Recent reviews by Tizzy

I love godzilla and kaiju. I actually bought Dave the Diver now because I heard this DLC is going away come November unless you claim it before.

But I detest forced missions that appear at specific times you can't see coming, and can't skip or just do later. Taking away player agency and forcing them to do this or that right away, without even letting us save properly before.

Skip this. Whole quest design goes directly against the rest of the game.

Yes. Just yes. Best RPG ever. Get it now. That's all.

This is actually a neutral review - but Steam doesn't allow those, so here you go.

I didn't hate Dust. The game has nice art style and it was definitely a labor of love for a single person to make.

However... it's extremely simplistic in its mechanics. Exploration is not at all rewarding. Combat consists of mashing a key most of the time. The storyline is clichéd, the furry aspect rather creepy, and the constant chatter of this character or that one got old about five minutes in. To top that off, several aspects of gameplay design feel odd and half-baked, like the weird teleport system.

I played it to completion, because even with those things it isn't a bad game. It's fun, if you're looking for something extremely simplistic. For children and sexual perverts the art style and storyline might be quite attractive.

Maybe if I had played this in 2013 when it released I would've liked it more. But as is, I played this in 2020 - and after having played through Hollow Knight, Ori and the Blind Forest, and Blasphemous. Let's just say all three of those games far outdo this one, though then again all three of them are also much newer.

Once again, not a bad game. But if you haven't played any of the ones I mention above, they're far superior products to this one. Go for those.

This is a pretty good game - a breach, combat-focused XCOM with smaller goals yet somewhat better storytelling where instead of commanding a group of user-created soldiers you command a pre-set team of characters, each with their own personalities. It's quite charming and fun and, while production values are definitely lower than those of XCOM2, so is the price. I wouldn't necessarily say I love it, but it's a great distraction for the price - and a welcome taste of XCOM while the inevitable XCOM3 arrives.

However, I can't recommend it for a single reason: This game was made so that it can't be played offline. Yes, a single-player only game with no social features whatsoever that's a spinoff a single-player focused franchise released with an online check. And what's that online check, pray tell? Well, the launcher tries to go online to grab advertisement of other XCOM games and, if it fails, it returns an error and refuses to launch.

While there is a way to circumvent this (running the xcom executable directly,) said executable launches a debug version of the game that features a more complicated main menu with extra, debug-only options, and... constant "red screen" errors that literally turn your screen red and show a message of something missing along with the name of the Firaxis employee who was in charge of the missing thingy.

Said errors don't actually break the game - they're harmless since you can always just close the annoying red overlay by pressing ESC and, as far as I've seen, they don't do much other than annoy you. In fact, I believe said errors are also happening in the regular, launcher-based game, only they're being hidden. Still, the fact that I need to run a debug version of a single-player game to be able to play it with no internet is ridiculous and makes it so that I can't recommend this otherwise nice game. Making games online-only when there's no need for it (I mean, I can't play this offline because the launcher wants to show me ads for the other XCOM games I already own? Really?) is simply unacceptable.

Not as bad as some people say. Borderlands:TPS is certainly no Borderlands 2 - it's a much smaller and, sadly, slower game. The writing isn't as tight, and the quest and world designs are all over the place.

However, it's still Borderlands - so it's still quite good. It suffers from a very slow first half and having quest scattered around with no way to quick travel (Well, there ARE fast travel stations, but only one per area at best, and the areas are huge and mostly empty,) but where it shines it does so brightly. The latter half of the game manages to focus by greatly reducing the scope, making it tight and much better than the earlier part.

As for the DLC, the Claptrap DLC is probably the funniest piece of DLC the Borderlands series has had.

So yeah, definitely recommended. I feel this game suffered mostly because it came after Borderlands 2 and couldn't fill it's impossibly big shoes.

It's difficult for me to recommend this game, and my main reason for recommending it is simply that this is the closest to Monster Hunter you can get on PC right now.

Also it's not really a bad game, it's just plagued by apparent bug and design issues that, while never make the game unplayable except for the odd poorly-designed mission, quickly add up to a long list of pet peeves.

To be clear, I'm midway through the eight-tier of missions as I write this, and therefore I've played enough to know how the whole game is like, as I've finished the original God Eater arc and am well into the Burst arc. And I do believe most people who like Monster Hunter will get quite a bit of mileage from this, as I didn't get tired until past the 20 hours of gameplay. However, the issues I've found here merit mentioning, and therefore I will even while giving this a recommendation.

First, while MH is designed as a solo game overall with optional multiplayer, the design in God Eater leans very clearly towards multiplayer. There's basically no way to solo through the storyline without majorly gimping yourself, and even then most storyline missions require a team. So in most cases you won't be facing huge monsters alone, as you do in MH, but along with three AI-controlled characters, or three friends. This changes the gameplay immensely, because unless you're playing with friends it means you're at the AI's mercy at all times and no matter how many strategies you might think of there's no way you'll be able to communicate them to the PC and have it act in time for it to be of use, as there's no way to pause the game to do so. If you want to give the AI orders, you have to do it while the timer runs and monsters attack you, navigating through menues. Ain't it fun?

