Duffer123

Update: I’ve left my original unedited thoughts below, as I think this is the way a lot of people will be feeling in their first few hours. However after originally giving this game a 6 and guessing that I would bounce off it quickly I’m upping my score to 8 and here’s why… My original thoughts were that the confusing AI and the fast TTK/high difficulty was stopping this being fun. Hating sunk a whole load of hours into the full release and got my head round the UI I am now loving this game and am hooked. They have made some adjustments to difficulty of AI bots, but the TTK is still very short. However after getting really frustrated with each death in the server slam I am finding it not nearly as much of a worry. It’s so easy to drop back in with a free kit after losing your stuff and quickly get back to a reasonable point. I also felt it wasn’t great for solo players and I still maintain that it could be better, but the Rook option is fun; solo with teams in the map, but you get slightly better kit and start late in the game, it creates an almost survival horror feel. The best thing I can liken this to having played a lot more is Apex with shorter games and more action, plus the extraction aspect. I paid £25 for this and it was well worth it. Original thoughts below. This review is currently based mainly on the server slam weekend, but I will update it in due course, when some additional content gets added. I've seen lots of 10's and lots of 0's on here for this game. For me this game falls somewhere in the middle. The good; the gunplay is great, the weapons feel powerful and snappy. The art style is gorgeous and like nothing I've seen in a game before, the whole style applies for the the cutscenes and menus which are all dripping with style. The bad: No real option for solos, when you do drop into a game solo with no team mates to revive you it is almost impossible for an average player like me to successfully extract. The Time to Kill is very fast and the non player enemies are tough, I lost count of how many times I beat a bunch of AI enemies, only for another player to shoot me a couple of times and I was down before I could take evasive action or fire back. The game is really challenging and frustrating at times, it does allow some tension, but if you're not highly skilled and happy to get sweaty you will probably be rage quitting this game a lot. My only other negative is the UI, I've started to get to grips with the menus now, but I find the items hard to distinguish and follow markers in game, it feels as though the art style and keeping everything in line with that, has been preferred over the need for accessibility. Where I found the UI most frustrating, is that the menus were all built for mouse and it makes looting cumbersome and slow, which when you can be killed with a couple of shots is a problem. Comparing the looting of Arc Raiders (sorry there will be a lot of comparisons to this) there is a very easy way to quickly click a button to cycle through items and quickly add them to your backpack. There is a good game here with lots of depth, but I just hope they work on the TTK, UI and add some better options for solos, possibly even a PVE mode where the rewards are lower to allow solo players to get some gear. If the game gets some of these improvements I can see me upping the score to an 8 or more, but right now it's just "okay" for me. Ignore the haters review bombing, but I would also advise to ignore the people with rose tinted (bright luminous green tinted) glasses that are giving 10's, the truth is a more boring middle ground for now.

Just finished this game and I loved the gunplay and the exploration. I didn’t feel as engaged with the story as I would’ve hoped. I loved the character abilities and the perks and flaws. The graphics looked great and I loved the art style, although I didn’t think it was quite as stunning as avowed. On the negative side, some of the combat becomes a bit easy and slightly repetitive, but I did have fun playing with the different weapons and some of the stealth gameplay was really enjoyable. Overall I thought this game was great and would definitely recommend.

Arc Raiders is like you've been dropped into the world of Terminator post apocalypse and as well as being hunted by machines, not all of the humans are friendly... I should highlight I've been playing this solo and I have not finished a full season, so I may update this review, depending on how the end game works, but so far I'm loving it. The graphics, animation and sound design in this game are fantastic. They all create an amazing atmosphere and create tension while playing. The sound is a crucial part of the game and you really should play this with headphones on to get the best experience. The loop is that you go into a world containing robots (PVE) and humans (PVP). In my experience in the solo matches the vast majority of human players are happy to team up, be friendly and extract together. However the not knowing until someone speaks to you and signals their intention is a hugely fun, tense and is a unique part of this game, that is probably my favourite element. Fighting the robots is really fun, as there's lots of ways to target weak points and use the environment to overcome what seem like impossible odds. Here's Arc Raiders in a nutshell; I set up my loadout with some of my best gear and jump into a game, I manage to find some great loot, when I meet a fellow raider on a rooftop, he says "don't shoot" so we effectively team up. From the roof we witness another Raider killing someone, so we take him out, assuming he won't be friendly. We drop down to check the bodies and my new pal shoots me in the back and downs me. As he does this someone witnesses the betrayal from afar and shoots him. My saviour approaches me, but doesn't have the kit to revive me, so I crawl to a secluded area and tell him to finish me off and take my best gear. This is one of 20 or more crazy short stories that I've been involved in so far in this game. It is the first time I've used a mic in a game in years and the players are generally friendly, but even if they're not, you can just shoot them. The proximity chat is brilliant and works really well. I only give it a 9, as the inventory management is a tad annoying and there are a couple of minor things I feel they could improve, like being able to use a defib from someone's inventory when they are already downed. Overall though this game is incredible and deserves to be played by anyone and everyone!

