Recent reviews by DoktorWieg

The change of perspective is perhaps the most striking change to Helldivers 2 besides how some of the unlocking mechanics now work. Regardless, the change actually brings a different kind of play that feels less arcadey and more grounded in a way.

Add to that you no longer are tethered to your team like in the first one means you won't run headfirst into enemies your character logically would have seen, being 5 feet from their face. it also means you can split up your team to tackle more objectives or fight on two fronts at once on the same map.

Weapons' ranges have much more use now that you can effectively engage enemies from a distance greater than the topdown view that your screen provided. Long range weapons feel satisfying to use (like marksman rifles and the anti-materiel rifle) while making use of elevation doubles as opening opportunities for different approaches.

Speaking of weapons, the game boasts one of my favorite weapon handling in third-person shooters to date : weapons have weight and momentum and this is reflected best when wielding a heavy machine gun and trying to spin around. You'll notice you have both your dot aiming crosshair and a trailing circle crosshair. The dot is where you are intending to shoot at while the circle is the current direction of your gun which will move towards that dot.

This makes it so that lighter weapons move almost instantly towards the dot while heavier weapons will drag slower, showing that your Helldiver has to compensate for the weapon's weight. This adds more tension in the middle of combat by making it so you can't just snap shot enemies instantly and kind of evens out the field between keyboard/mouse and controller input as well as simulating sway even in third-person view. Of course, you can also toggle to a first person view while aiming which shows that directly, with your weapon dragging behind some when you move it.

Unlocks are no longer tied to specific missions you need to complete on certain planets. Instead, you are given a general currency (Requisition credits), warbond medals and 3 grades of samples that you can collect during missions. The credits and samples are used to unlock new stratagems and droppable equipment as well as ship upgrades which provides bonuses to your stratagem types.

Warbond medals instead let you unlock weapons, armors, helmets, capes, emotes and boosters (squad-wide bonus which work like the gadgets from the first game) from a pseudo battlepass system that requires you to spend X amount in a tier to unlock the next tier. YOu can both find Warbond medals from exploring a mission's map and looting caches or finishing sets of missions in a region to gain some.

There are also Super Credits that you can both 'earn' and 'buy' along with a separate requisition category to unlock variants of existing equipment (like premium skins or guns with different effects like the default rifle shooting explosive rounds which, from having tried it, doesn't feel more powerful from the original other than having a small splash damage radium). This 'may' concern people as a form of pay to win though your original reguisition track does give you enough Super Credits to unlock it (and it acts more like an expansion of the original track). Still, this may understandably be a sticking point for some people.

At the time of this writing however, the matchmaking is having a lot of issues though if you are joining on people in your friendlist, this seems to work without any problem. The problem occurs when trying to hop in an ongoing mission from the warmap; the quickmatch however seems to work better but you're basically at the mercy of RNG as to what you'll get.

Another issue I've noticed is that the jump in difficulty between difficulty 3 and difficulty 4 missions is pretty staggering. Whereas moving from 1 to 3 felt like a natural progression in challenge, 4 suddenly ramps up the number of enemies, the time between triggering another hive attack and adding very tanky enemies all of a sudden. One example had me and 2 others fight for 10 minutes a constant barrage of enemies along with large bug creatures that could spit acid and one shot you if you got hit directly... and killing one would just lead to 2 more spawning, nevermind the amount of ressource it took to take that one down.

I feel the balance of difficulty 4 would need a slight nerf though not overly so. By the time you are at difficulty 4, you should feel a good pressure on you but definitively not a 10 minute, unending slog where it seems like the game purposefully throw at you armored / tanky elite enemies over and over (this feels like something more along the lines of 5 or 6). Swarms works when it numbers but a large number of elites is just a bit too much that early on.

All in all though, I highly recommend the game if you've played the first one; it retains the spirit of HD1 very well and I'll admit that this new iteration feels really fun to play, especially with a friend or two (especially with the current matchmaking issues). Hopefully, the same kind of long term support and content will come to HD2 as HD1 had.

I hope to see you guys planetside to deliver some sweet Freedom and Democracy!

Overall, the best part of Battlefield 2042 is the part that let you play other, better Battlefield games. Which, in itself is good.

It's just too bad that everything else seems rapidly cobbled together with no regard whatsoever towards balance.

