AbeMC

A deliberate b-movie-style action game, Bombshell promises gritty action and tough characters. What it delivers is a kickin’ soundtrack and massive levels that are boringly large to traverse, wrapped in - a 3D environment viewed with an isometric camera? It’s an odd design decision that prevents Bombshell from being a lively action romp and instead makes it tedious and distant. If you can get it for around $5 it’s a satisfactory time-waster, but not much more. Total size on my hard-drive: 8.9 GB + Full controller support. + Graphics are nice (Unreal 3). + Despite the nice visuals, runs well. Max settings @1080p averaged between 75-110 fps on my RX 470. + Excellent soundtrack. + A number of different weapons to use, and switching between them is very fluid. + Stunning environments. From lava to snow and ice to sci-fi wonderhell, there’s a lot of detail. + Appreciate the under-stated humor. From jokes about fetch-quests to weapon-naming (Shelly’s chain gun is called the “maxigun,” and the missile launcher is referred to as the PMS), the laughs are frequent but easily over-looked. Those who search carefully in one level will find the Temple of Dopefish... +/- Voice acting is all over the place, with some great work by Valerie Arem as Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison and the legendary Jon St. John (Duke Nukem) as the villain. The rest vary from average to terrible. +/- Even knowing Bombshell is emulating b-movie tropes, the characters (aside from Bombshell herself) mostly fall flat. There’s little that is surprising or convincing, even within the confines of the traditional “evil mastermind” or “misplaced father” tropes. +/- Too often you’ll want to pick a weapon and stick with it for most encounters, depending on the level. Like the flamethrower completely wrecks the ice level (as you would expect), and for special powers, why would you use anything other than the bubble shield? Well, the energy sword (basically a lightsaber) inflicts tons of damage, so it makes a good case, but it’s easy to argue in favor of OP weapons. The shotgun (called the “motherflakker”) will be the go-to weapon for most of the game. - Checkpoint saving only. - Bugged achievements. They don’t always trigger. Then a whole bunch will trigger at once. - I experienced a few glitches, most of them involving Shelly getting stuck on the environment. Also had a boss spawn outside the boss arena once. Reloading a checkpoint is the only solution. Health orb would glitch, showing full health when in fact the numerical health readout showed much less. Fell through an elevator once, which then glitched on the upper level, while I respawned on the lower, making it impossible to back-track and complete a side-quest (reloading a checkpoint didn’t fix it). - Levels are HUGE. Just traversing them takes a large amount of time, and while there are some unlockable short-cuts, traversal becomes a giant chore. Made worse by the back-tracking that side-missions usually require. It’s nice that there are so many nooks and crannies to explore, but that’s a small compensation. - Can’t rotate the camera. - Little enemy variety. Actually, the variety itself is decent - each of the four episodes has a few new enemies – but with the levels being so large it feels like you’re fighting the same enemies over and over. - Soundtrack may be great, but the size of the levels makes the music loop way too much. The decision to go with an isometric camera angle for what should be an fps is a curious one, and, coupled with the size of the levels, really hurts the experience that Bombshell offers. If it had fit into a more traditional fps mold, it could have been more popular – especially given the weapons available and the potential for an old-school, action-based (instead of cover-based) shooter. Thankfully, the next game in the series, Ion Maiden (a prequel), does exactly that. That’s a game that I’m really looking forward to playing, but Bombshell unfortunately leaves a very mixed impression behind. Pick it up if you see it cheap, but expect it to drag on well past its welcome. 5/10

A beautiful puzzle-driven walking simulator that tells a story via animated wall-paintings (reminiscent of Journey). Recommended for fans of either genre. Go for the Soundtrack Edition (the music is lovely) at 50% off or more (which currently equates to ~$12 or less). Total size on my hard-drive: 11.5 GB ++ Graphics. This is one you won’t want to miss if you love gorgeous visuals (CryEngine). + Uses level design to provide direction. So even though there are a number of places to go, I never felt lost. + Beautiful, peaceful soundtrack. + Puzzles are not overly simple, but most can be solved without spending too much time on them. + Good story. We wake up in some sort burial chamber, go outside, and being searching the ruins of a long-dormant civilization. The animated memories tell a drama of the discovery of a unique resource, and its use (and possible abuse) that led to the civilization’s decline – or was something else at work? + I was going to say I disliked the stealth sections (one region of Chapter 3 and a large part of Chapter 4). But the creatures that hunt you are incorporated into the story in a way that makes a great deal of sense. And the stealth changes up the gameplay a bit later in the game, which is a good thing. +/- The ability to view some animations in the order in which you stumble upon them can make the story feel fragmented. - Those stunning graphics aren’t for potato computers. It is CryEngine, after all. On the Medium preset @1080p, my Radeon RX 470 was frequently on its knees begging for mercy, dipping to 30fps on occasion, fans roaring. Since there is no combat, frame-rate isn’t as important here as in other sorts of games, but if you’re someone who is sensitive to frame-rate, you’ll notice it. On the other hand, Aporia is an excellent choice if you’ve got a mega gaming rig and want to see what it can do.

Atmospheric walking sim that will take around 3 hours to complete. Worth a look for fans of the genre, but making exploration difficult in a genre that relies on exploration? Frustrating at times. Total size on my hard-drive: 10.5 GB + Good walking sims have a great soundtrack, and The Fidelio Incident is no exception. It’s not too much to claim the soundtrack saves the game. + Excellent voice acting. + Great visuals (Unreal 4). 1080p Medium is all my RX 470 could manage to maintain a steady 60fps. +/- Story is… meh. A plane crashes, we’re at the bottom of a mountain, dude’s wife is at the top, find a path to reach her. As the journey progresses, we learn more about their backstories, why they were flying – somewhere – and what they were hoping to escape. +/- Despite the vagueness of how to progress, there are usually only a few paths, and back-tracking won’t take that long because level size is small-ish. +/- The Fidelio Incident breaks up the monotony of walking with some simple puzzles, usually involving turning valves or flicking switches. Nothing too complicated. - Freezing mechanic. For large parts of the game, you’ll be darting from one heat source to another, trying to avoid freezing to death. Hinders exploration. - Unlocking the complete backstory involves a collect-a-thon of finding all of the wife’s journal pages – which is hindered by the freezing mechanic. - Swirling snow looks cool, but it can be hard to see in some levels, and you’ll wind up stumbling vaguely around, hoping to see the glint of a fire in the near distance. - Dream sequences have overly heavy shadows, making it almost impossible to see a way forward. I frequently stumbled onto the path forward entirely by accident. I picked The Fidelio Incident up for a dollar, and feel like I got my money’s worth. With no alternate paths and no reason to replay, I wouldn’t spend much more that, though.

Quantum Break is 60% walking simulator, 25% third-person shooter, and 15% TV show – an odd combination that will disappoint anyone who likes their genres clearly defined. The pieces generally mesh together well, though, and it’s good to see Remedy’s unique story-telling skills are as sharp as ever. An easy 7/10, and worth a purchase at $10 or less. Hope you have a good internet connection, though. The live-action episodes stream directly from servers (they don’t download with the game). Total size on my hard-drive: 70.6 GB ++ Production values. Music, visuals, voice-acting, animations, visual design – among the best you’ll find in any game at the moment. + A slow-burn sort of story, Quantum Break’s narrative has an inner logic that is all too rare in time-travel adventures. Translation: the story can seem confusing at times, but everything is explained, either through dialogue or collectibles. Everything. + There is not an awkward casting choice to be found. + The live-action episodes are well-shot, and blend well into the gameplay sections – thanks in no small part to the excellent graphics. + The gameplay action sequences are very well done. The time-power-based combat is for the most part fluid and deadly. (Experienced players may actually find the combat too easy.) + Most levels, though linear, are quite large and, in the manner of old gaming days, bear exploring to find all sorts of hidden collectibles and easter eggs. +/- The major choices an impact on how the story develops, though not as big as I’d hoped. Choosing a different path doesn’t just result in different events; characters develop differently as well. Yet major story events will still unfold in the same or a similar manner regardless of what choice is made. +/- Characters. They work, for the most part. Martin Hatch (Lance ****) stands out as a singular man of mystery, and I would have liked to play as Beth at a certain crucial point in the story. The rest fall into fairly standard stereo-types. Some dialogue can be cheesy as well. +/- Remedy was experimenting with melding different methods of story-telling in Quantum Break. Traditional combat-driven gameplay is barely a quarter of how you’ll spend your time. Much of it will be spent walking from place to place, solving some simple platforming challenges, and reading lore / backstory from the large amount of collectibles you can find. The live-action episodes that link each act are well-shot and do a great job of sustaining dramatic momentum, though that probably won’t be good enough for those who want to play (instead of watch) their games. - The live-action video portions do not download with the game; they stream from servers. - The graphics look great but are very demanding. 1080P Medium gives me 30fps on my RX 470. - No hip-firing. Wtf? Yup. You can only fire your weapons when aiming down the sights. - There is a simplified system to upgrade your time-powers that relies on collecting random “chronon particles” that can be found throughout the gameplay levels. It provides a reason to explore the environments, but the system as a whole feels left over from what presumably would have been a much more intricate skill system. - A general disappointment for me was the build-up to what seemed to be a special enemy type, the Shifter: a tortured character that exists in multiple planes of time, who is extremely hard to kill and very aggressive. From the constant references I was certain we were going to fight one at some point – perhaps the final boss. Nope. We never, ever face even one Shifter. Seems like another concept that had to be cut from the game. - Final boss is mechanically a big disappointment. It’s a wave-based horde-mode; in-between each wave is a nonsensical mechanic that, if failed, is a one-hit kill. Contrary to most forum threads, it’s not a hard fight, but it feels cheap and lazy. Quantum Break was most rewarding when setting the difficulty to Easy to cruise through the combat and otherwise play it as a walking simulator. There is a ton of lore hidden throughout the game, and much of it is worth reading if you’re enjoying the story and are a fan of time-travel entertainment. I doubt this is what people were expecting from a studio like Remedy, famous for games like Max Payne and Alan Wake. Those looking for a steady stream of action-laden levels will be disappointed. But it is a must-buy for time-travel fans, and a thoughtful, intricate story for those who are willing to take the time to read every note and journal the game has to offer.

Rise of the Tomb Raider follows in the footsteps of the previous (2013) game, offering more of the same, with some larger areas and more side-tombs. Story and soundtrack are weak spots, and make Rise an above average game that, aside from graphics, does absolutely nothing outstanding. Frequently discounts to around $12 during Steam sales, where it is worth buying for those who enjoyed the 2013 Tomb Raider game. Total size on my hard-drive: 25.2 GB (20th Anniversary Edition) + Homages to classic Tomb Raider games abound. Simple things like grapple points, ledges, even some tomb designs. + Voice acting is great from all involved. + Excellent level design makes exploring great fun. + The graphics. Some of the best that can be found, even now years later. Facial animations are similarly impressive. + Shooting mechanics movement animations are a near-perfect copy-paste of Tomb Raider (2013). Don’t fix what isn’t broken. + Good stealth mechanics, should you choose that approach. + Environment use in firefights. Explosive barrels and such are much more common than in the 2013 game. +/- Lara is just as breathless and emotional as in the first reboot game (from 2013). She learned nothing from her adventure on Yamati – except to be cool about killing tons of people. +/- Platforming challenges are overly simple. +/- Plenty of side-tombs. Each adds a different passive upgrade upon completion which cannot be obtained anywhere else. But each tomb has the SAME treasure (some sort of codex). +/- Hunting is a crucial part of the game for crafting upgrades and ammunition. Not a bad thing in itself, but sometimes it does feel like Lara is venturing into the wilderness just to slaughter tons of wild animals. (Assassin’s Creed III’s has a similar issue.) +/- Expeditions make an arcade game out of “wilderness survival.” There is Score Attack, Endurance (which has co-op), Chapter Replay (from the main campaign), and a few other modes. Match parameters can be modified with a number of different cards that can alter damage, available weapons, limit available ammunition etc. It feels like it was left over from a micro-transaction system. The Expeditions as a whole feel like the remnant of a cut multiplayer component. If you’re a fan of the combat it’s worth checking out, but otherwise it represents wasted development time. - Denuvo DRM. - Rise of the Tomb Raider is BRUTAL on hardware. You might think you’re fine, but then you arrive in Geothermal Valley... My RX 470 dropped to under 30 fps a few times @1080p Medium settings. No, the in-game benchmark is NOT representative of actual gameplay. - Lame story. There’s something about the secret to immortality, and some bad people want to find it, blah blah blah. The writers tried to link the secret with Lara’s father, but failed to set the story up properly, so when the “surprise” betrayal arrives (fairly early), it’s not enough to care about. - QuickTime Events return in a big way. - Too easy. Normal is a breeze. Experienced gamers should crank the difficulty from the outset. - Enemy AI is stupid. Equip a shotgun and have some patience; foot-soldiers will come to you, one by one. - Forced backtracking. - Dialogue can be incredibly cheesy, to the point of being cringe-worthy. It’s like they mined every common, over-done dramatic trope to try to sound serious. I wanted to skip large portions of some cutscenes, which is something I almost never do. - Music soundtrack is extremely disappointing, never rising above your average Hollywood action score. Classic Tomb Raider games had a different theme for every stage; Anniversary had a different set of themes for France, Egypt, Greece, etc. The music in Rise just smudges together a mass of repeated themes and re-used cues (some copied from the 2013 game). Very disappointing. - How many times can Lara run for a doorway / ledge / pool while the environment collapses around her? Too many. - Blood Ties DLC is a sad shell of what Croft Manor missions used to be. It is a walking sim, collecting documents and relics. No environment puzzles. No platforming challenges. No cool soundtrack. I was critical of the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot for being more of a third-person shooter than what I considered a proper Tomb Raider game. But despite the old-school flavor the devs added to Rise, at its core it is still a third-person shooter, with larger levels and more (optional) tombs. Then you add in the disappointing story, forced backtracking, and stupid AI and Rise of the Tomb Raider can’t break free of being boring but safe. Elevated by level design and exemplary graphics, it is an above average 6/10 that unfortunately is a “flavor of the week” sort of game; play it, have fun with it, then move on to something else.

Short, linear tomb-raiding adventure that offers little more than some basic platforming and cryptic puzzles. This is supposed to be a "re-imagining" of the franchise, but much of the optional loot and side-puzzles from the previous iteration have been stripped out and replaced with - nothing. Mundane voice-acting and cringe-worthy dialogue stand out. Even the stealth sections are a linear path. Only thing going for it are the nice graphics (CryEngine), but even that is tempered by some absolutely awful optimization. There is nothing to recommend here.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is the “last hurrah” of traditional Assassin’s Creed games. After the disappointment of Unity, which had a good story but poor gameplay, Syndicate has great gameplay but an awful story. And on top of that, it is way too easy, even for an Assassin’s Creed game. The Gold Edition is worth purchasing at 75% off (which would be around $15 at current prices), but the old magic is gone. Total size on my hard-drive (Gold Edition): 64.3 GB - - Micro-transactions in a single-player game. Not mandatory, but still: seriously, Ubisoft? - No campaign co-op. + Graphics are amazing. + Optimization is excellent. +/- Character writing slips a bit. I was apparently one of the few who liked Arno Dorian in Unity, and neither of the Frye twins has anything near the same depth. Evie is the more traditional assassin, while Jacob is all punkish swagger. Neither ever become more than their action-hero stereotype. +/- Combat has been completely re-worked from Unity to be more like the Batman Arkham games. It works and flows well enough, but has very little depth. +/- Mission design is a wildly mixed bag. Some feel like vintage Assassin’s Creed (preventing the ambush of Disraeli). Others seem like they were thrown together with only the most meagre of progression clues, like “find the secret passage.” Apparently I’m supposed to slowly wander the mission zone looking for a highlighted candlestick to open a movable wall. That’s if other members of your gang don’t trigger a mission fail by “protecting” their stealthed boss from some enemies. +/- Good selection of side-activities. After Black Flag, easily the most time I’ve spent in an Assassin’s Creed game chasing quest markers. But as one of the primary means of gaining money, you’ll being doing them a lot. +/- Decent side-quests. A variety of historical figures show up, each with their own independent stories and missions. It was cool following Karl Marx around for a few missions, but the missions themselves are just more tracking / crowd control / defend / drive a carriage etc. that already fills the side-activities in the main game. +/- Parkour issues from Unity are mostly fixed, but are still glitchy. +/- Jack the Ripper DLC starts well, but then descends into the same grinding bs that I had to do in the main campaign. You lose most of your skills and all your equipment, too – even though the DLC is set 20 years after the main campaign. The story might be good, but I was literally too bored with the activities to bother finding out. - Micro-transactions. Either pay real money to add in-game currency, or be prepared to spend dozens of hours grinding for in-game money. (Micro-transactions are not mandatory.) - Too easy. Gameplay is clearly balanced for people who don’t do many side-activities; take over a few boroughs and you’ll quickly find yourself over-leveled. - Glitchy. Here’s a perfect example. The bonus objective: “Climb on the same carriage as the thief.” BUT THE THIEF NEVER HIJACKS A CARRIAGE. Result: failed full synchronization. - Missed opportunity for campaign co-op. - Starting a mission disables fast-travel. Even if the next objective is ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MAP (which happens about half the time). - Throwing knives are OP. Makes the rest of the tools unnecessary. - Where is the Creed? Some missions require the killing of innocents (soldiers or police, usually). The Creed is actually never mentioned by anyone. The only time the classic phrase “Requiescat in pace” is spoken is after Evie has changed out of a ball dress into her assassin garb and throws the corset to the ground. - Story is bad. There’s a templar who is ruling London, oh no! We gotta battle him for London’s soul! The villain is never developed, and his platitudes never move beyond the usual “I was going to make something new and wonderful.” Looking back at previous Assassin’s Creed games – even Unity – it’s just bad. Check that. Unity’s story looks like a masterpiece next to this. - Absolutely horrendous final “boss.” - Most missions have no penalty for being detected, or no bonus for finishing them undetected. Missions can still be stealthed, but there is very little motivation to do so. Assassin’s Creed remains one of my favorite franchises, but with Ubisoft doing its best to copy the Witcher 3 in newer games, Syndicate functions as the final iteration of a classic formula. It’s a combination of exploration, mystery, stealth and over-powered hack ‘n slash thrills that I’m sorry to see outdated. Syndicate mostly does the gameplay justice, but it was an odd choice to make the combat inspired by Batman instead of Hitman. (Imagine: an Assassin’s Creed that had multiple objective paths and allowed the use of disguises. Revolutionary!) Unforgivable, though, is the sad attempt at story telling. At least we still have the classics.

