DarKMaTTeR

I find that indie games receive a lot of praise and leniency, just for being an indie game that tried something uncommon. Games like FTL and Terraria, however, prove that we don't have to hold indie games to such low standards. For that reason, I'm going to tell it as it is: Rogue Legacy is mediocre. It consists of an interesting idea for a trait and progression system that is unimpressive in its execution and delivered on top of a terrible platform game. I played enough of it to get a good taste (defeated the bosses etc), and I regret all of it. This is the worst kind of gaming there is: a progression system that compels you to start a new game, but the gameplay is so bad that you hate yourself every time.

I'm not the kind of gamer that grants excuses to small developers just for being small. They may choose a simpler medium but I expect nothing less than to be entertained. So, when I say I enjoyed Skulls of the Shogun, I mean it. The presentation of this game excellent. Most indie games think they can get away with terrible 2D graphics, but SotS is as colourful and lively as 2D will allow. The music and sound are pleasant and have a presence. The overall story is not as original as the theme itself, but the dialog that delivers the story is the most entertaining stuff I've read in years. The strategic gameplay meets every standard, but it is not as impressive as the game as a whole. Still, thanks to the fun presentation, the gameplay is very enjoyable as well. I would also like to mention how exemplary the controls are. This game is optimized for keyboard, mouse and touchscreen, in combinations or just one ata time. Games these days have trouble getting just one input method to work nicely, let alone three.

Much like its predecessor, Arkham City's production quality is stellar in every regard. This is the kind of game that makes it all seem so easy. The only way it could be better is by taking on more genres. This game might not be for everyone, but it certainly is for most people. If you can appreciate a beat 'em up game with simple controls, this game will give you the most polished game experience there is. This game effortlessly captures the holy grail of games: something that is easy to pick up, gradual in its refinement and hard to master. Technically, this game deserves a 10/10. The only reason I don't do that is because I've seen better in Arkham Asylum. I'm splitting hairs here, but the combat system in Batman:AC feels slightly less in your control than in Batman:AA.

After the terrible slip that was Brotherhood, comes Revelations to repair the franchise's dignity. Revelations is superior to its predecessor in every regard, rivaling AC and AC:2 in what each does best, while doing so much more. The first thing you'll notice about this game is that everything looks much, much better than in Brotherhood. Konstatinople rivals Venice as the most colourful location in any AC game, as do all of the secondary locations. Just as importantly, the city is a pleasure to navigate through, not just visually but also in terms of layout and freerunning paths. The features that allow for Ezio's stunts are not only convenient, but also look natural in their environment. This is something I couldn't say since the original AC. The writing is as good as it has ever been. Unlike Brotherhood, Revelations is story-driven rather than a big collection of purposeless sidequests. Not that there are no sidequests to distract you, but they are much sparser and, frankly, I didn't miss them at all. The storytelling in this game is the richest and most colourful to date. Rather than throwing around faceless characters, just to name-drop a historical figure, AC:R takes a bit of time to develop some likable characters. This title takes it upon itself to patch the AC storyline, which by that point was stretched thin and made less and less sense. I think that a concise background story and motives for Desmond were way overdue. In terms of fighting mechanics, Revelations is a marginal improvement over Brotherhood. Your assassin helpers are not as overpowered, and the use of camera feels less broken than in Brotherhood. Still, it doesn't seem that brilliant mechanics of the original AC will be making a comeback any time soon. Revelations is not without fault. The unbeatable Janissaries that patrol parts of the city are an unpleasant encounter. The tower defense minigame is out of place. And the navigation puzzles you are expected to solve while getting Desmond's story felt are completely pointless. Seriously, it would have been better to just let us hear the story and admire the surreal environment. Still, all things considered, AC:Revelations is the best AC so far.

I played this game late, after having read all the positive reaction. This confuses me, since I found it to be worse than all of its predecessors. The introduction of assisting assassin recruits is a very positive change, but, in every other aspect, AC:B is slipping away. Fighting, more than ever, is now all about button mashing. The original title had some interesting combo dynamics, which I didn't even get to check whether they were still there. There was no place for them. Luckily, you can call for help and end the battles quicker. The controls in AC games have always had a bad rep. For some reason, in AC:B their **** is more in your face than ever before. Probably because AC:B is so poor in things to help you feel better about it. Few things can bring you faster to rage than Ezio spontaneously changing direction and jumping sideways towards a wall, causing you to fail your time-sensitive goal. The writing is the thinnest it has every been. Master-blahblah is building up, kill his characterless helpers, then kill him. Seriously, was there a single character in this game, besides Ezio himself? And don't get me started about how they've jumped the shark with the alien AI whatever-it-is thing. And the title's trademark, freerunning, became less free and more of a mechanic to solve puzzles, Tomb Raider style. Running on rooftops makes no practical sense anymore. Speaking of which, I always liked the environment's realistic and lived feel. Well, not anymore. Unless someone can explain why medieval architects would place uniform door switches high on walls and odd beams to help people with superhuman climbing skills get there. Tying the whole degression together is the city of Rome, the worst depiction of a city in any AC game. Rome is repetitive, hard to navigate (especially from the rooftops) and visually depressing. AC has a lot to capital to burn before becoming a bad game. But it didn't make to good this time either.