Well, it was a long time coming since I hadn't bought nor played RE7 on release and it is only because RE8 just came out that I remembered that it might be time to actually play and finish RE7 if I ever plan to get to the 8th game.

And given that the game has been out for years by now and that the hype has died down, I can safely say this : RE7 is a new kind of Resident Evil experience with a new viewpoint to better convey the horror aspects of the game and returning to the root of what made Resident Evil special while suffering from a few issues that, I believe, come from the game having a VR version on PS4.



The game has stunning visuals and running at a steady 144 FPS made every moment very tense as the barrier between the "show" (witnessing the game) and the "game" (actually playing the game) is so small that moving from one moment to the other felt very natural.

On top of that, the audio work kept me on my toes where I often wondered if a sound I heard was due to a monster creeing around or if it was just ambient noises. It got to the point where I turned around just to make sure an enemy didn't just spawn in my back. I rarely have that reaction in other horror games and RE7 does it very well.

Ressource management-wise, once I figured out I could use my knife to deal with the most common kind of molded reliably, I managed to keep a decent amount of ammunition for my weapons from the second third of the game onward. Inventory managed was thankfully lenient given that it eventually expands. Crafting with the herbs and gunpowder gave you the choice to risk either running low on ammo or running low on healing ressources and thus bank on either your skill or a decent padding in case things go wrong.



Like I mentionned originaly, I believe that the issues I've personally had with the game comes from the fact that it's gameplay was tailor made for PSVR and certain design decisions affected the game in such a way as to give a negative experience.

For one, Ethan's full 'sprint' speed is about as fast as a very light power walk; in fact, I feel his "sprint" speed should have been his default walk speed. But I understand the reason might be twofold : for one, for the PSVR experience, having too rapid movement might incur motion sickness in the player; for the other, having the player move too quickly might invalidate the threat of enemies. But here's the thing : a lot of areas are thin corridors where enemies will spawn either behind or ahead of you. And that means that it forces a confrontation as the enemies will likely be large enough to block your way or at least, make it very difficult to run past them or even away as they might just catch up to you.

Weapons using a crosshair 'dot' for aiming instead of ironsights. I have seen some PSVR gameplay and given that they didn't actually implement weapon handling in VR, this means that your shooting experience is based off of where you look instead. I feel that if I am playing a game in first person and that I am asked to 'aim', I should at least have the perspective of aiming said weapon instead of shoulder firing every one of them.

Related to weapons, the damage model for enemies is inconsistent. I would have 2 run of the mill Molded face me; I could decap the first one with one shotgun blast to the head while the other could tank 3 of them to the face, get knocked down, getting back up and then taking a last shot to actually finish it off. Now I don't mind having enemies of the same time have some variance to their stats... but when that means having 4 times the toughness, that's a bit ridiculous.



RE7 was one of those games that registers in my brain as "It has been finished, now time to move on to something else" as by the time I was in the last leg of the campaign, I wanted to be done with it. It is not to say that it is a bad game by any means; it is excellent but it does seem that some design choices for the VR version kind of impeded on the overall experience if you were playing the standard version.

Add to that the VR version never officially came to PC despite having been planned originally is a shame as surely the experience would have been far more intense while completely immersed in the world of Resident Evil 7.

I do recommend the game on the basis that it is truly a different experience than the previous titles and a kind of throwback to the old style of Resident Evil (1 and 2) where ressource management and a constant feeling of unease and dread lingers from the beginning to the end was what the design intended and properly achieved.

I just finished the game after having owned it for a few days and after playing The Messenger, it was nice to get another classic Ninja Gaiden-ish kind of platformer to enjoy.

The story and setting is rather interesting if a bit light but that is hardly a problem when the focus of the game was readily to give the player a challenging ninja platformer. The ending, without spoiling anything, makes me think that perhaps we will have a sequel or perhaps DLC episodes using other characters, much like how Shovel Knight gave you the chance to play as some of the boss characters.

The Feats grants replayability as you need to complete specific actions in the game either against bosses or pulling off some specific action at one point or another. The difficulty overall felt right as you can technically control it with the check points usually granting you a full health recovery but an optionnal, purchaseable SP and special item to help you out. Speaking of special items, I like that they are semi-permanent as they are only lost when you take 3 hits after collecting them so playing well means you keep your powerup longer.

