Recent reviews by The Scientific Method

I don't play platformers.
I don't like really hard games.

Yet something about celeste just captured me in a way I never expected. I bought the game on a whim when I saw it was on sale and decided "Heck, why not?". I've heard of the game endlessly on different platforms with everyone talking about how amazing it was and how everyone should play it but I never really cared about that since I don't really play platformers or indies.

I will be trying more indie games from now on. That's for sure.

Where do we start?

Its extremely simple, you have three buttons. That's it. Good luck.
From those buttons comes a challenge that tests both your ability and your puzzle solving skills. There were several levels where it didn't really matter how flashy you were if you couldn't understand the basic room layout, and vice versa. Its managed to become one of those easy to play hard to master games(actually no its probably more like slightly difficult to play hard to master). Death means nothing more than another attempt at the same room, and you can genuinely see yourself getting better with each attempt. There was never a point in the main story where I thought it was "too hard" to do. Simultaneously there was never a point in the story where I found it too easy. They ramp up the difficulty over the course of the game, but they've done it perfectly to match your skillset.

Its a very simple premise that's presented beautifully. I did not expect the story to be anywhere near this deep or this well made. The characters are loveable and each have their own unique personalities. Even in its short run time (you could probably finish the whole game within 10 hours) the game managed to make me care about these people and their individual journeys. I wont spoil anything else for you, but there's actually a lot more complexity to the story than you'd think. I feel it will be one of those tales that will stick with me for the foreseeable future.

Every single level is beautiful. Sometimes I'd stop to just admire the detail on the blocks and the background. They have managed to make a pixel art game into one of the best looking games I have ever played. The animations are extremely smooth and fluid, the different elements have their own responsive movements and shape shifts to indicate what exactly is going on, which means you're never really stuck going "damn that didn't look like the thing I was expecting to happen".


All in all, this game has catapulted itself to one of my favorites of all time. Am I crazy enough to play the MUCH harder B and C versions of the levels that you get after beating the game? Maybe, but I guess only time will tell.

If you're wondering whether the game is worth your time, it absolutely is, and you absolutely should try it. Regardless of whether or not you're a platformer person or enjoy hard challenges.

I think Celeste is one of those games that everyone should play at least once in their lives.

So then why the hell do I have nearly a hundred hours put into this one?

This is the question I asked myself when I finished the Witcher 3. It is by far the best video game I have ever played, and earns an immediate yes vote from me for a variety of reasons. Lets delve into them shall we?

Story:
Turns out that ‘3’ in the title means something, this is an established world with established characters and a saga that has spanned literal decades, and you will be thrown into the midst of all of it without a damn clue about the comings and goings of all the characters unless you’ve read the books or played the older games.
To be honest, the first few hours of this story struggles to keep your interest for this very reason, and I was wondering what everyone was raving about. I even left the game in the middle for a month or two, at which point I got back into it and continued my save where I had left off, I realized something.

I had stopped right before the story got good, and bloody hell, did it get really damn good.

Your actions matter and shape the world around you, as well as the variety of endings that could occur within the game depending on what you choose to do. The characters all feel like well fleshed out, living, breathing beings. You have conversations with dozens of people from several different regions, cultures and even species, and they all have their own clothing, character, and accents based on which region you're in or what class of society they're from, making the world feel truly lived in.
The plot itself is one that had me in pieces at certain points, and laughing at others. It was one where you never really knew what would happen next, but your job would be to take care of the situation as best you see fit. This is not a story of simple black and white 'right' or 'wrong', but different shades of grey, and its sheer scale and depth is one to behold.


Gameplay:
My god does this game run deep.
The swordplay itself is fun and poses quite the challenge in certain sections, its nothing revolutionary, but it works and makes for a damn fun time out.

Alchemy and armor crafting is learnt throughout the span of the game, and poses a beautiful ideal of what could be. You can create everything from simple healing potions to decoctions that make you even more superhuman than the normal witcher, with the trade-off being the toxicity it poses to you.

There is one fault, and that is that I never really found it necessary to go beyond the simplest of potions during the entirety of the main story, and only really started using alchemy during the DLCs.