Ronan is a criminal-turned-cop who is killed by the mysterious Bell Killer. Playing as Ronan's ghost, investigate a series of crime scenes (sometimes with the help of teenage medium Joy), searching for identity of the killer. Many supernatural elements come into play – ghosts, witches, demons – and some flashbacks of the witch trials are pretty gruesome (drowning, burning, hanging). As the investigation progresses, you'll explore a graveyard, an apartment house, an old mansion, a police station and of course the obligatory asylum level. While the game world is small, it is open, with the ability to just wander around the town of Salem. It's a gloomy place – the game occurs entirely at night – but is well-dotted with NPCs and collectibles. Obtaining collectibles can unlock other stories (usually brief, narrated cut-scenes), and some NPCs will provide side-missions. There's a decent amount of stuff to do, but most collectibles were easily found as I explored the town or a level. Investigations require exploring a a crime scene, finding evidence (“Press E to analyze”) and sorting through the collected evidence (“Press Q to conclude the investigation”). Walking (or later, teleporting) around as a ghost feels fun; Ronan can walk through walls, possess people (mind-reading), and turn on random stuff to mess with the townsfolk (poltergeisting). Especially cool were the impenetrable “ghost walls” from past times that can block Ronan from exploring – or even provide new hazards (watch out for the ghost train!). Oh, and you can possess cats, too. This is actually crucial to progress through several stages of the game. The demon sections, though, dragged the experience down a bit. Demons will sometimes spawn after completing an investigation. Their existence does have a crucial part to play, and they're easy enough to defeat with a little patience. Given that this is a supernatural tale, it would be rather weird if demons of some kind weren't in the game, and having some stealth sections added some variety to the gameplay. But after a while the demons became annoying distractions from the story. And the narrative is where Murdered: Soul Suspect stands strongest. There is a lot of backstory to be found about Ronan and his wife (via collectibles). Sometimes collectibles in games are merely annoying, but they are worth pursuing here. Jason Brooks (as Ronan) and Cassidy Lehrman (as the medium, Joy) provide stand-out vocal performances. The graphics (Unreal 3) are great – murky and dark. Jason Graves' score provides a classic horror-story undertone. Murdered: Soul Suspect is a well-crafted detective game with a few quirks that holds its story aloft as its best attribute.

A Remedy classic and one of my personal favorites. The story-telling is some of the best you’ll find in a video-game of any genre. Requires some configuration to run properly on modern systems, but absolutely worth picking up at its list price (though it frequently discounts to 50% off or more). Total size on my hard-drive: 1.6 GB + Max Payne returns. This is a direct sequel to the first game, and picks up right after the first one left off. Remedy perfectly duplicates the earlier game’s dark, broody atmosphere. The comic panels (instead of cut-scenes) are back. + Old characters return. Bravura, Mona Sax, Vlad, Vinnie. But they don’t all return in ways you might expect. + Story. While Max had his revenge in the first game, he is still not at peace with himself. And falling for a femme fatale leads to massive feelings of guilt and betrayal towards his dead loved ones. The nuts-and-bolts of the story delve into the workings of the “Inner Circle.” While this secret society was and is one of the hokier aspects of the first two Max Payne games, it remains an effective backdrop for Max’s tale of depressed angst. + Swapping narrative. I loved the simultaneous story-telling, and playing as Mona Sax for a few levels. + Slow-motion Shoot-dodge is back. + Secondary weapons. Allows for melee or the throwing of grenades or molotovs without switching weapons (unlike the first Max Payne game). + Atmosphere and visuals. While only running DirectX 8, light and shadow play to great effect. Texture quality is greatly improved from the first game as well. Though obviously old by now, the release date of 2003 is still a surprise, as Max Payne 2 looks much better than that. +/- Enemies have much better aim than in the first game. Health is plentiful, though. - Shotguns are much less powerful. - Install the game to your C drive (or wherever your operating system is located) and run in Windows 95 compatibility mode or the game may not start. - 16:9 aspect ratio resolutions are only available by modding a config file. Additional modification is necessary to alter the HUD so it isn’t distorted / stretched at 16:9 resolutions. If your modding is successful, Max Payne 2 looks and plays great at 1080p and 60fps. - Short. Speed-runs can beat the game in less than an hour (there is a timed mode, call “New York Minute”). More casual playthroughs will rarely take more than 6 hours, even if you stop to watch all the TV shows. Max Payne 2 is one of my favorites, and the game wears its age well. Sad that gaming reached such a high point so early in its history. It’s one of those games that needs a little tweaking to work properly on modern systems, but I don’t want an official remastered edition because I’m worried something would be altered in the process. Few games get as close to perfection as Max Payne 2.

The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt needed to be an epic, satisfying conclusion to the Witcher trilogy, and for the most part, it succeeds. Many characters from previous games return, the graphics are glorious, the writing is sharp and poignant, interface and combat is greatly improved. But there is suddenly a ton of confusing exposition in the final act, and while story side-quests are done well, the average village contract reuses encounter mechanics over and over. Not the 10/10 game that reviewers hype it to be, but a strong 8/10 – and absolutely worth the $20 it frequently discounts to during sales. Total size on my hard-drive (GOTY): 36GB ++ Superb bestiary. The number of different creatures you’ll face is stunning in its variety. ++ Excellent cast of interesting characters. ++ Excellent DLC. Hearts of Stone and Blood & Wine are must-buy content. Go for the GOTY edition. + Narrative choices are real. + Most complaints from the Witcher 2 have been addressed / fixed. Fast travel. Clean and clear inventory. Less clunky combat. + Graphics are stunning and fairly light on resources for a modern title. I averaged between 60-90 fps on High @1080p with an RX 470. + The cities feel alive. Pedestrians in the streets, merchants on the corners, guards on patrol, bandits lurking in the back alleys. + Excellent side-quests. + Excellent faction quests. + Excellent soundtrack. A clever mix of medieval-style folk music with a big Hollywood-style orchestral score. + Mature themes. You’ll see people being beaten, burned and hung. As Geralt, you’ll be propositioned, threatened with dismemberment, and see others threatened with worse. You’ll also observe some sexy times with Geralt & your romance choice. If you are trying to get in an hour of gameplay after putting your kids to bed, make sure they are REALLY asleep before booting up the Witcher 3. + Out of combat or conversation, save anywhere, any time. +/- Decent story. Ciri is being pursued by the spectral Wild Hunt, Geralt tracks her across the land, hoping to reach her before the Hunt does. “Go here, help this person, then they’ll tell you more about Ciri” is two-thirds of the main story. In between, Geralt has to solve his personal relationships, save Dandelion (again!), becomes embroiled with the Lodge of Sorceresses (again!), while meddling with spies, statecraft, and intrigue. All good stuff, though I missed The Witcher 2’s tighter focus. +/- Combat, once understood, flows smoothly and quickly in space. It is of the “a few quick swipes, dodge, a few more quick swipes, dodge again etc.” variety. Once you learn a beast’s attack pattern (and acquire some good gear), everything becomes almost too easy. +/- I didn’t mind the constant soft-target-lock-on, but players used to more complete control will get annoyed fast. - Iorveth (from the Witcher 2) is nowhere to be seen. - Still laden with random bugs and glitches. - Narrative suffers from level-gating. If you’re just playing for the story, and don’t want to wander the land in search of random contracts, you’ll consistently find yourself under-leveled. - Tons of stuff to do in the villages you’ll find as you explore. But do I really want to follow footprints or a chem trail for the umpteenth monster contract? Fatigue doesn’t set in too quickly thanks to the large enemy pool, but the re-used encounters can’t be hidden. - Geralt has a copious number of skills that can be leveled and placed in one of twelve ability slots. Everything from perks to magic upgrades and better sword skills needs to be placed in a slot for it to be active; otherwise, you can level it as much as you want, but it won’t have any effect. Upgrades must ALSO be put into ability slots, meaning as your level increases, your build becomes more focused on one or two talents, instead of on multiple skills. Unnecessarily restrictive in a game that relies on variety to maintain interest. - A cutscene plays when loading a new region that summarizes Geralt’s or Citi’s current situation. The cutscene updates / changes based upon where you are in the story. But if you find you need to go from Velen to Skellige to Kaer Morhen and back to Velen without advancing the story, you’ll watch that same cutscene over and over again. The Witcher 3 is a game that every fan of role-playing games should own. Not because of the vast amount of content, but because the content itself is of such a high quality. Unlike near-annual franchises that have copy-and-pasted stories and activities, the developers of The Witcher 3 clearly gave a damn. While every game has its flaws, the product of their care and attention is one of the best role-playing games of this gaming generation.

Just Cause 3 brings back the rampage-style gameplay of Just Cause 2; destroying stuff is still as fun as ever. But… The map is empty. Arcade-style “challenges” gate gear upgrades – and the challenges are rendered frustrating by poor control schemes. Highly demanding on hardware. Glitches and bugs abound. A poor save system. Denuvo drm. Worth a purchase at a deep discount because there is fun to be had in Just Cause 3, but Just Cause 2 is the better game, despite its age. Total size on my hard-drive (XL Edition): 60.2 GB + Rampage-focused gameplay is back. Feels just like Just Cause 2. + Great sound design. Explosions sound awesome. + Great emphasis on movement. Wrist grapple use is greatly expanded. + Great soundtrack by Henry Jackman. + 1080P High (with Medium Shadows and FXAA) gave me between 60-90fps on my Radeon RX 470. + Beautiful visuals. Sky, water and smoke are especially good. +/- Story isn’t the reason to play any Just Cause game, and the one in Just Cause 3 is meh at best. They tried to make it serious, which is antithetical to the Just Cause franchise. - The multiple factions premise from Just Cause 2 is gone. Rebels vs. dictator. That’s it. - Long load times, even when installed on an SSD. - Half the number of locations compared to Just Cause 2. Large swaths of the map are empty. - No mini-map. - No weapon or vehicle upgrades. Yes, you can “mod” different functions, but Just Cause 2 had five different levels for most items in the black market store. No more. - Always online – tied to your Steam login. If the Steam servers go offline (like they do every Tuesday for about 10 minutes for servicing), Just Cause 3 will pause itself and ask if you would like to continue in off-line mode. When the Steam servers come back up, it will log back in. - No cloud saves – despite the “always online” feature. - Bad save system. Exiting the game returns you to the nearest base next time you start the game. Just Cause 2 had the same issue, but in that game fast-travel simply cost money; in Just Cause 3 the ability to fast-travel is tied to how many flares you have (there is a limited number). - Advanced spawns are ridiculous. An endless stream of over-powered enemies. Hijacking a tank is your only hope. - Glitchy bug-fest. Many remain unfixed to this day (like the forum-famous “Precision Aim” glitch for the mission “Reach Rosa’s Plane”). - Complete arcade-style challenges to earn “gear.” That’s fine, except vehicle, wingsuit and aerial controls are so bad as to make each trial a chore. - Needs CPU horsepower. My i5-4590 (Haswell) goes to 95% load (on all four cores) during big explosions. - System ram usage averaged around 9.5 GB while playing (I’m running Windows 7 x64). Those with 8GB of ram could run into issues, despite the store page saying 8GB is enough. - Rico is Italian now instead of Hispanic? Why? - Very little health. - Wing-suit controls are awful. - Driving controls are sluggish and have rubberband inputs (“Turn left. Turn LEFT!” And now you’ve held the key too long and the car goes off a cliff). Criterion (Burnout series, Need for Speed) supposedly assisted with the driving mechanics, but you’d never know it. I love running around in a sandbox and watching the destruction engine get to work, but there are just too many negatives to make Just Cause 3 a recommended purchase. Considering the total package, Just Cause 2 is more fun - there’s more to do, the b-movie action story is actually better, it’s a lot less glitchy while still being decent to look at – and it runs great on today’s powerful hardware. It’s a sad declaration on the state of gaming that a game from 8 years ago has so much more to offer than this latest installment. If you want to get Just Cause 3 anyway, wait the XL Edition at a deep discount (75% or more). With Just Cause 2 frequently discounting to $3 during sales while being the better game, there’s no reason to spend more than you have to on Just Cause 3.