Graphically, the game definitively has a NES feel to it with the options even allowing to simulate CRT and even the "ghosting" effect from bad wiring. There was never any confusion as to what could be interacted with or stood upon as well as clear indications of enemy projectiles and such.

Control wise, it may feel a bit stiff at first but as you progress, your expanding arsenal of abilities and weapons makes the whole of it much more enjoyable. The option to allow a double tap dash is welcome althought it can be a bit tricky to enable if you are going to use the later deflection skill that requires you to tap towards a projectile as it comes close to you and accidentally send you into a sprint.

I finished the game in about 6 hours and one of the feats is to finish it under 3 but that would mean skipping most hidden paths and powerups that you can come back for in earlier levels. I intend to replay it to finish collecting all powerups in my finished file but perhaps attempt that 3 hour run.

In short, a very good game for its price, especially if you have played such titles as Ninja Gaiden on the NES or, more recently, The Messenger.

Helldivers is what you get when you take the unyielding friendly-fire mechanics behind Magicka, put guns in your character hands and launch them down on planets inhabited by critters, cyborgs, aliens and a lack of democracy.

It's a fun, tongue-in-cheek experience where you can always return to play with friends, that is easy to learn but relatively challenging to master, that makes deaths seem like a minor inconvenience (and most of the time, thoroughly funny.

It plays well both with keyboard/mouse or controller (originally being a console game) and even after so long, it is still populated with enough players to have a good time.

It's the kind of game you can drop an hour in here and there or spend an evening on. Both sweet and spicy but always delightfully right.

Shadows of Adam brings back the old SNES era JRPG style with many inspirations that shows clearly both in its presentation and gameplay.

For example, one hour into the game and you will make parallels between this game and Mystic Quest, Lufia II, Secret of the Stars and many other. Along with a turn-based battle system using an AP system where you recover some AP every turn and unique skills for every character that can synergize quite well with one another, the animation quality is quite top notch and surprisingly pleasant.

The soundtrack, which is available as a separate download, sounds very retro with a few memorable themes. At times however, there seems to be a disrepancy between the styles used as some themes will definitively feel like an attempt to reproduce MIDI chips while other themes will be much more orchestrated in style. As for overall sound design, battles definitively feel much more impactful than expected, with hits and skills being satisfactingly deep and crisp.

The story is entertaining yet not something that will blow away expectations. However, it has enough original ideas to make you continue on your quest. Some characters are quite interesting and funny while one in particular is a dead giveaway for a well known antagonist from another JRPG. Regardless, the heroes themselves have interesting personalities that, unlike most recent JRPGs, aren't too outlandish or exagerated; for the genre, the heroes feel grounded and believable instead of face-palmingly annoying.

The pacing is controlled in dungeon by the use of puzzles that uses specific mechanics. Some of these puzzles will leave you pondering on the solution for quite some time (and for that, let me advise you : the solution is usually far less complex than you expect) which lengthens the experience. All in all, I believe a good hour to an hour and a half might've been of puzzle solving. And the final dungeon gave a twist with one of the puzzles that I really didn't expect.

Gear progression is linear in that most towns will give you progressively better gear while dungeons will have a few unique pieces hidden behind more difficult puzzles. Given the gear is divived only between Weapon, Armor and Accessory, I was pleased that seeking the harder to find items often gave a serious boon to your characters.


Overall, the experience is very nice for the price tag and the game can run for around 12 to 14 hours, depending on your puzzle deduction skills and willingness to search for secrets and endgame quests for the truly powerful equipment.

If you're looking for a little throwback to the early SNES era JRPGs and want something that feels polished as you play it, then this title definitively deserves to be given a try.

It definitively makes me look forward to the next game this developer will create.

Final Fantasy VI was Squaresoft's swan song to the Final Fantasy series on the SNES and, for a time, Nintendo in general. It used all the innovation of the past titles to amount to a very satisfying experience of storytelling and smooth gameplay through its Active Time Battle (ATB) system.

This PC version of the game is based on the GameBoy Advance release which fixed a few glitches and problems that the SNES version had along with having the additionnal GBA dungeon included as well as a few additionnal Espers to collect.

