Recent reviews by Neurotoxin

An incredibly fun game that often tries its hardest not to be so.

Once again Creative Assembly have made a turnaround. Hopefully this time they actually keep at it.

Between many, many broken promises, terrible patch releases and censorship of well-deserved criticism, I can safely say this is not a game worth giving money to. Buy something else made by developers that actually want to innovate and don't actively display contempt for their players.

Good art. Very cool aesthetic design. Good music. No actual story to speak of. Horrific gameplay design.

If you enjoy ten minutes of fun enough puzzles followed by an hour of not even remotely fun puzzles and a bullet hell section, then this is the game for you. Sadly the mildly amusing premise of a demon harem does not actually make up for the gameplay but hey, it was free I guess. Definitely does not live up to the hype.

More than worth its price.

Not that it's cheap, mind.

Shadow of War. A very controversial game, for a variety of reasons - some reasonable, some not so much.

To start off - the meat and bones of the game:

The Gameplay.

Following on from it's predecessor, Shadow of Mordor, it hails the revolutionary Nemesis System. It must be said, the Nemesis System is turned all the way up in this game, with many more different ways to interact with both your foes and your allies.

There are 3 modes of gameplay; Easy, Normal and Nemesis. I cannot tell you what Easy or Normal are like since I went straight into Nemesis and didn't look back, as I recommend to anyone who played Shadow of Mordor to the point where every fight was an easy victory. Even then Nemesis mode is a bit of a mixed bag still - there are certainly parts where I am given a massive run for my money, but often enough I come out relatively unscathed.

Being able to not only take control of your enemies, but to issue commands and promote and demote them certainly is very fun. The huge variety of tribes, classes and above all traits certainly makes for an exciting time, with no two orcs being the same (though admittedly, even procedural generation has its limits).

I do have to say, however, that there are definitely features missing with the ability to control your orcs that I would love to have seen - such as the ability to direct exactly what kind of missions the orcs are sent on, instead of merely attempting to pit them against each other and seeing what the game decides to give you.

This element of unfortunate randomness is further compounded by the "saviour" moments, where you are protected from death by an ally when you are about to die, thus killing your opponent. This can be extremely frustrating when it happens, as sometimes the enemy in question is one you did not want killed. This ability cannot be turned off.

Still, the ways in which orcs may seek you out are large indeed. Some will chase you for killing an orc close to their heart, or simply because they disagree with your methods of attack. Some can even chase you through the different areas of Mordor. You're not safe even from your own allies, who may chose to betray you if they feel you have wronged them or simply aren't a capable enough leader - though this sadly often means they are difficult, if not impossible to recruit back into your service.

The large variety of not just enemies, but also equippable gear is also excellent, much improved on the simple runes of Shadow of War. Being able to socket your armour and weapons with varying tiers of gems with different effects provides useful bonuses, and the spectrum of abilities that the gear itself can give you opens up a whole new wave of opportunities. Furthermore you can even upgrade the gear itself, giving it a new name, a new look and often a reminder of the enemy you got it from. Some gear can even be upgraded multiple times.

There are many new abilities and sub-abilities in Shadow of War, though some are locked behind story content. They enable you to change your playing style on a whim simply by switching sub-abilities to complement a new angle of attack. As you play through the game, traversing the world becomes easier and more enjoyable with many new ways of moving around.

And you'll certainly need them - with 5 new regions to play in, more than double the regions in Shadow of War, there's a lot of ground to cover. The terrain is very different, with many visually-striking biomes and all the new fauna and hazards that come with them. Fortunately for those who don't enjoy running around as much, each region has 3 fast-travel points to unlock.

And in every region there houses the most interesting part of the game - the Fortresses. Each fortress is ruled by an Overlord, with up to 6 Warchiefs guarding it. You can put together your own crack team of attackers and besiege the fortress, with each ally you bring adding a new bonus to the assault. Each enemy warchief will also have their own bonuses to be aware of, though they can be hunted down outside of the siege to remove both their presence and the defence.

And once you claim your own fortress and customise it as you see fit, you may be forced to defend it against enemy forces seeking to regain it for themselves. Both of these moments are unfortunately both scripted and finite.

But still, if you should desire to spill more blood and conquer more castles, your fellow players may be happy to oblige, with online fort assault being available. Sadly these are somewhat simpler than one could hope for, being only a one-off fight against a random player's fortress - and the only notice you have of your fort having been taken or having repulsed an invader is a simple, brief message in the UI. Though at least if your fortress is taken, you lose nothing.

But some people are interested in more than just the gameplay, so onto;

The Story.

One of the biggest criticisms of Shadow of Mordor was its weak story. I personally forgave the game for that - I read books or watch films for story, such should be secondary in video games. Still, it cannot be denied that certain elements were less than enjoyable, often somewhat contrived.

Has Shadow of War improved? That's difficult to say. There were certainly areas that I did not enjoy, and simply forced myself to get through without feeling any connection to the characters involved. Other parts I found quite emotionally stirring, though sometimes negatively.

In Shadow of Mordor, much is often made of the final boss fight being a quick time event. While Shadow of War is not exactly the same, I definitely found myself thinking about that in some of the boss fights. The gameplay mechanics involved did not please me at all and left me drained and eager to move on when finished, instead of satisfied and victorious.