Which leads me to issue #2, which is monster design. There are actually a handful of monsters here (I think less than 10,) each of which have variations that make them more dangerous or give them different elemental attacks - but still the same monsters overall. And then, most of the monsters have more or less the same attacks: There's maybe one or two monsters, for example, that won't dash around the place. The rest of them unequivocally can dash around, at you, or away from you. Several species also have circle attacks, or shooting attacks. Now I know there's only so much you can do for variety, but MH does manage to make most monsters feel entirely different. In GE, partly thanks to the party-based design, most monsters feel more or less the same. I guess it IS easier to design wildly different encounters when you're designing against a single hunter instead of a team. To top it off, several of the monsters are poorly designed themselves, either because they're so damn big you can't see what's going on or because all they do is literally dash through the arena over and over, making it extremely frustrating to get to them and hit them, particularly if you're trying to hit their tail, *ahem*.

Then there's issue #3: Mission design. GH boasts having hundreds of missions (The main storyline alone is 100 missions long, and there are at least 100 extra optional ones,) but in truth they're... not very varied. They just keep sending you to kill different combinations of the same monsters over and over in about the five different arenas the game has, which gets old FAST. On top of that, several of the missions are just poorly designed and awfully difficult to handle without other human players - including the penultimate mission of the original arc, which is basically unwinnable without external help. Or a trainer. It's not just that they're difficult, but that you have absolutely no way to control your teammates to keep monsters separate other than a very weak command, and the game loves throwing several of those at you.

Issue #4 is bugs, or poor design: The game itself isn't good at checking for clipping. Which means that 1) monsters can hide parts of their own bodies behind the scenery because they clip with it, making it even harder to hit several parts, and 2) monsters can and often will hit you through the scenery. Thought you could avoid that floor swipe the giant scorpion does by taking the high ground? Think again, because its tail is magical and not only can it go through the mobiliary and walls, but it also will hit anyone standing above it.

Also, you move ridiculously slowly. And monsters can move ridiculously fast and will often run away through shortcuts you can't use, forcing you to spend a couple minutes just running through huge maps to get back to them. Don't you love that?

Still, I'll admit I've enjoyed *most* of my time with this, although I'll also freely admit I've been using healthy dosages of a trainer since the penultimate mission of the original arc, because honestly the design at times is just broken and not at all friendly towards single players.

Get this on sale (under $20 ideally,) and before Monster Hunter World comes out. Because once MHW is out, I doubt there'll be any reason to go for this.

I couldn't possibly not recommend Fallout 4. Because I've played over 200 hours of it, and I've enjoyed most of them. Because it is objectively the best first-person Fallout title, gameplay-wise. Because it's a lot of fun when it works. Because it is stable, unlike Fallout 3/New Vegas (I could never finish FO3 since at some point it started to crash every other loading screen.)

Because at its core it's a damn good game.

However, there are caveats. And as is usual, the more you play a game the more those caveats will annoy you. Since my second playthrough of FO4, which I just finished, took well over 150 hours, I'll be honest and admit by the end I was tearing off my own hair in anger. And I'll focus on this, because as you all already know, I FREAKING LOVED THIS GAME.

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But the UI is terrible. Whoever was in charge of it should be sent to Guantanamo. Yes, it's the same UI as FO3, but it was barely useable then and the added features in FO4 only make the whole thing clunkier, more annoying, and honestly poorly thought of. The Pip-boy UI needs to either be eliminated or be completely rethought for next entries in the franchise. It shouldn't take half a minute for me to be able to check the destination of my quest, after all, but it does. It shouldn't take me a whole minute to find an item in my inventory, but it does. I shouldn't have to scroll through five different windows to change the music I'm listening to, but I have to. Because the pip-boy sucks and whoever coded it is very much a terrorist.

And speaking of horrible things, there's the settlements system. A terrible, poorly-thought-of, half-baked, unnecessary SimCity/TheSims complement to the game. Let's just say, if you're coming because of it just go play The Sims 4. It's objectively the better game if you're into building. Or go play Cities Skylines. Or Minecraft. Or Terraria. Just stay away from this, because the whole thing is very poorly made, frustrating, and uses an UI that's even worse than the pip-boy. You guys saw all that stuff I just said of the pip boy? Right, the settlement UI is three times worse. It's as if Baphometh himself coded it, then thought it was too terrible to unleash on the world and imprisoned at the very core of our planet, then Bethesda dug out because they're evil.

I'm not joking with that. That's how bad it is.

Then there's the writing. The storyline is... well, it's bad. It's not offensively bad, but it is so bland and boring and really Bethsoft, y'all are giving us ANOTHER Fallout game where our main quest consists of looking for somebody all over the place? Like, do you guys have more than one writer on staff or is there only enough budget for the one writer of Fallout games?

And now that we speak of that writer, have they ever read a book or watched a decent movie? Because this is Transformers levels of poor writing. No, really. Only part of the game with decent storytelling is Far Harbor. Everything else is so bad I'm sure if Victor Hugo and Shakespeare are in hell they're being forced to read the script to this game over and over.

