Recent reviews by Kailee

I can talk about how great this game is, how it isn't just a platformer, how it has a perfect difficulty spike for a beginners in this genre or how difficulty is connected to the story in every way. There is a lot to praise, but I just want to say...
Thank You.

+ Gameplay is unique, felt good and I wasn't bored. To not get bored by gameplay in a game which is longer than 10 hours is a huge success for me. Gameplay is always fresh because of it's changes and improvements throught the game. When I started to think that it's already too long, game gives you a bike, then a weapon, grenades, different areas which completely changes your gameplay and many more, but I don't want to spoil.
+ Soundtrack is fenomenal. I know it's just songs put together into playlist and only some of them were created specifically for the game but damn it's great. Definitely the best part of the game for me. Background music other than songs are great too.
+ Game World. I read something about Kojima before playing this game because I did not know him and one was very clear. He can make a great mysterious worlds full of complex details and that's probably the strongest part of the game at all, because it drives the whole game.
- Story. I also read that Kojima doesn't know how to write characters and better-than-average stories without help, so when I saw that he made this game pretty much by himself with his vision, it won't be revolution. Story is trying to be serious but there are plotholes. At all felt enjoyable, but more than half of the plot twists and story decisions I knew before they happened and only few times something surprised me. It's just a cliché story full of scenes and decisions you saw hundred times somewhere else which I don't find interesting.
- Storytelling. Game is very clearly trying to tell you that Characters A and B are the bad ones, but I knew from the beginning that it's Character C, because of how characters were made. Every character has a good and bad side, a mistakes they made or something, and there we have this Character C, the best sunshine in whole World (read America) without a single negative thing, so guess what.
- Characters. These are some interesting characters or even well-made (like Higgs and Mama), but most of these are not main characters, sadly. Then there are characters like Sam, Amelia, Fragile, and some romantic couple. Most dialogues with Amelia feels like a discussion with a kid who thinks you can't put 1 and 1 together like them. Discussion between Sam and Amelia are the worst. They are the main story parts which I, as a player, should care about and I didn't.
- American propaganda. I know this game is made by Japanese studio and Japanese people are obsessed about America, but they made ''more american'' propaganda on USA than Trump ever did and that's something. The game is telling you everywhere that only America can save the World. Only America is the best to fight with evil. Only America is that strong to stay together and You, You are America too. Come and help us because only You can make America great again!
- Advertisements can be less aggressive without punching you to the face with logos.
- Enemies are terrible, like not everything about them, mainly AI is terrible and bossfights too and it's a problem if you're fighting all of them many times through the game.
- Nintendo scene is hilarious. It ruined immersion of that cutscene and importance of the story. All of this just for an awkward joke.
- UI and repetitive cutscenes. Why I need to see 200 times same long cutscenes like Sam putting box on shelf, watching NPCs saying same ''Hmm, let me look at it... Nice! Good Job!'' and 100x skipping through same screens with useless wall of text after every delivery. I know that games from Asia are like this, but even in Devil May Cry I found its ''confirmation screens'' annoying and here it is in whole new level, because it's just one after another and this is problem of cutscenes too.
- PC port. Looks like they did not test it. I can't drive vehicles, gamepad vibrations crashes the game, also other very common crashes in the game, huge FPS drops, glitched gamepad button icons, bugged BT scanner. I was sure that they just did not test it properly (probably didn't even test it on multiple GPUs or Xbox gamepads) and that they will fix it as soon as possible, but I was wrong. It's three weeks after release and everything they did was one little update which fixed nothing and they announced screenshot showcase like they care more about screenshots than fixing their game. The didn't even say like ''Hey, sorry. We're working on updates''. This is not how you release the game and I'm surprised that this game, which sold less than expected on PS4, can make mistake like this and lose money with PC release too. All I can say at the end is that they deserve it. Not developers, but Kojima and people with power who let this game fall. (Edit: A month after release, they released 5GB update, which is nice, but they should talk about it and sadly nothing is fixed for me with this update).