Art direction:
This is genuinely one of the most stunning video games I have ever played. Each region has clear distinctions in looks and feel and they're all absolutely beautiful. I had several moments travelling through the world where I just straight up stopped to take in the sights because my god is it a beauty. I love every part of the game’s art direction. It can be gloomy when it needs to be and fun and captivating when necessary too.


Performance:
Out of my 90 hours, I experienced a few stutters here and there and one time where the game crashed, so all in all, it was a pretty decent experience on my GTX 1650.


DLC:

Hearts of stone:
There's a very good argument to be made that this story was even better than the main campaign, and I fully stand by it. This had some of the best villains I've ever encountered in gaming and possibly in all kinds of media in general and was a lovely surprise. I expected an average DLC and struck gold.

Blood and wine:
A beautiful new region of the map to explore coupled with a story of betrayal and love, whats not to like? It had the hardest boss fight in the entire game and took me a while to be able to beat, forcing me to use all the abilities, alchemy, skill and knowledge I had procured in my time playing The Witcher 3.



VERDICT:
The Witcher and its characters are now one of my favorite fantasy universes, I am currently in the process of reading (albeit very slowly) the books and soon plan to play the first and second game of the series, all because of this game and how tightly it captivated me.
The Witcher 3 on its own though? Arguably the best game I have ever played. It was worth every damn second of the 90+ hours I spent on it, and it might just become one of the few games that I choose to replay sometime down the line.
9.6/10. Just buy it already!

So, I've played through the entire game and 2 out of the 3 DLCs (the last one is just a challenge map DLC, not my kinda thing). I've grouped the DLC review separately at the bottom if you’re interested, especially since the GOTY edition is the only one on sale on Steam.
Here are my thoughts:

First things first, if you’re not into Lord of The Rings and coming to this for the story, you're going to be disappointed.
Is the story good? I'd say its alright. Its a very basic revenge plot which as far as I'm concerned is a preeeeetttttty dull one with no twists and an uninspired ending. Although it does add lore to the already present LOTR universe, and it has Gollum! No, not like that other game, this one actually did him quite well!
I'm currently reading through the LOTR books and I'm gonna be honest with you, the story would have probably been way more fun if I had waited to finish them before playing this, and that's what I'll be doing for Shadow of War (now in my backlog). As for this game, its a bit too late to do that so everything I’m telling is you is as someone who wasn't a LOTR fan at the time of playing this game. In total, I'd give the story a C+. Nothing to brag about but it does its job.
The characters are... alright. There's moments where the writing is 10/10 and other moments where I'm going "what the heck are these people saying?". The main character has his moments where you think he’s the most boring man on the planet but unlike most brooding characters they actually show you how he got there (that's about as much as I can tell you without spoiling it), so you can understand why he's not exactly joking about every chance he gets. Still, there are moments where his older personality shines through the cracks, and those beget some of the most wholesome moments in the entire game.

This is why I bought the game in the first place. I had just finished the Arkham series and wanted more of its sweet sweet combat and from what I could gather, the gameplay was apparently similar between the two games, and lemme tell you, those reviews weren't kidding. No, seriously, if you're coming from the Arkham games, it'll take you a sum total of 20 seconds to figure out the controls and feel right at home, and since they slowly drip feed you more abilities as the story progresses it never feels like you’re being overwhelmed with them.
As for the stealth aspect, its literally just Assassins Creed. They have everything from air assassinations to throwing knives to climbing every structure imaginable. and the one separating factor is a few magical powers that aren't present in the AC games.
There's one more similarity: Synchronization towers. They're not called that obviously, but they're there no matter whether you love ‘em or hate ‘em. Also the 'Go here do same side challenge a hundred times' mission exists as well for those of you masochists who love that sorta thing! Don't you just love doing the exact same thing over and over again? /s

So how does it all work together for this game? If you're anything like me, you must have thought that sounds like the dream, and you'd have been right if it didn't get so UNBELIEVABLY DULL once you get through the first 3-5 hours. I don't know why it is, but for whatever reason they decided that a difficulty slider wasn't important, meaning if you’ve played any videogame that involves even an inkling of basic combat, you’re gonna find this one way too easy within a couple hours playtime. In fact, at one point I got so bored from the game being too easy that I just stopped buying power ups for the remainder of the game, which to be fair did improve the difficulty a bit. Also the devs thought it would be a good idea to give you the headline skill/power that makes the game interesting around about 2 hours before you're done with the story! I really don't understand that decision since its one of the best parts of the game!

