Fonzy

Listen, I love me some Blizzard games. And I really wanted to like this one. Here I am, almost 2 months of play time into the expansion, and I've decided to cancel my subscription. Here's the problem - this expansion would probably be a great singleplayer game, but as an MMO, it's underwhelming. Once you do your quests, it's over, that's it. Hang out in your garrison all day in trade chat and wait for your dungeons/LFR to pop. They totally trashed professions, which removed my desire to level any alts. There is little-to-no appreciable daily content to speak of, which is a bit of a blessing and a curse, but mostly a curse, IMO, because there's nothing to do. They took out Justice/Valor Points, so no steady gear progression, it's all RNG. Garrisons were a neat idea but overall pretty underwhelming. And the bugs, oh lord, the bugs. To me, this expansion really throws off some bad signals with the bugs, and the fact that there's a whole zone that's been closed off since launch. I hope I'm wrong, but the signal I'm getting is that Blizzard released an unfinished product, which is very much not like them to do. If this is a sign of things to come, I may have to turn in my Blizzard fanboy membership card. I might resubscribe later after a content patch or two, provided they add some actual content to the game, but I guess I'll have to wait an see. In the meantime, they won't be getting my subscription dollars.

Listen to all the people who say this game is amazing, because it is. Sure I encountered some glitches in gameplay, but they definitely weren't enough to ruin my experience of the game. This game is great, and it's worth buying and playing no matter who you are.

I dig mindless hack-and-slash, and this game has it in spades. I had a fun time playing through once and will probably go back and reinstall at some point in the future. It has bugs, sure, and it's not perfect, but it's fun, and the level of character customization is very fun and rewarding. Just don't pay too much for it and you won't be disappointed.

A lot of people held this game up as a more satisfying version of Diablo 3, but personally I don't agree. Maybe I didn't play it long enough, but like some other reviewers, I found the lack of any kind of engagement extremely off-putting and didn't play for more than an hour before I got bored and went and did something else. My initial intention was to try to pick it back up later on and give it another chance, but that was a year ago and I still don't have any desire to try this again. Maybe that day will come in the distant future and I'll have a reason to revise my review, but for now, it's a 0/10.

This game is very stylish and cool and has a lot of fun elements to it that anyone should be able to enjoy. The only negative thing I can think of is that the "new-game plus" feature just doesn't really do it for me in terms of adding replayability. But for a game that can be had on Steam right now for less than $3, this title is well worth the money, even if you only get one play-through.

This game is pretty damn cool. To anyone of my generation that grew up playing SimCity on Mac Classics, this game is a must-play. I did not pick up this series until Tropico 4, so I can't share the gripes that some other people have that this version is not much an upgrade over Tropico 3, but I think if you're new to the series, this installment is a fine place to start. Tropico 5 was just released, too, and I'm eager to try it out, but I'm going to wait for it to come down in price a little first. Solid game.

The latest installment in franchise games can often be the victim of their own previous success and it appears that Civ V is no exception. Taken by itself, Civ 5 is a solid game. In a vacuum, I would say my biggest gripes are that the city-state system feels a bit unloved and leaves a lot to be desired. Additionally, diplomacy is a bit of a black box that's difficult to wrangle with. Plus sides are the level of complexity that allow for different playstyles and paths to victory that provide a lot of replayability. Compared to the other Civ games, I feel like the updates are a wash - things have become less complex, but I really appreciate the removal of the infamous stacks of doom we saw in Civ 4. Bottom line is, if you're a Civ freak, you might be disappointed with Civ 5 if you compare it to the previous installments. If you're a casual Civ fan, or have little-to-no familiarity with the series, you'll find Civ 5 to fun and engaging and offer you many hours of enjoyment.

