Recent reviews by blake++

Biggest reason for not recommended review is because of the Epic exclusive deal. Bought this off of a reseller for that reason. Played the Ultimate Deluxe Edition or whatever it's called. Didn't play DLC outside of Arms Race because I got so bored.
If released without exclusivity, I would still give it a not recommended, because it doesn't improve on BL2 enough to warrant that.

Pros:
-Comedy was alright. Maybe its because I'm a zoomer but it was a lot funnier than BL2
-Gameplay has been polished much more than the previous entry; short intro sequence, less escort missions compared to BL2, less "wait for person to get to place". way more replayable IF the story was any good
-Some of the sidequests can genuinely tug at the heartstrings (Grace's birthday party) or be hilariously funny (Microtransaction Hell)
-Really solid soundtrack. Favorites: sanctuary theme, im looking for a specific human head, ava's on the case, dark water
-Less stupid overpowered guns that are locked behind quest rewards like bl2 did (orphan maker, some moxxi slag weapons). if you really want something locked behind a quest reward, you have the crazy earl rewards shop
-No slag (thank ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ christ)
-Can fast travel without going through loading screen within a map
-Sliding and mantling are good additions
-Eridium's use being expanded is awesome
-AI can revive you
-Arms Race is a cool idea
-Claptrap has less of a presence than the previous game, and manages to actually be funny and annoying rather than just annoying

Cons:
-Zero endgame content
-Bad story. Antagonists weren't awful but were not as interesting as bl2. troy > tyreen
-Typhon Deleon is the only really likable and multifaceted character introduced. Some other characters have been flanderized to where it feels like they are only a vehicle for the story
-Way too easy. no raid bosses are hard; all done either on the first or second try, with ♥♥♥♥ gear. running a moze banjo bear build but without a good shield.
-So few raid bosses compared to bl2. Where's the content? Takedowns suffer the same fate.
-Ava sucks. It's another case of "we have this very flawed character but we forgot to make her likable". Characters die for her sake while other characters conveniently forget the fact that she caused those deaths
-Mayhem modifiers are simply an inconvenience. Why does mayhem 11 drop less loot?
-Not as optimized as it could or should be
-Dialogue from vault hunter every time you come into a new area (why)
-Anoints aren't terrible in concept but are lacking in execution; a lot of them are way too OP for their own good
-Borderlands series STILL has its trademark awkward dialogue, both basic and intense, that ruins any immersion you had and slows the pace to a crawl.
-QA testing was not done for Iron Bear fitting under many doors and openings it *should* be able to fit through.
-Takedown at the Guardian Breach is difficult for all the wrong reasons
-Arms Race: Too easy to skip immediately to mayhem 10 with the loot you get

It could be my build that's way too OP, but i should not be able to get to level 72, do an easy farm on any mayhem level for electric banjo, and obliterate every single boss. It's just bad balancing that's inexcusable (especially in 2021, 2 years after this game came to PC, where developers can easily push patches to any platform). I don't mind broken builds, as long as you have to put in a lot of work to get that build working.

If you're new to Borderlands, buy BL2 with all the DLC when it's on a big sale. Don't pick this up, it's not really that worth it.

PROS:
-Delightfully simple
-Impeccable soundtrack
-Fun story with a delightful atmosphere
-Lots of personality plus a great sense of humor
-Unnamed levels are really cool exploration pieces
-Really satisfying to find all the locations on the map
-The Tower and Final Challenge are awesome vertical sequences
-Escort mission is such an excellent idea
-Game is great at challenging you in the final sections by making you use what you've learned in isolation together and in harder sections
-Ton of cool mechanics that build on the idea of flipping and the basic gameplay mechanics
-Reward for getting all trinkets is really cool and cute
-Offers further challenge in the form of time trials
-Custom level support + built in level editor
-JUST RECENTLY got an update where as a direct result of the source code being available, the game received a ton of QoL stuff (despite it being an 11 year old singleplayer game)

CONS:
-Veni Vidi Vici (one of the hardest optional sequences in the game) is too easy to get to despite being super early in the game
-Some checkpoints level design causes you to accidentally hit other checkpoints or go to other areas due to stuff like conveyors or just positioning (cuckoo x backsliders)
-Brass Sent Us in Under the Top is really stupid for forcing you to stay off screen but the cycle keeps going offscreen, so you have to estimate how far along it is
-Too much visual noise in the flip lines area; rectangles in background need to be more transparent
-Trinkets (optional collectibles) don't have names that are puns on the areas you find them in for organization's sake and also for cool puns

I played this game all the way through once before on a 3DS on a road trip from Texas to Tennessee, and it was an absolute blast. Decided to pick it up again recently just for the sake of having it on Steam. Got all 20 trinkets and explored the map in its entirety. There's a bunch of optional challenges you could do, but I was satisfied with the campaign + trinkets.