The crown jewel.
The one thing that makes this game anything at all. This is the most memorable part of the game by a country mile and gave me so many fun little moments and made the world feel so much more alive. To make the long story short, there's an entire army of orcs you have to take down during the entire game, but the system is dynamic, meaning the game automatically selects and promotes orcs to certain posts when you kill their Warchiefs, etc. This means you can never let your guard down throughout the game. Wanna kill the whole army and then do the story from start to finish? Expect to have that army back bigger and angrier within a few hours. You might find that draining, but trust me when I say its what kept me going. The Warchiefs and their lieutenants all have their own personalities and say genuinely funny(or creepy) lines whenever they come into contact with you, making it feel like you're fighting genuine individuals and not just random NPCs.
Died from a Warchief's blow and respawned to come back and kill him? He'll remember the previous attempt and make fun of you for falling by his hands.
Died from the arrow of an archer? He'll get promoted for taking you out, making him more powerful (boastful too if he's got that kinda personality).
Each enemy has his own strengths, weaknesses and flair! It's brilliant, I wish we had this system in every other game out there, because its the best thing I've come across that you cant find in other games. I do hope that it comes back to a modern game some day, since its just that good.

I had zero performance issues on my GTX 1650, I highly doubt you will either. You could easily run this game on high settings 60 FPS if you have a graphics card from the past 7 years so don't worry about it all that much.
Graphics are nothing to scoff at, not amazing, not horrible. Some aspects of it hold up quite well for 2024, such as the characters textures and light gleaming off the swords on his back, whereas others parts have not aged so gracefully.
The art direction is dreary and gloomy, and doesn't really ever take a turn from it. All the areas look the same and I struggled to find my way anywhere without staring at the map the entire time. Personally I'm not a fan, but hey maybe you'd think differently. The game oozes that early 2010’s depressing blue green filter and I’ll be honest, I got tired of it quick.

Lord of the Hunt:
Laziest piece of work I've ever seen. Its clear the devs were told to make a DLC and given a sum total of 10 hours to make it, the entire thing can be beaten in less than 2 hours. It adds a bit of gameplay but honestly its meh at best and I wouldn't recommend wasting your time on it if you've got a large backlog.
The Bright Lord:
Its a sort of mini-prequel to the game and adds story elements to it. This was actually a fun 2-3 hours! Remember that skill I told you they give you 2 hours before the game ends and I wanted more of? Well apparently someone at Monolith thought the same way I did because the entire damn DLC revolves around it. Am I mad? No. Its a good couple of hours of fun and I recommend it to anyone who finishes the base game.

So dear reader, should you buy this game? That depends on the following:
Are you a fan of the Arkham series, Assassins Creed, and especially LOTR? Then yes, get it.
Are you a fan of Arkham or AC, but not LOTR? I’d recommend saving your money and going elsewhere for a better experience.
Are you a fan of LOTR and want the extra lore? Go for it, you’d probably enjoy it a lot more than the rest of us.
Finally, DO NOT buy this game unless its on discount, which at this point is nearly every other month anyway.
Final rating for Shadow of Mordor: 6.2/10. Could've been better, could've been worse.

The entire F1 community seems to have fallen into the trap of "last years game sucked so bad that basically any small improvement is a massive upgrade, 10/10"

Let me give it to you straight, yes the driving has improved. It has improved so much that now it is back to the level of being slightly better than F1 2020, which is now a 3 year old title.
It is the ONLY thing in this game that is improved upon from F1 22.