Mass Effect 2 takes the story and characters from the first game and adds an even better story and more characters with a darker, almost noir / horror overtone. More of a third-person-shooter with RPG elements instead of a “regular” RPG, the missions, voice-acting, music, combat, and graphics come together for an unforgettable ride. Mass Effect 2 is BioWare’s high water mark and the pinnacle of the developer’s “golden age.” A less than ideal DLC situation tempers the enthusiasm, but only a little. ++ That final mission. What missions you have completed (or haven’t!), what upgrades you installed (or didn’t!), who you assign to certain tasks as part of the mission – the fate of your crew literally rests on your decisions. + Mass Effect 2 assembles a fantastic cast of diverse characters. Several return from the first game (like Garrus and Tali), while the new additions all have unique personalities and back stories. Including DLC, there are TWELVE possible squad-mates. + The stakes are high. With the rest of the galaxy closing their eyes to the Reaper threat that manifested in the first Mass Effect game, Shepard is the only person with the opportunity to halt the coming invasion. + Character missions. While saving the galaxy is well and good, helping your team become focused for the final battle involves the completion of individual “loyalty missions.” Lots of variety here, from pursuing a gang lord through a burning factory (Zaeed’s mission), to exploring the rubble of the krogan homeworld (Mordin’s mission) to fighting the criminal underworld in the backstreets of Ilium (Miranda’s mission), you’ll be taken many places as you help the members of your squad find a small measure of peace. + The voice acting is some of the best in a video game. In addition to the return of series regulars voiced by Mark Meer / Jennifer Hale, Keith David, Brandon Keener and Seth Green, the supporting cast includes Martin Sheen (yes, THAT Martin Sheen), Yvonne Strahovski, Claudia Black, Adam Baldwin, Tricia Helfer, Shohreh Aghdashloo, and Michael Hogan. + Great soundtrack. Jack Wall & crew kept the synth base of the previous Mass Effect soundtrack, but added more orchestra and bigger Hollywood-style heroic themes. + Good graphics (Unreal 3). While not Crysis, still some of the best visuals of its time. Low-res textures aside, they hold up well. + Ability to import saves from Mass Effect 1. Several of the decisions you made in the first game have an impact here. +/- Greatly improved combat over the first Mass Effect game. Weapons have decent heft, while individual weapons feel and sound different from each other (even if the damage they do is largely similar). Gone, though, is the unlimited ammunition of the previous game; now we have “thermal clips,” which makes the gunplay much like every other shooter out there. The tactical pause menu is present, and is still useful, as companion AI is still not the best. +/- The Mako rover (and planetary exploration) is gone. Rejoice, ye who hated the Mako. +/- Mass Effect 2 is a complete experience without DLC. Several DLC are great adventures (Lair of the Shadow Broker, Kasumi, Arrival, Overlord), but aren't included with the base or Deluxe editions. - No, the Deluxe Edition does NOT include all the DLC. - The DLC is pricey. Buying ALL the available, non-free DLC will cost $25 on the Origin store. - Logging in to EA’s “Cerberus Network” is required to play with DLC installed. - Capped at 62 fps. This can be unlocked via a config file. - Load times are oddly high. - RPG elements are greatly reduced / gone. Skills and talents are extremely streamlined. Using one skill puts ALL of the skills on cool-down, forcing you to create combos with your squad (in the first Mass Effect, using a skill triggered a cool-down for only that skill). The loot and inventory management is completely gone; instead Shepard finds credits, medigel, the occasional weapon and “various industrial bits” (seriously, that’s what some scrap is called). - Forced sequence of missions. Unlike the first Mass Effect, which allowed you to play the primary missions in any order, Mass Effect 2 tiers the primary missions in prescribed stages. My understanding is that the game was forced into this format so console players wouldn’t need to keep swapping discs. - The famous “climbing bug” can happen anywhere, any time Shepard makes contact with terrain. It has never been patched. Quick-save often. Mass Effect 2 is a superb sequel and one of the great narrative-driven space adventure games. It would easily be worth the asking price, but the pricey DLC means you should only get it when on sale for 75% off. EA is mercilessly milking a fantastic game because they know they have a true classic on their hands, and they know that people will pay to experience it. *smh*

Advertised as an open-world fps, Homefront: The Revolution plays more like a shooty Assassin’s Creed game (sans wall-climbing): stealth, take strongholds, fight for a few minutes, then run, hide, and wait for the alarm to dissipate before getting back to it. Stunning graphics, decent world design and story are marred by repeated activities, heavily re-used character models and numerous minor complaints. If you don’t mind a little grind, it is a 7/10 and worth a purchase at $10 or less. Total size on my hard drive (game + story DLC): 69.2 GB ++ Stunning graphics, courtesy of Cryengine. + Detailed environments. Smoke, dust, rubble, garbage, worn brick. Even house interiors (seen through windows) are highly detailed. + Secret routes. Look for ways up and around obstacles. A climb up scaffolding can provide access to a building’s interior – and a secret stash of supplies. Stuff like this is everywhere. Also applies to Stronghold takeovers; there is always more than one entrance. + Hit-and-run gameplay reminiscent of the old Assassin’s Creed games. Brady doesn’t have much health; pitched battles are suicide. Get in, hit your target, get out, and (if an alarm was raised), hide. + The more territory you take from the enemy, the more Resistance NPCs spawn in a district (who will provide combat support). The more territory you take, the more brazen your actions can become. + I loved the massive aerial drones patrolling the districts. If its seeker beam finds you, you are done for. 20-30 enemies will immediately spawn (with mech backup). Forced me to move carefully and stick to buildings and cover, even in wide-open zones. + Motorcycle through the debris. Don’t want to be stealthy? Maybe speed is more your style. Bikes are everywhere, and make rapid travel a snap. + Mod your weapons. Simple and easy to understand. Completely change the way a weapon functions with a few quick clicks. +/- Story does nothing unique, but is well-told. +/- Story DLC are excellent, though short. Recommended if you can get them cheap. Aftermath and Beyond the Walls conclude protagonist Brady’s story; The Voice of Freedom is a brief prequel starring another character. +/- Not a massive sandbox open world. Each district is its own area, with loading screens connecting them. +/- Recruit Resistance NPCs to help with a fight. Nice in theory, but their bad AI results in them dying almost immediately. +/- Silent protagonist in the main campaign, but not in the DLC. Odd. +/- Optimization is still meh. Max settings @1080p saw an average of 40-50fps on my RX 470, which isn’t bad (this is CryEngine we’re talking about). +/- Soundtrack works. Nothing special. But kudos for having different combat and ambient themes for different districts. +/- Some grind involved. Same activities and enemies in every district. This puts the focus on the level design (which is excellent), but it can feel same-y after while. - Multiplayer is dead. If you have some friends, it will still work. - Starts badly. The opening doesn’t make a good first impression – of either mechanics or characters – and the first two districts underwhelm as well. - If not for Brady’s lack of health, game is too easy. - Pitched battles are generally a bad idea, but if you can find a choke point, all the enemies will come funneling through one by one. - No take-back. We spend the entire game taking installations from the KPA, and never once (outside of story missions) do they try to reclaim anything – not a stronghold, not an outpost, nothing. - Re-used NPC character models. Not uncommon in a big sandbox game, but particularly egregious here. - Not enough interaction with people. They’re the ones we’re doing all of this for, and the best we ever get is having a fellow Resistance member say, “You’re doing great out there, Brady.” At least give me something, some personal stories told through exploring the environment (since we’re doing that anyway). Each district already has visual character; what of the character of the people who live there? The closest the game comes to doing this is in the collaborator district. - Flashpoints are the same two activities repeated over and over. Defend a stash, or take out a “duster” launch site. It’s great that the task of taking over the district is broken up with, “Hurry here, folks are under attack!” But it all starts to feel the same. Despite its faults, I had a lot of fun here. Perhaps I was simply fortunate not to play it at release, but now, this is a competent fps game with a unique setting and gloriously detailed visuals. While not quite as packed with activities as my favorite game of revolt (Red Faction: Guerrilla), Homefront: The Revolution provides far more than its mixed reputation promises. Recommended, and I hope the new owners of Deep Silver, THQNordic, recognize this franchise’s potential as a guerrilla warfare fps game.

Stories: The Path of Destinies is an isometric hack ‘n slash with pleasantly simple combat, RPG skill trees, beautiful graphics (Unreal 4), great soundtrack and voice acting. The repetitious mode of story-telling can quickly bore if gameplay, not story, is your focus. Still, given all the positives, easily worth a buy at 33% off, and it frequently discounts much lower than that. Recommended. Total size on my hard drive: 1.8 GB + Beautiful comic-book-style graphics (Unreal 4). + Beautiful soundtrack. + Excellent voice-acting. The narrator carries almost the entire burden of the dialogue, and he is more than up to the task. + Narrator’s monologue is funny and engaging. From funny observations upon death (“Where’s the cake? I was told there would be cake!”) to wry self-congratulation after a perfect combat sequence (“Such a pity there were no cameras to record that!”), the narration kept me smiling. The commentary pool for non-story-related actions is large, too, so repeated phrases are not a concern. + Good skill-tree. Talents make a big difference in gameplay. + Full controller support. +/- Frame-drops in a few areas (the desert / lava level in particular), but otherwise runs locked at 60fps maxed @1080p on my RX 470. +/- Isometric camera angle is usually handled well enough, but the usual frustrations of poor angles in tight hallways is still present. +/- Combat flows well enough once its tricks are learned. Targeting is sometimes weirdly inaccurate. The hero is easily staggered, leading to near-helpless death at times. Other times, the action queue gets clogged. Remember that combat is timing-based, and you’ll be fine. Button-mashers will die often. +/- Story is decent, but nothing special. Save a kingdom from its evil, power-hungry ruler. You play as a fox, who is in love with a cat. Ravens are the enemies, while the scientists are toads and the rogues are rabbits. +/- The story is divided into 5 chapters. At the beginning of each chapter, a choice is made regarding where to go next. The choices are mutually exclusive. Reach the end (in about an hour), and the story returns to the first chapter, where you can play the story again and make choices you didn’t make the first time. It’s cool to discover what happens if you choose choice B instead of voice A, but you’ll still be playing the same levels (with small variations) throughout. +/- Crafting is rudimentary, simple, and only for crafting swords. +/- No waypoint marker. Can result in missing chests and side-loot. Not a major worry, as chances are you’ll be playing the level again. Stories: The Path of Destinies is a fun if repetitive experience. The developers do their best to hide the repetition in a variety of finely-wrought trappings, and for the most part, they succeed. A solid 7/10.

Thief (2014) has tons of stuff to loot and intricate mazes for level design. However, the narrow city streets, linear missions, stupid AI and pathetically thin side-quests reveal there is little of the classic Thief dna present. Still a decent stealth game that tries to throw some action into the mix. High production values, some decent levels, fluid gameplay and great atmosphere make Thief (2014) worth a purchase when discounted. Total size on my hard-drive (Master Thief edition): 25GB ++ Customizeable difficulty that goes beyond the usual Easy-Normal-Hard (though these are present as well). Thief uses a points system that lets you create your own level of difficulty. Want to have only one life? Killed in one hit? Limited / no ammo? It’s up to you. + Graphics. It takes some horsepower to crank the settings, but when you can, the result looks amazing. + Save anywhere, any time. + Rhythmic stealth gameplay. Spending too much time calculating the next move destroys the flow of the world around you. Save often, and take chances. I found a high risk / high reward style the most enjoyable way to play. + Horror elements. It needed more of this, but what we got is great. The asylum level (Chapter 5) is fantastic. + Every level design is a maze. Acquiring different tools can open up new paths. + From church windows to Ector’s “metal man” to the name of the inn, tributes to the older Thief series abound. +/- Decent story that is frustratingly open-ended. Yes, there are supernatural elements, but an attempt was made to keep things “realistic” - or at least based in a believable reality. It’s a personal tale of Garrett and a job that he messed up. Presentation is very Hollywood – complete with stereotypical shady characters and the occasional cheesy one-liner. +/- Soundtrack is decent, though it seems more suited to Batman than Thief. +/- Excellent sound design in general, but ambient npc conversations frequently glitch, triggering multiple instances at the same time over the top of each other. - Kleptomania simulator is the bulk of the gameplay. There’s important loot to be found, but most of the time you’ll be opening every drawer and cabinet in a house, hunting for silver spoons and gilded mirrors. And half of the time, the drawers that you open are empty anyway. - Only two major clients besides Basso, each of which provides three small missions. - Stupid AI. Guard paths are very predictable. Patient players will have little trouble ghosting the levels. - No fast-travel. Maybe this shouldn’t be a requirement in a Thief game, but it would have saved me the trouble of traveling from one end of the city to the other, using the same alleys and rooftops I’ve used many times before while enduring half-a-dozen loading screens. Fast-travel between inns / hideouts would have been appreciated. - Reused NPC character models. EVERYWHERE. - Reused ambient conversation. It’s not unusual to hear the same conversation between different pairs of guards twice within five minutes. - Small levels, usually more typical of ports of mobiles games (which Thief is not). Loading screens everywhere. - Pre-rendered cutscenes are oddly choppy. I enjoyed the time spent in Thief (2014), but those hoping for a modern embodiment of the classic Thief games will be very disappointed. A competent stealth adventure that is best in small doses – as the small scope and limited story cannot hide what eventually becomes repetitive gameplay.

Explore an ancient civilization's artifacts minutes before "something happens." Each session lasts about 10 minutes before the "event" occurs; discovered artifacts carry over from session to session until you've found them all. Once all are acquired, you unlock a way to preserve a small bit of the civilization before the disaster strikes. Time moves in slow motion; water barely flows, fire hardly flames. A polygonal art style hides the fact that the landscape is very bare, and the vegetation is composed of stock Unity assets. Buildings, monuments and (a few) trees are well-drawn and unique. Occasional dips under 60fps @1080p max settings (i5 + RX 470). Beautiful soundtrack. A short adventure that is soon over. Worth it at 75% off for walking-sim fans and achievement hunters (it's very easy to 100% the game). Total size on my hard-drive: 750MB

A short (30 minutes) walking sim that seems to drag on forever. Story is extremely thin, world is sparse and barely populated, and graphics (Unreal 4) are oddly blurry (even with Motion Blur turned off and Resolution Scaling set to 100%) while distance textures are extremely low-res. There is an alternate “Noir” mode that plunges you into an alternate-reality, grainy black-and-white aesthetic with a different “story.” But despite some beautiful music, Bottle had difficulty keeping me engaged. Look for it in a bundle, but otherwise don’t bother. Total size on my hard-drive: 2.8 GB

Alan Wake returns, sort of. A short, 4-hour story accompanies a decent (but solo) arcade experience. But will players survive the re-used assets to complete the single-player campaign? That is the real question. Worth a purchase when discounted if you enjoyed the previous game, but there just isn’t a lot of content here. Total size on my hard-drive: 2.4 GB + Alan Wake is back. This takes place after the second “Special” episode of the first game. + Excellent (if occasionally low-res) graphics. Well-optimized. + New weapons. An assault rifle, sub-machine gun, auto-shotgun, crossbow – in keeping with American Nightmare’s focus as an arcade game, there are a number of new weapons that all handle and feel different. A big improvement over the first Alan Wake game, which only had a small number of weapons to choose from. + New enemies. Again, a by-product of the arcade focus, but the new enemies look nasty and fit right in with the world Alan Wake. Some don’t respond to light in the way you’d expect, so be careful. + Great sound design. Sometimes the tap-tap of footsteps is all you hear before you are attacked. + Short but great soundtrack from Petri Alanko once again. More great songs from Poets of the Fall as well. + The story is more of a pulp-style adventure, with garish over-acting from the villain and a Twilight Zone-style voice-over. A departure from the Stephen King-inspired first game, but it works well enough – especially in conjunction with the collectible manuscript pages, which supply a large amount of backstory. +/- Collecting manuscript pages is required to unlock the more advanced weapons. Bad news for people who don’t want to be bothered with collectibles. +/- Arcade mode is simple: fight hordes of “taken” and survive until the sun rises. The new guns and weapons, plus some well-designed arenas make this decent (if solitary) fun. Only five maps, and unlocking advanced weapons depends on how many manuscript pages you collected in the single-player story. - The looping nature of the story results in reuse of the same three levels for the entire single-player campaign. Not only the levels, but Alan’s actions and most of the events are repeated as well. It’s a Groundhog Day / Source Code / Edge of Tomorrow style narrative gamble that might work on the first playthrough, but only hard-core fans will want to replay it. - Though set after the events of the first game, not a proper sequel. More **** of what is happening with no time to go into detail. I was (and am) happy to get more Alan Wake, but with a proper sequel being forever put off by Remedy, American Nightmare is a sad, short epilogue to what promised to be a unique suspense / horror franchise. Buy it (at a discount), enjoy it, and hope Alan Wake 2 will happen someday.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is one of the classics of gaming’s “second golden age” (roughly 2007 – 2013). Story, music, characters, gameplay are all of the highest order. Belongs in the library of every gamer who appreciates story-telling mixed with stealth-action gameplay. Worth the purchase price of $20, but frequently discounts to $5 or less, where it is an incredible bargain. Total size on my hard-drive: 18.2 GB The Director’s Cut Edition adds some visual tweaks and re-designed boss-battle environments. The Missing Link DLC is included, folded into the main story campaign. + Story with serious themes. Starts with a literal bang and is paced well. + Relevant side-quests that can contain important backstory. + Choices matter. + Voice-acting is excellent. + Superb soundtrack by Michael McCann. Synth-orchestral sound with a techno feel at times. + Multiple ways to play (with the right upgrades). Stealth? Shooter? Fall safely from any height? Punch walls (discovering new passages)? Up to you. High replayability. + Multiple level paths. You’ll end up at the same objective, but there are at least two paths to get there (and there are frequently more). + The Director’s Cut features completely revamped boss-battle environments. Stealth builds are now completely legit. + Addictive hacking mini-game. It’s over in seconds, too, so it doesn’t slow the gameplay down much. + Individual weapons. Decent selection, and they all look and feel unique. + Well-optimized, and not resource-intensive. Locked 60fps @1440 on an RX 470 with everything maxed except Depth of Field (which is an effect I dislike, so it was turned off). Back in the day, it played fine on the desktop APU I used to have (using the integrated graphics). If you have a low-spec computer and are looking for a good game to play, Human Revolution should be near the top of your list. +/- Not an “open world.” Rather, a few small hub areas that have some side-missions. Allows for more focused level design, but can feel claustrophobic at times. +/- The Missing Link DLC is included in the main campaign (right after leaving China for the second time). You lose all of your upgrades once this section of the game begins (though you get them back once this section is complete, PLUS any upgrades you accumulated). Generally, the insertion of the Missing Link DLC slows down the later part of the game, but narratively it makes complete sense. And Commander Burke is a great adversary. +/- Graphics are fair. Light-shafts and shadows look great, but skyboxes look low-res and facial expressions are wooden. Edges are jaggy even with anti-aliasing cranked up (down-sampling is the best solution). - Mouths frequently don’t sync properly during conversations. - UI doesn’t scale properly. The HUD is tiny at 1440p; I can’t imagine it at 4k. - Some odd controls with kb + m. Right click and hold to enter cover. Iron sights is a toggle of the middle mouse button. - Predictable, stupid enemy AI. Get even a few upgrades, and ghosting levels becomes incredibly easy. Even with those few drawbacks, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is one of the very best stealth / role-playing / action hybrids. It belongs to none of those genres, but takes the best elements of each and adds in an emotional story whose morals exist in planes of grey. A game to play through, reflect upon, and play again. 9/10