I expected story to be bad. It was. I expected the world to be good. It was. I already knew that there is a huge american propaganda and advertisements, because it made a controversy when it was released on PS4. I expected gameplay to be boring, because it felt repetitive from videos and it wasn't. Gameplay was a huge surprise and it was fun to play. Is it an original game? Yes. Is it an interesting game? Yes. Is it a good game? Depends on what you expect. Did it meet my expectations? No, it exceed them, because I expected to not like it and uninstall it after few hours, but I like gameplay of this game even if I don't like pretty much everything else.
7/10 if I want to be objective. If not, it's easily 10/10, because it's special for me. Even if I hate many aspect of this game it's still one of the best games I've played ever.

+ You can add your town and play it, but only in free gamemode.
+ They use real recordings of situations and calls, which brings realness and emotions into it.
+ Positive points if you rescue a cat on a tree.
- Negative points if I send a help to a dog which was hit by a car? I lost a lot of points too if I sent police officers somewhere where it wasn't necessary. Not real. In reality if you want a police officers, they need to come and not that you need to prove that you need them and argue with operator about it. And these aren't the only unlogical things where I was losing points.
- It got repetitive really fast. There is not that much types of incidents what can happen and not that much calls either so after few hours you know what's happening and what to click only after first words from that person.

Interesting concept and fun for few hours. For a 5 dollars or less I would say it's great choice. For more, not that much. If I should compare it to something, I think Plague Inc is similar, but Plague Inc has so many gameplay variations and even more scenarios that it can kill this game with just one type of virus. But if you played too much Plague Inc or just see interest in this game, wait for a sale.
6/10

It was my first time playing this Bioshock. I played only Bioshock Infinite and it was good, except awfully repetitive shooting, bad animations, only one NPC design and some minor things. I went into this because it looked darker, more atmospheric and people said it's less about shooting. I tried Remaster, but it's broken and unplayable in more ways. This one has problems too. I know it's old so I should excuse something, but it's too much problems. Broken brightness settings. Game crashing when I minimalize the game. With FHD I can't see controls on down side of the screen in the menu/settings. Mouse lagging when I don't have default sensitivity and even changing windows settings is lagging it. Invisible walls, mainly problematic in shooting areas, which is the most of the game. Sometimes I can't do an interactions with things, which is necessary in many parts of the game to make a progress and gameplay feels the same like in Infinite, animations are bad and there's not less shooting than in Infinite. I expected something different and I got pretty much the same game with same boring unfinished shooting parts. I guess it was great when it was released, but now it's not enough for me.

Remaster they say. I say this:
- Flashing screen everywhere where's a light. I needed to turn on Vsync to fix it, but that makes a darker parts more darker and thanks to...
- Not working brightness settings you can't do anything about it.
- Game's crashing a lot.
- If I alt+tab the game it goesinto window mode without a chance to go back into fullscreen without restarting the game.
- All settings are not saving so after I quit and start the game again I need to set everything again.
- If there's a subtitles, bottom of the screen is darker, but not on the left and there's 4cm of the screen without that effect.
- Sometimes I can't pick up things on the floor.

After all these problems there still isn't even visible improvement to the original game (Okay, they added achievements, wow). They changed some textures, but not improved, just changed to other ones. This thing doesn't deserve to have a Remastered in the name, but Re-release. This re-release was made just to have a reason to increase the price and make more money. Hope the original works properly enough to be playable. (edit: no, original isn't better)

''The hardest battle is the one that takes place in your mind.''
''How can Gods understand us if they refuse to die themselves?''

