Halefire

It's a decent game, but even as a diehard lover of the Borderlands series I found this one hard to engage with. There's just something about this game that leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. I find none of the characters particularly fun to play, and even the most interesting player character here is less interesting than the least interesting player character in other games. When you lose out in personality to Salvador the Gunzerker, that's really a problem. The thing is, as much as I felt like I would have liked "more Borderlands 2", for a game that deserved to be so much more the Pre-Sequel just disappoints me. As much as I liked Handsome Jack as a character, I never felt so interested in him that I felt his backstory deserved an entire full-length game to flesh out. The game suffers the same faults as its predecessors, which I'll do my best to summarize quickly: -side quest overload. Not to say that there's too many, but rather too many are necessary simply to progress in the story. It is absolutely paradoxical that the writers will work so hard to create a main story that players will want to progress in then SLAM them back down at every mission or two to say NO! Too low level, go grind some side missions that are usually far less interesting. With every passing Borderlands game I find this more and more infuriating. -singleplayer vs coop paradox: in singleplayer, you get the distinct feeling that the number of enemies is balanced for multiplayer, as you quickly get swarmed by a dozen enemies ALL shooting at you when normally that would be spread among a few more players. In multiplayer however, the enemies become such bullet sponges (bosses especially) that you lose any feeling of your weapons having weight or impact. It's the same issue that Destiny has, where bosses can soak up thousands of bullets. Can you even call them bullets at that point? Other than these two major ones, I still enjoy the writing, and I greatly enjoy how player banter is increased several times over. This is one feature that I feel needs to make it into the inevitable Borderlands 3, because player characters could certainly feel lifeless in past games (which was why it was such a shock--an awesome shock--to see how much character they actually had when they appeared as NPCs in BL2).

This game is not fun. Now as your mouse moves toward that "Helpful? NO" button, wait. This game is not fun, but it *does not try to be fun*. In fact, it SHOULD NOT be fun. This game is about survival during a war, and survival is NOT fun. Anne Frank is not famous because her diary was a fascinating epic with interesting fleshed out characters, it is famous because it was a stark, unfiltered slice of World War II from a civilian standpoint. This War of Mine is a compelling experience for the same reason. You will be struggling for most of this game, and you will fail many times in your attempt to survive the war. Most will never succeed in actually "completing" the game. Food is a constant struggle, and moral quandaries abound. Stealing will upset most of your characters. Sacrificing time or supplies to help those who show up to you door appealing for help will make them more content, *sometimes*. Your survivors will constantly be hungry, tired, sick, and more. None of them are trained killers--having to kill someone has serious, serious consequences on their psyche, and they can even commit suicide if it gets to be too much. Ultimately this isn't a game I sit down to "enjoy". It's not a game I pull up when I'm looking to blow off some steam. It's a game that I play when I've got time and energy set aside to have a simply memorable experience.

This is an update to my previous review, in which I gave this game a 5. That review was written in the week after release when the infamous ending controversy was just getting underway with more and more people finishing the game. Since then, Bioware has released a large, free patch called the Extended Cut DLC. This was controversial as well, with popular gaming entities like TotalBiscuit still lampooning the game for the endings, but ultimately I feel this extended cut did what it needed to in order to rescue the game. To summarize the new endings rather pithily, while the overall endings haven't necessarily changed, both the final dialogue with a certain spoiler-y character and the actual endings themselves have been *greatly* expanded. Nearly every single issue I found fault with story-wise has been addressed in terms of loose plot threads. Better yet, you now get to see what happens to your companions post-ending, and the context of one or two of the endings has been *significantly* altered. Other DLC since then has also substantially improved my opinion on this game. This game is *by far* the best sci-fi RPG that we've had in a decade, maybe even several decades. It is absolutely beautiful, flows wonderfully, and features a multiplayer mode that initially everyone was apprehensive about but ended up being a wonderfully smooth, engaging experience. I'm re-writing this review again because in all my years of gaming, I think Mass Effect 3 is the one game I have not been able to replay after those first few months simply because I couldn't find enough time to set aside for the post-ME3 depression that inevitably sinks in. No other game has been able to hit me on such an emotional level, and I would argue games like ME3 and Bioshock Infinite (the latter less so perhaps) should be held up as prime examples of gaming as an extremely powerful storytelling medium. Those are the only two games I've ever played for which I need to remove the emotional songs when listening to the sound tracks because I don't need those feels out of the blue during the day. Honestly, were some in-game qualms fixed I would say that such an emotional effect would merit a 10/10. As it stands, what with the ending somewhat-retcon and the fact that Javik is a DLC character, I can only max it out at 9/10 (as much as I hate gaming scores)

