Recent reviews by TerminalTilt

Came for the Sabaton, stayed for standard orchestral background music? It is pretty annoying to see them advertised everywhere only to find out the music is locked behind specific commanders. The game itself is fine for a quick round here and there, but it gets repetitive quickly. If you're looking for a deep, metal themed naval experience, this isn't it. It’s a bit of a repetitive slog once the initial novelty wears off.

Fun game, but a step down from DOOM 2016.

2016 was just pure momentum. Eternal feels like they overthought it a bit. You spend way too much time juggling cooldowns, farming fodder for ammo with the chainsaw, and playing resource management simulator instead of just shooting things.

Honestly, Mick Gordon's soundtrack is doing some heavy lifting here. If it wasn't for the music, this would be a slightly bloated, over engineered arena shooter. The soundtrack alone drags the whole experience up a tier and turns it into an actual adrenaline rush.

Performance on Linux is flawless, at least. id Tech 7 runs on Vulkan, so the overhead is basically zero. Pushed it through GE-Proton10-32 with NTSync active, and the frametimes are dead flat even when the screen is pure chaos. My 5700 XT handles it without even waking up the fans.

Good game, just not Doom 2016 good. Turn the music up. Rip and tear!

Owlcat games has come out on Twitter acknowledging the use of "ai" in their development. "AI will be used exclusively for additional work with concepts and speeding up some internal processes (for example, for creative search, inspiration, or vision coordination before starting conceptualization itself)."

This is a complete dealbreaker. It taints the dozens of hours I spent in their worlds, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and other games on by Owlcat on Steam and other platforms. Not supporting artists, writers, and programmers is wrong. It is unethical and morally bankrupt. LLMs should never be near the development of any kind of art, including videogames. I am upset that I supported this company and I will never support them again.

This is exactly how you do a modern take on a classic. No bloated live service garbage, no forced always-online nonsense. It is pure, unapologetic momentum. It perfectly captures the relentless 90s adrenaline but builds it on an engine that actually respects your hardware.

The glory kills force you to play aggressively instead of hiding behind cover, which completely modernizes the original game's loop.

As a heads-up for anyone running this on Linux: the optimization here is fantastic. Passing RADV_PERFTEST=gpl eliminates any shader stutter, and if you run it through GE-Proton10-32 with NTSync active, the frametimes are absolutely perfectly flat. It barely even pushes my 5700 XT.

It just works, it respects your time, and it rules. Rip and tear.

This is an usual game. I say that in the kindest way because it is such a breath of fresh air to play something unlike anything I've ever played before. Yes, it has a statement about privacy and all of that, but it really is a game about reverse engineering. I enjoyed learning more about the people in the story the more I pieced together about their lives. It is also worth noting the soundtrack which was relaxing at times to listen to but also appropriate for the tone of the game. I highly recommend this to anyone looking for a game that has a good story and who wants to play something that is just different.

Think of yourself of a spirit or a similar entity that watches a family live their life and you make the big decisions, or at least you influence certain events. The consequences happen and you deal with it. That pretty much sums up The Novelist. If you like drama in your games and could live without violence, you will probably like this game.