Recent reviews by ggtyler

This game is great. It's got a thrilling story that leaves you thinking about it, with a unique twist in its gameplay.

My main gripe with it is, for lack of a better term, its communication. What could've been a 2-3 hour game ended up being nearly 5, simply because it's completely confusing where to go or what exactly to do. Sometimes it's a small document on a part of the wall that you have to scan (in a room littered with objects), other times it's a mechanic that's not sign posted in the slightest, and a few times it's a puzzle that gives you no direction whatsoever.

This is why I'm feeling conflicted, because besides that, it's a great game! It 100% deserves the praise it's gotten, and if I could, I would've given it a mixed rating. But if I had to guess, about 90 minutes of my playthrough was spent scouring through every nook and cranny completely stumped on what to do, and I even resorted to a GameFAQs walkthrough near the end of it. So ultimately, I can't recommend playing this game, unless you get out a guide, or just watch the game on YT.

Do you like to suffer?
Would you like to lose your mind?
Do you want to bash your head in because you were an inch away from a block and you've now lost 2 hours of your life?
Then play this game.

actual review now that i've played it and the server issues have been fixed:

the new engine is definitely appreciated. unlike bethesda, they finally decided to use unreal, and the game sometimes runs even better than 2 while looking much better, so props to them. also helped since mods ALREADY exist, so glad im able to have blahaj money bags :D

other than that it's a mixed bag. there are some changes that are nice, such as infinite stamina, more use in casing mode, and i honestly don't mind the health / armor system changes. (actually gives a use to armor bags, adds an additional layer of resources to watch and manage, and makes it more difficult.) some others though... why the hell am I stuck with a CAR-4 after multiple heists? why is it possible for a guard to have infinite pagers? why are most of the heists essentially just redos of the regular payday 2 heists? why is there a heist where you steal a crypto wallet and why is vlad of all people the contractor for it?!?!

yes, there's also the lack of a lobby selector, offline mode, lobby chat, etc. but most people already criticized overkill / starbreeze about it and i dont wanna be a broken record. i just want to point out that outside of those issues, there are still other problems with the game. so play payday 2 for now until they patch it up.

The game is OK. It looks pretty damn good (although I have noticed z-fighting, kinda janky animations, and mainly the train ride not being smooth and showing an out of bounds section at the 2nd ride, which I assume will be patched after early access.) The level design is alright, borrows some parts from the first game and from Kane Pixels but it's still leagues better than most backrooms games.

I think the biggest problem I have with it is, well, it's paid. When you strip it down, it is still the exact same thing as the first game, only with more areas to explore and a "story". It literally consists of getting lost, walking around for an hour, and then some weird ♥♥♥♥ happens and the camera teleports into the real world. It's almost exactly like Kane Pixel's first video with some minor changes made and without entities (except in two cutscenes.) I don't mind the lack of gameplay or entities, that's to be expected out of a backrooms game and from the previous one, but at least expand upon the story. Why are there 3 save slots anyways if it's an hour long and has no way to die? And why are there no subtitles when the dialogue is so quiet?

Maybe I'm ragging on it too hard, especially since it's not fully out yet, but it's still super disappointing story wise. Outside of that, the only thing holding it up is the graphics and the liminal space crap (which after 4 years, is pretty boring just by itself.)

The first few mission sets suck ass, most of the songs are no name garbage, and I lose in ladder matches because of a 0.01% accuracy difference. Great game!

It's OK.

Three problems, one of which is explained in the top review:
1. This needs a tutorial, or even just a simple guide. I didn't know I was meant to stack crates and barrels, they're 9 times out of 10 background elements. Not to mention bullet holes, which I didn't know for literally years that you needed to "clean" them, and it required a special laser gun that you are not given.
2. It's hard to tell where tiny messes are. Even after cleaning everything perfectly, using the sniffer to do a last check can make you go paranoid over everything. Whether it's small, nearly invisible footprints, to camouflaged / hidden objects, you never know for sure when you're all done. Maybe add a progress indicator.
3. The game engine this is on, UE3, is dogsh t. Apparently they're working on porting it to UE4 (without any promises), and if that's the case, good! But right now the physics have a tendency of breaking, the game might run poorly without a restart and/or heavy configurations, and when you first boot up the game you'll be treated to 2010 era setup screens.

Just to be clear, I don't hate the game - these are pretty much just minor complaints and overall the game is pretty good at what it tries to do. I just did not have a fun time due to these issues.

the best version of among us, if only because there's voice chat and i can gaslight children with it

I cannot say I beat this game legitimately.

Looking back, there aren't a lot of parts where it happened, but at those points, I had to look up a guide. And I know I'm not alone with this - I've seen forum posts of people getting stuck for half an hour straight not knowing what to do. If I didn't look it up, I'm sure it would've taken me 4-5 hours instead of 3.

I'm not saying this is a bad game - I love the concept, all the little ideas, the cool takes on the loading screen, so on. When it works, it works *well*.

I just wish there was a little bit of help.

It's a nice overhaul to the game. I love how there's small details that they added, like how you can see your own reflections in a few surfaces, and even the portal gun light.

But holy sh!t does this game not run well. I've gotten 7 FPS on the later chambers. To be expected with a 3050 TI laptop, yeah, but it runs surprisingly well in the first few chambers - Over 60 in 1080p!

It just makes me wonder if they gave up on optimization to get more people to buy 3000 / 4000 cards.

After playing through the game three times, including this one for the DLC, I'm left feeling very...mixed about it.

It's cool they did this for their 10 year old game, 8-Bit Nate turned out to be an actual likable character, and they finally added logs to a fireplace simulator. Not to mention achievements, which can all be done with one run with the DLC, which is nice.

But it doesn't add a lot and the fact that it's paid (and more than the base game if you get it on sale), it's a little underwhelming. It also requires you to do a fresh save file due to the new letters, even though theoretically it can be very easily added on top of the main game rather than replacing it.

I can only recommend it for nostalgia reasons - if you played the game a long time ago, you might want to get it.
If you played it recently though, or have never done so before, I simply can't.