Wow! Sometimes I feel like you need a more linear experience, to break up the grind of multiplayer/never ending games or massive open worlds and this game really scratched that itch. I would liken this to "Inside", which is my favourite game of all time, so it gives you an idea of how much I liked this. I've read some other reviews and I can only guess the lower-middling ones are written by people that didn't actually finish this game. In chapter 1 I was thinking this was a solid 7 out of 10, by the second act I had it at an 8, but by the time I rolled credits I was totally blown away by the creativity , writing (there's no dialogue) and the emotional impact of this game. Oh and it does some things that are just unbelievably fun. If this had a popular IP attached to it, like Mario this would have 10's across the board, but I actually appreciate the complete originality here. The emotions I felt at the end are rarely elicited from playing a video game and all of this is achieved with no dialogue and somehow getting me to care about a lighthouse. Anyway if you want a linear, relatively short experience that surprises and delights this is for you and make sure you get to the final act, that's when the gameplay really gets fun. I can't wait for Double Fine's next game.

This game is so polished and it's so refreshing to play something that just works with no bugs on release date. I really enjoyed the previous Doom games and this manages to freshen up the formula, while sticking to the main gameplay that I loved from the previous games. Some of the weapons in this are so creative and fun, that I found myself letting out a little "Yaaas" when I got a new gun in awe of how different and cool it was. The graphics are beautiful and as I said it runs flawlessly. It has the usual heavy metal soundtrack, although for me the music didn't hit quite as well as the previous games, I'm not sure why exactly, it was as though the music didn't quite come in at the right time during combat. The rest of the sound design is great though and you feel like an absolute tank. The shield and melee weapons are a brilliant addition and if the next Doom game didn't feature them I would be gutted. This game hooked me from the start and had me playing every free minute to the end. I thought the story was a bit daft and didn't add much to it, but the gameplay is great and unlike the last couple of Doom games where I got a bit bored of the waves of enemies towards the end, I was never bored here, it was just a fast, fun experience start to finish. Great game and well worth your time!

I love Kojima and I absolutely adored this game from the start. I loved how different it was from anything else I played, the mechanics of just walking from A to B were so clever and the simulation element is fascinating. The open world is beautiful and intriguing, although when you scratch beneath the surface there is not a lot interesting to actually find out there. The story initially was interesting, but the cutscenes are overindulgent nonsense, albeit the acting and performances are good. I know I said I love Kojima, but some of the names and things in this game are just cringe i.e a character called "Die Hardman". After playing this for about 20 hours on and off I just got very bored of delivering stuff, I was longing for it just to be metal gear 5 with some sim elements, but it's not that. This maybe just wasn't for me, but I think there will be a lot of people that fall off this game through boredom. I'm glad I played it, but it definitely could have been better.

I've played football games for years and although the graphics have got better, the gameplay in this particular iteration is awful. It's almost impossible to defend, most games end 8-7 or 6-5 or even 12-10. If you have one of the highest rated players you can just walk through and score at will without ever having to play a clever pass. It left me longing for Pro Evo/PES of old where you really had to play good football to win games. All the usual modes are here, but all the fun is taken out of this by virtue of the issue above with the better players. Don't pay money for this game, I hope they have a complete re-think for next year.

First things first, I don’t like turn based combat and when I saw this was coming to game pass I instantly dismissed it due to the use of turn based. Secondly, I love this game. I say this first, because if like me you’re not a fan of turn based you should absolutely still give this game a try. Okay I’ll come back to the turn based stuff…. This game looks fantastic, the graphics are beautiful and the environments are varied and interesting. There’s a lovely zoomed out perspective for the overworld which I absolutely loved. The game runs smoothly and I didn’t encounter any frame rate drops or bugs. The gameplay is effectively a series of increasingly difficult turn based battles, however those battles rely heavily on quick time event parries and attacks. Playing the game it felt more like fights from Elden Ring than a traditional turn based game. You’re constantly having to stay alert to dodge, parry or counter and I absolutely loved the combat. The world is semi open and the exploration was very limited. This is one of my only negative points, I could have happily had a very linear, guided experience, as I don’t think the open areas added anything to the game. I also found a few times that I got a bit lost and had to go back on myself to figure out where I was going. Early on I thought I would be able to climb low ledges and explore only to find there were lots of invisible walls preventing this. This really was a minor complaint, but it was initially a bit frustrating. The only other negative was the upgrade, save and healing systems were not that well explained, or at least were missable and I played a good chunk of the game with a handicap, not realising I could use some buffs or that I could heal between fights. Again this was a minor complaint and didn’t overly impact my enjoyment and is probably my fault for dismissing tutorial tips too quickly. Okay so back to some positives, the story is really interesting. It’s a bonkers plot, but the voice acting, motion capture and way in which it’s delivered makes it captivating. The music also helps to build the atmosphere and tension and is a great accompaniment to the game. This is another one of those times I’m so grateful to game pass, so I can try something like this and I hope some other turn based games take a leaf out of this game’s book and add that moment to moment action for folk like me. This game is awesome, give it a try!

