Heldrin

Path of Exile is a great game, but this iteration of it (the Incursion league) seems poorly thought out. It takes a game that is already punishing on new and less-than-optimal players, and it magnifies that punishment to an unnecessary degree. I recommend Path of Exile as game, but I can't recommend this game mode (Incursion league). If you've played games like Diablo 2/3, Titan Quest, Grim Dawn, or the Torchlight games, then you have a basic idea of what Path of Exile is. It's a top-down camera action-rpg that largely focuses on battling hoards of monsters for rewards. Path of Exile has a degree of mechanical complexity that surpasses most other games in its genre, and it's well known for its rather steep learning curve. If it's your first time playing, it will benefit you greatly to follow a well-made guide that goes into detail about how to be successful and navigate the myriad mechanics of the game. The highest-level gameplay in Path of Exile features a "map" system where players can craft maps for their characters to battle through. The most adept and knowledgeable players "speed run" these maps in order to accumulate items and power as efficiently as possible. This sort of speed-focused gameplay is what Incursion is really all about. In theory, that sounds like a rather logical focus for a Path of Exile league. Maybe it is. Unfortunately, I think it's detrimental to expand this speed-map-running mode to the rest of the game. In Incursion league, you will occasionally encounter an NPC who opens a portal to a temple in the past. Your character's job is to fight through the temple's rooms and (hopefully) unlock the temple's apex for big rewards. You can unlock doors to connect rooms up to the apex, and you can upgrade individual rooms so they provide more treasure. Once you've been to the temple in the past a number of times, you and the NPC enter it in the present. Your actions in the past will determine the layout and rewards you get from the temple in the present. The catch is that all of these rooms you visit in the past have a timer, and when this timer expires you're booted out of the temple. You will get 10-20 seconds to fight through groups of monsters, unlock doors to connect rooms, kill certain key NPCs, etc. The timer can be extended by killing monsters and hitting what are essentially the mini bosses of the room. The amount of time you initially get on the timer (when you first enter the room) seems to vary without any explanation as to why. There may be some damage component involved in the extension of your timer (the harder you hit a mini boss, the more time you're granted), but that isn't clear either. The exact mechanics related to extending the timer seem fairly opaque. For players who aren't using super-speed strategies or who aren't accustomed to speed running maps, you may find that you're getting kicked out before you can accomplish much of anything at all in the temple rooms. The monsters have high health; they are spread out poorly and it can take several seconds just to engage another pack; keys to unlock doors will drop on the complete other side of the room, which can leave you no time to go open it. I should also mention that Path of Exile has a penalty for dying (experience loss), and this penalty seems to be magnified for deaths incurred inside the temple. Skillful players who are great at high-level map running aren't going to have a problem with this game mode at all, and there are outrageously powerful items for them if they can successfully build their temple. These players were already getting the best late-game rewards in the most efficient manner, and now they are getting a large advantage in earlier parts of the game too. The temple can reward extremely powerful items, so their characters will now level faster and get to late game activities even easier than before. Basically, the people who were already breezing through the game's content now have it even easier. The players who aren't on that level are going to struggle to set up their temples and probably repeatedly eat a 10% experience loss for dying. In summation, Path of Exile Incursion takes a playstyle that the best of the best are most adept at, and it makes it the key focus of the league. It heaps rewards on those who were already getting the greatest rewards, and it punishes the less skillful to a higher degree than the base game does. If you're new or you don't play the game at a high level, I'd recommend waiting for another league or playing something else. This new "temple building" feature is something you will only get to occasionally experience for ~30 seconds at a time, and it's likely to be more frustrating than fun.

Game would be spectacular, if it didn't crash all the time. I can't give this a better score until they sort out the buggy code in their engine. You may get lucky and have no issues running it. Many people who are way above the minimum recommended specs are having a hard time getting the game to be stable for them.

This game has improved a lot since its release, but I'm still not a huge fan. It looks an plays like something from a decade ago. Its free to try though. If you're into ARPGs like Diablo or Torchlight it might be worth a try.

