences I typically enjoy and the biases that come with them!!). A solid 9/10, potentially 9.5 but I'll have to give it some more thought!!

EDIT: A third revision to my SMITE review. I've been keeping my eye on the game since I stopped playing over 2 years ago. Whilst not playing, I watched every patch notes to see if any life had been squeezed back in. And well, yes! It's getting there! Still not as good as when I first started playing, but definitely enough to change my review back to positive again. I've kept the previous review below for reference:

OLD REVIEW:
With the state of the game at the moment? No. Definitely not. A few years back when I first picked up SMITE in the Beta tests, it was great! I loved playing with the game as it evolved: The seasons ticked on and - whilst there were many hiccups along the way - I was pleased with the progress. Season 4 the point where I stopped playing. Season 5 got me back in! But...well, the truth is that the Developers are more interested in Cosmetics and Gem sales than game balance. Just...no. Sorry SMITE. Start listening to your player base and treat them with respect.

HOPEFULLY the day will come when I can change this review to positive. I'll follow the progress of the game still. I'm doubtful, but hopeful.

One of the greatest 4X mastermind games I have ever played!
10/10 would backstab friendly alliance again with Collisions.
10/10 would reject forced peace treaties.
10/10 would screw the economy with random shapes.

UPDATED: 02/04/2016 (see bottom of review)

AFTER PURCHASE:

Make sure to load smite and log intot he account you wish the DLC to be activated on, then as the game is loading keep clicking the logos to skip the two or three loading screens! In order to activate this DLC on an account, a notification will pop up asking you if you wish to proceed with the activation. However, if you let the loading screens load (or if your computer takes some time loading) then this notification disappears for some reason or another. This is why quite a few people have reported the DLC as not working, as it has not been activated.

After activation, the DLC does take 2-5 minutes to load and contact Hi-Rez's servers to unlock all the gods and return favor. Just give it time before you panic.

I myself was wary of buying through steam after reading some of the negative reviews, but I assure you that it is most certainly worth it! If you still feel wary, try purchasing the DLC through Hi-Rez themselves, whom other a wide range of payment methods to choose from.

UPDATE: Some people appear to still be having issues. Another solution I have found is to launch the smite launcher through steam, log out of the launcher and then re-log BEFORE loading up smite. Then load it up, follow the steps I gave before and it mght just work! If you are still having issues, tell us so we can work it out :P

Amazing DLC and amazing value. If you love SMITE, grab the God Pack! :D

Woof.

A very addictive puzzle game that requires both creative thought and practise. Not particularly long, but I would definitely reccomend it to those who like a good practical solution game.