Recent reviews by Baron_Manic

I ignored all the warnings for how buggy this game is seeing as it's been out a while now and I comfortably met the system requirements. Sad to report that I experienced crashes to desktop within five minutes of the first section of the game, saying I was out of memory - tried some graphical optimisations and it stopped crashing for a short time but then froze again. And then another time just opening the pause screen. Such a pity that a game has been so poorly optimised for PC that even now after numerous patches and over a year to fix, it is still a technical mess of a game - Respawn should not go anywhere near PC ports in the future. If you're feeling lucky, give it a try but be warned this game is a complete lottery. I for one have requested a refund and will move on to better things.

I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Starfield. Graphically it it stunning, some of the best textures I've seen in a game and the amount of content, missions, things to do is truly impressive and I have sunk 40+ hours into it already and barely scratched the surface.

That said, there are some glaring issues that make this game soooo frustrating. Inventory management is down right terrible, so cumbersome and not easy to compare weapons, remember what you have in your arsenal, remember what ammo to use, understand the stats, sell things - you name it, its bad, confusing and not fun at all. Also, the space combat is pretty dreadful too and poorly explained. In fact, any of the 'additional' game-play elements on display here are superfluous and best ignored.

Despite my aforementioned 40 hours in, I haven't wasted my time with crafting, modding, space exploration, modifying my ship, mining resources or anything like that - because it's all boring as hell and just hidden among poor instructions and poor controls.

Now a word on the stability of this game - be warned that it's not well optimised at all. I have a rig that is less than two years old with a top graphics card and CPU and the game stutters, loses audio regularly, takes ages to load new sections and I have this recurring bug whereby NPC's freeze before they talk (in the close up conversations) and therefore their lips dont sync with their voices as there is several seconds delay.

This is not because of my specs, and I've tried all sorts to fix this, but Bethesda have chosen to ignore this immersion breaking issue that a number of players have reported - it's just a sign of a badly put together game. In no other game that came out in the last two years have I faced such poor performance despite not even trying to run on max settings.

The latest update (Jan '24) has actually taken the performance backwards in my opinion, with even more stuttering than previously - and whenever I feel myself getting engrossed into the great content, world building and plot (which is half decent though nothing groundbreaking) the frustration kicks in and I want to curse Bethesda's name to the end of time.

Performance issues aside this would be a good game with hours of content to sink your teeth into, in a new world that is rife for exploring and digging into, with decent combat (ground not air!) some amazing graphics that truly are breathtaking at times (just ignore the dodgy trees on New Atlantis) but for all the good stuff, the bad stuff is so obviously showing that this game was rushed and cut corners.

For this reason, I can't quite recommend it but for those who can get it stable and get into the additional stuff I mentioned, they can easily get there monies worth here - just go in not expecting anything groundbreaking or as impact as the big bang this company caused when they released Fallout 3 all those years ago now (which remains one of my favourite RPG's of all time)

Like a lot of the gamers who have played this game - don't be put off by critic reviews that called this game distinctly average - this is a case of critics wanting something new and shiny but not really understanding what resonates with gamers, and that is a fun nostalgic sci-fi romp of a shooter with some light but welcome RPG elements thrown in.

Is this game perfect? No! Does it hash together a lot of worn gaming tropes (like hacking, crafting, some levelling up, morale choices) - yes it does but what is wrong with that? I actually think they were incorporated into the game well and elevated it beyond just a mindless corridor shooter. So they could've made it a little more open world and not a closed box level design where that amazing world of post apocalyptic California was ripe for exploring but what they did do on probably a smaller budget was commendable.

The graphics are average but passable, the voice acting quite bad, but you know what they nailed? The sound, the atmosphere and the enemies of the original movies and that is what any fan of the movies wanted.

The story is also pretty decent, nothing groundbreaking but well tied to the movies whilst still an original plot that gave you a reason to blow those HK's to metal scrap!

This is a good game and one where you should take critic reviews with a grain of salt - if you like the movies and you like simple but well put together shooters with light RPG elements, then this is the game for you.