Couldn’t finish the game because it kept crashing at the same spot. War in the North does have a bad history with ATI / Radeon, but still, this is what I tried. - Verified the file cache - Tried various compatibility modes - Tried installing the Large Address Aware patch - Started a new game (twice) (in case the save was corrupted) Still resulted in repeated crashing in Chapter 2. Thoughts on the game before I reached the unplayable moment (I only played as a single-player): If you can get the game to work for you, it's a 5/10 game that isn't special, but isn't awful either. Total size on my hard-drive: 7.4 GB + Ran well until the crashing started. Maxed 1440p produced a solid 60fps on my RX 470. + Decent story from what I could tell. Begin in Bree at the Prancing Pony, where we briefly meet Aragorn (who has heard tell of some hobbits coming south carrying a precious burden). He lays out our task: there are agents of Sauron in the North who are also doing the evil lord’s wishes, and it is our duty to find them, expose them, distract them, and generally cause as much trouble as possible. The linear levels help keep the narrative focused. + Decent animations. Walk, run, combat, faces – all are of a very high level for a game from 2011. Good finishing moves, too. +/- Very linear levels. +/- Limited use of destructible environments. Nice when they appear, but it’s not often. +/- Graphics remind me of Dragon Age II’s. Simplistic but quite nice at times. +/- Stupidly simple combat. Played single-player, the game seems to be begging for a Dragon Age-style tactics menu to create a pattern of behavior for the others in the squad. But there simply isn’t enough depth in the combat to make use of such a system if it were there. Mash left-click, and when a small yellow triangle appears over the head of an enemy, right-click to get a critical hit (you can right-click at any time for a heavy attack, but it takes so long you’ll do the same damage just by mashing left-click). There are skill trees that seem to make some difference on combat, but I never got far enough for them to make much difference. Dodging is also sometimes required. Bosses are damage sponges. +/- The three characters all have unique combat styles. Though the half-elven mage is an obvious support class who mostly uses her staff to hit people with, not launch spells. Magic is generally disappointing. The Ranger archer fights best from a distance (obviously) who isn’t too quick to switch to the sword he carries. The dwarf soldier is the heavy hitter, and the one with the worst AI, so he is the best choice for a single-player experience. +/- A nice amount of loot. Travel back to hubs often to sell stuff. +/- Simplistic crafting to make potions and slottable gems. No tutorial for this. I stumbled across it because I noticed something that looked like a gem slot on a weapon. - Character customization is awful. Choose from presets. That’s it. - Playing single-player, you can only switch between characters at the end of a level. Or by quitting to the menu, selecting a different character, then loading the game. Not recommended because it kept crashing on me, but before I reached that point War in the North seemed like a well-executed, slightly boring hack ‘n slash whose primary appeal is to Lord of the Rings fans. Crashing aside, it's an average (5/10) game with nothing obviously incompetent about it, but nothing stands out either. A curiosity purchase, nothing more.

Tomb Raider Anniversary is a solitary puzzle-platformer whose gameplay and atmosphere remain as excellent (and nostalgic) as ever. Visually, it has aged a bit, but the deft platforming and superb atmosphere make this one of the best presentations of “classic” Lara Croft. Worth the full price, but frequently discounts much lower. Total size on my hard-drive: 4GB + Graphics are simple by today’s standards, but have aged well. (Resolutions go up to 3840x2160.) Lara’s face conveys more expressions than faces in more modern, supposedly more “realistic” games. + Stunning soundtrack. + Not much voice-acting, but what is there is excellent. Keeley Hawes as Lara is always a plus. Some excellent work from Grey DeLisle as well (more famous as Catwoman in Batman: Arkham City). + Excellent platforming puzzles. + Great variety of levels and level design. Some are small and linear, others are large and spacious. + Ability to replay individual levels. + Great enemy variety - gorillas, lions, centaurs, rats, bats, wolves, bears, and others. +/- Story works as an excuse to explore ancient dig sites. It improves towards the end. +/- Directional QTEs (press the correct WASD key). Stay alert in cutscenes. +/- Tomb Raider Anniversary is a game from an age when natural curiosity was a gamer’s guide to progression. There is no map, there are no waypoints. Lara gives you cryptic clues if you bring up her journal, but that’s it. Some gamers will love this self-reliant imperative, others will loathe it. - Aim lock-on frustrates as often as it satisfies. Free-aim works well, but Lara cannot move when it is engaged, making it only suitable for puzzles. - Unclear boss patterns require trial-and-error – or keeping a walkthrough handy. - Inconsistent control scheme, which can lead to high levels of frustration. For instance, sometimes a complicated jump requires pressing the direction key (WASD) + Jump (spacebar). Other times, the exact same maneuver will require pressing Jump followed by the direction key. - Inconsistent camera angles (important for executing complicated jumps). Hard sometimes to tell if pressing back or left/right is what the situation requires. Experimentation can result in Lara’s death and loading a checkpoint.

This review is of the single-player campaign. Rage is what we would get if Fallout 3 and Quake got together and had a kid, with Borderlands as the mid-wife. Excellent shooting mechanics, decent story and fantastic level design set in a debris-filled post-apocalyptic wasteland littered with bandits. What seems an “open world,” though, is really a set of corridors connecting the various hubs, enemies are endless reused, and pointless crafting slows the otherwise swift, deft gameplay. Recommended at a discount of 50% off (for the game + DLC) or more. Total size on my hard-drve: 23.8 GB ++ Level design. The Dead City, the Distillery, Jackal Canyon… Simply great all round. + Excellent characters. They’re never explored in depth, but everyone is unique, with few re-used voice actors. + Great selection of weapons. A variety of specialty ammo was a nice touch. + Good driving mechanics. + Great atmosphere. Walk into a bar in Wellsprings and there are people chatting, a jukebox is playing in the corner, yellowish light filters through the dirty windows, and a dusty haze hangs in the air. + Excellent soundtrack. + Excellent voice-acting. + Excellent facial animations and body language (especially for its age). Not normally something I’d notice, but I played Rage right after playing Mass Effect Andromeda. What a breath of fresh air Rage proved to be. + Well-optimized on PC. Plays at a silky-smooth 60fps on my Radeon RX 470. +/- Story works, but is hardly special. Our hero was locked in cryostasis when a threat to Earth materialized. The threat happened, we wake and enter the “new” world. We join a Resistance movement, fight bandits and Authority. Fairly standard stuff. Sequel-bait ending right as things are getting interesting. Rage is six years old. At the time of writing, there is no sequel in sight. +/- Fun mini-games, but there aren’t enough of them, and they’re repeated in each city hub with no variation. +/- The textures. Up close, they’re awful, some of the worst I’ve seen. Stand a back a bit, and they look amazing. Forcing 8k textures via a config file helps, but doesn’t solve the issue. Landscapes and vistas look impressive, but wall switches don’t. +/- Racing seems shoe-horned into Rage. It’s a welcome change of pace, but it seems like it would be a waste of resources in a post-apocalyptical wasteland. +/- No day / night cycle while you’re out in the wasteland. +/- Almost all the women are hawt. It took an asteroid slamming into earth to turn almost every woman you meet into a model. But hey, I’m not complaining. Though it does feel a bit weird to rescue this one (hot) woman from bandits (who had tied her up in a very suggestive position); she then takes up residence in your trophy room as... one of your trophies?! Wtf. - Frame-rate is capped at 60. Unlocking it will require a mod (called “id5 Tweaker.”) - Level paths might be well-designed, but too often they feel tight and narrow. - There’s no point to crafting except to pad the gameplay. Why not stumble across grenades? You do a few times, but more often you’ll be looking for the four components needed to craft grenades. - There are a few bosses, but no final boss – surprising in an Id game. - Enemy AI is extremely predictable. Soldiers tend to stick behind cover; mutants will charge your position relentlessly. Once you know who you’re facing, combat rarely surprises. - Aside from your initial dune buggy, no customization options for your vehicles. - Not many enemies. Mutants, Authority, and bandits. That’s it. - Not a true open world. Hubs connected by corridors that you will traverse repeatedly, fighting the same re-spawning bandits over and over. Most buildings require a loading screen. - Fetch-quest missions. Most of the side-content is fetch-quest filler that frequently involves... - Re-used levels. Expect to play some levels twice. The second time is sometimes in reverse of the first time. - Awful mouse acceleration. There is a Mouse Sensitivity slider in the options that helps (there is partial controller support). - Alt-tabbing out of the game disables v-sync. After you alt-tab back into Rage, you’ll have to visit the options menu to turn it back on. Rage turns out to be a mixed bag of good and not-so-good in nearly equal measure. It’s definitely possible to have some fun with it in a shoot-y sort of way, but it’s an “over fast, on to the next game” experience instead of wanting to immediately return to the world for another playthrough. I’d love to see a sequel – the world building is first-rate – but I hope we see more than a thin plot used as an excuse to shoot things in obviously re-used levels. There is real potential in the Rage franchise. As it stands, though, Rage is slightly above average - 6 /10.

Mass Effect Andromeda disappoints in almost every major aspect, from lore to story. And the combat, while generally excellent, suffers from repetitive enemies and an annoying “profile” system that restricts how you play instead of providing the freedom that was promised. There are a few good moments (most in the loyalty missions), but they can’t make up for the failures. Total size on my hard-drive (after Patch 1.10): 47.3 GB + Nomad is great. Handles and drives well. + The planets’ design is fantastic. Great fun to explore. + Some of the most beautiful landscapes you’ll see. + Great sound design. + The Angara are an interesting new species. + The new ship, the Tempest, is filled with atmospheric lighting and cool views of space through the many windows (it’s a recon ship, not a warship like the Normandy). + Squad-mate banter while exploring in the Nomad. Funny, a lot of it, and it triggers quickly. + Jump jets! The levels make good use of them, adding a verticality to exploration and combat that simply wasn’t there in previous Mass Effect games, and is a welcome addition. +/- Enemy AI is quick to flank. Otherwise, dumb as a rock. +/- Characters are a mixed bag. Scott / Sara are betas who take make sure everyone is comfortable, and rarely get the chance tell someone to go to hell. Peebee, Vetra, Lexi and Jaal feel genuinely different, and are fun to talk to. Drack is a (mostly) funny old krogan, who was angry that I chose to save the salarian pathfinder instead of saving three krogan scouts (it’s not like the Pathfinder is an avatar of the species or anything). Liam’s annoying but is clearly meant to be funny. And Cora… well, Cora trained with asari commandos. That’s all you need to know. - In a game about building colonies and creating a new home, I hoped for a little more than, “Do side missions to accumulate randomly assigned ‘viability’ points, go to a location, hold E to settle.” - I have logged over 1k hours in Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer. Andromeda’s is built on many of the same principles, but now with jump-jets! It’d be great if the maps weren’t so small and confined. While jump-jetting, am always worried about running into walls, pipes, boxes, other players... Lack of enemy variety was an issue in the single-player campaign, and multi-player highlights the issue even more. In addition to all of this, the netcode is a buggy, laggy mess. - Glitches abound, even after the final patch. - Corrupted saves. - Frequent crashing on loading. - Crafting. Cumbersome number of components, poor interface. - Combat “profiles.” You can create and choose from up to 4 “profiles,” each of which contains only three skills (from any skill tree). Switch between profiles to access the different skills. But switching to a different profile immediately puts all your skills on cooldown, largely defeating the purpose of switching profiles in combat. Obvious console-itis. - The same enemies on every planet. Kett, human pirates, anti-human angara, and a few monsters / animals. Some have extra health to make them bosses. That’s it. - Cannot customize squad-mates’ loadout. - No pause screen in combat; no tactical interface. - The Paragon / Renegade character system is gone with nothing to take its place. It’s hard to meaningfully role-play – which means there’s little reason to replay. - SAM (the AI) never shuts up, and frequently cuts off / interrupts squadmate dialogue. - All asari have the same face (except squad-mate Peebee). - No quarians. There are turians, asari, humans and salarians on the Nexus, irrespective of the status of their Arks. Krogan are present too. Why no quarians? - Awful male turian designs. - Facial animations are still bad. - Generally sub-par voice acting, with a few exceptions. - The music soundtrack is nearly invisible. - Childish conversation writing. - The story works, but never surprises. Perhaps because so much of it is borrowed or rehashed from the previous Mass Effect games. The Kett threat is a retread of the Reaper threat (exaltation = ascension, conversion = indoctrination). The Archon even sounds like the Reapers when he states, “We have exalted countless species.” - The outrage over the lack of Quarian DLC isn’t just fan-manufactured. A story involving the Quarian Ark is teased in the final moments of the main story. **** you, BioWare. - Poor treatment of Mass Effect lore. Numerous retcons and alterations for no reason. There are more issues that I could bring up, but I’m limited by space. Worth a purchase at $10, because there are a lot of things to do, the planets are vast, and the combat is fun. But don’t expect a Mass Effect game. I was prepared to give it an 8 or a 9, I was pumped and ready to explore a new galaxy with new characters. 4/10 because instead BioWare gave us a plethora of poor design choices coupled with the boring leftovers of last night’s feast - served cold.

If you ever dreamed of traveling a galaxy, exploring strange new worlds and interacting with other sentient species – combined with a choice-laden narrative – then Mass Effect is a dream come true in many ways. While older now and not without its faults, it has aged well and remains one of the best and greatest space RPG’s ever made. Recommended at full price. Total size on my hard drive: 10.1 GB + Great story. As the commander of a stealth frigate, stop a threat to the galaxy that only a few believe actually exists. Travel the galaxy in search of proof, encounter strange species and abandoned settlements, and discover the secrets of a lost civilization. + Great characters. From the stern Turian, Garrus, to the sympathetic blue Asari, Liara, to your ship’s crew (doctor, pilot, navigator), these are some of the best characters to come from BioWare. + A fully realized and crafted lore. There is a ton of backstory behind every structure and every species. + Many planets to explore. Explore a star system in the hopes of finding a planet to land upon and scour for resources, artifacts, pirates, slave traders, or anomalies. + Choices that matter. You’ll have to make some life-or-death choices (some of which can actually result in death of others). It is even possible to avoid one particular boss-fight via the correct conversation choices. + Great soundtrack. A synth-heavy approach melded with orchestral bits. + Graphics + facial animations are still superb. Yes, it’s an older game now. It’s a bit low-res and faces are often stiff. Mass Effect was ground-breaking at the time it launched (2007), and now, ten years later, it’s still better than many new games. (There is an HD texture mod which brings the textures up to date.) +/- Sparsely populated levels. A sign of when it was made, so not a negative, but sometimes the levels feel a bit empty. +/- Like Dragon Age (another BioWare franchise), there is a lot of conversation – easily a third of the game. I like it, and it’s easy to skip through if you don’t, but it is everywhere. +/- Combat tries to combine tactical and shooter elements (complete with tactical pause menu), and while successful, isn’t always fun. All guns have unlimited ammo. Enemy snipers can be one-shot game-overs. +/- The DLC is not included in the Steam download, but is available from EA for free. +/- There is a lot of hate for the Mako rover, which is used to drive around and explore planets. It’s fine, it works. It can get a little freaky with gravity, though… +/- Capped at 62fps. This can be unlocked in a config file. +/- The highest resolution I’ve played at (without altering config files) is 1440p. The Unreal 3 engine can handle 4k, but I haven’t tried running Mass Effect at 4k and have no idea if it would work without trouble. - If you were hoping for space combat, sorry, there is none. Any space combat occurs in cutscenes. - Some cringe-y dialogue. Despite the many AAA aspects of Mass Effect, sometimes the dialogue cheapens it to B-movie levels. - After the tutorial level, the game’s pace slows to a crawl as we’re left running around a station, completing RPG-style missions before heading back out into space. It’s an error in tempo that can (and has) caused many people trying Mass Effect for the first time to lose interest. - Horrible inventory management. You have a list of stuff that is grouped by level. And… that’s it. - Too much loot. Not as much of an issue if the inventory were easy to manage. There is lootable stuff around almost every corner. - Too easy to earn money. Half-way through, you’ll have a million credits from selling loot. Not impossible to have 10 times that by the end of the game. - Graphical issues on AMD cpus. Yes, cpus, not graphics cards, are the cause of the problem. Affected are any Bulldozer or Athlon chips. Phenoms are fine. Haven’t heard if the problem persists on Ryzen. It wasn’t until recently that I experienced the game with all shadows working correctly (switched to Intel). - Startup issues. Usually setting the compatibility mode to Windows XP gets the game to start. Issues aside, Mass Effect is still a good RPG, cursed with some odd controls and combat, but blessed with a great story and characters. That decisions made in this game can carry forward to Mass Effect 2 (and 3) via save imports is just the icing on this action-space-drama cake. An easy game to recommend, even now, ten years after its release.

