Recent reviews by maley

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaark Souls 3.
If you enjoy the Demon's/Dark/Bloodborne formula, then I believe you will enjoy this game. I write this at almost 60 hours having just finished my first play through. I started a sorcerer build and a melee build and eventually took the sorcerer build to completion. I finished around SL 95 with 3 weapons @ +10 and a lot of the game covered. My first playthrough is clocked in at around 45 hours.

Dark Souls 3 is an RPG that takes you through a dying world that will punish you over and over for little mistakes but when you're finished it will feel amazing. To me, there isn't another series like this in gaming. I've enjoyed every hour spent in the Souls/Borne series despite how excruciating it can be at times.

Gameplay: Start by selecting your class and making your character. The starting class doesn't matter much as you'll be able to create whatever you want by the end of your first game. The game allows you to respect 5 times per play through, but you can figure out how to get there (or just google but it involves a covenant). Game follows the predecessors where you play a single character in either melee/mage/mix/really whatever you want to do. You can dual wield, you can run sword and shield, you can get the biggest weapon in the game eventually and run around two handing that, you can run staff/chime and sword. You explore the world gaining more ground via bonfires which let you teleport around the world to save time.

There is no pausing. All weapons/armor have weights to them, they have different looks, different animations and it let's the game have a lot of different combinations. "Fashion Souls" exists for a reason.

Bosses: The series is known for its bosses and I don't think this entry disappoints. There are excellent bosses that are all varied. I believe in my first play through I found all of them, as in there are a bunch of optional areas/bosses that you could miss/skip if you wanted to. There are also 'mini' bosses scattered through out the game which are usually just protecting special items.

Invading / Coop:
The souls series has pvp and coop. PVP happens via invading live gameplay through either items or covenants where you can invade someones game before a boss and fight them and kill them. You can only invade someone who is 'alive'. This means that they haven't died. When you die in Souls games your HP is reduced and you're "hollow". You can become 'alive' again via various means. PVP also happens through several covenants either in attacking or defending roles. Coop happens by summoning other players at random, or via password with friends or via covenant to sometimes help defend yourself when you're invaded. You could play offline and avoid all of this but what fun is that? I'm not that great and die to most PVPers but I don't avoid it.

Graphics: GTX780, I'm maxed on everything and have good FPS as far as I can tell. Have only had visible drops here and there.

Audio: On board audio, just average. Nothing that stands out too much.

On to NG+!

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen is a 3rd person party RPG game. You control your character and your main pawn. Your main pawn can get used by other players including your friends on Steam. In addition to your main pawn you have 2 sub pawns that round you out to a party of 4. It follows the traditional rpg elements in that you want a tank, healer and damage dealer.

The game is a port of a game that came out some years back on the PS3/360 and includes its DLC.

Story/Progression: I wasn't really worrying too much about this for most of the game. The main story is pretty short and very simple. There are a lot of quests, some of them are good and developed and others are just typical RPG fetch quests. You and your pawn level up at the same rate whereas your other hired 2 pawns don't level up with you, they level up in their own games (whoever created them).

Gameplay: It's a 3rd person game and you can start the game as a ranged fighter (strider) with bow/arrow, a melee tank or a mage. There are some expanded classes as well. The combat is a lot of fun and offers different ways to approach fights. See that troll? You can climb on him, attack him, climb up to his head and stab his eye. The gameplay is a lot of fun once you get the hang of it which doesn't take too long. The different classes offer a range of skills and let you use some cross skills as well.

Graphics/Audio: (Running an i5 with 780 graphics card and on board audio). Game ran really smooth but the graphics haven't aged greatly mostly because they weren't that great to begin with I think. Overall for what it is, they're fine.

Overall: I had a lot of fun with this. This game above all else does one thing better than a lot of games out there. New Game +. When you start NG+ you have everything from the first game, you're leveled up and you have all your awesome weapons so now you can go wreck stuff. This is how I like NG+ to function. If you want a challenge there is a Hard Mode and a Speed Run mode as well built INTO the game! Would love to see more games do this.