It’s not often I feel compelled to write a comprehensive review of a game but having just finished RDR2 I have never been so divided on my opinion and with such strong critic reviews and general buzz for this game, I was ready to be blown away but instead I got a pleasant but gentle breeze.

Firstly, I want to say there are things I loved about RDR2 and after 60+ hours roaming a fully realised open world – rarely have I been so immersed in such a detailed and expansive setting save perhaps for The Witcher 3 (more on the ‘comparison’ to that game in a bit)

The level of detail is incredible and it’s a vast landscape to explore, and I’d probably say I only got around three quarters of it in my time through the lengthy main plot and dozen or so side stories.

Graphically this game on PC is second to none (only Horizon Zero Dawn has come close) with excellent character animations, weather effects, lush forests, snow-capped mountains – this is a gorgeous looking game and goes a long way to bring The West to life. Sometimes I just stopped to drool over the textures, lighting and level of detail on show.
The game world offers a lot to do if you want to as well, hunting, fishing, robbing, roaming, random encounters are aplenty.

But … and this is where I begin to critique things, I have to say I sometimes felt a little bored.

Some of the aforementioned things are fun once or twice but soon become tedious time-wasting tasks with no bearing on Arthur or his story.
Random encounters are fun at first but rarely deliver a meaty side quest beyond a few words with an NPC who’s lost his/her horse or got stuck in a bear trap.
That is not to say there aren’t some strong, story driven, side quests to discover (some highlights include hunting down some gun slingers and assisting a wildlife photographer) but these are few and far between compared to say The Witcher 3, where every exploration to a new area or settlement could deliver a new NPC to talk to or quest to take.

This sense of emptiness carried over to some of the towns and cities too – my first trip to the sprawling city of Saint Denis was rather underwhelming. Sure, you can go and get your haircut, grab some new clothes, neck a beer and play some poker at the saloon, but save for the odd NPC who later springs up when the plot takes you to the city proper – there’s not much to see or do.

I guess I expected a little more from this massive sandbox game world, but RDR2 is strict in that it has a story to tell and it tells it to you when it wants to, at its own pace, and not when you want it to.

A lot of people have praised the overall story as one of the best in gaming history – I have to say as a budding writer myself, I have to disagree.

The plot is good, don’t get me wrong, better than 90% of games I’ve played, but it is also slow and plodding at times. There is no central overarching villain or conflict bar the creeping conflict within Arthur’s gang itself. There are a few nemeses peppered throughout each chapter like Cornwall, O’Driscoll’s etc but they don’t ever stick around in the plot long enough and therefore feel underdeveloped. A good plot has a central conflict but it takes too long for RDR2 to get there and tells a story in 60 hours that it could’ve told in half that time.

People will argue that the purpose of the plot is to drip feed you a story of the characters and give you time to explore the world with a deliberate slow burner so you can savour not devour. I get that, and what I will say is the characters are brilliant. Great voice acting, well written, flawed and relatable. Arthur grows and develops very organically. You get to know him and his companions slowly without too much exposition and feel part of the gang of whom is integral to the plot. But characters alone do not make a story great, though they go a long way to making it good.

Plot aside, there are some gameplay elements that just fall flat in my opinion. Before I go into them let me reiterate that RDR2 is not an RPG in my opinion. Contrary to what you might read, do not compare this game to The Witcher 3 because one is a true RPG and the other is an action adventure with light RPG trimmings.

I say light because there are a few things that try to elevate the gameplay but for me they don’t really deliver. Replacing weaponry does little to change the gameplay, you can search for and buy new guns but I felt doing this did nothing to make the gunplay harder or simpler. You can change clothes but this is more or less just for aesthetics. There are shops to visit but I never bought anything from them. Arthur’s skills can slowly enhance in stamina and dead eye but I didn’t see much change as a result. Money can be accumulated through looting, selling trinkets, stealing and odd jobs, but I can count on one hand the amount of times I truly needed cash. At first, I donated cash to the gang’s camp and did some hunting for animal skins to generate cash and forage for food, but save a few lines from your gang members here and there, all this did very little to change the plot or the attitude of the characters within it. It all felt superfluous and unnecessary filler.