As such, I won't linger talking about the game's story or mechanics since they remain the same as before (and any past review of the GBA version applies there) but instead focus on the changes that came with this version.



One criticism that can be brought forward early on is that the game still uses a mobile game like interface that, while takes a bit of time to get used to, sometimes feels a bit overwhelming or out of place for a PC title.

The game supports the XBox One controller to navigate the menus and play the game in its whole. One major change has to be how navigation during battle is handled.

Unlike the original version where you either had a regular battle menu or a cross menu, this version uses individual menus that doubles as your ATB gauges. Once you get a handle of it however, it plays similarly to Chrono Trigger as you can simply move left and right to choose another ready character. I do not, however, suggest using the left or right justified tab options simply because it is difficult to navigate without an actual touch screen.

The redesigned sprites might look a bit weird for those who originally played the game on SNES or GBA but, much like with FFV, you grow to get used to it and appreciated the higher level of detail they offer. However, unlike FFV PC, spell effects are merely upscaled versions of the original ones.

The game uses the original SNES soundtrack which still sounds very good by today's standard and sound effects remain as crisp and impactful as they were. Kefka's laugh, thankfully, remains unaltered.



For anyone who wishes to experience an old console title that is slightly upgraded for the PC platform, this version is solid enough to be recommended. Either if you never had the pleasure to play FFVI before or wish to go for another playthrough, you'll feel right at home.

I played the game mostly at a friend's house before buying the game (and even then, I hardly played it myself due to a bug mentionned further below); the total playtime isn't representative of my actual time spent with C:MW.



Chivalry: Medieval Warfare is a good idea that, over the course of years, has been slowly been turned into a worst one. Granted, the game offers a more approachable gameplay than "War of the Roses" but also feels much more basic.

The gameplay was originally very interesting and even enticing but slowly turned into a rather unpleasant mess that carries little to no weight other than making impacts feel artifically heavy.



As stated before, the game was once an approachable, easy to learn and difficult to master kind of experience. Fights felt fair and while there were instance of people giving up melee combat for ranged combat entirely, you rarely ended up with rage-quitting situations unless you fought very sour players.

Nowadays however, the 'fun' has been thrown out of the window entirely with players able to experience a shadow of what the game felt like from rank 0 to 15 servers and even then, that is a very deceptive expectation given the amount of experienced players making alt-accounts only to be able to beat down on new players.

Post rank 15, the game becomes a very glitch-abuse heavy experience where actual reflexes and skill have no more meaning. People will abuse the game to the point of making fights completely unmanageable and unless you are willing to partake in such abuse yourself, then you will be at a severe disadvantage.

It seems the balance has also been heavily modified and some of the map designs have very obvious flaws, often giving objective maps a very obvious advantage to the defending team (and while that is a logical advantage to any defense worth its salt, it goes to the level of attackers getting ganked the moment they step out of their spawn with disgusting frequency).

There are still bugs that remains that makes some matches completely unplayable, one in particular that affects me at times is that it is impossible to join the action even after choosing a team and a class, being stuck in spectator mode even though there are open slots in the server.

I know it is a rather strange bug to have though it seems to persist after installing the game from my old computer to the new one which leads me to believe it might be Steamworks related.



Post release and a few months after, the game had potential; it was fun, people fought for the fun of fighting with swords. If you are now considering the game, I would advise against buying it simply because the experience has devolved into an unpleasant mess that favors the exploitation of glitches that aren't being fixed and is certainly no longer worth the retail price of 27 CAD$.

A shame that a game once loved has only gotten this worst with time.

Another Star isn't going to wow you with incredible cutscenes, complex battle mechanics or a very intricate story. But what it will do however is surprise you with a very heavy dose of nostalgia, especially if you grew up with a Sega console.

The game is basically a tribute to the RPGs of old where the mechanics couldn't be complicated and the presentation was very basic due to hardware limitation. If you ever played the early Phantasy Star or even Dragon Quest, you'll feel right at home.



The game has a few options to configure the overall look, defaulting to using a shader to emulate the feel of a CRT screen. While it can be disabled rather easily, I would suggest leaving it active while adjusting the curvature to your liking. The shader will also add scanlines to make the pixels stand out somewhat more as well.

