Recent reviews by rayculz

Road Redemption is spiritual successor of classic vehicular combat from 16-bit era and its sequels, Road Rash series. The game was fun, because you can race and fight enemies at the same time. There was some melee weapon like machete, sword, sledgehammer or range weapon like gun, machine gun and bazooka. You can kill all competitor while in race and ride to finish line or be killed by them.

Despite all the fun, this game was very hard in your first five to ten hours. Because of rouge-like element of this game. If you dead while in the middle of the race, you start over. If you dead at final boss, you start from beginning and lost all progress but earn some XP to get permanent upgrade, unlockable item or buff.

And after familiar with gameplay and get good in learning curve, this game become more challenging to win with each character that had pro or cons in each of them. Some character was very hard to play, because had low hp and can get kill by one hit. There was a character that you must use nitro non stop or the character hp will drop if he not fast enough. There was a character that can used melee weapon, and gun only. And the list was so on.

Mastering each character will be good if player already get good with basic gameplay in this rouge-like campaign racing. Maintenance money to buy item in store after race were need calculation and plan with risk in next race. And yeah, this rouge-like element feature can be love or hate by player. One thing that I didn't like in this game was physics, I almost get easy to get off track and stuck at object and there is no reset position button because you must press ESC in keyboard and pick "put me on the track" from menu. It was so easily to get stuck to an object when off track from main road even if stuck behind destroyed car in the middle of the road, it need reverse and steer left or right to avoid it.

Well, there is so many pro and cons about this game. But, I prefer pick the pro ones because it was so fun.

Rayne .... a sexy badass female vampire, single-handed inflitrating a Nazi HQ and doing ... kill.... slash ... shoot ... suck their blood ... dismember their head ... snipe their head from a far ... slow down time and doing over the top combo to butchered the troops body parts ... throw a harpoon like scorpion from Mortal Kombat to "GET OVER HERE" for suck enemy blood and enjoying feast. That was BloodRayne, one of the best gem from the past.

I did play steam original PC port but it needs some debug and fix to play in modern PC, but in this Terminal Cut version perfected to playing this old gem in modern hardware. And yeah, BLOODRAYNE was so popular game back in the days and believe it or not there was movie adaptation of BLOODRAYNE from worst director ever ... and he made it a movie trilogy.

And that was .,.. BLOOD RAIN .... because Rayne will not stop until all her target bath in blood.
One of the best action game ever made.

The world of Toren was so beautiful with symbolism fantasy story about the birth - the life - the dead - and recycle again, it was a short game that can be finished under 3 hours. I did feel attach to the cryptic lore of this game and Oh My God, this game musical score was very good for an indie game. Musical score in this game fills the mood when playing this game, musical score of this game must be place on higher place because it feels so sad and epic with the same time.

But, despite of all the goodness, gameplay of this game feels so clunky. There was three button for use, JUMP - ATTACK / USE - LOOK. For jumping, it feels clunky for animation, not smooth but manageable. USE button was fine but, for ATTACK animation was the worst thing. I kinda hate when try to slash small enemy with sword, I rather run away than kill them or grabbed by them and throw them at pit. It feels be better than slash an attack to them. But, sword was needed as plot armor for the story and it feels so epic in the final battle. It was so brutal, gore and epic. Well done to developer to made that scene. So, after use jump & attack button, third button was LOOK. This button will be cinematic if there was a eye symbol above character head and that was so good. I like this.

However, there were pro and cons about this game. But for me, I like the story, lore and OMFG the epic soundtrack. Graphics was good for an indie, it was not AAA type of graphics. Cons for me just for the clunky of jumping and attack, beside of that this game was two level above mediocre, So, it was 7/10 from me.

ReCore: Definitive Edition set in post-apocalypse world that name Far Eden. Joule as the female protagonist of this game accompanied by a robot dog, Mack. She's just wake up from cyro-sleep and realized she was the only human in this planet when surrounded by robot that being rouge.

For basic combat gameplay, recore focused on third person shooter that player can aim (or auto) with movement like dash or double jump. In her journey, Joule can find another companion beside Mack. Seth, a robot spider and Duncan, a robot gorilla. In later game, Joule's companion (Mack, Seth and Duncan) just a corebot. A corebot can be installed onto another robot frame. In a simple word, a robot dog can be Mack, Seth or Duncan. Same as spider or gorilla.

For main task, just remember a classic game like Spyro that you must collect so many item that spread across the map in order to progress the game or just being a collectible item, that was the core of this game. And that repetitive chore must be completed if you want to get all the achievement in this game. So, despite of repetitive gameplay. This game has appeal to maintain a good 3D platforming gameplay that set in a open world map that connect with hub and has element of metroidvania that must be backtracked to collect the item after get some upgrade or new power.

So, this game can be hit or miss. If you like a classic gameplay that must collect item around the map, you will like this game. For me, this game has a solid 6/10 score. Not a bad game, and not a good one too.

This game was looking for another touch from tactical XCOM franchise by abandoning isometric and made it to a third person shooter that get heavy influence Mafia 2 gameplay for cover shooter. blend it with Mass Effect's influence for a story choice decision and you get The Bureau: XCOM Declassified that set in the 60's with height of Cold War.