Short, but well worth the money. A must-have for any platformer fan, or just a fan of games. Pick it up when you can!

Apparently it's a really good platformer according to a lot of people.
I just don't think so. Played light and dark world finishing Salt Factory, and just wasn't having fun.
Not because of the difficulty; I perfected HM1, HM2, done LASO runs on Halos, and am in the process of iron manning every single Celeste chapter; and I'm almost done. I KNOW difficulty.
But I also know frustration. This game is just frustrating. I had fun playing all those difficult games, but I did not have fun playing this one.
Meatboy is a nightmare to control. He slips and slides all over the place. And the worst part is that most of this game doesn't revolve around long sections of going really fast; it's usually slow and precise. It feels like they made a game around a character that it doesn't work for.
Other characters don't resolve the issue (as far as I got). They're either clones of Meatboy with slight changes, or completely awful to control (worse than Meatboy) like Naira or whatever the fish's name is.
Environmental danger hitboxes like saws and salt have hitboxes that seem to extend outside what the actual geometry looks like, resulting in deaths that feel like they aren't my fault but the game's.

Don't really have much to say unlike my other reviews. Game isn't fun.

After getting my save corrupted in Fallout 3 (which happens every time I try to play a Bethesda game), I got so sick of it. It happened with New Vegas, it happened with Skyrim, and it happened again with 3. Bethesda games are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ trash at actually working. So I decided to just play another RPG hopefully made by a company that isn't just making houses of cards and calling them games, where the slightest issue will ruin your entire save file.
I remembered that I had STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl and its sequels in my library. I decided to finally give them a shot. And boy, am I glad I did because STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl is an excellent immersive simulator that still holds up today. Despite a couple of issues, it remains as one of the best RPGs I've ever played.
Best of all? I experienced zero crashes, no save corruptions, no softlocks, no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

MODS USED:
Zone Reclamation Project (+SoC Script and Sound Fixes)
Absolute Nature
Absolute Structures
Modified Actor.ltx to raise the height of the player to be more eye level with other NPCs

OPTIONS:
Maxed graphics
No crosshair
Turned off music
Turned off antialiasing
Played on Master

As another member of the Zone, an area surrounding Chernobyl after the nuclear reactor explosion, you play as an unnamed STALKER (a person residing in the Zone illegally). You wake up with amnesia, and the only objective on your PDA: Find Strelok. Kill Strelok.

COMBAT
--
STALKER is an immersive sim;, and one thing you immediately discover in STALKER is that you die *really fast.* Headshots are instant kill, and all NPCs have about as much HP as you do. Cover-based shooting and quick thinking is a must. You have to constantly stay on your feet in firefights and anticipate what the enemy might do, and catch them out in the open. Mostly, you'll want to go for headshots, as you won't find a lot of ammo and enemies can take quite a few bullets before going down. Luckily, there's a stagger system in place, where certain shots will stagger enemies, allowing you to line up a headshot. This is easier said than done, considering most firefights will involve you in you or a group plus you versus another group.
Weapons have certain ammo types that they work with, as well as certain weapons having ammo types that are best for certain situations. You can switch between them on the fly, allowing for different decisions based on the type of enemy you're fighting. Ammo types aren't labelled for gameplay purposes and instead for realism purposes (aka GP-23 ammo is 5.59x45mm i think), so you'll need to learn which ammo types go with which weapons. You learn it over time pretty easily, and the icons are different for types of ammo so it's easy to find while looting bodies and stashes.

AI
--
Human enemies are quite intelligent for the most part.. They have tactics, and mostly stay under cover unless to change position or fire at you. They'll properly hide behind cover to decrease their hitbox as much as possible to avoid dying. They'll flank you, or rush you at the same time to catch you off guard behind cover. A couple of times, I swore they waited until they heard my reload to push me, just so they could catch me while I'm not ready. All the fights vs humans are very involved, as its usually you vs a group. There's a lot of decisions to make, which makes for very engaging gunfights.
Animals and mutant enemies have the most realistic-feeling AI. Dogs will run around in circles to avoid gunfire, and hunt in packs often. If you shoot one dog out of a group, sometimes it'll scare the other dogs away and sometimes not. Different types of mutants will act differently when attacking. Some choosing to stay put and others moving quickly into darker spots to ambush. Of course, since this is a game from 07, sometimes you can exploit either AI to your benefit, which hurts the immersion.

