Recent reviews by HyperboleJoe

Decided to give the free week a shot. Maybe it's because I sunk so many hours into the Modern Warfare reboot that played so well and felt so great, but what I played here felt worse than the beta I tried way back when. There's an overall lack of polish to the game that can't be ignored. I also played Battlefield 1 for the first time recently and the level of depth to the maps, game modes, and play, not to mention the weight of the world, guns, everything just feels better.

I know there are a lot of people who like this game now, but I'm not impressed. I appreciate that they've stuck to it (they kind of had to from the presales alone) but the game is just not fun to play for me. Especially in comparison to other multiplayer shooters both free and paid for.

Dwarf Fortress is a difficult game to review. I've played it for a bit over 10 years already and absolutely love the game. It's a 100 even though there are still a ton of unfinished systems, a decent amount of jank, and difficulties with the new UI and graphics.

The actual gameplay of Dwarf Fortress can still be difficult and cumbersome to get into. I thought the tutorial would be more expansive, but it isn't. There is an extensive built-in help system, but the game requires a curious mind to try to dig into all of what's in there. I think the spirte graphics are excellent, and they cover so much of what's in the game it's a bit mind-boggling. I've always preferred to play with graphic packs, but this is so nice. There have been complaints about the tick-y movement and some wishing it was keyframed, but I don't think that's going to be possible with DF due to the underlying engine. I could be wrong, perhaps it's an option that could be added for those who think they would prefer it.

The music and ambient sound are great. I'd always played with Sound Sense before and this is certainly at the very least its equal.

Ultimately this is such a deep game and it rewards people who are curious, who have fun when wild ♥♥♥♥ out of their control happens, and find unexpected devastation to be an enjoyable diversion. The new embark screen is amazing and the new legends viewer, a person can lost just generating worlds and having a look around, reading through the remarkable histories that get created.

Creating fortresses has never been so almost approachable and I can't recommend this enough to people who're willing to put in 10-15 hours, a couple lost forts, and pausing every few ticks to figure some new ♥♥♥♥ out. You need to put in some effort to get the most out of the game. It still isn't going to hold your hand, but it's getting closer, and this version is the best DF has been.

Load times.
I pressed on with the game despite the load times, but ended up putting the game down because it was too long and the loads too frequent. Enter building. 5-7 seconds. Go up floor. 5-7 seconds. Talk to person. Go down. 5-7 seconds. Leave. 5-7 seconds. One conversation that took 30 seconds to complete takes a minute. I just fired up the game to see if there was some improvement, but unfortunately there isn't and I've just finally uninstalled the game because I know I won't finish it.

This was why I stopped playing before and it's why I didn't even consider buying Pillars of Eternity 2 despite the warm reviews. I read the load times aren't much improved there and it's just dumbfounding that the game has this bad of load times for simple area changes.

This is really a fantastic game. Well worth the time for anyone who at one time enjoyed South Park. I haven't watched the show in years, but the game did an incredible job of feeling just like a few episodes. Well paced, funny, and clever. Also, it's just the right length, in my opinion.

Started randomly crashing on me about 3 hours in. Tried various ini edit fixes I found online, but nothing worked and couldn't find any other suggestions.

Edit: Original kept below, which was less than an hour in and coming fresh off of playing Arkham City. I still encountered a number of crash to desktop bugs, but the audio cut-out bug was gone, and the stuttering was gone. The combat isn't as tight as Arkham City and I never got as good at the flow in this as I did in that or Asylum, but I adapted by hitting the button a couple extra times prior to trying to engage in a counter.

Overall, this was a good Batman game in the same vein as Asylum and City. It isn't without its performance issues, even to this day people complain about, and I experienced, inexplicable crashes, but after a number of suggestions I finally got it working smoothly without crashing for about the last 20 to 25 hours I played the game with only one or two crashes. Knowing the location of your BMEngine.ini file in the Batman Arkham Origins\SinglePlayer\BMGame\Config folder for quick deletion is key. And, avoid using the DX11 render. At least in my experience with an RX 580.

So far I'm less than impressed by Arkham Origins. It's like I'm playing an uncanny valley version of the Batman games that I know and love. Everything is slightly different and I keep running into massive bugs. The biggest one is that all audio cuts out. I've read others have this same issue, but haven't encountered a fix. The performance of the game is abysmal. The game stutters like crazy even in canned cutscenes, but also whenever opening a door, and, well, doing anything. The combat is the same as previous entries, but feels looser, more sloppy. Counters sometimes don't seem to work for no discernible reason.

I'm going to keep playing despite the problems, but I wouldn't recommend paying for this buggy game.

You simply have to own this game. It is non-stop fun! When I was pressing arrows I felt like the horses and myself were one. When I got to parts of the game that I thought might be fun to play and the game played them for me? Yeah, I was like, "Thank you game for doing all that work for me game!" Although I quickly grew good at this game, it will truly take years to master. The next E-Sports sensation? Yes, I think we found it.