I've read as many negative user reviews as I could stomach and thus far haven't found a single one that wasn't majorly flawed. People are really grasping hard to justify their EA hate on this one. The fact of the matter is, DAI on PC is not a perfect game and has some unfortunately memorable bugs and issues. However, it is still objectively speaking one of the most expansive and ambitious RPGs created in the last decade (maybe more). Personally speaking, it was an extremely enjoyable but not perfect experience. You all have likely heard about the best parts of DAI over and over by now. The lush landscapes, the wonderful world fleshed out by a who cadre of minor and major characters with superb voice acting, and the by now world-famous storytelling that Bioware has become renowned for, the list goes on and on. What you should also know is a few key features that definitely marr the game a little: -the character builder is incredibly deep in facial building, but falls completely flat in hairstyles. Look at 20 male characters and I guarantee at least half will be sporting the shaved-sides look because it's one of the only hairstyles that doesn't look awful. And yet there are at least six or seven different kinds of bald head. It's absolutely baffling how this aspect of the character creator could have been so overlooked. -the decision to make a number of conversations non-cutscene doesn't really make sense to me. Perhaps if we were better able to control the camera angle during these scenes, but the majority are too zoomed out, the audio will shift depending on your distance from the speaker, and overall they just feel much more underwhelming. -the tactical camera, as I'm sure you've heard but is worth mentioning again, is godawful on the PC. The controls for that were clearly designed for consoles. It must be very frustrating for people playing this on Nightmare since they're going to be spending a lot of time in that mode during combat. -the mothereffin' Hinterlands. Bioware did a wonderful job in crafting a huge, open starting area *full* of things to do but it became very clear on launch day that way too many people were spending too much time in that area and getting bored because they weren't progressing with the story. The thing is, the way that you progress in story missions is that you build Power as a currency to "pay" for the important missions (for instance, the first story mission after the intro costs 8 power to initiate) and you get Power by doing all sorts of things in the open world, but that isn't so readily explained to you. Tutorializing really could go a long way toward making the earlier hours more streamlined. It was so necessary that even Bioware's Facebook page felt it necessary to release a post basically saying "LEAVE THE HINTERLANDS!" But for all the faults, all the bugs, this is still one of my favorite RPGs in memory. Games like Skyrim, the Witcher 2, Mass Effect etc all have their place but the depth of the storytelling, open world, crafting, and exploration that is Dragon Age Inquisition sets it apart. I find people hating on this game for the stupidest of reasons, the worst I've seen probably being the fact that you can hook up with a Qunari companion. It was nicknamed "Riding the Bull" and garnered such masterpieces as "what a surprise, a game made by SJWs is complete garbage". I can't even begin to comprehend how narrow-minded someone has to be to think that any non-traditional romance roles are basically SJWs pandering to pan-sexual lobbying of some sort. Don't buy into the crap people are spewing at it. I'm only reviewing this game this late because I've already sunk almost a hundred hours into it. Those who love the game aren't the ones here bashing it two days after release.

Is it a perfect game? No. But for what it sets out to accomplish, I definitely feel that it almost entirely hit its mark. It has taken the app store by storm, but I suspect its negative criticism ultimately comes from the fact that a large number of people on these devices are casual gamers, which there's nothing wrong with but the demographic definitely seeks different goals than a more core gamer base. For me, The Dark Room is almost a meditative process, and certain plot points which I won't spoil really resonated *hard* with me when I first realized what was going on. It's a game that forces you to think, to roleplay a little bit, and to really put yourself into the shoes of The Wanderer. Things start to go wrong (again, no spoilers) with absolutely no fanfare, simply a single sentence, and honestly many players miss it at first like I did. Then as you start to realize what's going on, many people including myself became more and more uneasy but continued seeing it through to the end. What really stuck with me through all this is that were such an event to play out in real life, that's basically how it would happen as well. It's difficult to say much more without any spoilers but I'll leave you with this thought: everyone believes themselves the protagonist in the story that is life.