If you love causing wide-spread destruction, Just Cause 2 is a fun time. Looking for something other than a massive collect-a-thon, like maybe a decent story and some meaningful collectibles? Nah. Just Cause 2 doesn’t give a damn. And that’s perfectly fine. A grind-y B-movie adventure in a (still) glorious island sandbox. Total size on my hard drive (with all DLC): 5GB + Great graphics, even for a game from 2010. Crank the sliders and enjoy. + Lots of weapons. You can also dual wield a few different combinations. + Lots of vehicles. Planes, trucks, cars, sports cars, bikes, APCs, attack helicopters, fighter jets – if you see it, you can drive it. + Inventive uses for the grapple. You might have seen gifs of two airliners grappled together. The grapple works on anything and everything, creating some very funny possibilities. + Geographically, Panau has a little bit of everything. Deserts, jungles, cities, towns, vacation resorts, snow-capped mountains, naval yards and airports. Then you can dive into the water and see what is beneath the surface... + Satisfying audio design, especially explosions. + There are upgrades you can take to ease the strain of the combat, but the endless hordes can get challenging. Don’t try to hold your ground, you won’t survive. AI is predictable, but aggressive as well. +/- Story. We’re secret operatives in the fictional island nation of Panau because Panau has got oil, and that’s something that ‘Murica wants, y’see. Yeehaw! Over-simplifying, but not by much. +/- Characters? We don’t need no stinkin’ characters – not when the standard adventure stereotypes will do. You’ve got your standard evil dictator, a crafty CIA boss, a pair of beautiful secret agents, and (of course) Rico Rodriguez himself, who possesses all the traditional action-hero traits. Local Panauan gangs? We’ve got your standard Communist gang, your religious fundamentalist gang, and your regular gangster gang. Not a negative because it’s clear this is all intentional. - 100%-ing the game requires a high amount of patience. Half-way through, there are no new techniques to learn; it becomes a repetitive grind. - Grind is essential anyway. Upgrades, for instance, are acquired by finding hidden weapon parts (collectibles). Much of the story is hidden behind “chaos levels.” Cause chaos by blowing stuff up, reach the desired level of chaos, do the mission, then cause more chaos to unlock the next mission. - Stronghold takeovers do provide some change in the monotony. Except they use the same mission patterns repeatedly. - Want to highjack a vehicle or hack a terminal? Quicktime events. Overall, Just Cause 2 is a fun if shallow ride. Sometimes, though, it’s cool to drive or fly around a nice sandbox destroying stuff without worrying about things like characters or story. Sometimes its good to just have fun.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel tells the story of how Handsome Jack progressed from being a corporate lackey to becoming the villain we know in Borderlands 2. It’s not a journey I asked to take, but since it’s here, I played it and had a good time – but with no camraderie, no Angel, minimal Claptraps, and little environment variety, much of the charm is missing. Gameplay is the same as previous games in the franchise, but now with oxygen tanks and low gravity. Worth a purchase for fans of the series and its co-op loot-and-shoot gameplay (which is as good as ever). New-comers to the franchise should look at Borderlands 2 instead; it is the better game. Total size installed on my hard-drive (base game + Season Pass): 10.4 GB The story tells the tale of Athena, an assassin encountered in the first Borderlands game, and how she was employed by Jack to save Pandora’s moon from the evil Captain Zarpedon who has taken over the Helios space station and is firing the station’s laser at the moon to destroy it because reasons (whew, that was mouthful). Zarpedon actually does have reasons, and you can find some Echoes lying around that tell more of her story; she’s actually a really interesting character. But like so many of the characters in the Pre-Sequel, she’s barely there. Mordecai and Brick only appear in cut-scenes, while Roland and Lilith stand around in the Up Over Bar doing nothing (with two lines of dialogue apiece when clicked upon). Tiny Tina provides some voice-over in True Vault Hunter mode, but otherwise only has one or two lines. Jack tells jokes constantly, but is never funny – not even in a “I’m ashamed of laughing but I’m laughing anyway” approach. And apparently it’s impossible to have a Borderlands game without Moxxi or Crazy Earl. Marcus is NOT present, but his vending machines are everywhere, even in the most unlikely of places. In place of Scooter is Janey Springs, and she is a bright, cheerful addition to a cast that is frequently far too glum. Unfortunately, the Pre-Sequel’s attempts at fun and funny is mostly meh. The areas feel smaller. Unlike Borderlands 2, which featured a great variety of environments, the Pre-Sequel features one style of terrain – the rocky surface of Pandora’s moon – and any variety happens in the in-door levels. The low-gravity was fun, and allowed for some really creative jumping puzzles. The oxygen requirement was limiting, though. It discouraged random exploration, because I was frequently checking my air amount to make sure I didn’t run out. This concern is somewhat mitigated by plentiful air pockets in every level, but still annoying. Most enemies are recycled from other games (and re-spawn very quickly). Now we have Torks instead of Skags, and they’re animated differently, but their function and hitpoints feel the same. There are fewer bosses than in previous Borderlands games, but the final boss is awesome, taking place in more old Eridian ruins. Design and atmosphere is great, even if it was easy to slice through all the enemies (I finished my first run at Level 26). As in previous Borderlands games, there are tons of things to loot, but few of them are useful. All the beam weapons are OP; they even helped me to wipe out the Zarpedon boss in less than five minutes – SOLO. Find one (or more!), organize your build around it, and proceed to plow through enemies. A nice addition to the gameplay is the ground-slam. Suddenly, facing hordes of creatures doesn’t seem like a fruitless endeavor. Jump, boost to a greater height (which uses oxygen!), then slam back into the ground for area-of-effect damage. The slam can be customized and upgraded like everything else. I found myself avoiding fire-based elemental weapons because fire needs an atmosphere in order to burn – making their use situational at best. Ice weapons + ground-slam (which **** frozen enemies) was a more than viable substitute. At the heart of any Borderlands game is the co-operative experience, and that is as good as ever. Getting four people together to save Pandora’s moon makes for a great time, with easy drop-in, drop-out. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is easily the lesser game of the trilogy, but it’ll scratch that loot-and-shoot itch. Recommended if you’ve just got to have more Borderlands. On DLC: - Two character classes, Handsome Jack and the Baroness. Seriously, Gearbox, stop cutting character classes out of the game to sell for an extra $10 apiece. Sheesh. - The Holodome Onslaught adds 10 more character levels and holographic horde mode. Having the character levels is nice, but the rest is like the holographic simulator in the Pinnacle Station DLC for the first Mass Effect. Remember that DLC? That’s right, no one does. - Claptastic Voyage is a great piece of story DLC – IF YOU ARE A FAN OF CLAPTRAP (I am, kind of. Depends on my mood). Otherwise, prepare to be annoyed in a big way.

Victor Vran, a Witcher and Torchlight hybrid, is a top-down, monster-hunter hack’n slash. Blessed with fun combat, great ambiance and large level design, it is cursed with mediocre voice acting, been-there-done-that story and an overly generous loot system (hello, clogged inventory). Four-player coop and a detailed challenge system are welcome additions. Worth a purchase at 66% off or more. Total size on my hard-drive: 4.3 GB + Large level design. While there are a few smaller levels that house challenge bosses, most are large and spacious, with secrets hidden everywhere. One of the best features of Victor Vran. + Good level of challenge. New areas are difficult, and after leveling and becoming OP, activate different hexes (Hex of Pain reduces Victor Vran’s health over time, Hex of Time speeds enemies, and so on) for additional challenge and greater rewards. + Nice graphics. Won’t knock your socks off, but the level of detail (especially in the city levels) is excellent. + Smooth and stable. Not a single crash or hang in 24 hours of gameplay. + Good choice of weapons. Shotguns, lightning guns, swords, rapiers, scythes, hammers, spell books. Each type of weapon can be found with a large number of different specializations – which bring their own buffs and debuffs. + The card-based skills system. Victor can equip of number of cards for passive combat bonuses. There are over a dozen varieties, and again each can be had in a number specializations. One of my favorites was “The Moon” card, which, when equipped, grants an ice-explosion when Victor lands a critical hit. Another good one is the “Blademaster” card, which adds over-drive at a faster rate and grants health-regen on crit with swords. Each card is available in a number of levels as well; Levels 1 through 4 were most common, but I did loot a Level 8 card (yes, the bonuses were massive!). There is limited number of points available to equip cards, though, and each level counts as a point; equipping four Level 4 cards isn’t possible when the point limit is less than 16 (the point limit increases as Victor levels up), forcing a continual mix-and-match of available cards in search of the best build. + Nicely ambient soundtrack. + Four-player coop. Drop-in / drop-out works well. The large levels work well with four players. + You can trade items with a demon named Geban. 10/10 would trade with Geban again. +/- Demon powers. Their usefulness is limited because their use requires over-drive. It can take a while for the over-drive bar to fill in the early stages. Certain weapons and cards can boost the charge rate, making them more useful. Then there are other cards that provide bonuses only if the over-drive bar is full – rendering demon powers useless, because emptying the over-drive bar by using a demon power would deactivate the bonus. +/- Bosses are nicely placed and paced, but don’t require any special tactics to defeat. +/- Someone made a pact with a demon and now the kingdom has to pay when the demons come to collect on the debt. There. That’s the story. +/- Victor Vran is voiced by the same actor who provides the English-language voice of Geralt in the Witcher games (Doug ****). Victor is a near carbon-copy of Geralt. I’m not sure if **** was told to do this, or if this is the limit of his skills as a voice actor. Other voice actors are good, but not special. +/- Too much loot. There are several different ways to sort it, but even for a loot-based game, there is a ton of loot. There is no limit on inventory space, though, so the primary issue is managing it. +/- + Leveling gear. Most things can be leveled using Transmutation in the hub. The outcome is completely RNG, though (unlike in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel where using Moonstone in the weapon grinder would guarantee an increase in rarity. Nothing like that here). - Some area challenges are impossible to complete unless massively over-leveled or playing online with other players. The online mode had about a dozen players active in it every time I started the game, so not an impossible task. - Some level challenges are mutually exclusive, meaning you are expected to re-play levels. - Some grinding for better gear required if soloing. No worse than in Borderlands, but expect it. - Armor is tied to outfits, which are only awarded via chests and level-up bonuses. That means the best plan is to kill the enemies fast and have a good stock of potions on hand. Worry about armor later. There are passive bonuses which can help. Overall, the looting, combat and level design are the most attractive features of Victor Vran, but unless grinding and completing challenges for loot is why you play games (not that there’s anything wrong with either!), you could get bored with it quickly. A good effort by developer Haemimont with franchise potential. Hopefully, future installments will showcase refinements of some great core systems.

Smaller and more intimate than any of its successors, Arkham Asylum thrives on its story, atmosphere and punchy free-flow gameplay. While missing the blatant heroics of Arkham City and Knight (and Origins), Asylum uses its smaller scope to provide a plethora of intricate details that would be lost in a larger game. A video-gaming classic. Total size on my hard drive: 8 GB You can view the opening of the game here. ++ No more Games For Windows Live (GFWL). It is gone. + Though older now, Arkham Asylum still looks great (Unreal 3). And, being older, it’s fairly easy to crank up the fancy settings. + Great voice-acting. Many major characters from Batman: The Animated Series are here, headlined by Hamill and Conroy, and includes Arleen Sorkin’s only appearance in the Batman games as Harley Quinn (Sorkin was replaced by Tara Strong for Arkham City and later installments). + Great soundtrack. Not as heroic as Arkham City’s, but darker and more moody. + Great atmosphere. Reeks of macabre gloom. + A large gallery of rogues in spite of being the smallest Arkham game (Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Bane, Joker, Zsasz and others). + The first iteration of the rhythmic Arkham combat is very satisfying, though with fewer gadgets and special moves compared to later games. + Packed with trivia and collectibles. Be sure to randomly scan with X-ray vision every now and then; you never know what you might discover. Refreshing to have some that are NOT Riddler-related. +/- Decent story. Once the Joker takes over, the momentum doesn’t slow until the end of the game. A few things might not make sense if you think about them too much, though. +/- Many narrow corridors make some levels feel very restricted. +/- Can be confusing to navigate. Sometimes you’re supposed to turn around and backtrack, but nothing tells you to do so. +/- Challenge maps are indeed challenging, but there aren’t as many as in later games. Still great for practicing the combat. - Backtracking. There is a lot of it. Clear an area, proceed on, get a new gadget, go back and – whoops, there are new thugs in the room, time to clear it again. - In what becomes a recurring theme in the Arkham games (except Origins, which was created by a different studio), boss battles are lack-luster. Usually they involve a horde-mode of some kind; others require spamming batarangs and dodging. - The final boss fight happens from a locked camera perspective. Not sure who thought that was a good idea. Arkham Asylum is easily the game that will be remembered for redefining Batman in the genre. While later games in the franchise scale great heights of impossible heroism, it’s Arkham Asylum that remains the preferred choice if you just want to “chill with Batman” without the fate of all of Gotham (and perhaps the world) hanging in the balance.

Fun campaign-style point-and-click adventure. Surprisingly long (around 6 hours). Story is simple and suitable for a junior audience. Sometimes it’s very clear what needs to happen next, but not clear how to accumulate the required money (the first Hero of the Kingdom game had the same issue.) Easy to visit and re-visit if you’re looking for some relaxing gameplay with minimum angst. Total size on my hard-drive: 263 MB

Batman: Arkham City is the high point of the Arkham franchise. The characters, the atmosphere, the story, the combat, the music, the visuals – all come together in a way that few other games achieve. Marred by some performance issues on PC (turning off DX11 features fixes most of the issues). If Batman has a place in your fandom, Arkham City has a place in your game library. Total size on my hard-drive (GOTY): 19GB + All of Gotham’s criminals have been thrown into an old, walled-off section of the city. A great excuse to bring the entire rogue’s gallery together. Exactly who brought this about and how? There’s your story. Simple but effective. (Like Arkham Asylum, the story is the creation of Paul Dini, who was a major part of the classic ‘90s TV show, Batman: The Animated Series.) + Batman, Robin, Catwoman, Hugo Strange, Penguin, Two-Face, Joker – there are many characters packed into Arkham City, all of them superbly voice-acted and visually realized. In addition to Kevin Conroy (as Batman) and Mark Hamill (as the Joker), Grey DeLisle brings perfection to Catwoman. + Great world design. Though not as large as Arkham Origins or the follow-up Arkham Knight, Arkham City is full of rooftops and shadowy corners that bear exploring. A number of buildings can be entered, bringing another dimension to the exploration (entering buildings is not seamless though - there is a loading screen). + The visuals look fantastic, if occasionally low-res. Light-shafts and shadows are particularly well-rendered, which play to Arkham City’s strengths. Lip-synch occasionally has issues. + Ambient sounds of crunching snow, wind and waves are enhanced by superb mood music and deep shadows everywhere. Finding the best brightness setting for your eyes can be tricky, but there’s no denying the atmosphere. + Soundtrack is superb. In contrast to Arkham Asylum’s more moody music, Arkham City immediately goes for an unabashed heroic feel. While the big heroic tracks are most obvious, the quieter tracks wonderfully fill the poignant silences. + The best combat of any of the Arkham games. Easy to understand, difficult to master. + Catwoman is playable in the open world. Awesome. + A nice selection of challenge maps that add playable Catwoman, Robin and Nightwing, each with their own combat styles and moves. + Harley Quinn’s Revenge DLC is included, and is a good two hours of supplemental gameplay material that happens post-campaign. + The GOTY edition includes everything – all DLC, skin packs, and challenge map packs. +/- The Catwoman DLC has been folded into the main story campaign. Can create some jarring moments when Batman is at a crucial plot point, and the cut-scene switches the story to Catwoman. - Performance on the PC is spotty, even now. Try cranking all the settings up, and the benchmark will run without issue, but the game will be plagued by stutter, both in the pre-rendered cutscenes (a video streaming issue) and in-game as the game-world loads in. I installed Arkham City to my SSD drive, I have a Haswell Core i5, 16GB of ram and an RX 470. My system is not the issue. Search the forums and you’ll find many complaints about cut-scene stutter and generally poor stream-in performance. Turn off DX11 graphical features and most of the problems disappear. Still have some issues with initial load-in stutter, but otherwise the issues were resolved. Maybe you won’t have issues if you’re on Nvidia instead of Radeon, but don’t be surprised if you do. - Frame-rate is capped at 62 by default. Altering a config file reveals the real fps limit to be around 200. Without the technical concerns, Arkham City wouldn’t just be a near-perfect Batman game, but one of the best games ever made. Still, the technical concerns are assuaged by the fact that Arkham City frequently discounts to $5 (or less!) on Steam during sales, where it offers incredible value. Heartily recommended.

Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek begins an adventure that will surprisingly span three games. There is a lot of content here – almost too much - though the sense of mystery is well-done and there are plenty of hidden-object puzzles that satisfy. Nice hand-drawn visuals complement a decent soundtrack of seven different tracks. Random hidden object puzzles usually interrupt any story that is being told; Enigmatis, though, adds a detective element to the story, with evidence to assemble and deductions to be made. It’s not at all complicated, but completing a puzzle really felt like I was searching for clues. Average voice-acting and a large world that lacks fast-travel dampened my enthusiasm, but like any first part of a trilogy, there is a lot that needs to be established (lore, setting, characters). Recommended for its plethora of puzzles, and as a prequel to the excellent Enigmatis 2. If you’re a parent looking for a game for your children to play, there is major peril, as well as themes involving blood and demonic rituals.

Enigmatis 2: The Mists of Ravenwood takes several steps forward over the previous game. The visuals are actually great this time – a wonderful mix of green forests and purple shadows in a hand-drawn style. While a few music tracks from the first game are re-used, the rest a newly composed and wonderfully capture the atmosphere. The story did a great job at maintaining my interest; the twist wasn’t hard to predict, though. Voice-acting is average, again. But the return of a refined evidence gathering mechanic, coupled with some fun new puzzle twists and environmental riddles, means the gameplay is excellent. And yes, there is fast-travel, thankfully! Recommended. And if you haven’t tried a hidden-object game before, this is one to consider. Though you might never look at ravens the same way again... Total size on my hard-drive: 900MB Wallpapers and music tracks from the game are included when downloaded via Steam. If you’re a parent looking for a game for your children to play, there is major character peril, as well as themes involving life-force being drained from people . Also some demonic rituals.

Homefront has an interesting premise that briefly satisfies, but the single-player campaign is extremely short (barely 4 hours) and the multi-player (what little there is) is over-run with hackers. It might have been worthwhile once, but now it is little more than a curiosity piece. Total size on my hard-drive: 12 GB + Nice graphics (Unreal 3). + Cool premise. The idea of North Korea conquering all of the United States is nonsense, but still an intriguing “what if” scenario. + Decent voice acting. +/- Single-player story has the capacity to shock. Everything else about it – from the level design to enemy design – is painfully average. No real bosses, just shoot your way through. A handful of weapons, but only a few that are useful. The characters have little, well, character. +/- Multiplayer is surprisingly still alive, but the few matches I was able to join were wrecked by wall-hackers and aim-botters. The maps are large, and feel very open while providing plenty of cover. Get a group of friends together, and you can have fun. When compared to other modern fps games like Battlefield 3 though, Homefront is competent, but nothing special. - Running feels like the player character is mired in mud. - Early levels look impressive, but distance objects in later levels are extremely low-res. Did the devs run out of money? There are other hints of a larger game – like the hub-like areas where you’re allowed to click on NPCs for some scripted dialogue. - Linear corridor levels. - The "stealth" sections are completely scripted. Just do what your AI team-mates tell you to do, and you'll be fine. - Checkpoint-based saving. (Manually saving hard-saves the last checkpoint.) - Little enemy variety. You have your basic solider, sniper soldier, and rocket-launcher soldier, with the occasional tank that takes three rockets to destroy. And there's also the automated gun-towers that somehow run on propane? (Throw a grenade to blow them up.) - The story mode feels like bits and pieces from a much larger game. The threat to America is done well, and there is some loss and sacrifice; but we never spend enough time with any of the characters to ever care. - There are several situations that unravel like this: an enemy soldier is scripted to advance to a certain point. If you have already advanced to that point, he’ll advance anyway, making his way blindly to his destination. Other times he’ll spawn instead marching to his destination – which means he’ll immediately begin firing at you, point-blank. It comes off feeling like the enemy AI is aggressive, when really it’s nothing of the sort. - This “programmed destination” thing plagues your AI team-mates as well. Several times I had a nice spot in cover, only to see myself moving slowly to the left or right. The AI controlled team-mate was literally pushing me out of cover and into enemy fire, because I was in his spot. - Iron sights is bound to right-click, as I would expect. What I did not expect is that right-clicking is a toggle. Right-click once, and iron sights are engaged until you right-click once again. This might work in a dedicated sniping game, but it’s a bad choice in a game that tries to have fluid and engaging combat. Ammo isn’t common, either, so precision is preferred over spraying bullets. Homefront also requires the PhysX Legacy driver (if you’re on Radeon). Not really an issue – I have several games that require it. What is an issue is that, after installing another game that uses PhysX (Starpoint Gemini 2), Homefront claimed PhysX was corrupted, and wouldn’t launch. Repairing PhysX in the list of programs didn’t work. I was intending to try some more multiplayer, but had been so underwhelmed by everything to this point that I just uninstalled. An interesting premise isn’t enough to recommend Homefront. Worth a purchase? Only if you’re curious, and probably not even then.

Fun little clicker game. Stand in the middle, enemies come from both sides, move the mouse over an enemy, click to reduce their health bar to nothing. Rinse and repeat. A lot of loot (with a non-sortable inventory) and a highly customizable loadout. You’ll need to play the levels several times before having good enough gear to beat all the waves. A lot of attempted humor; no cause or lifestyle is sacred, so be prepared. I occasionally had difficulty tracking my mouse cursor; visually, there is a lot happening in each level. Overall, a unique warped charm that is best consumed in small portions; try too much at once, and you might find yourself jaded by repetitious gameplay (or cursed with carpal tunnel syndrome from so much clicking). Total size on my hard drive: 1.4GB

Clearly inspired by games like Dear Esther, Home is Where One Starts takes a sandbox approach. Wander and explore to trigger the voice-over, examine items for story clues. All is done in a small but nicely detailed open world (built in Unity) while soothing music plays. Despite its short length (about 60 to 90 minutes to experience everything), worth a look for fans of the genre.

One of the classic "walking simulators," and one of the first, Dear Esther retains its wind-swept, desolate fascination in the Landmark Edition remastering. If you were a fan of the original or enjoy vague, fragmented story-telling, Dear Esther is still one of the best of its genre. The soundtrack (now recorded with real instruments) is superb, and the story bits change from playthrough to playthrough; the plot will remain similar, but who exactly is speaking is never clearly established. The graphics still look impressive, too. Worth a purchase at the asking price if you're a fan of the genre. That said, there are some issues: - Broken V-sync. It will not work, not through the game's settings, or through my graphics card driver settings (hello, screen-tearing!). In the original game, there was a Triple Buffering option in the settings that fixed the issue; the Triple Buffering option has been removed from the Landmark Edition. - The soundtrack has some amazing moments, but is poorly balanced at times (especially in the beginning of Chapter 4). The mid-range and upper frequencies are generally over-saturated, creating a shrill, brittle audio ambiance that wasn't present in the original version of the game. - Not all voice-over triggers as it is supposed to. I've played Dear Esther several times, I knew there was a voice-over before the ending cave in Chapter 2, but it took 4 playthroughs of the chapter before it triggered.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is an excellent return to the Deus Ex universe, though when compared to the previous entry in the series it has a weaker story, fewer notable characters, a larger, more sprawling hub, and (basic) crafting. Most major gameplay mechanics are copied from Human Revolution (with mild refinements); stealth gameplay is much improved and the side-quests are truly superb. Not as narratively engaging as Human Revolution, but still a good game and a worthy entry in the franchise. Go for the Digital Deluxe edition at a discount so you get all of the DLC. Total size on my hard-drive (including Season Pass): 60GB + Good voice-acting. Elias Toufexis as Jensen is as good as ever. Supporting cast is great as well. + Impressive light rays and hair animation. + Excellent side-quests. While not linked with the main story, they make everything better by providing valuable context. Some unique boss battles, too. + Stealth encounters are better than ever. A large number of choices, paths and methods await. + New augmentations that allow different ways to play. But if you want to play using the same styles and methods you developed by playing Human Revolution, you can do that too. + Plenty of mutually exclusive choices. At least two playthroughs are needed to see everything. + Prague is large and complex, divided into four districts. Tons to do and explore. +/- What’s the story? “Adam Jensen fights terrorism by completing quests for Interpol.” The only stake Jensen has in the fate of augmented people is that he himself is augmented. Depending on how seriously you role-play his commitment to aug-rights (versus his duty to his job), the story can feel tangential. +/- Much of Mankind Divided feels like a copy-paste of Human Revolution (with some refinements). Prague is the main hub instead of Detroit. Inventory is the same, gun-play is much better, hacking is refined, but is otherwise the same (the addition of “fog of war” on high-level objects is a nice touch). Even the story structure (though not the story itself) is similar. +/- Composer Michael McCann returns from Human Revolution. His ambient tracks are as engaging as ever (and in a few cases thematically linked to the ambient music in Human Revolution), but the big story moments lack a “big tune.” +/- Resource-intensive. Mankind Divided loves cpu cores and vram. +/- Lacks boss battles (I am talking about required bosses, not the optional ones.) I’m not sure having some would necessarily have improved the game, but they did help segment the different sections of Human Revolution. Mankind Divided offers no unique encounters to punctuate major story moments. - I never asked for crafting. There is literally zero reason for it to be in the game. - Sequel bait ending. - The choices you made in the main story result in different news broadcasts at the end of the game. Not much of a pay-off. - Lack of stand-out characters. Delara Auzenne and Jim Miller are well-drawn, but the rest of the cast is incredibly weak, especially compared to the plethora of unique individuals who populated Human Revolution. - Final boss is a joke of a fight. And you know he’s going to be the final boss from about half-way through the game. - Steam overlay did not work (I ran the game in Exclusive Fullscreen). - Game will occasionally lock up for a few seconds, then resume. Increases in frequency as the game advances, then disappears after the alpine level. Feels like an issue with texture stream-in optimization, but I’m just guessing. - Looping cut-scenes are used to hide the loading screens. Annoying, given how long the load-times are. If I want to watch gifs, I’ll visit 9Gag. - Facial animations are sub-par. - Some textures are oddly low-res (even with textures set to High). - Hair might look great, but skin does not. Chalky and poorly textured. - There might be a lot of stuff to do in Prague, but the city itself is an endless sea of grey. Visually boring. A lack of obvious landmarks can make it hard to navigate. (And why is the game set in Prague, anyway?) - Need to read the tie-in novel Deus Ex: Blacklight to understand what happened in between Human Revolution and Mankind Divided. While not the equal of its predecessor, Mandkind Divided is worth playing for its excellent side-quests and strong stealth gameplay – and just for the pleasure of role-playing as Adam Jensen again. When I finished Human Revolution for the first time, I couldn’t wait to go back and play it again. After finishing Mankind Divided, I had more of a “That was cool. Moving on” feeling instead. It is still an enjoyable return to the Deus Ex universe, and fans of the series shouldn’t hesitate to give Mankind Divided a try.

Bound By Flame is a checklist attempt by a small studio at a BioWare-style RPG. High level of polish, decent story, and some interesting characters, but claustrophobic level design, low-res textures, unexciting voice acting, and a nonsensical final boss make this a “meh” recommendation. Total size on my hard drive: 4.7 GB - - I’m putting a negative at the top because it needs to be seen, even if you don’t bother with the rest of the review. The final boss is insanely hard, even on easy mode. Search the forums, you’ll find pages of threads asking for help. It is possible to play the entire game a certain way, and be completely unprepared for the final boss. Craft tons of traps and crossbow bolts, they will help. But be prepared for at least a dozen attempts. Given how easy the rest of combat is in the game, the final boss is nonsensical **** + The choice and consequence is real. Several choices are mutually exclusive, and actions taken throughout the game can affect certain story aspects prior to the ending fight. Depending on your actions taken in the game, all ending choices may not be available to you. + Incredibly high level of polish. The game may have been made by a relatively unknown developer with small resources, but everything from the menus to the sound effects to opening doors all has a high-quality look and feel. Never had a single crash, either. + Clean and clear in-game user interface. + The story seems fairly standard at first, but once you delve deeper into who or what is “bound by flame,” the narrative drives itself forward at a good pace. + While not deep, there is a nice crafting system for customizing weapons and armors. + Outside of combat and cut-scenes, manually save or quick-save anywhere, any time. Also has a good checkpoint system. +/- Voice acting is hit-or-miss, sometimes within a single role. The protagonist might have a boring delivery of some lines, then be spot on with the next line (for male or female). Most of the supporting voice-acting is well done. +/- The graphics have some excellent god-rays. Otherwise, they’re serviceable but nothing outstanding. They look more like 2010 than 2014 (which is when Bound By Flame released). Not saying that’s a bad thing – some games from 2010 have fantastic graphics – but they definitely don’t look like more recent releases. +/- Combat is timing-based. If you try to bull through every situation, you might survive, but you’ll go through consumables fast (and you WON’T survive the final boss, no matter how hard you try). Timing block or dodge correctly allows the use of ripostes / counters. +/- Characters are generally well-drawn, even if they fit into adventure story cliches. Attempts at humor mostly fall flat. +/- Decent soundtrack by Olivier Deriviere, but the looping ambient tracks are either not long enough (they loop too quickly) or there aren’t enough of them. - Short, about 8-10 hours. I have so many hours in the game at the time of writing (47) because I rage-quit and completely started over several times before I figured out the "correct" way to play. (The rage-quits were inspired by the final boss.) - Some choices have real consequences, several do not. Temper your expectations. - Inconsistent language. “Yeah, whaddaya think?” can be heard seconds after a common soldier says, “By your leave, my lord / lady.” Also plenty of f-bombs thrown around to demonstrate that Bound By Flame is a “serious” game. - Enemies are endlessly re-used. - Warrior can’t tank damage that well, making Ranger the only viable class. - The characters might have potential, but there is never enough time to know them. While the curious will click through the dialogue, there’s little reason to do so. - Close, claustrophobic levels. Most of the levels are a series of corridors. Sometimes this works in the game’s favor – one of the them feels like a maze – but that close, confined feeling persists throughout. - No facial animations. The mouths move correctly when a character is speaking, but it looks wooden and awkward. - The romances are short and add very little to the game. Almost as though somebody was following a checklist of things in a BioWare game. “Dragon Age has romance-able characters? Then we need some, too!” And, as previously mentioned, that final boss. That final boss and ending is narratively the best part of the game. Resolve things, make an important choice while some fantastic music plays – but the frustration of dying over and over still lingered and completely ruined any chance the ending had to leave a good final impression. When combined with the numerous game design elements that are close to the mark but fail to hit, Bound By Flame can never reach the height of its aspirations.