INVENTORY
--
In STALKER, you have a set weight limit of 50kg, with one late-game piece of equipment allowing you to up it to 70kg. 50kg sounds like a good bit, but keeping a full arsenal for different situations, plus plenty of health and antirad items, as well as food, different weapon attachments, and artifacts means that you soon will find out you don't have as much as you thought. Often, you'll come into difficult decisions where you may have to sacrifice a great weapon in order to proceed while under your weight limit. These types of decisions add to the gameplay.
While your weight limit is definitely a limit, it's a soft limit. This means that you can carry 10kg more than your weight limit, but suffer severe detriments to stamina and stamina recovery. You'll sometimes want to carry above your weight limit so you can mule weapons back to the trader if the path is mostly safe. Once you hit 10kg over your weight limit and beyond, you will not be able to move though.

On the topic of inventory, I'll talk about artifacts. Artifacts are various items produced by anomalies in the Zone. You're able to equip the items, but they often come with both buffs and nerfs. Such as, one will give you bullet damage resistance BUT you'll constantly gain radiation unless you mitigate it with another artifact. While I did not use this system to its fullest extent in my playthrough as I should've, it can make the game a lot easier or harder depending on your artifact combination.

You can also equip a variety of armor and suits that protect against the elements, physical damage, or both.

STALKER also has durability. For armor, this affects the potency of its buffs to your stats (such as, a radiation suit that sustains damage will slowly get worse and worse at deflecting radiation as durability goes down). For weapons, this can affect your damage and accuracy (I think). This does not affect artifacts.

STALKER's humans often carry weapons on them with plenty of ammo. Except for when you loot their bodies, the ammo they expended was just enough to only give you a few bullets. While this isn't the best for realism, it's done for gameplay balance. You'll want to loot pretty much all enemies you kill, as the ammo you can get from them is invaluable.

TRAVEL
--

STALKER lacks a fast travel system. Instead, any place you want to go to, you'll have to walk/run there. While this sounds like a pain in the ass, I was not bothered by it. With the aliveness of the Zone (enemy patrols, packs of animals, radiation pockets, etc), each trip to a place will feel slightly different. You can also get artifacts to boost your endurance, so you can just run everywhere without much trouble at all.
You'll also come across random barriers, various sidequests, and random events that will help keep you entertained and give you rewards.

HORROR
--
Yeah, this game is a horror game (at times).
In the Zone, you'll often find yourself going on underground expeditions going through quiet tunnels, abandoned buildings, run-down laboratories, etc. With anomalies, mutants, and other STALKERs occupying these grounds, you'll find yourself terrified during these expeditions.
For example, you'll be walking through a quiet corridor in an underground lab. The hiss of a pipe two rooms away echoing through the maze-like hallways makes you think there may be someone or something over there. It could just be machinery. Maybe an anomaly. It could be a fellow STALKER. Worse, it could be a mutant, lurking in the shadows, so far removed from anything normal. Then, you hear a clatter. A box, dropped in the room ahead. You can barely peer into it; with no nightvision on your suit and all you have is this ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ flashlight, you have no clue what you're getting into.


CONTINUED IN COMMENTS BECAUSE STEAM LIMITS THE AMOUNT OF CHARACTERS YOU CAN HAVE

Broken servers full of persistent cheaters on MP, a mediocre campaign carried by its latter half that does not manage to encourage movement in its gameplay and rather cover-based shooting.
Campaign's mechanics are introduced in one level and then discarded the same level, even though there was so much more they could pull out of those concepts. Master difficulty is just stupid and encourages even more cover-based shooting, while Hard is way too easy for the bosses.
Movement mechanics still need polishing to make it feel more consistent. Does not feel intuitive but you can definitely learn it to become great at it.

I really did like this game. But instead of keeping the toggle to turn off the scenes which contains depictions of suicide done directly by the player, they felt the need to ♥♥♥♥ over old customers by removing these scenes entirely.
I'm not any sort of SJW-hater or /pol/tard. But ♥♥♥♥ me, this is just absolutely idiotic. Keep the toggle and stop ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ people over who want the product who preferred it's inclusion and weren't offended by it.

Do not buy this game.

I've played through all campaigns and gotten the full SW:RC experience. The reason it shows it as 1 hour on steam is because the widescreen fix that's available doesn't work with Steam (it uses a different .exe to launch).