Evolve is a game where a team of players hunt down another player who controls a colossal monster. The problem is that the best strategy for the monster is to spend the majority of the game running/hiding from the players. The more time spent avoiding players, the more the monster can feed and power up, (and evolve into another form). The concept sounds cool, on paper, but in actual practice it can get stale fast. Imagine a competitive shooter where players actively try to avoid each other. Ya. There are ways that players can temporarily lock the monster down and prevent escape, but many matches still involve copious amounts of just running around. Also, as many others have mentioned, the dlc model for this game is kinda horrendous. When the developers need to create complicated graphs to try to explain their robust DLC model, we have reached a new level of absurdity. I'm still not exactly sure how much you need to pay to get all the current content in the game.

A worthwhile ARPG, definitely worth trying if you're a fan of the genre. Complex skill systems, lots of different builds to create, varied loot with different ways to upgrade items. You can even make health potion flasks with differing stats. There are races/ladders, a thriving economy with constant trading, and pvp. The devs update content and are engaged. POE can be difficult, you have to make correct decisions regarding your character build. If youre looking for an optimal character your first play through, you may want to read up on game mechanics and builds. Also, at some point you're probably going to have to do some trading if you want great gear. Desync is unfortunately an issue. Occasionally the game client and the server don't communicate correctly. This did not effect me at all, for some people it's a legit hindrance. It's free to play with a cash shop full of cosmetic stuff and frills. You can't pay for more powerful characters, or max level characters, or experience boosts, or any of that garbage. The game is not pay to win. I played POE for a while and then moved on, but I may be back some day. It's a cool game from a small but dedicated team.

Haven't played very much thus far, but I've played enough to say that you should probably pass on this for PC at the moment. The PC controls, the "tactical" (lol) camera, the menus, and other UI design decisions all make it clear that PC players are simply not the chosen demographic for this game. When I first started seeing the negative comments about the PC controls, I thought, "Well that's okay, I usually rebind all my keys anyways". Little did I know that the issues on PC go way beyond just bad key-binds. For example, the "tactical" camera is in this game is a complete joke. This is a feature that was in the previous Dragon Age games. It allows you to pause the game and assess the situation, issue commands to party members, etc.. This is an extremely important feature for difficult fights. Unfortunately, in DA: Inquisition, this feature is a clunky mess. You can't zoom out far enough to really be able to assess what's going on. The angles available to you while in this tactical cam mode are awful, especially during close-quarters fighting. Even just trying to look up while in this mode is difficult. Switching between characters and giving commands is somehow now worse than in the previous two games. This needs to be addressed immediately. The camera behavior is frustrating out of tactical mode too. When you attempt to zoom the camera out via the mouse wheel, the game auto switches you to tactical mode. This cannot be turned off. When you engage in dialogue with an NPC, the camera auto-pans to the side a bit. There have been several conversations I've had where the camera panned behind a tree or other obstruction, leaving me to stare at foliage while my character is conversing. Whoever was in charge of the camera behavior in this game really dropped the ball. Now on to the menus. Because the menus were designed for a controller, navigating them on PC is tedious. Got a new item in your inventory? Want to equip it? Have fun going through various menus and sub-menus, instead of just simply opening a bag and clicking the item. The ability trees are equally clunky, it took me a bit to figure out how to scroll down to the bottom of the trees, (you can't just use the mouse wheel scroll function, you have to click and drag the screen). They've also removed click to move and a number of other features that made the previous two games enjoyable on PC. Even looting in this game is clunky. Would you like to be able to mouse over an ability on your hot bar and read a tool tip which states exactly what it does? Too bad, that doesn't exist in this game! Have fun clicking through more menus and sub-menus just to get the info you want about an ability. The game does have good qualities too: it looks great, the environments are impressive, it has skill trees that allow you to build custom characters, the character creation process is great, the sound/music is great, it's not completely linear and is more of an open world. I think the story and writing isn't the best, but it's not atrocious either. There's definitely potential for a great game here, but the combat controls and UI really ruin the experience. 6/10 at the moment, I will adjust my score if they fix the issues I've listed above. Addendum: I should also add that the tactics options in this game have been seriously reduced compared to the previous two Dragon Age games. You used to be able to set very precise behavioral controls for your party members, where they would use a certain ability when certain combat conditions were met. I'm not sure why they stripped this feature, it was really well done in the previous games. Also, there is now no healing in the game. You get "barrier" type spells for damage reduction, and 8 health potions. When you run out of health potions, you have to return to camp to restock. The lack of tactics and healing do not make the game any better, frankly I think it's a regression.