Game: You play soccer with RC cars. Said cars are extremly customizable. IT'S SO MUCH FUN. What else do you need?

Cars and customization: You earn new pieces (hat, antenna, cars, color, boost trails, decals) pretty much after every race.

Gameplay: Stretches from beginner to really advanced. Beginner would be just hitting the ball with your car, waiting for the ball to reach teh ground after it's popped into the air and sort of hoping it goes in the net. Advanced would be owning the ball. You dribble with the ball, you can go into the air and hit it in the direction you want, you make great saves in goal.

Game has online with skill levels to play with. Also has seasons to play with againt the computer. Or just play games against the CPU.

OH OH OH. SPLIT SCREEN MULTIPLAYER ON PC. <3

Game is incredibly fun and I suggest you try it out.

Few months later: Have you tried it out? If not, why not? What's wrong with you?

Preface: My first Fallout game.
Fallout 4 is a post apocalyptic FPS/TPS w/ RPG elements. I think that's the best way to describe it.

Story/Progression: You're in what was formerly Boston, MA and the surrounding area after nukes ruined the world. You get to pick from 3 man factions though you can do a lot of their quests before you pick which one you want to side with. I haven't played the prior Fallout games but reading online has told me that it was a bit more shallow this time around versus the prior Fallout games. Meaning: you can't kill important NPCs, you can't really go from the path that the devs want you to go on, there is a lot less freedom in the game. While I didn't notice this at first I noticed it as I played more. My first completion was 80 hours. I beleive I have enough save files at certain points to do wthe rest of the quests without restarting from scratch.

Gameplay: It's a FPS/TPS, whicehver you prefer. The VATS system let's you pick apart enemies by targeting specific limbs crippling an opponent if you wanted to. You can get perks that allow you to use stealth more or you can just run and gun if you'd like. I'd say there are 3 main things to do in the game: 1) Questing - following the main story and the side quests that come up from there as you discover new areas. 2) Rebuilding - A neutral faction you join that never leaves you is called the Minutemen that you discover pretty early. They want to rebuild, you do this by building settlements and having settlers get together to farm/defend/etc. 3) Exploring - Just walking around discovering all that there is to be found in this game. There is SO much. It's just incredible and amazing.

Graphics/Audio: (Running an i5 with 780 graphics card and on board audio). Had some slow down here and there playing with everything pretty much maxed. There are a lot of mods out already to make the game look better, A LOT BETTER, but they are taxing on the system and you need a really good system to get the most out of them.

Overall: I really enjoyed my time with the game, there are some negatives as mentioned above but they don't take away from the entire game. If you haven't played a Fallout game before, I wouldn't let that keep you from playing this. If you like FPS/TPS/RPG I think you can find a lot of enjoyment out of the game. I think you could also beat it a lot faster than 80 hours, I just did a lot of extra stuff (and really could have extended it a lot longer). You can really lose yourself in this game.

Looking forward to future support of the game.

Background: Obsidian developed sequel to KOTOR 1 (Bioware developed game) that puts you 4,000 years before the original trilogy of Star Wars. So there is no connection to the Skywalkers or Solos. A fun RPG with a huge cast of characters. IT IS AWESOME. The recent patch added widescreen support, fixed some bugs and added steam workshop. There are still a number of bugs though.

Plot: You play an 'exiled' Jedi from events that transpired in the first game. You do not need to play the first game, but I would wiki the story. And as the first game hasn't gotten a patch for widescreen and runs badly on newer systems you may just want to do that. There are some recurring characters (party and non party) though. Just, FYI: Cannon exile is a woman.

Gameplay: The gameplay is based on d20 role-playing game system. You can pick your class and your skills. Force powers are yours to choose. There are different endings based on your choices as well (light side vs dark side only). The characters you get in your party are of a wide variety and are great. You can converse with them, gain influence them, turn some into jedi/sith. There are some characters specific to male/female, but nothing light/dark. You really can choose to play full on melee lightsaber wielding mad man or you could just be a force nut (much easier on dark side).
I played both light and dark to completion and the dark side run had many more bugs than the light side. I played with KB/M, but you can use a controller as well.