This game feels a lot more like a concept demonstration, intended for internal use among the developers of Alan Wake, than a commercial creation. It shares most things with the original game, except the production quality. The environments are poor and reused. The story and characters are underdeveloped. The whole thing lasts a couple of hours. Very disappointing. If you don't want to taint the excellent experience of the original, don't bother with this one.

This is the most I have ever spent on an indie game on Steam, and the least I have ever regret it. Not that this is a game; it's an interactive novel. The story is intriguing, dense and balanced. The characters are nice too. I can remember the last time I have been so deeply submerged in a story. I actually built so much empathy that it blurred my actual opinion on matters of the story (you get asked for it at times). The only shortcoming I can think of is that it never makes you re-evaluate anything, despite the moral ambiguity of the subjects raised. All in all, I can't recommend this enough. Just, make sure you play the demo first. This might not be what you expect.

This game is consistently above bad and below good. It never breaks, never gets too slow or too hard. But at the same time, it doesn't offer a single moment of entertainment or satisfaction. It's an extremely professional creation, with an evidently huge budget with little love put into it. Not worth playing through, even if it was given to you for free.

Technically, this is a great game, and it plays nicely even on older machines. The singleplayer offers nothing worth experiencing and could have been left out completely. It's a misguided attempt to mirror CoD scenarios, that distract people from where the game really excells: multiplayer. It's is easy to find the reasons why BF is great, so I'm going to share what I dislike. The thing is, it's too easy to be overpowered by experienced players. The equipment unlocks can give too much of an advantage and even decent players like myself have no way of keeping up until we unlock centrain overpowered gadgets for our weapon. And you have to go through the same process for all of the tens of weapons made available to you. This isn't an MMORPG. I just want to drop in a battle every now and then. I don't have the time to unlock even the few basic things I'd like to be using. And, unfortunately, you can't fight without proper gear.

I've had a special relationship with the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. titles from the beginning. They all have technical short-comings and have the obvious effects of an insufficient budget: the game isn't polished enough and loses pace as you get closer to the end. But, at the same time, they offer a unique experience that no other game I know of can deliver: survival in a hostile world. Sure, lots of games put you in hostile, stressing worlds, but they always look out for you. STALKER doesn't, causing you to really submerge into its world. You can roam away from safety in a rainy night and and accidentally walk into powerful mutants without the visibility to fight them if you want. You have to learn not to. You have to pack your own weapons and supplies every time you leave your safehouse, because the world is not guaranteed to provide. And all of this happens in a open world. Wait until the moment you find yourself tagging along a random sandbox-style patrol, because you're out of ammo and you can hear the mutants running in the bushes near you. This is survival.

As with Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas is a game of extremes. What is good about it is so good it makes revered classics look stupid. But what bad about it is so bad that may prevent you from finishing the game all together (I failed to finish btw because I hit a dead end in the story tree). If you play the game, you will be impressed by the vastness and level of detail of this world. You will be impressed by how many story branches interconnect, without failing or dismissing the choices you made. You will be impressed by the freedoms the creators gave you (e.g. every NPC in the game is killable) and how the story doesn't fail to progress. All that, if you manage to get past the terrible FPS combat (it looks like a FPS but can't be played as such), the countless bugs and, most importantly, the SINGLE MOST SADISTICALLY IMPRACTICAL INVENTORY I HAVE EVER USED. Really. It's like they hate you and want you to find ways to avoid using your inventory. Also, the voice acting is silly and the graphics are stale, but that isn't a big deal in games of this kind.

This game has been the greatest disappointment I've had from gaming in years. I've been a big fan of the series for more than a decade now. The amount of time I've spent on these games is ridiculous. In TW Shogun 2 I didn't even finish a single campaign, even though I really wanted this game to be good and I tried to find a way to appreciate it. I'd like to make it clear that the game is NOT bad. It is massive, professional and unique. But it lacks a lot of what I cared about in Total War games. For example, I always thought it was brilliant how, no matter how many battles you played, it would be extremely rare for 2 battles to start and unfold the same way. Well, no more. Shogun 2 does not shuffle the deck like it's predecessors. This time, you'll be fighting the same battles over and over again, on a handful of predesigned maps that aren't that great in the first place. Especially with sieges. I wasn't even half-way through a campaign, before I started auto-resolving every battle. Another thing that made the game very tiring to me, is all the Japanese in use. It's great for an authentic feel, but ffs add an explanation in the tooltip. From the first moments in the game, you're expected to memorize all these jibberish, or you won't have a clue what's going on. No offence to the Japanese, but the only words I get are Samurai and Katana, everything else sounds the same to me. And there's also the technical part. The game takes FOREVER to load anything, and it doesn't even look better than TW: Empire. There's only some much time I can tolerate wasting on loading screens. If you're not an old fan of the series, then you will probably enjoy the game more than I did, because you have no idea what the game is missing. But as a fan, I was so disappointed that I no longer had interest in playing the game. Which is a shame because it is a good game all in all. PS. I wrote my review so late, because I honestly expected I would play a lot more before deciding I'm done with the game.