Lets start with my main game-mode, Ranked multiplayer:

Remember how last year the system was a mess and until you got an A safety license you were basically stuck with a bunch of morons who never held a controller in their hands before? Well this year, you don't have that issue! YAY! But dont get too excited, the reason why is because they ENABLE GHOSTING FOR EVERYONE UNTIL YOU GO UP IN SAFETY RATING.
Listen EA, I understand that people were annoyed at the system for being so broken, but instead of actually fixing the issue, you just put a band-aid on it and called it a day. Now you have to play several races of ranked and get your safety rating up to at least a B before they enable collisions, meaning you're playing a glorified time trial for several races until you can actually.. y'know.. RACE.
Oh and once you do get collisions enabled, the opponents are just as brain-dead as last year. Meaning the one thing they did to try and fix the issue didn't help.
Also, unlike how you did placement races last year and based on those results you were put in a rank, this year they start you in bronze regardless of skill, meaning youll have some of the lobby a quarter lap ahead of the rest, half the lobby stuck in the middle, and a bunch of beginners 10 seconds behind them. It is an absolute mess.


Now onto F1 World.

This was their magnum opus for F1 23, and let me tell you, it has fallen flat on its face.
Its not a terrible idea, having several events that test your skill in different conditions and cars. The execution however, has been horrible. There is NO WAY to set your difficulty on it, meaning if you play any F1 game above 50 AI, you will struggle to lose 90% of the events. It is BORING to dominate every single event and come out on top. If i wanted to play against myself I'd go do a time trial.


Career.

The less said the better. You wanna know what they changed?
The color of the menu background from white to black.
I kid you not I have not noticed ANY differences between it and F1 22, to the point where I'm scratching my head and wondering if all of EA and Codies just straight up forgot this mode existed. Which is a shame because for most players, and maybe even for you dear reader, it would be the game mode you'd sink the most number of hours into.


Braking point.
Haven't played it so i cant review it for you, but lets be honest, if you're buying this game, its probably not for the story mode.


CONCLUSION:
F1 23 is a lazy attempt to market a shiny new product that is just the old rusty one with a new paint job. Apart from the driving itself, the rest of the game is either equal to F1 22 or actively worse than it. F1 world is a good concept that was poorly executed and should have had maybe another year in the oven.

Should you buy this game at full price? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Wait for a sale before you even consider it. The driving improvements alone is not worth the hassle or the price. I personally have refunded the game and will wait until its atleast half off, hell maybe even longer than that.

Rating for F1 23: 5.3/10, 4 of which is for the driving alone.
Rating for EA's marketing team: 10/10

I have to admit, I'm not a tomb raider fan. I never was, and that meant this game languished in my library for years before I finally got round to completing it.

So, now that I've finally finished the game, how was it?

STORY

The story actually caught me by surprise, what I assumed would be a basic survival story turned into something much richer, and it caught me off guard. Lara grows throughout it, and you can see the shift in her character and strength.
The story was compounded by the really nice attention to detail they put in the documents and relics that were strewn across the map, which made for a deeper background and emphasis on the characters. When you do play the story, I HIGHLY recommend taking your time and reading through the documents when you find them. You'll love(or hate) the characters and setting and appreciate them more because of it.

GAMEPLAY

Uncharted. That's about as best I can describe. The gunplay is very fun and satisfying, and the set pieces are absolutely glorious, even if they're a bit cliche.
It is however, quite shallow. The gameplay consists of quick time events and shooting galleries, and doesn't really stray from that formula. Its unimaginative, but the fact that it doesn't get boring is a testament to the formulas effectiveness.
They did get however get a bit creative with the parkour and the tools that were dispensed to us, which I can appreciate. It gets pretty taxing after a while, and sometimes it doesn't detect what you wanted to do, meaning instead of Lara jumping on the zipline like I wanted, SHE JUMPED RIGHT INTO THE DAMN CHASM. This happened more times than I'd like to admit.
Tomb raiding and puzzles were fun to do, but they're usually one dimensional and you'll finish raiding most tombs within 5-10 minutes of entering them.