I'm really shocked that this is a release from Blizzard Entertainment. It feels more like some sort of free to play cash shop game, where they design it to be mind-numbingly boring and hope that you'll buy things from the cash shop to improve your experience. Unlike the vast array of other ARPG's I've played, this game just absolutely refuses to let you find your own gear upgrades. The intent was obviously to try to herd players to the auction houses to buy items, but considering ARPG's are largely about finding items, this design really ruins the experience. In fact, there's nothing else really to this game other than an incredibly boring, frustrating and defective item system. There (was) no pvp, the social system is basically non-existent--so I guess we are supposed to buy items from the cash shop so we can just log in and stare at our awesome character. Blizzard removed a lot of things from the previous Diablo games, saying that these elements essentially constituted bad game design, but then they replaced these elements with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. So there's now no reason to kill bosses in Diablo 3, (farming bosses was bad design, apparently), there are no skill trees, (skill trees are bad design, apparently), there (was) no pvp, (no pvp is apparently better design than imperfect pvp), not to mention various other elements that were removed from the series. There's not much **** here after the first play through, I'd spend my money on another title.

If you're into loot hunt/character building games, this is probably the best thing to come out in over a decade. For those who have never played this type of game before, it's an action role playing game, where you have abilities bound to your left and right mouse button and a few keybinds on the keyboard. The action and controls are fairly straightforward so that really anyone can get into it fairly easily. You level your character up by doing quests, defeating monsters, mini bosses and bosses, and you choose new abilities as you level to customize your character's play-style. You will find increasingly awesome weapons, armor, spells, and armor enhancement gems as you progress through the game. You can customize your characters appearance to some degree, and even choose a pet from a variety of critters. There are open world areas to explore, with each area having a number of "dungeons" ,(towers, keeps, crypts, etc.). The appeal to this genre of game comes primarily from what is known as the "loot hunt". As your character proceeds through the game's content, the monsters and bosses they defeat will drop increasingly powerful items for your character to use. Depending on what skills you have chosen for your character, you're going to want to hunt for specific items that compliment that play-style and make your specific character build more powerful. These types of games can provide thousands of hours of game play--if they get the character building and item finding aspects correct, which Torchlight 2 absolutely does. If you're the type that would be into building powerful fantasy characters as a hobby, this would be a great game for you. To the ARPG vets who have not tried this game yet, I'm not sure what you're waiting for. For $20, TL2 is an absolute beast. Even at just level 20-30, you'll have various set item pieces, a unique or two, a slew of gems to socket, some random gear enchants, weapons with powerful procs, etc.. You can assign your stat points as you level, and each stat has multiple effects so you will benefit from more than just dumping everything into your primary stat. Your gear will be interesting and you'll have to do some decision making/theory crafting even at a fairly low level. Build variation is definitely here, a glaive Outlander and a pistol Outlander will want vastly different stat assignments and gear. Unconventional builds are viable, even on "elite" setting, so long as you're willing to farm up the necessary gear and socketables. I've seen someone take a melee class and make an elite viable ranged dual pistol build. For those of you who want a challenge, even with great gear the elite setting in the later game modes will still get you one-shot on occasion, so playing a hardcore will get your heart rate up. The loot in this game is plentiful. I've been playing for 2 months and I've got a bunch of various gear sets and weapons in multiple stashes for different classes across various levels. That being said, you will still have to invest time to get the absolute best of the best--at 215 hours into the game I still only have one rare item, and only one character that could be considered close to "super geared" for end-game, (even that character needs vast improvement for NG5+ elite). Mechanically speaking, the game is sound--there are only a couple of skills in the game that I think could be reworked. If you're letting the indie graphics stop you from trying this, I think you're making a huge mistake if you're a real ARPG/loot hunt fan