Graphics: It's a 10+ year old game. I think the graphics have aged well. There are a couple mods to have better graphics but nothing huge. Runs fine (i5 haswell and gtx780) on my system, I mean it's 10+ years old, it better.

Audio: Nothing flashy, works fine.

LOVE this game. You should play it.

Disclaimer: Wait for the patches, unless you're crazy like me and want to play through a game that runs like mush because you love the Arkham games so much. Really felt that this could have been one of my favorite games but we'll get to why it's not in a bit. WB did a crap job on the port to PC, a really crappy job. I still say recommend b/c I'll forget to edit my review, I think it's still fun for the 28 hours that I played it and I believe they'll fix it.

Game takes place after Arkham City, the order: Origins -> Asylum -> City -> Knight. If it you've played a previous Arkham game you know what you're getting into for the most part. It is a bit different in a few important ways though. If you haven't played an Arkham game (then why are you here, go play the others first!). But if you haven't you play Batman in a 3rd person action-adventure using his gadgets and fists to beat up baddies and save Gotham.

Plot: Follows the fall out from the previous game with Scarecrow and Arkham Knight as the primary baddies. You can beat up and catch a lot of others along the way as well. It follows the formula of objective based missions to progress the story. At anytime you're free to go away from the main plot and tackle other missions with no penalty.

Gameplay: An introduction to this game is the Batmobile. Some love it, some hate it, I don't think it's all that bad. The combat was fun and new and if my game didn't glitch out with it every so often I would have enjoyed it more. The Batman only gameplay is similar to past games. You fight, you counter, you stun, you fight, you throw enemies through windows, etc. You can go with the stealth approach or just jump into a fray and hope you're fast enough for the guns not to kill you (this is actually pretty hard).

Graphics: Hard to say but a total mess is a good summary. WB has a lot of work to do to fix this port. I played at 1080p full screen with an OC'd i54670k, OC'd 780 and have had a lot of issues running this. Frames drop a lot, especially while in the Batmobile or a ton on screen. There are some Gameworks effects that you can run like paper debris, and smoke/fog effects (the smoke/fog does look awesome). The game lacks a ton of graphical effects/changes that the prior games had. It just seems like WB thought they could cut a low check, get a cheap team and cash in on the success of the title.

Audio: Nothing flashy, works fine.

Despite the mess that this game is I still had a lot of fun with it. First play through took me 28 hours and I near did near 100%. The only thing I didn't do were the Riddler trophies. Doing so would have unlocked the 'true' ending but I just couldn't bring myself to find them all. And WB, you lost any future pre-orders from me.

Shadow of Mordor is great and a lot of fun! I'm sure it helps to enjoy the LOTR mythos but I still think you can have fun despite that as I found the gameplay to be really enjoyable. It reminded me of the Arkham games (also from WB) gameplay wise. First play through had me finish at 57% (all quests, etc) at 28.5 hours.

Plot/Game: The game follows Talion, a ranger of Gondor and his orc/uruk genocide across Mordor The story is new in that it doesn't exist in the LOTR mythos but WB fit it snuggly in where it doesn't hurt any actual story. I like it. As said above I feel like it plays similar to the Batman Arkham games. There are different side quests between the maps you get access to that can just be skipped if you want to go straight story. They're neat and they give you a lot of back story. There is a central way to skip quickly between different points on the map or you can ride between 2 beasts (though one isn't really fast).

Like Batman you can use stealth or just go swords out and run into 20 orcs. I had a lot of fun hanging from ledges and stealth killing things. The game features what they call their Nemesis system. There are various captains and warcheifs. If they kill you, they become stronger. You don't know what their weaknesses are but they can be discovered during gameplay. There are instances where captains might be fighting each other and you can jump in to kill a stronger one. A neat mission system that acts as a sidequest is when your friends on Steam die to a warchief/captain you will be given a mission to avenger their death and kill that warchief/captain.

Graphics (i5 haswell and gtx780): Nothing to brag about but they're pretty solid. Framerate is stable and even when there are tons of orcs/uruk on screen there aren't frame drops or issues either.