+ Sounds are fantastic.
+ Voiceovers are fantastic.
+ Soundtrack is fantastic.
+ Atmosphere is fenomenal.
+ Story and storytelling is great.
+ Puzzles are great and original. Thanks to game length (8 hours) it didn't get repetitive.
+ No minimap, no HUD, no objective marks, no tutorials.
+ Combat. A lot of people say that combat is the weakest part of the game and I felt the opposite. Fights feels important. Enemies are fantastic and bossfights too. Probably people who hate combat didn't try to create combos or something cool and just smashed one button 100 times in every fight. Sadly there's no final bossfight.
+ Graphics. Animations are awesome, visual effects too, camera too, details too, only textures are blurred sometimes.
+ This game is something more for people struggling with depression or other problems of mental health. That can't be said by words.
+ How the hell they made this game with 12 employees (+8 on a part time job not working all of the development time) in 3 years and only $10 million budget. 10 million dollars is a budget for mid-size independent games and they made a huge game from it.

When I finished Shadow of the Tomb Raider few days before playing this game I said to myself that I hope I'll have a second unforgettable experience with some other game this year. I didn't expect it to be so early after that. This is the fourth game I'm giving 10 points and the first one where I don't have anything bad to say.
10/10

I really liked first season. I did a huge mistake that I played this right after Life is Strange 2. It feels like a big step back. Main hate about games like this is that your choices have pretty much no concequences. Life is Strange 2 is something special in it. Your choices can change a lot and you can have more than half of the game different than someone else. Graphics in Life is Strange 2 is awesome, gameplay and mechanics too. Playing this feels like a 10 years older game. It reminds me every minute that Telltale didn't improve anything since 2012 except small graphics upgrade.

+ Story
+ Characters
+ Fifth episode can be totally different because of some few choices.
- Choices. Only few choices have some consequences and the most of them changes only one sentence from NPC and then it's again scripted.
- Progression from first season didn't load, even if it said it loaded, or whatever happenned. For example, I don't owe a favor to Joker, but game think I do. Decisions in first season have a big influence on the game...
- It's like a 10 years old game. You can't skip if you're playing for another time after death. You can't change controls. You can't pause the screen on gamepad (on keyboard you can with space, which is not even showed in controls). You need to turn gamepad on before you start the game, in other case game doesn't recognize that gamepad.
- ''Romance''
- Ending. Nothing about Selina's future and most of people from this season. I expected some cutscenes about them and no, nothing, just subtitles, as if my choices didn't matter.
- Game length. I finished it in 7 hours.

I was sad about Telltale's bankruptcy, but now I'm happy. They did nothing through all these years to improve their games. Instead of putting more effort into one game, they made two or three games. It's good that they went bankrupt. Dontnod is the king of these games now telling to other developers how to do that. Now is Telltale back and I hope that they have some self-respect and plan to make a better games than before.
7/10, only because of the last episode. The rest is average.

+ Less action, more puzzles, tombs, dialogues. That's Tomb Raider.
+ Lara and Jonah have amazing character development through all three games.
+ Story
+ Skills and weapon upgrades.
+ Side quests are good and with nice rewards.
+ Level design, of course. Who would expect something less than great level design.
+ You can talk with other NPCs in open world to know more about lore and things they know.
+ Optimalization. I played on low-end pc (1050ti and 2200g) and game was running incredibly well without any bug or problem.
+ Graphics, cutscenes, camera. All three are so great. Cutscenes are well made with great camera and perfectly smooth change between cutscenes and gameplay.
+ AI? If I remember it right, previous games had a lot worse AI. It was satisfying to play a game with good (not great) AI after years of terrible AI in videogames, because the most developers don't care about it.
+ Soundtrack. For me, the best one in the series definitely. First one (2013) was good, but too chaotic and there were like 5 music genres in one game. In Rise they made slow classical music with orchestra, which wasn't appropriate in many parts (especially faster sections). Now they managed to make a great songs for every part of the game.
+ Stealth missions. I love stealth games (real stealth games, not dishonored). Most games based on stealth don't care about you being totally visible and I don't know why people forgive this. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider you're believably hidden and there is helpful possibility to cover her in mud to be hidden even better and it's working. I love stealth games and thanks for every developer who care about it. I don't know why people who claims themself as a ''stealth fan'' like dishonored and other games doing this.
- Very little gameplay improvements compared to previous games.
- Small amount of puzzles. This is very subjective (and the next one too). I love puzzles in this series and I wanted more.
- Too much running/escaping. So many parts with escaping and thanks to it, these parts lost intensity and importance pretty quickly. I just knew that Lara will make it in every life-death situation.
- I want more.