GRAPHICS AND PERFORMANCE

I have what you'd consider a low-mid tier PC, but even i could run the game at ultra settings comfortably above 40 fps, and often it would raise above 60. However, the framerate was VERY unstable, and just as much as it peaked above 60, it would drop below 24, although less frequent. This didn't really affect me, but if it does to you, i suggest capping the framerate and playing at slightly lower settings.
Graphics are gorgeous for 2013 standards, so I cant really fault the game there, although it isn't anything great compared to AAA games today. So far, its aged well.

REPLAYABILITY AND COMPLETIONISM

None.
No seriously, there's no replayability apart from maybe restarting with all your weapons and skills, which honestly isn't much. If you're looking for a game that'll give you more than 10-20 hours of gameplay, then this isn't it.
As for 100% completion, its impossible to do unless you put in a massive amount of time into the multiplayer, which i find to be really annoying, since the multiplayer is all but dead where i'm from.

VERDICT

Tomb raider is a fun game with a story that was deeper than expected, alongside a beautiful setting and environment. However, its unimaginative gameplay loop and cliche set pieces makes it a somewhat forgettable experience and you wont really remember it after more than a month or two.

BUY IT ON SALE, I highly recommend against buying it at full price since its a 9 year old game at this point, plus you can get it for a very cheap price during most sales.

8.1/10, an extremely fun adventure.

This game is the epitome of a love hate relationship. You might leave CSGO for a while, but in the end you'll always come back. Nothing beats the feeling of winning a scuffed force buy after everyone rushed long together, or when you hit two one-deags in a row and hear that sweet sweet headshot sound, or when its up to you in a 1v3 and you actually manage to pull it off, all while you're somehow still bottom fragger.
The game that never dies, and for good reason. Don't ever stop comrades, we rush B.

Life is Strange is a game with ups and downs, beautiful writing, and amazing graphics. You'll rarely find a game that caters to the genre so well, and this game is one of them.

The storyline starts off as a cliche high school drama, but quickly evolves into something much deeper, with consequences for your actions and choices. It becomes a story of time, and paradox's, while also stating the importance of relationships and friendship. This game will keep you coming back for more, and you'll want to see what changing your choices could have lead to. The ending is probably the hardest choice you could make in the entire game, and that only plays to the strength of the story.

As a person with a low end PC, I can confirm that you'll be able to run almost every section of this game smoothly without many hiccups, and still looking stunning visually.

All in all, if you're a fan of story driven games, this is a must buy, however, I would advise waiting for it to go on sale first.

PROS:

The game in itself is good, the characters you interact with have different personalities, and each one has a unique addition to the story. The voice acting is perfect, and humour is paced well and has some moments of darkness along the way, all in all, the characters are the heart of the story.

There are plenty of side quests for you to do, and each is different enough to prevent it feeling repetitive. However, each quest can usually be along the lines of kill stuff, go to the next area, kill more stuff, collect stuff, and come back, while killing stuff on the way.

The gameplay is good, and each gun has its own identity. Depending on what type of player you are, you could have one of each type of gun, or you could stack your inventory with nothing but shotguns or AR's.

You can pick a character to start off with depending on your playstyle, and each one has a special ability you can take advantage of.

CONS:

If you're considering playing in short stretches and restarting the next day, just remember that your checkpoints where you respawn if you die ARE NOT the checkpoints you spawn at when you restart the game, rather you restart at the entrance to the map/level you were in. Meaning you would have to fight through every enemy again to get to where you were.

The ammo collection can be a bit annoying at times, and having to spend 20-30 seconds exploring the area for ammo before you get to the next one can ruin the rhythm you might've had, and slows down the game.

TLDR:

Borderlands 2 is a good game that you should get in the handsome collection, its gameplay and characters are spot on, and the action humour mix is near perfect. The game has some repetition issues, and the checkpoint/respawn system is broken. But that doesn't take away from the game's charm.

Final score: 8.5/10 Buy the Handsome collection, you wont regret it.

Lovely little game, not very long but the narrator interactions make it an enjoyable experience. If you're willing to spend a half an hour on it then go for it, it's free!