All in all, it's really hard to give my opinion on whether or not the story was any good; subjective as it is. There were definitely scripted parts I did not enjoy being forced into, and much repetition on certain subjects became grating quickly. The changing of many events in the timeline of Middle-earth may prove angering to those of a "purist" nature, if you care about that sort of thing, which I don't.

And finally we come to the biggest issue of them all;

Microtransactions (MTX).

Upon the announcement I personally did not see the matter as of much importance - though I certainly did not desire them, MTX seemed a relative non-issue. The statement was made that the balancing of the game was done without their presence being included and nothing that could be gained from spending your money could not be gained otherwise, which I took as honesty.

Was it honesty? Not exactly.

It's true that the orcs you can receive are also obtainable through normal means, but it must be said that you can very easily get a hold of orcs that are significantly better than the *majority* of orcs you find in the regular game. Which isn't to say that the orcs you get from MTX are all definitely better than any non-MTX orc - I have run across some I would wager are just as good, if not better.

There're other things than orcs that you can get though, and sadly those things can't be obtained through regular playing. This is disappointing as they do add a whole extra addition to the customisation of your orc allies - the ability to move your orcs through the world instead of having them in only the region you found them in is gated and a big loss.

Despite this fact it does have to be stated categorically that there's no requirement to spend any real life money on these MTX whatsoever. The advantages are certainly there for doing so, but there are lesser "loot boxes" that can be purchased in the store with in-game currency and even the premium currency can be earned through certain ingame challenges.

In essence, the game is definitely worth buying and playing. Some might be put off by the MTX, which is understandable, but they are avoidable.

Honestly I just don't like DOTA.

I previously reviewed this game several days ago, but now having played a fair amount more of it, I feel the need to compound on my earlier words.

You start by waking up in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by hostiles. You must prepare yourself against the environment and work your way up the food chain.

It's a barren desert. The heat is intense, sapping a new player's life away in minutes. Water is a constant necessity, found in sparse veins, pools and the occasional Water Jug Bug. Supposedly, cactus sap is meant to quench your thirst, but does not - an obvious bug since the release, yet still unfixed nearly a week on.

Rocks are abundant, true. Metal spawns much less so, save in the very furthest mountains, thoroughly surrounded by enemies. Crystal and obsidian can only be found there.

Your food wastes away faster than you could believe, only mitigated by preserving salt, which also spoils itself. Prime Meat (an important staple of taming carnivores) is only found in a handful of dinos, and wastes away in two minutes - which can go up to 5 with preserving salt. Far from the 9 minutes of The Island.

And yes, the dinos themselves are few and far between. 10 completely new creatures can be found in Scorched Earth, 5 carnivores and 5 herbivores - 2 of which cannot be tamed.
Of the original dinosaurs, only *17* species can be found in Scorched Earth - 9 carnivores and 8 herbivores - 2 of which cannot be tamed.

27 creatures in this new ark, compared to the 56 species currently available in the other maps.

And with so many removed, the taming balance is gone - many creatures cannot be tamed with the staple taming food; kibble. Only 3 of the original species can be tamed with kibble - the Dire Wolf, the Tyrannosaurus and the Utahraptor.

Many changes were made to other parts of the game. Power generators will now take damage during heat cycles, enough to destroy them if not repaired several times a day. Electrical equipment will shut off during storms, even ones that run off of gasoline such as the Fabricator.

And that brings us to the new weather effects. Sandstorms that drain your stamina, Heatwaves that mess up your vision, Thunderstorms that stop your electrical equipment. All very annoying and pointless effects - worse even than the dread fog of before. Though you do at least get a warning a little while before these occur in the form of the Jerboa, a shoulder mount who makes a different noise for each weather effect.

The biggest selling point is the Wyverns, a large flying dragon-related species that comes in 3 different flavours; lightning, fire and venom. These cannot be tamed as normal, instead you must steal and egg and raise it. The take an extremely long time to raise and must be fed Wyvern milk, which is obtained from 2 sources; killing Alpha Wyverns or knocking out female normal wyverns and stealing milk from their inventory. You get very little from them, and it spoils very fast. So you've gotta do a lot of tranqing or killing.

All in all, if you like the grind of the normal ARK but don't like how many dinos, resources or actual enjoyable things there are to do in it, try Scorched Earth.

I previously recommended this game because, despite its flaws, it was a genuinely good game and that was enough. The developers regularly updated it and often spoke with the community in various places. In recent months, the updates and the communication has gone down significantly, and what little we do get falls short of the promises.

But now, after the release date has already been pushed back once, a paid DLC has been released. Instead of working on fixing the myriad of issues, the developers chose to work on something completely different instead.

Something we neither asked for, nor wanted. We asked for optimisation, for bug fixes, for more things to do.

We didn't ask to be expected to shell out as much as the basegame for a new expansion while there was still much more supposedly in the works.

So here we are, having been lied to and decieved. I got my money's worth, yes, but it cost me my faith in this game, and that's a bitter blow indeed.

Much like the original Binding of Isaac, this is an insanely good buy.

More expensive, true, but you get a staggering amount of extra content. Definite bang for your buck.

With more items, bosses, abilities and just plain more gameplay, this is a no-brainer for anyone.

(Admittedly it is considerably worse looking than the original, but this can be mitigated slightly. It's not much but it's just enough.)