Audio: It's solid, no issues. Nothing that stands out in any crazy way.

Anything bad? I really enjoyed the game and had fun with it, nothing really horrible but some nitpicks. The last 2 bosses are over pretty quick. :(

Other? Torvin is awesome.

Great action game, play it!

The Evil WIthin! From the mind of Shinji Mikami (so you know it's going to be crazy!) Wiki him if you don't know who he is, has a long list of games to his name. The title of the game should be a pretty big hint at what type of game this is. I haven't played Silent Hill but I think it's more of a Silent Hill game than Resident Evil.

Overall I enjoyed the game, I'm going to break it down:
Story: Erm, well this is sort of hard. This is probably the weakest part for me. I feel like you have to connect a lot of dots to figure out what's going on. I read some impressions from other people after I finished it that helped me do that. Neat story, but could have been done better I think. Have more tape recordings (are found during the game) or something to give a little more back story.

Gameplay: I play games like this in a really percise manner. Enemies at the start won't die by a single head shot, there can be hidden enemies, there are traps all around and your ammo is limited. Therefore I go through pretty slow, used stealth as much as I could (stealth kills are 1 hit KO) and thought stuff out a lot as I went to be as efficient as I could be. You have a number of weapons that you upgrade through the game, the gunplay is very good as is using stealth. My first play through was ~15 hours w/ 33 deaths, even being percise you will die a lot!

Audio/Video: Graphics are fantastic (using an i5/780). There were some perfomrance issues when it first came out but a few patches in on the PC version have fixed a lot of issues and made performance a lot better. The game tries to unhinge you. They'll be lots of blood, eerie sounds and what not. The name of the game is Evil Within, you should expect this! The game isn't really scary, there are a few jump scares, but it's very tense.

Other: First time through I unlocked some new weapons and they gave me a lot of green gel to level up skills if I want to go back in so it seems like there is good replay value (similar to RE4) if you like the game. If you like Mikami games, horror games, or a good 3rd person shooting game (with crazy/horror/weird style)I would say it's worth a play through!

Valkyria Chronicles came out for the PS3 about 6 years ago and is a strategy RPG. This contains all the DLC and some touched up visuals. This is an EXCELLENT game. It basically takes the events of WW1/WW2 as in that both wars are/have happened and the land looks exactly like Europe. Everything else is different. You play as a member of a militia group from a small country that's on the defense from the eastern empire (Russia area).

Graphics have been touched up, it can be run at 4k pretty easily with GeDoSaTo. Running @ 4k and 60fps causes some issues with tanks being able to move up hills. The audio comes in english/japanese (and may have more, I never checked).
It's a turn based strategy RPG. You level up your classes instead of individuals. You upgrade your weapons and tanks between missions. Grinding isn't really necessary. The way the game is potrayed, you can't redo story missions but you can replay 'skirmishes' over and over again if you want. It is helpful for new people to learn units strengths/weaknesses but it's absolutely n ot necessary to grind. I played every skirmish once and was able to beat the game without much issue.

This game is a lot of fun, a little challenging here and there. Has a great cast of characters with great voice acting. The story is really well done. I don't want to spoil certain parts but it handles some situations that don't get featured in games all that much well.

You can save practically anytime and quit if you have to run to do something!

This game was really fun.

The gameplay is a first person action/rpgish type game. You level up certain skills, your right hand is always a sword while your left is gun/powers/crossbow/etc. You can rely on stealth of various methods or you can just go running in trying to blow stuff up. The graphics are fine, the gameplay seemed pretty solid as in I didn't have any glitches. I found the powers you get to be really fun to use and enhance the going stealth or not stealth (which ever you want). Story is somewhat predictable, but that doesn't take away from the overall experience. The game let's you go through on a no kill run. There are alternatives for everything that needs to be done so a complete no kill run is possible.

So far I've completed it once and I went what woudl be considered the 'good' path. I've already started a 'bad/dark' path to change things up. Haven't made it to the DLC yet either but that will be after the dark path is finished. You should look into this!