Assassin’s Creed Unity is the massively bloated sibling of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. One big city, run around, do stuff, occasionally travel to out-lying areas. Stunning graphics (and facial animations) can’t hide the huge amount filler missions / collectibles and awful implementation of the traditional Assassin’s Creed parkour / free-running system. Unity is easily one of the more frustrating entries in the franchise. Oh, and there are co-op missions. Not that anyone is playing. Total size on my hard drive: 49.4 GB + Great graphics. The level of detail is superb. Facial animations are generally great too. + Loved the massive crowds. Blending into a crowd feels completely natural. + Co-op works well, though good luck randomly finding anyone to play with. + Well-optimized on PC in 2017. + Great soundtrack. + Ubisoft was clearly trying for Ezio 2.0 with Arno Dorian; he is charming one instant and grittily determined the next. A good character, even if his arc is something we’ve seen before from Ubisoft. +/- The story is… odd. Someone brings a blindfolded Templar into the Assassin headquarters (seriously?!). Another has a traitor taking extreme action because – he wasn’t good at arguing, wasn’t able to convince someone of his point of view? Things frequently happen because the plot needs them to happen, not because they make any particular sense. - Many story elements feel half-baked. A sword of Eden? Where did it come from? Who made it? How did wind up in France in the 14th century? What is its significance to the sage? No clue. - Arno’s Eagle vision doesn’t function like Ezio’s or even Edward’s. It only serves to highlight enemies and objects of interest – it can’t trace the steps of patrol patterns. - An attempt to introduce boss battles mostly fails. The final boss starts well, but ends as a joke as the exact same pattern can be repeated multiple times to win – the boss never adjusts to a particular tactic. - Poorly designed assassination missions. Either too easy or too hard. I breezed through almost every 5-star difficulty mission, but died repeatedly on several 3-star missions. - Edge-detection, so important in a parkour / free-running game, is some of the worst in the Assassin’s Creed franchise. There are some classic gifs of Ezio, Altair, and others randomly leaping to their deaths, getting stuck on merchant stalls, and the like. But this kind of thing happens so often in Unity it’s not funny. Worse, it creates issues when trying to stealth. Sometimes Arno will slip through a window when asked, other times he perches on edge of the roof like an idiot, twitching but not going through the window. Sometimes he’ll go in the direction the camera is facing; more often, though, he’ll go across the camera. I understand that optimizing a world of the size of Unity’s would require a titanic amount of work, but it doesn’t feel like Ubisoft even optimized their algorithm, formula, parameter, or what ever it is they used for the edge-detection. - The delay before standing up from a chest, or taking off running, or getting back on your feet after being knocked down is programmed into the animation. I though it was input lag at first, but it’s not. I wonder who the idiot was who thought that was a good idea. Combine this with the issues with edge-detection, and AC Unity is easily one of the most frustrating games I’ve ever played. - Combat is heavy-footed and clumsy. No more kill-chains. Or counter kills. You can dodge-roll, though... - Too many collectibles. Most provide nothing except the satisfaction that comes from seeing a completely clean map. - Many meaningless side-missions, if they can even be called that. Go to the Assassin icon on the map, get the briefing, walk around a corner, stab someone, voila! Mission completed. - Meaningless street missions. Catch a thief, prevent a citizen from being killed, kill the criminals. It will all happen dozens of times. - Accumulate money fast. Makes the collectibles even more meaningless. - Paris looks flat and boring from the roof-tops. Few landmarks means you’ll be constantly referring to your map just to find your way around. Assassin’s Creed Unity does feel like a massively expanded Brotherhood. But there is no Volpe, no Machiavelli, no Leonardo, and we’re not fighting the Borgias. The vendetta in Unity is on a personal level, and what made previous assassins (and Ezio in particular) special is that they found a way to rise above the petty grievances to work for a cause greater than themselves. In contrast, Arno joins the assassins in a fit of anger and spends much of the game seeking his personal revenge, only caring about the Creed in the final voice-over. Unity’s beautiful game-world becomes the backdrop to a blah story, a massive amount of collectibles and horrible parkour – all of which scream of a missed opportunity.

Fun little platformer that took me around 45 minutes to get all the achievements (if you're an experienced platformer, you'll probably finish it much faster than I did). Smooth platforming, simple yet pleasing visuals, a day / night cycle, and a good instrumental soundtrack. Short but soothing. A little too short, but a nice experience while it lasts.

Saints Row 2 is one of the greatest open-world adventure games ever made. Memorable characters, great gameplay, a large and detailed world, great story and writing, massive customization options, fun side activities – the total package remains stunning, even today. Let down by a sub-par PC port, though installing the community patch (the Gentlemen of the Row) and locking the framerate to 30fps fixed most issues for me. Worth trying at the list price of $10, and if you can get it to work, you’ll have one of the best bargains in gaming in your library. Total size on my hard drive (includes Gentlemen of the Row patch): 12 GB + Great story, sharp writing. Each of the gangs has a unique character that goes beyond the color of their cars and outfits. The Saints themselves are a fantastically individual group of psychopaths. + Great voice-acting. + Cool villains. + Simple, easy driving mechanics for a keyboard & mouse. + Stillwater is massive. Some open-world games contain obviously copy-and-pasted structures. Not here. Plenty of landmarks keep the areas identifiable and interesting. + Character customizer is very detailed. Want to adjust the look of your character in the middle of a playthrough (including a gender swap)? Visit a plastic surgeon. Tons of different clothes, accessories and tattoos are available as well. + Detailed auto customization. Whether your fancy is big rims or deeply tinted windows, gloss paint or matte, two tailpipes or four, there are a lot of modifications to make. Modified vehicles can be saved in your crib garage (all modifications save with it). Yes, even the Peterliner big-rig... + Customizable cribs. Choose décor and furniture. + Lots of things to do. Every activity that you see on your map? There are six levels of that activity, with character bonuses dropping at Levels 3 and 6 (like better accuracy, infinite weapon ammo, better health regen). And even after completing all of them (which will take a while!), there are other side activities that are started just by hijacking particular vehicles. + Lots of variety in the side activities. Fight in the ring, spray houses with sewage, set fire to everything on a 4-wheeler in a flame-suit, fake injuries for the insurance money, and many more. + Meaningful collectibles. Collect CDs scattered throughout Stillwater to unlock music tracks that can be added to custom playlists. + Great soundtrack. Whether your taste is Beethoven or Lloyd Banks, there’s something for you here. + Whether it’s the funny radio broadcasts, homie banter, getting drunk, defending celebrities for cash or just flipping off random passers-by, it’s hard to get bored in Stillwater. +/- If you haven’t played the first Saints Row game (which was never ported to PC), you’ll still have a good time. But there are a ton of references to the first game that are easily missed. +/- Shooting mechanics are average. They work, but they’re not special. +/- Large number of weapons, though not all are available from shops. Some are only awarded after completing certain activities. +/- Tons of driving. Stillwater’s size is awesome, but be prepared to spend a lot of time driving (or flying). And with amount of activities available, it’s easy to get side-tracked. +/- As is, the graphics are decent, but not special. - Horrible voice audio. The voice acting is good, but the sound is VERY compressed and raspy. (Music, cars, gunshots, and explosions all sound fine.) - Lame boss fights. If you’ve completed any amount of side activities and acquired some bonuses, you’ll breeze through them. - The side activities are fun, but be prepared for some Grade-A frustration when attempting the sixth (final) level of any activity. The difficulty ramps up to insane levels. Even with bonus health regen and a weapon with infinite ammo, completing a Level 6 activity relies as much on luck as skill. - Awful plane and helicopter controls. One of the few places that Saints Row 3 is resoundingly better than Saints Row 2. And now, a separate section just for the PC port issues: +/- The Gentlemen of the Row community patch fixes many of these issues, but not all of them. There are also concerns about stability. The game has always run well for me. - 60fps is possible – the game in general seems limited to 92fps, that’s what it hits in menus with v-sync off. In-game, it won’t hold 60fps, though. 45-52 fps is what I averaged. (Core i5 4590 + 2GB R7 260X). Adjusting the settings (including resolution) didn’t affect performance. - Playing at a frame-rate over 30 can cause some very strange graphical anomalies. Lock fps to 30, and everything is fine. This review originally ended with something like, “Issues aside, Saints Row 2 is still one of the best open-world adventures out there. Go get it!” Unfortunately, the issues with the PC port can’t be put aside, making Saints Row 2 a buy-it-and-try-it purchase to see if it works.

Axis Football 2016 does a few things right, but for American football fun you’ll be better served finding a copy of Madden 08 on Amazon. Total size on my hard drive: 1.4 GB + Run mechanics. Well-implemented, with moves that are easy to execute. + Kicking mechanics. With the right timing, some long kicks are possible. + Good hot-route audibles. +/- Graphics are acceptable, but not special. There is no crowd animation – not even animated 2D sprites. +/- Decent but limited in-game announcer commentary. - No referees = no penalties. - No penalties means no challenges for incorrect plays (out of bounds, didn’t cross the down marker). - Passing mechanics. Under-throw your receiver, and he’ll turn around and wait for it. Even if the opposing defense is there and in position to intercept, the defender will rarely if ever turn around for the ball. - Not enough plays, especially on defense. - No player draft when beginning franchise mode. Stock rosters are what you start with. - Defensive plays don’t have the effect you’d expect. Blitzes apply very little pressure, meaning an extra receiver will be open – no doubt turned around and waiting for the under-thrown ball to arrive. Zone defenses are oddly effective against the run, and poor against the pass. Overall, a project with a lot of promise, but a lot of work yet to be done. If you’re a fan of American-style football, worth trying at 80% off or more.

At first glance, Mad Max is a fantastic open-world adventure teeming with things to do. The excitement can give way to boredom because the short story can’t hide the required grind to advance. Still, there is a plethora of different dusty environments and strongholds / outposts, while the detailed landscape is full of things to do and discover. Total size on my hard drive: 32.8 GB ++ Optimization is stunning. One of the best optimized games of the past year or two. + Graphics are great. Light, dust, haze is a great icing on a highly detailed cake. Clouds look a little low-res at times, but the skybox looks fantastic in general (if you like sunsets / sunrises, there are some great screenshot opportunities). + Punchy sound design. Explosions have great impact. + Great story - gritty and grim - but it’s short. Do yourself a favor and complete the Wasteland side-missions in addition to the main campaign. You’ll get to know the factions a bit better and the game feels more complete. + The wasteland is wonderfully detailed. Rocks, caves, forts, pumping stations, strongholds, outposts – even though it is a dusty wasteland, there is plenty of visual variety. + Customizing the car. From the body style, to the suspension, engine, armor, and more, you can really make the car you want to play the way you want. + All the unfinished missions and quests return after finishing the main story campaign so you can take your time, explore the wasteland, and 100% the game if you want. +/- The hand-to-hand combat is a riff on the Batman Arkham combat system with fancy finishers but without gadgets. It works well enough, but nothing outstanding about it. (If keyboard & mouse is your preference, be sure to have a 3-button mouse.) +/- The game is a grind for scrap, which is used for much-needed upgrades. If you hate grinding, walk away. If you enjoy exploration and looting, then Mad Max is an amazing experience. +/- Child slavery content warning. There isn’t much, but it is there. - Checkpoint saving only. Awkward in a sandbox game. - Driving mechanics are sub-par; floaty and imprecise, the smallest bump can send the car flying, leaving Max facing the wrong way in seconds as the enemy speeds off into the distance. Not good in a game that focuses so much on driving. The Gastown race almost made me rage-quit the game. - Enemies are endlessly re-used. - Grinding is required. Upgrades are sometimes hidden behind completely clearing a region of threats. - Glitchy menus. Hitting Escape to view a new log entry would frequently result in seeing the menu headings, but no images or text. Switching to another menu then switching back would usually fix the issue. - Messed up mission progression. Need to build the “Jack”, a special class of car referred to as an Archangel. Well, the next part of the mission wouldn’t trigger, no matter what I did. Checked online. As it happens, I had parts on the car that were a level HIGHER than what was required to progress. I had to un-equip all upgrades on the car, and re-equip only the upgrades the game told me to, and the rest of the mission triggered properly. - Some quests that were supposedly optional disappeared without warning because I chose to continue with the main story first. All the missions return for completion after finishing the main campaign, though, so there’s that. It was a challenge to bring Mad Max to an open world game, and Avalanche delivered an incredibly gritty, detailed world and a mature story. While the story itself is not open-ended, there is clearly a chance for sequels - with possible franchise potential. Fans of Mad Max and open-world explore-and-loot games should give it a try – especially since it now discounts during sales to $10 or less. There’s a lot of value here. Recommended.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is possessed of a large, beautiful world, some great characters, action-oriented combat and some required grinding for loot. Tactics are there, but are rarely needed. Experiencing the real ending to the game requires the purchase of the Trespasser DLC. A good game whose world is almost too large for its purpose. Total installed size on my hard-drive (GOTY edition with all DLC): 39.2 GB. The story starts well. Fade-rifts are opening all over Thedas. Some creature known as Corypheus seeks to corrupt / gain the power of the land's ruling factions, gathering earthly power as he attempts to elevate himself to god-hood. Is he a demon? A magister? Or some new kind of darkspawn? One of his Fade-rites goes badly wrong, and the player-character gets spit out of a rift with some kind of magical mark on their hand. The Chantry's Divine was killed by the rite (or is she merely trapped in the Fade?), leaving behind confusion and angry factions pointing fingers. In the midst of this, Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast (from Dragon Age 2) initiates the Inquisition to close the breach in the sky left by Corypheus's rite and seek those who assisted him. This all happens in the first hour or so of gameplay. BioWare created a fantastic setting of investigation, exploration, and expansion as the Inquisition becomes yours, to be built and used as you see fit. Large-scale faction missions (and unlocking new areas) are strategically plotted from the War Room. The Inquisitor builds his / her squad (up to 9 companions are possible), and can spend a large amount of time talking to them, helping them, and, yes, romancing them (some restrictions apply!). Some characters return from previous games. Varric and Cassandra are selectable squad-mates (both from Dragon Age II). Hawke is not a member of the party, but does join the Inquisitor for a mission. Leliana (from Origins) is an advisor, and has a large supporting role to play; Morrigan appears about half-way through. There are also call-backs to the previous games in other ways (with the right choices, the ruler of Ferelden will cameo!). It's all the good stuff we've come to expect from BioWare. Much of Inquisition is spent exploring areas that are unlocked via the War Room in search of Power Points. There are deserts, lush forests, ice plains, and snowy mountains. The missions that fill these areas vary from helping a widow recover her wedding ring to seizing fortresses from Corypheus' Venatori. While out exploring, be sure to stop and loot any items you see to acquire “resources” - ore, gems, plants and schematics. You'll need them to craft upgrades. There is a lot of loot to be had – almost too much. After a while I just wanted to move on with the story. But that's impossible if not enough Power Points have been accumulated to unlock the next major mission. Some grinding is required. Dragon Age Inquisition's combat is a refined version of Dragon Age II's: slick, swift, and action-focused, with little need to pause the game. I liked the combat of Dragon Age II much better than Origins, so to see it developed further was something I appreciated, but if you were a fan of the older system expect to be disappointed. Party AI is decent this time around. The Tactics menu itself has taken a severe hit, being smaller and with fewer options. If micro-managing the combat was never your thing, prepare to love the combat of Dragon Age: Inquisition. If you were longing for a return to the depth and detail of Origins, prepare to dislike Inquisition's combat – a lot. On top of this, the final boss of the main campaign (sans DLC) just isn't that impressive. I was expecting the Inquisition's castle to be assaulted, and to fight hordes of demons (and perhaps also darkspawn) in the corridors, fighting up to the highest tower or lowest dungeon, to be greeted with the final boss. This does not happen. There's some teleportation involved, some cool magically shifting landscape, a three-stage battle, and – that's it. It's strangely anti-climatic. It's only after seeing the post-credits scene that we realize who the REAL threat is – but you'll need the Trespasser DLC to deal with them. After all that time spent gathering resources and steeling myself for the implications of the final boss, it is a deliberate fake-out by BioWare. The final boss is over so quickly, and the post-credits reveal occurs so suddenly that if you didn't purchase at least Trespasser, be ready to yell in rage at the obvious DLC-bait. So Dragon Age: Inquisition is a mixed bag. I love long, grindy games if they're set in a gorgeous world with plenty of things to do. Inquisition delivers by the truck-load. The story is enjoyable, the characters a pleasure. The combat is an evolution of Dragon Age 2's, the final boss is disappointing, and you have to DLC the real ending. Get the Game of the Year Edition, it's the best bargain. Good, but not great; 7 out of 10.

Simple arcade game. Your stick-figure stands in the middle; left-click to attack to the left, right-click to attack to the right. Enemies come from both directions. Survive. That is it. The fun factor of One Finger Death Punch comes from the number of variations on such a simple formula. Some enemies require two, three, or four clicks to defeat; some require a variation of left and right clicks. Mob rounds are simple horde mode; sword rounds and nunchuck rounds are self-explanatory; smash rounds require throwing enemies into objects; lightning rounds set a timer for defeating a prescribed number of enemies; and several more. There is even a set of skills that can be unlocked; choose any three. Each match takes around 90 seconds, so it's possible move quickly through the levels. Button-mashing will result in rapid death; each button-press has to be timed correctly - and quickly. Best played in short intervals, One Finger Death Punch is perfect for those times when you really don't have time to boot up a bigger, more involved game, but still want to have some quick fun. Worth the $5 asking price, and discounts much lower than that. Highly recommended!