The music track uses a soundchip similar to old Sega consoles and the score is rather pleasant to listen to. Props to the composer as the music, even by the game's end, wasn't hard on the ear. Sounds used for combat were simple but also intended as such.

The overall story is told through very short cutscenes with textboxes without actual animations. In fact, the game have characters show up instantly in their places then disappear when no longer needed. The world design uses a similar simplistic look which requires a good dose of imagination to enjoy.

Towns are visited on the world map and while there are no transition to 'town maps', the options offered usually offer a bit of lore about what is currently going on in the world. In fact, I was surprised by how quickly the dialog changed with every step of your quest and how each consultation often described an event in the form of paragraphs you'd usually find in "Make your own adventure" books. It gave the game a lot of personality and was unexpectedly engaging.



The overall experience of the game can be configured to be either inline with old games' difficulty by adjusting the difficulty of battles (enemy damage vs player damage) and growth rates (rapid gain of XP and ressources or slower up to including a 'need 4x more XP than normal).

The battle system is turn-based, using simple commands that determines the party's actions. An unique trait is that there is no actual targetting since any action affects either the player's or enemy's party. For example, if a regular attack is used then each character in the party will attack every other character of the other party. If a spell is used, then all enemies are affected or all allies are.

Speaking of which, the magic system in the game doesn't use MP but are all cast from HP. This would be problematic if the game didn't also let you recover roughly 40% of your HP when the combat ends and about 15% while defending. Each character receives a unique set of spells and using one takes the whole turn, meaning your allies do not attack. Luckily, the same is true for enemies using any form of ability : if an enemy uses an action other than attacking or defending, then only that character acts.

It is an interesting way to speed up combat and once the variety of spell elements and their effects are mastered, some rather unique strategies can be made for boss battles.

Encounters are random though you have the option to ignore a warning "!" to skip a battle if you only wish to zip through an area (much like the system used in Wild Arms 2)... however, any "!!" must be triggered else the party gets ambushed on the first turn. Considering how short battles are however, grinding for XP and ressources isn't too taxing.



Another Star is a fun experience. I went in not expecting much but Vision Riders Entertainment surprised me very much by their product. I would recommend the game to any who played old style RPGs and enjoyed them and even newer players wishing to experience something they might never had. It won't please everyone, of course, but for the cheap price of 11 CA$, it is hard to complain about the 10 to 15 hours experience offered for a single playthrough.

The game offers a nice set of achievements including some which require playing the game a certain way while others work as milestones. Completing some would require repeat playthroughs and likely lengthen your time with the game itself.

"Ninjas play free and slay gleefully"

Warframe is the pet project of Digital Extreme, the canadian development team that has been behind the Unreal series, Bioshock and The Darkness 2 (along with Homefront which was still a good game overall despite its many flaws). A cooperative third person shooter with impressive visuals and art style, refined parkour and mobility options as well as an interesting take on sci-fi, it is one of the most active, successful and evolving game on the F2P market.

Set in the far future of the darkSector universe, the solar system is now in a constant war between the conquering Grineer and the merchant guilds of the Corpus while also brushing off the Infested, remnants of a bio-weapon from the past. In this age of conflict, An order of warriors who were thought to have disappeared come back at the request of an entity known only as the Lotus. The Tenno are awakened from their slumber anew, their powers only matched by their mastery of the Warframes



Being a free to play title, this question will always come at the forefront of people's mind. Put simply, let's take in consideration what "Pay to Win" entails : the term signifies that a game allows paying customers to gain power that is greater than non-paying customers with no option for the non-paying customers to match this power equitably.

Warframe does not, in fact, allow paying customers to gain such power. In fact, most of the exclusively paying content of Warframe lies in cosmetics alternatives like skins, color sets, accessories and such. While you 'can' purchase some weapons, Warframe and such with platinum (the paid currency in the game), these are also obtainable through seeking out the equipment's blueprints and parts then crafting them into the desired items.

Even more so, many of the Prime equipment (more embellished version of the regular gear) cannot be bought outright except outside of a Prime Access offer which allows paying customers to gain a set of gear corresponding to the most recent Prime Warframe released. Even so, the difference lies that those who purchase a Prime Access do get a few cosmetics atop of the already obtainable Warframe and weapons through regular play.