Just rolled credits on this and to be honest I’m not sure what I’ve done for the last 4 days other than play this. This game is one of a kind, unique and incredibly engaging and **** best thing I can compare it to without spoiling anything is that it’s like playing through a lot of escape room puzzles with lots of other quirks and detail thrown in. It reminded me of tunic in the way that it doesn’t hold your hand or show you how to solve the puzzles and it really requires you to think. I don’t have much else to say on it. The graphics work really well for what it is, but this is all about gameplay. Anyway I don’t want to spoil anything by adding more detail. So I’ll just say this game is amazing! Give it a try.

I really enjoyed this game and ended up completely hooked to the point I couldn’t put it down. The combat is really fun, love all the weapon and magic combinations and options. The graphics are absolutely gorgeous. I think this is probably one of the prettiest games I’ve played. I love the fact that each region has a different colour palette and that they weren’t afraid to use bright colours. So many games now have a dark, dull colour palette, but this is completely the opposite. I think my favourite thing though is the exploration. There always something to find and collect round every corner. You get so well rewarded for being inquisitive. The platforming is also really fun and I love the height and depth of the maps. It’s incredible to jump into a pool of water to find that it’s deeper than expected and leads to a huge cavern or just contains some loot. In terms of climbing the movement has a bit of a parkour feel to it and despite being so open I always found a way to scale the highest heights without getting stuck on ledges or invisible barriers. The design of the world really is brilliant in that sense and it’s really intuitive in leading you to figure out how to get from place to place or ground to sky. The only thing I feel is slightly weak is the story, which didn’t really grab me, but I’m not much of a fantasy person. It just felt a bit slow paced, some of the side quests were fun, but I never felt that attached to the characters, which is disappointing, because oblivion generally does branching narrative better than anyone. There were consequences of my actions, but I just don’t think I cared enough for those consequences to have any great impact on my experience. There was also a strange frame rate issue when a dialogue scene was happening, where it looked a bit stuttery, despite the gameplay being super smooth. Didn’t encounter any bugs at all. Overall I would recommend that you give this a go, it’s beautiful to look at and great fun to play, so even if you don’t finish the whole thing it’s absolutely worth a try. If anything this has just got me really hyped for the outer worlds 2, cause if it’s half as fun as this with the sci fi setting (my preference) then it will be awesome!

Played this on game pass and was absolutely hooked. The art style and dialogue are great and lovely nods to retro games. The gameplay is really addictive and I found myself hooked and couldn’t stop playing till I beat the main campaign. I only have a couple of minor criticisms; it’s short and I ran into a bug which wouldn’t allow me to complete the epilogue (I’m sure this will be fixed with a patch). If you’re not on game pass this is well worth the £20 or so you will pay.