I know that many seeing the number next to this review will be quick to say things like "oh you hate RPGs" or "you hate shooters", when in fact there's a good chance that I've been playing RPGs, shooters, and indeed MMOs since before they were in diapers. Destiny is not an awful game. However, it is far from good, and all things considered it is likely one of the biggest letdowns in my entire gaming lifetime. I want to be having fun, but I simply am not. Let's start with the positives to mollify the dissonant fans trying to justify their purchase and hype: + The lore itself, strictly the lore, is fantastic. See negatives for why this was a horribly missed opportunity. + The music is engaging, I think I may pick up the OST regardless of the game itself. + The gameplay itself does feel satisfying at first, it only sours when you realize this is *all* there is. And now, sadly, the laundry list of negatives that led to my score: - The story might as well not be there. I'm serious. I have played RPGs with the budget of Destiny's daily donut allowance that had better stories than this. Six missions into the game I realized I still had no idea what I was doing, why I should care, or who anyone was. That is COMPLETELY unacceptable for a high school writing project, let alone a game that cost 500 million dollars. People are saying it's like Mass Effect. *Please*. From the get-go in Mass Effect, and indeed any RPG worth its salt, you feel like you're part **** story and constantly have a feeling of drive and motivation. Destiny's motivation: to slog through 30 hours of gameplay to reach level 20 where supposedly the actual "game" begins. - Several big name voice actors were hired for this project, the biggest of which was Peter Dinklage to play your personal "Ghost". I have to say, the only person more bored with the game during my playthrough was Peter Dinklage. Every single line he gave was basically flat and uninspired, and I really don't blame him for this at all--the script he was given was piss poor. - Missions are beyond formulaic. I've played games purported to be formulaic. I even enjoyed Dragon Age II's original, crappy missions because at least I felt like I had a sense of purpose. Destiny's missions all boil down as follows: short exposition from Dinklebot during the opening loading screen that tells you why you should care, even though there's no setup so everything is out of the blue. Then you get dumped into the starting area which is identical between all missions on that planet. You go to your target, constantly activating Dinklebot to find your disappearing waypoint. You may run into monsters far above your level because you took the *wrong* direct path to your target and get splattered. Then you kill a bunch of stuff, reach a limited-respawn zone, then kill a bunch of stuff while Ghost hacks something. You kill the bullet-sponge boss, get a 30-second countdown, get 1-2 pieces of randomized loot at the end, go back to the tower. - PvP is a mess. Everyone's been harping on about that so I won't go much further. - For such a social game, there are several extremely conspicuous blunders that made them gamebreakers for me. For one, given the game is very clearly balanced for Fireteam play rather than solo, joining and inviting to Fireteams is *extremely* roundabout. Overall, during my time I sent out maybe 40 invites to Fireteams (and made my own public), and I had *one* person actually join for a few minutes. There's no local chat, *two* emotes, and so few people are in the shard/instance of your planet that odds are most people will be over-leveled or under-leveled compared to you. - Apparently the game only really opens up close or at level 20. I don't see how anyone can offer this as an excuse. I refuse to pay 60 dollars and 30 hours of my life on the promise that it gets better later on. Endgame is what should *keep you coming back*, not what motivates you. It baffles me how this can be offered as an excuse, as what this says is "we acknowledge that the leveling is **** the story is uninspired, and the socialization is poor." Of course, many who praise the game accuse people like me of hating gear grind, of hating FPS/RPG hybrids, of all sorts of ad hominem things. Son, I was grinding gear in Diablo while you were being potty trained. RPGs and shooters are my gaming passion, and given how much I was promised for Destiny, it is one of the biggest let downs of all gaming time for me. It's not a bad game--it's a competent shooter. However it's laughable how Activision and Bungie are planning a ten year development cycle for this game. Unless there are serious changes (and the story is retconned and rewritten, which we all know won't happen) this game is just going to be another fizzle-out like Titanfall and Firefall.