Tomb Raider (2013) was fun, but had no interesting world, a lot of bugs, average side quests. Rise of the Tomb Raider was better experience than the first one, but I had no interest in soundtrack, gameplay was still buggy sometimes, story a bit badly paced, final boss was awful and still average side quests. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider they did everything of this right. I expected game as good as previous and I got more than that. Surprise was that I've beeb amazed by graphics, stylization and quality of cutscenes most of the time.
9/10

Most common question: ''Is it as good as the first Life is Strange?''. For me, no. I knew it even before I played it, because I don't know anything about furgitives or problems of young boys. Answer on this question is really subjective.
+ Choices and consequences. One of the most hated thing about episodic telltale-style games are that your choices are not important. I can say that it was a lot better in first Life is Strange than in Telltale games. Here they went further. Yes, you still have a lot of things the same no matter what you do, but they need to lead the story somewhere and you can't make 10 totally different games in one. Your choices can make a half of the game different and the most important is the end. What you do with characters will decide which ending you will have. Not like in previous ones, when ending was practically the same whatever you did.
+ Story
+ Visuals
+ Voice acting is great
+ Characters and their development
+- Main characters behave stupidly without a chance to do right things, but I get they are still kids. That's a question that developers need to figure out and there isn't a good solution I think. Clem in The Walking Dead was hated because she behaves sensibly and is smart, kids in 10(+-) years definitely aren't that smart. Here you need to act stupid, because you're playing as a kid (you play as a Sean, but Daniel is pretty much under your control). It's not enjoyable to play as a kid in both situations.
- They are skipping time more than they need. Like you're two hours with some character(s), listening their stories, making friendships and then they skip time, say they are somewhere and you will never see them again. I know it's realistic that if you're running from the law, you get to meet a lot of people and the most of them won't see again, but it's a game, not a real life and after looking backwards it feels like a waste of the time.
- Soundtrack. Life is Strange 1, Before the Storm (and even Remember Me before that) had a great iconic soundtrack. In Life is Strange 1 and Before the Storm they found a great non-popular songs which fit perfectly into the game. In this one they just went on Youtube, found most popular songs and chose like 10 of them. This is what every developer can do and what I didn't expect from someone like Dontnod.
- Alternative skipping scenes is not working. Why is there a choice to set alternative skipping scenes (and say that you can skip more scenes) when it does nothing and I can't skip anything even if I am playing it second time.
- Technical issues/buggs. First game was in Unreal Engine 3, no bugs or fps problems. Before the Storm was in Unity, no bugs or fps problems. Life is Strange 2 is in Unreal Engine 4, looking a lot more realistic than previous games, but with fps issues and 4 times main character got stuck, 7 times an NPC had a T-pose instead of classic animations and countless problems in dialogues like two voices at once by same person, no voices at all, bugged choices, bugged facial animations.

For me, this season just couldn't be as good as the first one with Max, because characters in the first game went through many things as I did so it was super personal for me. They did a great job with transfering those things and I can't appreciate it in Life is Strange 2 because I have nothing in common with life problems this game shows. Even if there is much to hate from my side, I enjoyed it too much to not recommend it. It's not like the first game, so I can't say that if you liked the first one, you will like this too. Maybe I can recommend it to people who have more common to fugitives, and for players like me, who love every adventure in ''telltale'' style. Other than that, you need to find answer by yourself.
8/10

+ Great they did this, and for free.
+ Story
+ Characters
+ Visual improvement after previous games.
+ Connection to Life is Strange 2
- I think that many players of Life is Strange 2 missed this because it's not named Life is Strange.
9/10