I'm generally not a "shooter" game fan, I haven't played games of that genre since DOOM and Quake back in the 90's, but this game is incredible. The characters in BL2 are hilarious, the main villain is such an outrageous, self-centered jerk that you'll be dying to slay him by midway through the game. I wont even get into some of the phrases the various bad guys yell at you, but whoever did the writing here has a great sense of humor. The guns look great, and they have such varied combinations of stat bonuses and drawbacks that you'll really have to do some experimenting with them to see which ones work best for you, (it may not be immediately apparent in most cases). This is the case with grenade mods, shields, and other equipment too; you'll really have to look at the stats and experiment a bit in different scenarios, there isn't always an obvious "best" choice. The equipment "drop rates" seem about right to me; while leveling up I would find something amazing about every 7 levels, which would really give my character a significant boost in power for the next few levels. In addition to the weapons and armor, the skill trees in BL2 give it a real rpg feel. Each class has 3 specialization trees, as you level you'll get skill points to assign and build your character's spec. There are also dozens upon dozens of outfit skins and character faces, (some are very rare), so you can alter your character's appearance in many different ways. There's vehicle combat in BL2, and you can even change the way your vehicle looks and it's weapons. The combat and controls are great, on the PC this doesn't feel like a console port to me at all. The battles in this game are huge, and hard. You're going to have to learn how to make use of cover, retreat, and effectively use your arsenal of various guns and grenades. The enemies come with various strengths and weaknesses, so figuring out which tactic works best against which provides a lot of depth and strategy for a shooter game. I love the Borderlands look and art work, and the game runs great on my computer. The only reason I'm not giving this game a 10 is because some parts of it, especially on the second play through, seem like they were designed with multiplayer in mind. Not that it's impossible to do solo, just potentially extremely frustrating at times. As someone who prefers to solo in games that have single and multiplayer options, I have to deduct a point there.

As others have noted here, Krater has a lot of charm. The post apocalyptic theme and the humor kinda reminds me a little of Borderlands, except a bit less ultra violent. Your weapons are going to be made from whatever materials they have available after the apocalypse in Sweden, so expect guns made from soda cans and a 2 hand weapon made out of a mailbox. In Krater you'll level up soldiers of various archetypes, who generally fall into the category of tank, healer, damage dealer, or crowd controller. You mix and match soldier combinations to form teams of 3, and then go do quests, level up, get weapon and ability upgrades, etc.,-- typical ARPG stuff. The combat is in real time, and you're going to be controlling the three different characters all at once, including their targeting, abilities, and positioning, (each character only has 2 abilities and a cool-down item so it's not that bad). The controls can take a little getting used to though, judging from some of the other reviews this was a hurdle that was too steep for some. Last time I played there were two fairly lengthy, (maybe 40 level?), dungeons which constituted the "end-game". The enemies get repetitive as there are only a limited type, (you're going to be fighting a lot of bears and moose). The monsters basically come in packs of 3-5 which your team would fight in a similar fashion to a multiplayer role playing game, with one soldier tanking, one doing damage, another healing. Or, you can have two damage dealers+one healer, or, three crowd controllers, or, any other team set-up you find viable for the encounter. Towards the later levels of the dungeons, some strategizing is necessary for certain mob groups, and a bad pull will wipe your team quickly. Then you have to start over at your last checkpoint, which could be many floors back. It can get a bit frustrating at times. For the $15 I spent on the game though I feel I got my money's worth from Krater, I got about 90 hours of game play out of it. For the price point I give the game a 7.49, the story is worth playing through once.