Moreover, the Platinum currency is often used in ingame trading between players as the mean to buy Prime equipment part blueprints and other such tradeable ressources. Thus, the Warframe economy works on a supply and demand system where gaining rare parts and mods (more about this later) can be then be exchanged to other players in order to gain Platinum without personally spending money.



Firstly, Warframe is a constantly evolving game that has been nearly three years running. The game that it was in closed beta (where I got the first chance to play) has changed so very much that many that returns to the game today find it an almost completely different experience. From the game being now more approachable to having added many features that the community suggested to even revamping entire systems already in place for others that expand the gameplay greatly :

• From a skill tree system that was archaic at best to an upgradeable modding system which uses randomly dropped 'Mods' to customize your equipment's performances;
  
• Clans having an actual, fully customisable "Dojo" that can be expanded, worked on and visited by any clan member and those invited by clan members;
  
• The addition of Void Towers and Derelict Missions which requires Orokin keys to access where the most prized Prime equipment can be found;
  
• Having your main hub transformed from a mere screen which you interacted with to an actual ship you can walk inside of and use the facilities' functions interactively;
  
• The overhaul of the original damage system which favored entirely armor ignoring type to a damage system that favors experimentation and combination of elements to create combo elements and status effects;
  
• The implementation of a fully functionnal "Melee Mode" that takes the old quick melee weapon attacks into a fully useable and effective style of play with combo chains (using Stance mods), blocking and rewarding effective combat with melee damage multipliers;
  
• An overhaul of the whole parkour aspect of the game for "Parkour 2.0" which changes the original, somewhat iffy mobility system for much more intuitive and fun mechanics that bolster player acrobatics by a mile;
  
• The implementation of the Archwing which is basically a free flight, space combat mode inspired greatly, it seems, from Zone of the Enders;
  
• The addition of relays and syndicates, social areas where players can meet, talk and interact with said Syndicates to gain reputation and unlock weapon and Warframe augment mods which adds and/or changes exisiting Warframe abilities;
  
• The addition of daily Syndicate missions to quickly gain reputation.
  
• A complete rebalance and revision of the Conclave, the PvP aspect in the game that was originally inline with the coop component that is now actually more competitive and 'fair' to partake in;
  
• Addition of Sorties, which are daily, very hard set of missions with modifiers which allows to get rare ressources and drops;
  
• Finally, the devs actually hosting a weekly "Dev Stream" where they preview components of the game they're working on, keeping the community aware of what they are doing as well as answering their questions as well as "Prime Time" where both community managers Megan and Rebecca play the game's newest features with community members as well as displaying community made fan art and messages.

As a free to play game, there is the required incentive for players to pay for things they could get for free by playing, aka a "time wall". For one, crafting of most weapons and Warframes isn't instantaneous and usually can be counted in hours and, in case of an entire Warframe build, days (aka 12 hours per part, which can be done simultaneously, then a 3 day build for the final combination of the parts into a Warframe). Along these are some of the few points that might vary depending on the player's opinion on them :

• The game can be a bit grindy due to mods and parts dropping using drop tables per enemies;
  
• Early game can take a bit of a time to take off; however, once you've started to gain some gear and mods, you will progress much more smoothly through the rest;
  
• The original inventory size limits the amount of gear you can have at once and paying platinum is the only way to increase them (which is suggested to do with your starting amount of Platinum);
  
• Some of the event gear that have come and gone cannot be obtained before another round of events makes them available once more or as a chance through a special vendor that comes every 2 weeks for a weekend;
  
• The trading system requires either the creation of a clan with a trading post, be invited into a clan dojo to trade or unlocking the Maroo's Outpost on Earth;
  
• The game is playable solo if you wish but heavily encourages co-op play, especially for endgame missions;
  
• While present, PvP is limited to conclave and while overall balanced, some Warframes simply outdo others with their abilities even though their functionnality are different than their co-op mechanics;
  
• Some gear is gained through "Clan Research" making joining a clan a must if you want to progress absolutely as far as possible since your overall Mastery Rank (player level) is based on how many pieces of equipment you've max ranked.

Warframe will appeal to those who wish to play a shooter with satisfying firearm and melee combat mechanics, flashy powers that are varied and unique to every Warframe. While the loot drops and slight grindiness can be a turn off, it is often offset by just how the gameplay feels fluid and intuitive to get into.