As for the game itself, it's a good bit of fun. Obviously, it doesn't hold up like it did back when it came out. There are quite a few issues I have with it:
- Most environments are purely visual and don't offer any sort of different tactical experience (except for the solo levels, that was pretty interesting
- The squad command system is easily mastered and fully experienced within an hour instead of evolving over the course of the game
- All of the characters are very one-note and not interesting at all; I was hoping for them to grow and evolve as characters
- The only difficulty you should play this game on is hard; for a 2005 game, the "Hard" difficulty was incredibly easy
- The final level is underwhelming and what happens is just plain blue balls
- AI sometimes takes a mind of its own (eg reviving teammates on their own). It hurts the experience that you aren't commanding them to do so at all times, but it works for the characters and their strong ties
Some positives:
- Weapon swapping for your main arsenal is extremely cool
- Character designs work well for what they are
- Extra weapons from different species are often extremely useful
- Ammo is just the right amount of limited, forcing you to use different weapons and save certain kinds of ammo as much as you can
- Health refills are plentiful
- Enemies are interesting and varied

All in all, I would say it's worth a buy on a very good sale. If you're a Star Wars fan and played this as a kid, this is a great trip down memory lane that still barely holds its own. If you're not a Star Wars fan (like me), this is a decent game to pass the time with while playing a beloved classic so you can bond about it with others or just revisit it from your childhood.
This game definitely deserves a REMAKE (not a remaster), focusing on fleshing out all the mechanics and forming this game into what it could've been. Or a sequel just doing all that would be fine too I guess.

Well, I finished Doom Eternal on Nightmare (hardest difficulty that isn't deathless) plus all the DLC and Slayer Gates. Here's my review on everything:

Gameplay
-------------------------
Doom Eternal is the pinnacle of FPS combat. It's a game that truly tries seasoned veterans of the genre and forces them to adapt and survive, while providing intense adrenaline rushes and feeling like an arena shooter. It's extremely punishing and extremely rewarding.
Eternal encourages using your entire arsenal in-game with its cast of enemies and their design, as well as the arenas. Certain enemies have certain weaknesses to certain weapons, which promotes you switching weapons all the time to do insane weapon combos to take out tough enemies. Minus a couple weapon mods (which they manage to make useful in the DLC), everything has a specific place and purpose. That's not to say that the base gameplay loop is repetitive with you using the same tool for every job when you fight a specific enemy. There's not only one way to take out every enemy in Doom Eternal. Proof of this can be found in some of the super skilled players that you can find on YouTube (and some videos discussing the topic can be found at Under The Mayo's channel).
Enemies are varied, with intelligent AI on every single one of them as well as insane damage. Even base fodder can kill you in two to three hits. However, the game gives you all the tools necessary to dispose of said enemies as well as dodge and avoid them.
Arenas are designed purposefully, encouraging movement by providing open or closed areas with several chokepoints. Combined with the enemy AI, every arena is turned into an extremely tense firefight and chase sequence while you attempt to dodge and weave while slowly chipping away at the horde.
In between arenas, there are frequently platforming sections that try to help you practice your platforming skills in preparations for use in arenas. Most of these are relatively easy to figure out and understand. A lot of people don't like these sections, but they're really not a bother and enhance Doom Eternal overall.
Sometimes, there are sections that serve more as just pure ambience or introductions to levels. They set the mood well while providing beautiful, inventive, and varied landscapes.

In Eternal, checkpoints are often and between each arena, and provided you have an SSD, loading times are fast so dying every time isn't that big of a deal. I wish there could be no loading screen at all, but I really can't complain when the game runs so well.
There are secrets to find all over, including lore, toys, cheat codes, etc, which are all viewable in your home base, the Fortress of Doom. In case you miss some earlier in the level, at the end of every level, you can Fast Travel to certain sections of the maps to grab any secrets you may have missed.
As well as guns you gain over time in Eternal's story, you are also able to gain skill points and runes to have passive or active abilities both on Doomguy and your weapons to improve your demon-slaying capabilities. These are earned by completing battles, both in the main story, secret encounters, and Slayer Gates (optional super hard arenas). You can also "master" weapons by completing a challenge. You will unlock a certain ability by doing it, ranging from extremely useful to the point of it becoming a regular part of your combos to having little impact on your overall playstyle. (The ones that really matter are usually pretty easy though).
The map system from 2016's Doom is improved upon drastically by becoming clearer and easier to navigate. I use it regularly and it Just Werks­™.
Tutorials are often shoved in your face to explain how enemies work and how to defeat them, as well as weakpoints. While this is good sometimes, it's not good all the time. I suggest keeping the tutorials off for everything past the first half of the base game, and referring to your codex should you need it.

