Recent reviews by b0rk

good videogame

Episode One : The Mad Ones

TL;DR Feel free to add me to talk! I'll do my best to help out however I can.

This is a story game that focuses and revolves completely around player choice and the character you create. The Characters and story are extremely well written and graphics are great to look at; thematically. You are Louis, an investigator sent to solve a case of your own mother's disappearance . Filled with political intrigue, personal strife and characters that feel human; the story is by far the strongest point of the game.

That being said, The Council does struggle from some problems in terms of the controls, camera movement and the facial animations. Controls are also acceptable, but a tad too unresponsive for my liking. Most annoying of all I'd say is the INABILITY TO SKIP CUTSCENES .

In conclusion, if you can tolerate the technical faults and slightly annoying facial animations and still enjoy the strong plot which is carried by some of the most human characters in games I've played, The Council is definitely the right choice for you. I can't wait for the next episode to be released.


Full Review
If you're looking for an action adventure game where you play as a badass detective in Revolutionary France, bursting through windows, playing bad cop/good cop or pulling some crazy wild west shootouts; This isn't the game for you. Just making it clear.

Gameplay and techincal bits This is a story-driven, cinematic heavy and exposition based game. You play as Louis de Richet, an investigator of sorts, taking on a case to discover what happened to your mother; whom you're apprenticed under during her visit to a mystery island. The game features a great amount of refreshing player choice right from the get go that I personally feel gives Telltale Games a serious run for their money. That being said, this is still a vastly different game where your decisions and what options are open to you are determined by what character you create through a class system. When the game shines is during confrontations and conversations, whereby the element of player choice is driven home. One wrong move can literally have game changing implications, and I LOVE that feeling of high stakes. Being kept on your toes to make sure you note every person's details is a truly refreshing experience. However, the game does suffer in terms of camera nad movement controls being a little unresponsive and uncooperative especially during exploration and interacting with items and other characters.

Camera controls are a little wonky when the character walks through or into tight spaces and corners, which makes the camera go into your character's viewmodel, making it difficult to collect items that you require. Controls are also acceptable, but a tad too unresponsive for my liking. Most annoying of all I'd say is the INABILITY TO SKIP CUTSCENES .


Story and Atmosphere The game itself is a fantastic cinematic and interactive experience, however it does come with it's own host of problems. The game has extremely breathtaking graphics for the surroundings and environment, that look absolutely gorgeous in ultra settings. BASED OFF THE FIRST EPISODE I feel that the writing is superb and caught my interest once the 5 minute prologue/tutorial was over. All the supporting and secondary characters feel real and have genuine motivations and behaviours that reflect these motivations. As a huge fan of story-driven games, I feel that this is absolutely the strongest point of this game; The Story and Plot.

Facial animations and especially lip-syncing are obviously a little janky but nothing that can't be ignored( not Mass Effect; Andromeda level bad ), while the voice acting is satisfactory. And that's what holds it back from a maximum score is its sub-par facial animations and voice acting(for some characters), which if fixed easily earns The Council a perfect score for Story.


Sound Design There have been games where the soundtrack was absolutely unforgettable, but unfortunately the Council is not one of those games. The musical score for the most part was felt the same throughout the episode; no tension fueled notes when a climactic event was happening, nor was there any sombere tones during a more quiet human moment. There's nothing much to say for this particular aspect of the game in my personal experience because there's nothing that truly stands out from an auditory aspect.

* I'll be updating this whenever a new episode comes out so, do check back if you're thinking of picking up the game in the future

The council is a great cinematic experience for anyone that's looking for a dark, grity story with a heavy, heavy emphasis on player choice. An unpolished game, that's brought down by it's annoying controls and satisfactory voice acting and facial animations. If you can look past these non game-breaking flaws and enjoy the game for its strongest point; it's plot and story, you're sure to have as fantastic a experience with The Council as I had. I heartily recommend this game to those story buffs out there like myself.

I write reviews and have my own professional site so do feel free to contact me here via steam or drop me an email at hey@jeraldoon.com for anything you've got in mind.

TL;DR Right now, Its simply a waste of money and time. No two ways about it. The playerbase is smaller than a grown man's nipple, the content is about as bland as airline meals and the development team putting on a disappearing act that makes the MH370 mystery a real run for it's money.



First; some context to what I'm about to say. My mates and I who absolutely ADORED M&B: Warband saw this coming out and were like "Oh ♥♥♥♥ dude this is gonna be so ♥♥♥♥♥♥ epic!". Being an actual lord that can have control AND impact of the world as it progresses? ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bricks on a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ stick, that sounded AWESOME. In the initial stages of the game, where only the deathmatch modes were available, the initial idea behind the game was well conceived. A world that resembled the M&B series BUT had tweaked world mechanics and systems, as well as more in-depth combat mechanics. The first 2 hours or so were fantastic, but beyond that things started going downhill. Many reasons are responsible for this.

(Holding down the mouse button places you in a stance to guard in a certain direction, directly related to the direction of your mouse movement. Releasing the button released an attack from the stance the user is currently in.)

- This mechanic is creative and somewhat succeeds at making the combat less button mashing and more strategy, but flops in the fact that certain weapons have RIDICULOUS reach, making the best strategy simply : Wait to parry a strike , then get a free hit as the enemy recoils from the impact.

- You might argue that this is a high level strategy, but any one who has even played this game for a decent period of time would beeline for the longswords or the scythes and just turn matches into this weird orgy ritual dance of people dancing around in weapons; NO one attacking in fear of opening themselves up to attck.


- A difference in location is supposed to offer differing bonuses or strategic advantages that are supposed to utilisted by those who know how. But in OKAM, this is dumbed down to a level where a change in location of the battle basically does not even affect the outcome of the battle at ALL.

- another reason for this is the crappy design of the capture the flag modes, whereby people are supposed to used their wit and strategy to contest different points at opportune times. With OKAM's current system of "one point can be captured only AFTER the one preceeding it is captured." In a context of a medieval war sim, this system completely ruins the game by funneling everyone; archers, skirmishers and heavy warriors into ONE tiny area of the map for the weird staring orgies I mentioned above.


- The epic is a place that is best described as a persistent world, similar to the various warband multiplayer games. However, the developers managed to ♥♥♥♥ up so badly in so many ways that it is arguably the reason why the game lies in the forgotten corner now.

- The epic was the main attraction of the game for ♥♥♥♥♥ sake! It was what EVERYONE who bought this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game wanted! They wanted to be able to play good-looking mount and blade with a consistent living world that adapts to the choices made by the players! Instead, the players got a huge pile of disappointment ranging from : The Epic releasing a whole 3 weeks after the original date; dubbed the "Epic Fail" by a online review. The content in The Epic is such a farcry from what was promised that many of the players just chose to forget about the game entirely. Last but not least is the alarming INDIFFERENCE the devs have toward the game : "The most anticipated part of our game isnt done yet? lets not tell our dedicated niche audience what's happening!". This infuriates me perhaps the most out of the other points. Why? because the community that came together to support the devs and purchase the beta of the game are rewarded not only with shoddy products, but a provider that doesn't even care about it's investors?

Shame on you devs, you abused the trust of this community and your dream is now a steamy pile of rubbish forever forgotten. I hope you learn from this and strive to do better, because after this MONUMENTAL letdown, I know the community WILL be smarter.

Thank you for reading