Like the first game, Dead Effect 2 is a first person zombie shooter set aboard a large spaceship. It fails to shed the B-movie persona of its precursor, but believes it does, making the story-based campaign oddly unsatisfying. Gameplay is good, though, and cooperative campaign, online multiplayer modes and some decent weapons & armor leveling means there is quite a bit of fun to be had. A good effort by Badfly Interactive, but stops well short of becoming a classic. Total size on my hard drive: 10.7 GB + Guns are great. Not Battlefield level of gun design, but whoever designed and animated them did a great job. Badfly must have made this a priority when developing Dead Effect 2, and it shows. + Weapon upgrades are great. While there is no attachments system, there are a number of things that can be purchased to make your weapon of choice more powerful. The weapon does not change visually, but the damage progression is very noticeable. + Same for armor. There are dozens of varieties of armors available. Each suit is divided into feet, legs, chest, arms, and helmet parts, allowing mixing and matching. And each part has one or sometimes two slots for additional components. + Graphics are decent. Bluish light and black shadow splash across the screen often, leaving a cold and dark feeling. + Decently optimized. I had to reduce shadows (to medium) and bloom (I have an R7 260X), but after that I had no trouble playing the game @1080p 60fps. + Drop in / Drop out coop works well. Not too many random matches to be found, but they work well when they’re there. + Decent soundtrack (which is included as MP3 files). +/- Headshots are OP as hell. The length of your longest killstreak in multiplayer translates directly into the post-mission bonus multiplier (a kill-streak of 50 will result in a multiplier of 50). It can be very easy for a skilled player to earn a ton of credits fast. Aim and accuracy modifications to the armor can help even more. +/- The armor customization does demand focused specialization. If you try to create a “good at everything” build, the bonuses will be too small to make much difference. +/- The story is actually half-way decent. Wake up in a ship, have to survive while a classy English voice tells you what to do. Do a few missions, then discover that you, the player-character, are considered the result of an experiment, and if the “relief ship” (containing lots of soldiers) catches up with the Meridian, you will be taken captive and disposed of as just another of Wagner’s clones. Danette, she of the classy English voice, has an interesting story that could have delved into all kinds of ethical concerns – but doesn’t. Not that Dead Effect 2 needed to be like The Walking Dead, but there is potential for additional depth which isn’t explored at all. Disappointing. - The story ends too soon. You fight some creature, then – “Surprise! That was actually the final boss! To be continued!…” - The voice acting, with the exception of Danette, is poor. Dr. Bielik sounds like a highly exaggerated Chekov (from the original Star Trek) and is annoying as heck any time he opens his mouth. And if you choose Jane as your player-character, well… Some of the worst “voice-acting” I’ve heard in a long time. - Level design is small. It’s tight, confined and claustrophobic – so tight that there isn’t always room for two players to run past each other in a corridor. If never feels like we’re on a huge spaceship. - Few enemy varieties. Your standard zombie, puking zombie, grenade zombie, and giant zombie. There are some good-looking bosses, but unless you’re playing a shotgun build (which risks getting close to the boss for maximum damage), it’s easy to keep them at a distance. - There is a huge amount of loot. And I mean HUGE. I would barely get my character upgraded (which cost some serious credits) before some really epic loot would drop, making all my careful upgrading seem worthless. I expect this to happen once or twice in a loot-based game, but here it happened 4 or 5 times (more frequently as my character’s level was higher). - Character appearance never changes, despite equipping some awesome armors. There are definitely some talented people working at Badfly Interactive, and while Dead Effect 2 improves in many ways over the first game, it’s not the masterpiece that will launch them into the mainstream. Hopefully their next game in the series, Tau Ceti, is already under development and they make it as big and B-movie as possible. If they want to go the "serious" route, get better voice actors, open up the levels, and don't be afraid to tackle some serious issues with the story.

Hunted: The Demon’s Forge is a linear third-person adventure game featuring sword & shield combat combined with cover-based archery sections. Production values are high – voice-acting, music, and graphics quality (Unreal 3) are good – but can’t make up for how boring the game becomes. Travel by corridor, enter an arena, fight a horde of enemies, rinse, repeat. There are a few side-dungeons and puzzles which add much-needed variety (and are well-designed). The story is your standard snarky-adventurers-battle-orcs affair, but it never goes into too much depth, almost as though it’s only there as an excuse for the gameplay. Never a good sign. Oh, and if bikini warriors are something you like, one of the player-characters easily qualifies. If that’s the kind of thing that annoys you, well, prepare to be annoyed. Designed to be “king of co-op games,” co-op unfortunately doesn’t work since Gamespy was shut down. I’ve read in the forums that third-party apps will still enable cooperative play, but this seems hit-or-miss, and I haven’t tested it myself. Played solo, the campaign works well enough; your companion has plenty of health (though not invincible), and if powers are used consistently, the combat is easy. There is one tomb that bugs unless you play as the elf, as I discovered, and you can only switch between characters at specified points, and not at will (something that other co-op games manage without trouble). Magic feels a little cumbersome to use. Select the desired power using numbers 1-4 on your keyboard, and press Q to use the selected power. Why not have the number keys also use the power? It’s an extra key-stroke that isn’t appreciated in the heat of combat. There’s a rudimentary skill set set and level-up system, but I collected so many points that upgrading was never something I thought much about. A word about the final boss. The archer-player needs to shoot the boss in the heart, while the sword & shield player protects the archer from spawning enemies. When the heart-bar is depleted, the archer-player needs to shoot the enemy spawns, while the sword & shield player pushes on some columns. This will need to be done three or four times. Played in co-op, I don’t doubt it would work fine. Played solo, there is no way to issue orders to your companion, making victory rely on luck as much as skill. Frustrating. Hunted: The Demon’s Forge is easily a $20 game if everything works as advertised. That it is for sale at a list price of $5 on Steam indicates to me that Bethesda is aware of the issues but can’t be bothered to fix them, so the game is sold at a perpetual 75% discount. Worth a purchase IF you can get the co-op to work. For most of us, though, the time of Hunted: The Demon’s Forge has passed, and it’s not worth the asking price. Get it as cheap as possible if it tempts you, but be prepared to quickly move on to something else. Total size on my hard drive: 11GB

Average shooter that possesses exceptional atmosphere, detailed backdrops and a decent story. Worth a purchase at $5 or less, but it’s shortness (6 to 10 hours) creates value issues at higher prices (the multiplayer is dead). Total size on my hard drive: 7.7 GB. A large EMP pulse from an island blinds a United States satellite, so the US sends a team to investigate. The pulse originated from Katorga-12 – an old Soviet research settlement founded around the mines of a mysterious mineral, E-99. Even traversing the initial level, pulses occasionally appear, creating “time spikes” that suddenly take your character to a different time; then another “spike” sends you back to the present. The truth becomes clear: the Soviets were able to utilize E-99 to create a time-travel device (among other uses). The device and the two scientists who would control it become the centerpiece of a journey through multiple time-lines to prevent the alteration of history. Like in any good time-travel story, preventing one disaster makes other disasters possible. While the story is linear, there are multiple endings; none of them are specifically “good,” each requiring an element of sacrifice. A decent sense of closure, but it’s bitter-sweet because there was clearly the possibility for a sequel (which has never materialized). Decent voice-acting character models only add to the experience. The soundtrack is serviceable, but not exceptional. If time-travel isn’t something you care about, and you just want a cool first-person shooter, well, you’ll get it. The fps part, anyway. The coolness isn’t really there. The gameplay is **** combat mechanics work, there is a decent variety of weapons, and there are some upgrade choices to be made, too (remember to equip a perk, not just purchase it). The enemies comprise Soviet soldiers and strange creatures that mutated from all the E-99 radiation (contemporary timeline) – some of which are truly gigantic beasts. But the character movement feels heavy and slow, there is no cover mechanic, and chaingun + sniper rifle means you can handle all situations with little need to bother with other weapons. Some of the other weapons are really good – the grenade launcher which can launch a grenade that you then guide forward to the target was my other favorite – and the E99 weapons (where available) are over-powered as hell, but except for specific situations, there is little call to use them. And these “specific situations” usually have a weapon locker nearby, so it’s easy to switch to what is needed, then switch back when done. If you find yourself overwhelmed, pulse the wrist-mounted TMD (Time Manipulation Device). It’s got decent knock-back that can give you a breather when you need it. Multiplayer is dead. But the primary attraction of Singularity is the atmosphere. It reeks with it. Every area is incredibly detailed, whether exploring an old Soviet barracks in the current timeline (rust, dirt, cracked glass, smoke) or traversing a laboratory in 1955 (bright, clean, apparatus everywhere). The graphics help in this department: though occasionally low-res, Singularity is one of the best uses of the Unreal 3 engine I have seen. And because it is Unreal 3 (and highly optimized), it runs great at maximum settings on moderate equipment (I easily hit 120fps @1080p on an R7 260X). Singularity is a fun ride, no question, but you’ll have to really love the atmosphere and story to play it more than once, which hurts its overall value. Singularity rarely drops below $7.50 when on sale, but if it does, go ahead and get it. Notes: - A 3-button mouse is REQUIRED. Without the game-play mechanic tied to Mouse Button 3, some sections will be nearly (if not entirely) impossible to complete. - Frame-rate is capped at 120fps. - There are no subtitles for any language.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood continues the story of Ezio Auditore in a single huge city (Rome) that is dotted with hills, ruins, narrow streets and platforming opportunities aplenty. The twin stories of Ezio and Desmond are some of the most effective in the Ezio trilogy. Marred by some poor keyboard platforming controls and bad implementation of v-sync, but there is full controller support. If you’ve enjoyed other Assassin’s Creed games, this is a must-own. Uplay is required. Total size on my hard drive: 11GB Note: If you are new to Assassin’s Creed games and wondering where to start, I’d recommend Assassin’s Creed II, not Brotherhood. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood picks up right where Assassin’s Creed II left off: Ezio is in Rome, having just fought the previous game’s final boss, and Desmond et. al. are on the run after having their hideout crashed by Abstergo. Having completed the battle in Rome, Ezio returns to Monteriggioni to have sexy times with Catarina Sforza, only to have the idyll interrupted by Cesare Borgia laying siege to the fortress. After it falls, Ezio and his family flee to Rome, determined to destroy the Borgia’s near-complete control of the city’s districts, and rebuild the Assassins (and Rome) in the process. Several popular characters return; Catarina as previously mentioned, Leonardo, Claudia and Maria Auditore, and Machiavelli. Rodrigo Borgia has a few brief scenes as well, but the primary antagonist is Rodrigo’s son, Cesare. Now, instead of only upgrading your headquarters, Ezio is buying and refurbishing shops (and landmarks) all over Rome. Completing all the “Sons of Romulus” lairs unlocks a special dagger and armor. Completing memories with full synchronization unlocks hidden (“repressed”) Ezio memories of Cristina Vespucci’s fate. Leonardo is a minor character in the main game, but gets an entire DLC to himself (which is included). The Copernicus DLC is also included in the game files, but isn’t accessible to PC players without a mod (search the Steam forums). Add in the huge amount of loot found throughout the game which is used to unlock unique items at shops, the Animus “training mode” which is an arcade for honing your combat skills, and there is a wealth of content in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. The combat is the largest improvement to Brotherhood over the previous games. The addition of the chain-kill mechanic allows for the rapid dispatch of hordes of enemies. Combat in general flows quicker and smoother in the hands of a skilled player. A strange step backward, though, is the inability to use secondary weapons (like the pistol or crossbow) without selecting them in the weapon wheel first. Also, if you have a secondary weapon selected, doing a hand-focused act – like tearing down wanted posters – switches the weapon selection to unarmed. And the platforming was clearly designed for a controller. It’s doable with a keyboard and mouse, but not always intuitive. Expect Ezio to occasionally leap to his death without explanation. The graphics are among the best of the earlier Assassin’s Creed games (Revelations’ are better, but are also much more demanding). Maxing Brotherhood’s graphics settings and hitting 120fps at 1080p proved an easy task (I have an R7 260X graphics card). Texture quality, detail, light, and reflections are the biggest advances over Assassin’s Creed II. Brotherhood is marred, however, by the poor implementation of vertical-sync: turning it on results in horrific frame-rate micro-stutter. There doesn’t seem to be a fix, other than not turning v-sync on. Setting v-sync on in the Radeon Crimson settings didn’t help, either. These are small drawbacks, though. With swift and deadly combat, tons of things to do, and great stories, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood is a fantastic second part of the “Ezio trilogy” of games. A superb sequel and a great game in its own right. It discounts quite low, too, so if you’re a fan of Ezio or Assassin’s Creed in general, there is no reason not to get it.

Borderlands 2 is a near-perfect first-person shooter. It takes what the first game offered, and adds more, larger areas to explore, more characters, a fantastic story, new enemies, new ways to play, a great soundtrack and lush stylized graphics that are just as unique as before, but now look even better. And like the first game, it is playable as a four-player co-operative game with easy drop-in / drop-out. If you're an fps fan you owe it to yourself to get this game. I realize that sounds a bit fanboyish, but really, Borderlands 2 is THAT good. Installed size on my hard-drive (GOTY edition): 10.4 GB. The number of areas to explore is huge. I don't have the exact data, but it feels several times larger than the first game. There is a lot of snow at the start, but there are rocky deserts, alpine meadows, and a slag-riddled environmental monstrosity awaiting at the end. Quick-travel points abound (usually at the entrances to areas), so it's easy to go from one place to another. In-game save points are unfortunately like the first game; even if you passed a quick-save point, then quit the game thinking you'll resume where you left off, well, you won't. When you resume, you'll be back at the start of the level. Levels are well designed, too – twisting and turning at times, while others are wide open. The characters that we played in the first game (Roland, Lilith, Mordecai and Brick) are NPCs here, with the story centered around them. Angel, Claptrap, Moxxi, Scooter, Dr. Zed and Marcus return as well. So right away, stepping out into Borderlands 2 has a familiar vibe. Except now the enemy is the boss of Hyperion Corp, Handsome Jack. Colorful and distinct, there are enough personalities here to never lose interest – even when doing several of the fetch-quest filler missions (yes, they're back, but given the looting-and-leveling nature of the Borderlands games, probably unavoidable). While the story is great, I can't talk too much about it here without spoiling it. The early stages play out as a defy-the-odds hero tale as the player character defies Handsome Jack and escapes to the town of Sanctuary. Angel is still guiding you on your HUD, but your character catches her in a bit of deception. The second act reveals who (and where) she is – and sets the stage for the third act, which culminates in the showdown with Handsome Jack. I was genuinely curious about how this was going to resolve, and kept playing all the way through. This isn't even touching the side missions and quests for secondary characters. Side quests are a mixed bag. I was more than happy to free some animals for Mordecai; collecting body parts for Dr. Zed while a timer counted down was just annoying, and the rewards were barely worth it in either case (usually XP and a weapon which was far below my current level). The only reason to do a number of the side missions is because of the possibility of rare loot and character backstory. The rest are grindy level-fodder, needed for leveling up, but nothing else. I solo'd most of Borderlands 2 – yeah, crazy – but the game worked well as a solo experience. The bosses were never too hard; just long. One boss took me 45 minutes of running, hiding, sniping, and running again (I was playing the commando class). Clearly the bosses were not designed for soloing. The loot drops were also disappointing. The guns for sale at the kiosks were always – and I mean always – worse than what I was carrying. It's better to loot new weapons than buy them. Which means that other than ammo, there's nothing to spend money on (except respawning). The best weapons are acquired by using a “golden key” on the special loot-drop chest in Sanctuary, so sometimes it's just easier to spend a golden key than spending hours poring over loot (some side-missions for Moxxi do provide decent weapons). If there is a drawback to Borderlands 2, it’s the amount of DLC. There is a lot. Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep was one of the best pieces of DLC I’ve ever encountered, having a fun story that was uniquely told. The Captain Scarlett, the Creature Slaughterdome, and Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage DLCs provide solid additional content. But additional player classes as DLC? (The Psycho and Mechromancer DLCs) Raising the character level cap via DLC? (Ultimate Vault Hunter Upgrade packs) There are a number of DLC packs that focus on skins and such, but this level of “parting out” the game verges on the ridiculous. If the game were not complete without the DLC, it’d be time for a rant. However, without the DLC, Borderlands 2 still feels like a complete experience. I lament the DLC situation, but deduct no points for it. Even after moving on and playing other games, I keep coming back to Borderlands 2. In an age when it’s cool to have “the latest”, Borderlands 2 inspires the sort of interest that kept me coming back again and again. A great achievement in fps video games, and a game that belongs in the library of any fan of the genre.