Overall, the core gameplay loop of Doom Eternal, as well as the extra systems, are all purposefully designed to add to the experience through the use of maps, weapons, enemies, etc. You can feel yourself becoming more powerful and deadly over time. It's very satisfying, but takes a minute to get most of the arsenal and really get into what Eternal is about.

Music
-------------------------
In case you don't know, Doom is a series famed for its legendary soundtracks, even moreso now with the introduction of Lead Composer Mick Gordon in 2016's Doom. Mick Gordon combines EDM, heavy metal, throat singing, and a bunch of other genres that I'm too stupid to understand to create another legendary soundtrack. While I would argue that 2016's Doom has a better overall soundtrack, Eternal has some highlights and still holds up on its own very well. Both enhance the gameplay by making you feel like a total badass and adding to the scene, which is really all you could ask for.

Graphics
-------------------------
This game is one of the most gorgeous games I've played, and it runs like butter even WITH raytracing on. I never get dropped frames, I never get lagged out, and it's just perfect. The artstyle works really well, and enemy designs are thematically appropriate but distinct, so you know what you're fighting when you try and go for an enemy.
Some of the skyboxes are the most awe-inspiring things I've ever seen. The sheer scope and scale Doom Eternal is able to convey is staggering, and I commend the art team and developers for being able to create something so beautiful that runs on potato hardware.

Story
-------------------------
Story is not important to me in a Doom game. If you're interested in that, there are codex pages you can pick up which explain the lore as well as in-game cutscenes and the occasional narration by friend or foe. What matters to me is that it creates badass scenarios, and it definitely delivers.
There are a couple over-the-top moments that make you cringe a tiny bit, but they're not that bad. You're able to feel like an absolute badass but not the Shadow the Edgehog kind.

Replayability
-------------------------
Has a good bit of replayability IMO, but it's not something I want to replay. I got what I wanted out of Doom Eternal, and I want nothing more. If you want to play more though, there are community rulesets, apparently there are campaign mods, Master Levels (aka current levels that are officially remixed with different enemies to be extra challenging), and the base game with cheat codes and different difficulties.


A couple things to keep in mind if you decide to play:
1) If you play FPSes regularly enough to think of yourself as somewhat decent, you need to try Nightmare difficulty. It is the best way to play Doom Eternal.
2) Experiment. Try weird things out that you think might work. It could elevate your gameplay.
3) The Marauder isn't badly designed.

Overall, I wholeheartedly recommend this game. At full price? Sure. But it goes on sale so often that you'd be shooting yourself in the foot by not waiting for a sale.
I had fun, and I hope you do too.

Well, 2-3 years after buying it, I finally beat Doom 2016.
At first, I was really turned off by this game and its slow start. You don't have that many movement options, and your arsenal is quite limited. However, as you progress along, you gain access to more and more weapons, movement options, runes that modify your character's loadouts, etc. At a certain point, I realized that I was having WAY too much fun.
It's really just a solid FPS that takes a bit to get into its own groove (which no one told me about). Once you get there though, it is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ glorious. I even found myself being able to use every weapon (even the starting pistol) for its own niche use. While not as combo-y as something like ULTRAKILL, you will find yourself comboing together weapons as weapon mods often have cooldowns.

Couple things I was annoyed about:
Cacodemons do an insane amount of damage at close-range. I'll do a glory kill to get health back, and a cacodemon will kill me before I can get up. I suppose it's my own fault, but it'd be preferred if they waited a second after your glory kill before killing you.
The bum-rush ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ have a weak spot on their tail that makes them way easier to kill. This was not choreographed well in their design. Brighter visuals on the tail (like glowing green spots) would've done wonders to help me notice that this was the case. I didn't notice it until the final area of the game.
Some of the fights near the end of the game come in waves, where there will be an easy first wave and a harder second wave. A couple of times the first wave would last too long, so if you died you had to slog through the easy section again. It's not that big of a deal, but it's definitely mildly annoying.

I beat the game on Ultra-Violence, which is a great difficulty for those not experienced with Doom but well-experienced in other FPSes.
Definitely pick this up when it goes on sale.

Terrible controls for Valve Index Knuckles. I know it doesn't say it on the store page, but I got this game for free. So just so you know, the Knuckles don't really work with this game.