I am an Indiana jones fan FYI, but the last couple of movies were not good in my opinion, therefore although I like the character I didn’t hold out much hope for a great story. However Machine games are absolute masters at storytelling, character development and humour and this game is no different. I read some reviews that were critical of the gameplay, however this is not an FPS it’s a game about exploring and story and both of those elements are absolutely brilliantly executed. Firstly if you are an Indy fan you will love this, it is so faithful to the original films and captures the character and the feel of the films brilliantly. I don’t know how Troy baker has done it, but I keep forgetting it’s him and not Harrison ford, the voice acting by the whole cast is great and there are some hilarious moments, both in cutscenes and gameplay (think classic Indy slapstick in **** puzzles frequently make you feel smart without being completely obscure and the item collecting element is really rewarding and not just frustrating backtracking for the sake of it. The accessibility options are great as well and if you are stuck there are helpful tips that you can access by buying in game guides (not real money. This is the best game I have played in a long time. It’s also so refreshing buying a game day one (early access too) and it looks amazing and runs really smoothly with no bugs. Games like Star Wars Jedi survivor, dragons dogma and more recently stalker 2 (albeit patched very quickly) have been so buggy at launch with frame rate issues etc and there is none of that here. If anything I can’t believe this hasn’t scored higher with critics, the only explanation I could give is that if you aren’t a fan of Indy there’s probably a couple of points you could take **** only criticism of the game is that on medium setting the combat/enemy AI is a bit on the easy side. Having said that it does this incredible thing of making you feel so like the character that you want to avoid combat or engage in stealth, even when you know you will win the fight. I’ve now finished this and am one achievement away from getting them all. This game just got better and better throughout. I literally couldn’t put it down, I’ve sunk 2 days into it and I just want more. Something unique about this game that I’ve only really seen in GTA or Red Dead before is that the side quests have incredible depth and are often as good as the main missions. I went back to complete all the side quests and found one I could’ve missed. It led me into a tomb with detailed puzzles, with cutscenes and a completely new character, leading them through a surprising story arch with a twist at the end. To think I could’ve missed this gem is unbelievable. Everything in this game has been crafted with love and attention to detail that is rarely seen, nothing is filler, nothing is a simple fetch quest. If you’re an Indy fan you’ll love this! If you’re not an Indy fan you’ll love this! Buy this game it’s amazing!!!

This is super short, but really fun. Had a few nice wee jump scares and a couple of fun puzzles. The core of the game is pretty much just more Alan wake 2, but it has some cool teasers for control 2. If you liked the base game you’ll like this and it only takes about 2-3 hours. Short and sweet!

Wow! What an amazing wee game. Really tough clever puzzles that were so rewarding when you cracked them. I considered marking it down as it is quite short, however it is priced accordingly, so I feel I got value out of it. In terms of impact it left a huge impression on me like only the likes of “Inside” has done in the past. Amazing game and really worth buying!

This is probably the best looking game I have ever seen. The graphics are so good that I found myself just walking around turning the camera or walking up to objects to take a closer look. Unfortunately I also spent a lot of time just wishing that these incredible visuals had been applied to a game like GTA, The Last of Us or just something that has gameplay to match the presentation. The story was just a bit meh and didn’t add anything to the experience for me, but I didn’t play all the way through the first game, so maybe I would have enjoyed it more if that was the case. There was a lot of just walking slowly through the world and not a lot of action and the puzzles were either basic or just a bit frustrating and uninteresting. The combat was great, but lacked a bit of depth for me, but I loved the close in camera one on one fights. There’s a couple of good ideas here (the combat systems) and the graphics are a game changer, but I just didn’t have much fun with the game. It’s worth a play, just to marvel at the incredible visuals, but not much else imo.

I tried this and bounced off it really quickly, but am so glad I went back to it. There is so much to love about this game, great characters, great dialogue, endless quests. The crafting and ship building is not essential, but is really fun nonetheless. This game really shines when you just meet a random stranger and start a crazy quest that starts with a simple fetch quest and ends with you joining a faction and carrying out a ton of missions for them. This is fallout in space. There are a lot of loading screens and a lot of fast travelling required. This almost renders one of the game’s selling points into a slight negative. The scale **** is impressive, but I rarely spent time flying through space and just generally used fast travel, as it just too too long to get anywhere manually piloting your ship. The ability to pick up everything you see truly is incredible and I am blown away by the work they’ve put in to do this. This is an incredible experience and one I would recommend to anyone, it just maybe tried to hard to be everything all at once.

The negro leagues content is a cool addition and the history videos are really interesting. The online stuff is still really hard to get into with 100mph pitchers blasting it past you, when you can’t react with the lag caused by online play. The game is great, but doesn’t do much more than the previous one. Great to have game pass and get the latest version, but if I was paying for it I’d be happy with 21 or 22, as there’s not much difference here.

I would normally just add a rating, but this game is so good I felt compelled to write a review. This game is not a zelda clone, it’s a mix of Metroidvania, puzzle and even a bit of souls type gameplay. This game forces you to think and when you solve one of the puzzles the feeling of satisfaction and joy at what you have discovered is like nothing I’ve seen before in gaming. The game tells you very little, but gives you the tools to discover the answers to its puzzles and secrets. If there is one slight negative, the combat it not always the most engaging.This is the best game I’ve played this year and yes I did play and enjoy Elden ring.Hopefully there’s a tunic2!!

One of the best games I’ve ever played. Constantly surprising, delightfully weird and awesome physics and logic based puzzles. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to discover this! Everyone should play this game!!