The appeal of world-builder games like Terraria is, I think, a bit limited, meaning that there is a certain type of person that will absolutely love and adore the complexity a game like this, and then a good number of people who just won't "get it". I think I fall somewhere in the middle - intellectually, I adore the idea, but often get bored with the execution. Minecraft, for example, just really didn't do it for me at any point. Terraria, however, is a game I keep going through cycles with - I become enamored with the discovery and exploration, play a lot, but then my progress bogs down, and my interest peters out for a good long while. Overall, I think this game is great, and if you like world-builders, this is definitely a good choice for you. I think I might like a little more structure here and there to hold my interest at a constant level (not really a huge fan of googling things I find in the ground to see if there's anything useful I can make with it). It's a solid game at any rate, though, and worth playing with.

I'll be honest, I understand a lot of the hate the initial release of D3 got - didn't agree with it, but I understood a lot of points people were making. The hate for this expansion, though? Totally unfounded. I guess there are rabid anti-fanboys just as much as there are fanboys. Loot 2.0 and adventure mode have saved the entire title and turned it into something that's a lot of fun to play and given it loads of replay value. I keep thinking, "Ah, I'll take a break from D3 and play something else", only finding myself clicking the Battlenet icon half an hour later to go kill some monsters. People are saying Act V is a little short. It is, if you play straight through and don't do any of the side dungeons. There's certainly no mandatory endless Bloody Foothills battlefield, like in D2 Act V, but I personally found that area to be gratuitously long. The only real knock I have on this game over all is that the character building feels like it lacks something. While I always detested the D1 and D2 systems of just dumping endless stat points into one area or another and appreciate the effort Blizzard put in to trying to make that feel less mindless with the new Paragon system, it still feels like it's not enough and that every level 70 Crusader is going to wind up being basically the same. Overall, I would say this expansion is an 8/10, but I'm giving it a 10 because I feel like all the 0s are from people who are still seething from the original game and didn't give this one a chance. I think in the long run, this game will be one of the classics everyone comes back to in time, just like D2 was.

I just don't get it, you guys, and I find it hard to believe that CD Projekt has 2,860 employees, so someone explain to me where all these 10s are coming from. After about 5 hours of playing this, I am straight up BORED. Gruff-voiced tough-guy anti-hero? Check. Big breasted female characters who serve primarily as window dressings? Check. Meandering, "complex" story that doesn't appear to be really going anywhere? Check. Amnesia trope? Check. Random narration with no real rhyme or reason? Check. Scripted/directed _everything_? Check. The dialogue scenes are constant, boring, and only advance the plot centimeters at a time. In the brief interludes where I get to wander around a bit, the world is so closed off that I feel like I'm playing a rail shooter. The random snippets of combat that do take place ratchet up the excitement to the level that you'd expect from digging in a toolbox to find the right size wrench. And then there's the arm-wrestling mini-game and street fights determined by pressing the correct button when it flashes on the screen. YAAAWWWWN. The best thing I can say about this game is that I got it for $3 on Steam. Also, the graphics and sound aren't terrible. I do like the comic-book interludes as a nice change of graphical pace. I really hate to give up on any title, so I'll probably give it another chance or two, but at this rate, I won't feel bad uninstalling it. Mediocre at best.

If you look at the negative reviews, you'll probably notice the two biggest complaints are: 1) Need to be online to play the game, and, 2) Server issues around the release date. The online component complaint is silly. Diablo 3 isn't the same type of game as Diablo 2, even though it's easy to get confused, since they're from the same franchise. D3 is actually a cleverly-disguised, free-to-play MMO that allows you to play most of the content solo. So if MMOs generally aren't your thing, you probably aren't going to like D3, but if you understand that an want to try a new one, you'll probably be pretty happy with the result. The server complaints are even more silly, because here it is, a week later, and things are stable as can be. I'd recommend you ignore any review written within the 5/15/12 - 5/20/12 date range, as the launch of any substantially-awaited online game tends to be fraught with grumpy customers who lack patience and get frustrated at the lack of instant gratification, rather than look at the long-term possibilities. As time goes by, lots more people will come around to this game and realize how knee-jerk and ridiculous the launch-week hysterics were. This is a quality game and has a lot of life right out of the box. No one who isn't a giant crybaby will be regretting buying this game 6 months to a year from now, once the realization dawns on them how fun this game can actually be.