Now, did you guys notice how I just mentioned Far Harbor? Well, brace yourselves for it being the only truly worthy piece of DLC. There's another one, called Automatron, that's also good if you don't mind it being overpriced. And there's Nuka World, which would be good hadn't it been conceived and written by a brain-dead chimp. But no, really. Only get the Season pass if it's on sale for like $20 or $15, because it isn't worth $50, not even by accident. Only those three DLC packs are worth anything, in fact, and I'm sitting here waiting for Bethesda to transfer money to my account for even looking at the rest, because they're so bad I feel I'm owed money for them.

Oh, and then there's the creation club. Just do yourselves a favor, fellow gamers, and ignore that dumpster fire of an attempt at extracting money from you. As most stores of its type, stuff in there is overpriced, underwhelming, and things about as good, if not better, can be found for free elsewhere. So just ignore it. Don't give Bethesda money for paid mods.

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Now, I guess that about covers the main issues this game has. On the upside, as I said, the gameplay is really fun if you ignore the settlements thing. And no matter what a small group of nonconformists say, this game looks gorgeous (particularly if you put an ENB on it.) And there are some amazing mods out there. And did I mention it is stable? Second playthrough was 150+ hours and I can only recall it crashing twice. For a Bethesda game, that's basically unheard of.

But yeah, Beth... y'all are good at RPGs and the odd FPS. But don't try to turn your games into simulators, that doesn't work. Stick to what you know. And get a new UI designer. And a proper writer. This game wouldn't be sitting with mixed reviews if you guys had done just that.

Nuka-world is actually one of the nicest concepts for DLC I've seen, and one of the most fun DLC pieces I've played.

It also has one of the poorest executions overall I've seen.

Let's begin with the main issue everyone mentions: If you want to play the whole of this DLC, you need to become an enemy of the minutement. It's not an option. If you choose to never side with raiders, the DLC will last about an hour and end up really short.

This is a problem, because Bethesda force-fed us their (terrible, horrible, annoying, poorly-thought of, clunky, cruel and unusual) settlement system through the main game, and then released a DLC where your character, who is forced to play as a goody-two-shoes through the whole game, including two DLC pieces, is now forced to make a heel-turn and become a raider.

Take a minute to let that sink. Then wonder if anyone at Bethesda knows anything about story and character development. Then wonder whether anyone even bothered to at least hire somebody who did know of this. Then realize the answer to all of that is "No, and in fact the storylines for both the main game and DLC were written while under the effect of several speedballs."

Now, let's put aside the ridiculous excuse for a storyline that absolutely destroys an already terribad (but somehow important) part of the base game. The thing is, even if you go with it, it will be annoying. Because the interface is still bad, and only made worse with the new stuff. Wanna get the raiders a new outpost? Well, here, have a TEXT BASED LIST of all the available ones. Oh, you don't know the name? Then leave the (slow, annoying) conversation with the NPC, open up your pip-boy, navigate to the map, look for the settlement, take note of its name, close the pip-boy, start another conversation with that NPC, let them know you want a new settlement, pick it again, pray he doesn't suddenly decide to drop the conversation.

This is the stuff of nightmares, and whoever was in charge of the UI for the whole of the F4 project should be tarred and feathered. Or drawn and quartered. Or forced to play Fallout 4 for all eternity.

Now, the third thing that makes this DLC something I can't recommend? The storyline. Because the storyline goes as this: Wanderer gets asked for help in Nuka World. Wanderer goes, find out it's a trap. Wanderer finds out the trap wasn't so much to kill him, but to make him king of the place (what?). Wanderer accepts (What?!). Wanderer investigates and finds out he has to take over the rest of Nuka World. Wanderer goes to it, and finds out taking over the rest consists of... killing some robots. And some animals. And solving the odd puzzle. And somehow the army of raiders couldn't do that on their own.

Yeah, this is impossible to believe.

Now, the upside? The environments are cool. The gameplay, setting aside the settlement part, is actually good. Quests are sort of interesting.

But there's no forgiving the whole forced heel-turn thing. Being a raider is something that should have been a part of the base game, not something added on a DLC that then forces you to play as one, completely destroying relationships you made during the base game.

Not cool, Bethesda. Not cool.

And please, stop thinking you guys are any good at coding builders. Y'all are not. I'd rather play SimCity or TheSims than any builders you make, so don't even try. Stick to what you're good at, and next time shoot anyone who proposes settlements in the face. You'll be doing the world a favor.

Easily the best DLC pack for Fallout 4. Far Harbor introduces a new, rather beautiful area to the game along with a main questline with warring factions and several possible outcomes based on player choice. The island design is beautiful and the questline, though a bit short, is among the best in the game.

Not sure it's worth $25, tho, since you can get longer full games for that much. Get it on sale.

Recommending this only with a HUGE warning: This isn't worth $10. But it's well worth your time if you get it as part of the Season Pass AND on sale.

DLC adds the option of modifying your robot followers, along with a bunch of new robot enemies and an interesting, if short, questline. One of the better F4 DLC packs, if quite overpriced.