Despite this game have an excellent feature like permadeath system, it never be explored to be punishable because player can reload last checkpoint. And this game has limited mission for training new recruit agent, if they were truly death. And that was a shame. But, something that this game amazed to me was multiple story path at the end because It leads to multiple ending including a twist that I never know it was existed in a story narrative.

Well, The Bureau was not a good XCOM game but a solid tactical third person shooter. There so many flaw here and there, including technical problem that made game crash to desktop. However, this game also had its charm and that was good.

I don't intend to buy this game, I just want to complete my collections of all Borderlands DLC. And it more cheaper in this "BORDERLANDS COLLECTION: PANDORA'S BOX" with 93% discount than buy separate DLC that I want. So here was the game, a sequel from Telltale's Tales from The Borderlands that was masterpiece and I really like it. But, for this game ... *sigh*

Completing this game to get all achievement was truly a pain. I just can't enjoy the story, and character,s, a writer of this game trying to be funny but it was not. It was so cringe and annoying. Just replaying the game from first episode to last to get multiple ending was truly a hardcore chore, only masochist doing several playthrough to complete all achievement for this mess.

Honestly, if you like a good narrative adventure game with multiple ending. This game is not for you, despite the graphics was fine and mini game feature like vaultlander battle was good addition. But that can't help the mess of this game story. However, the only good thing in this mess was LOU13 ... an assassin's bot that became this game box cover.

I still remember when launch of this overhyped game got so many praise and so many backlash. It still a good game for me, despite all technical problem that happen at launch. But, I did abandoned the game and forgot it for a while. Time after time, updates after update and decided to go back to the game after Patch 1.05 and its was blow my mind. The game still good and became stable.

And one thing that I did like of this game developer, they still update this game and try to accomplished what they promised. They still support this game, alongside with other media like Netflix's Cyberpunk Edgerunner anime and announce this game future DLC.

Well, Cyberpunk 2077 still had good atmosphere, good soundtrack, good gameplay, good story, good lore and brilliant world building. It still the best game ever made in my humble opinion.

So, I never regret to nominate Cyberpunk 2077 as Labor of Love in Steam Award 2022.

I feel deja vu while playing this demo ...
And of course, this demo case is 180 degree different from the main game.

But, I still feel deja vu about this case ...

Well, just playing this demo first if you want to start Danganronpa V3 : Killing Harmony, because save game from this demo give additional reward if you load this demo save file into the main game.

For me as Borderlands series avid fans ... BORDERLANDS IS LYFE !!

I did nominate this game for BETTER WITH FRIENDS AWARD in Steam Awards 2020
I did spent thousand of hours from this franchise to play in multiple platform (PC & Console)

• I didn't get mad when this game release on EPIC GAMES STORE, because I can wait for steam release and buy on DAY 1.
  
• I didn't get mad when people hating that annoying Ava character, I just doesn't like her.
  
• I didn't get mad when main villain in this game doesn't have charisma like the great Handsome Jack in Borderlands 2
  
• I didn't get mad when this game story was no good at all, compared by another installment.
  
• I didn't get mad when all 4 campaign DLC not good as Borderlands 2 Tiny Tina DLC.
  
• I didn't get mad when got crashing / freeze from time to time while playing this game
  
• I didn't get mad when no P2P for multiplayer co-op like previous games because multiplayer connect to shift server
  
• I didn't get mad when shift server are down and can't playing co-op with my buddy

And ...


But ....

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH .... !

New update from this game made me rage, anger & mad.
All the good things comes to end from this game and a new SEASON PASS 2 ruin it all.

• A Season Pass ... it means you've got all new content after the game release.
  
• The 4th skill tree update ruined all the character build from Borderlands community (it was locked on new DLC & it doesn't make sense at all).
  
• Why made 4th skill tree, if gearbox doesn't fix the broken damage in previous original skill tree.
  
• Lack of content in SEASON PASS 2, and game completionist are forced to buy this but it was not good enough for a content.
  
• Adding new achievement in game mode that no one asked and want. For me, goodbye 100% perfect game.
  
• No New Campaign & New Character
  
• Gearbox became more greedy developer by leeching people money.
  
• Slowly but sure borderlands 3 became a live-service game
  
• After this Season Pass 2, maybe there is Season Pass 3 and the list go on

Honestly, it was hard for me to give this game a negative review.
But, it is what it is ... I like the game but doesn't like this scheme of Season Pass 2.

Just wait until they announced & released Borderlands 4 / Pre-Sequel 2 to buy this game,
It was a good game and maybe you've got all content in one package like ...

Borderlands 3 : Ultimate Super Duper Platinum Diamond Gold Deluxe Game of The Year Edition

For now, just pass it and look for another complete game.

Why everyone is salty about performance in this game, even my middle end PC can run well without any problem beside some missing texture when the first time I've boot this game after unpacking & optimize. It was a huge missing texture featuring headless aloy in new game opening cut scene, I was mad and I just want to refund this game at the time.

But I've reboot the game, play it again and voila ... everything run smoothly without a single crash for 7 hours of gameplay when I've write this review.

So, for friendly reminder update your VGA driver !

1. Game Ready Hotfix (451.85) for NVIDIA
2. Adrenalin 2020 (20.8.1) for RADEON