An exception, your horse did have a bearing on things like speed and agility and you do spend an awful amount of time on your horse, more on that it a moment.
Some will love all that stuff I just mentioned and argue it doesn’t need to fuel the plot, it’s about interacting with the game in different and realistic ways. But for me it just felt a little tedious – personal opinion on this one I guess but if you give me some RPG teasers, then make sure they actually affect things.

Other elements of the gameplay also grated. Sometimes traversing the expansive world was a chore. There is a rudimentary fast travel system but it is restricted by having to be in your camp to use which for the most part did not help when you are out and about. There is stage coaches and trains too but they’re not much help if you’re not near a town.
So many times, I fired up the game and spent the first twenty minutes simply riding my horse from point A to B, sometimes using the autopilot cinematic mode whereby I’d sit and check my phone and occasionally look up when a random bandit killed me because I wasn’t paying attention.

On occasion I would stop and find something interesting like a murder scene or an abandoned shack, but too often it was a stop gap when I wanted to get back into the thick of things.

Again, some will love this slowness and enjoy stopping enroute somewhere to potentially explore further but personally this frustrated me more times that I can remember.
A word of warning, controls on PC are also clunky in some instances. Many times, I fell off my horse seemingly for bashing the wrong button, fist fights were a nightmare, and close encounters in a gun fight were deadly due to mouse and keyboard not really delivering a sure way to think quickly (there is quick draw to be fair but I never really mastered it). Death for me was usually due to controls and not skill.

So, there you have it … my comprehensive critique of a game that promised lots and delivered in some instances, but didn’t in others.

I want to conclude by reiterating that I did not dislike this game at all. It’s fantastic in so many ways but when you look at the sum of its parts, will it be in my top 10 games of all time list (like many have included)? – No. Will I remember it fondly? – Yes.
I understand why many love RDR2 much, but I now also understand why some feel it is slightly overhyped.

*****Overall rating 8/10*****

Keen to get others thoughts (if you’ve read this far! :P)

Beautiful Desolation may not have as gripping a plot as Stasis (in my opinion as sci-fi horror is my favourite genre) but what it does have is a bigger more expansive world to explore and what an imaginative and original world it is! With it's gorgeous graphics and landscapes blending dystopian and sci-fi, with a fusion of African culture, you cannot help but be drawn into this world and it will live long in the memory.
However, if i had one criticism is I wanted more of it! Sometimes the plot and the references (from tribes, to forgotten wars and strange technology) it's all pretty vague and left unexplained. The included game codex would have been a great place to talk about some of these areas in more detail or they could have included some written journals or books scattered around the game world to pick up and read to flesh out the plot.
Sound wise the game is also great, music is used sparingly but is suitably atmospheric and all dialogue is fully voiced which i personally prefer in a game when done right. For the most part it's of high quality too with the voices adopting the local African accents and alien like tones to those odd ball characters you meet.
Gameplay is nothing groundbreaking, this is your standard basic adventure formula of exploring the different maps, interacting with NPC's, occasionally solving inventory or interface like puzzles to progress. An intuitive interface makes for a smooth way forward however as a number of reviewers have already mentioned, the lack of an objectives marker or highlight option for finding what are sometimes well hidden but crucial inventory items does sometime cause you to feel lost and brings the frustration of the inevitable 'i'm stuck what do I do next' scenario.
A word on the length, it took be around 15 hours to complete the game and for the price this is fantastic value for money and shows the developers are not greedy despite having a limited budget and resource.
Overall I loved Beautiful Desolation, the premise and plot were great and backed with strong writing and cut scenes - it has retro but lush graphics and tried and tested gameplay mechanics. All I would say as room for improvement is better signposting, more in game written lore to digest and perhaps add in some more RPG like elements to expand the gameplay a bit.
Overall 9/10 - can't wait to see their next project! Stasis 2 please :)