Joelony

Harvestella is ambitious to its own detriment. The story is overly wrought "save the world" tropish and the farming elements suffer for it. The pros: Deeper character quests than most other farming sim games (ie **** Valley and Harvest Moon), but overall is much less appealing than Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma. The art style for the most part is interesting, but it also has extremely limited character customization. I got used to the male "side ponytail" but seriously no option for short hair? I think the art style would've been more appealing if it existed within the Final Fantasy world and had you raising Chocobos and interacting with established types of characters. They tried way too hard to create their own mythos and it simply wasn't all that interesting to me as a veteran of many RPGs and farming sims. It was also all over the place with concepts like fairies, the hallowed, "everyone's mysterious," etc. The cons: OMG, the audio design is irritatingly repetitive. There were certain times I would mute the audio, like when harvesting. I now hate the phrase "hello little croppies" because it is said EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. you "group harvest." The companions are needlessly repetitive too. Brakka... shut up. Even the quaint or well orchestrated music gets very old. Another annoying design is how they handle time. Of all these style of games, it's very, very quick, especially while exploring the overworld. Even with upgrades, time moves too quickly. They also do a poor job aligning quests and dungeon exploration with this limited time window. The stamina drain to run around is also too drastic. It would be fine if it ALSO didn't burn through a bunch of time to create food that restores stamina. All of the small time management annoyances add up by hour 100... or even hour 10. There are also only two types of livestock and only a handful of crops per season, with many growing in more than one season. But why put such limitations on seed purchasing? It takes lots of stockpiling for future seasons once you get your farm plots above 5 or so. Combat is boring (even with all the different weapon types) and there is no option to turn off floating damage numbers... So many small but weird/poorly implemented designs. This isn't a bad game overall, but the sum of the parts falls well short of other franchises that have been doing this formula for a while. If I didn't get Harvestella on a deep discount, I don't think it would be worth it in an already somewhat crowded genre.

Overall a pretty bland horror experience, but it did creep me out a few times. The blandness starts with the name, then voice acting, gameplay, etc. It was included with Game Pass, so I don't regret trying it. However, it's also too dark. Increasing gamma settings made all the shadowed areas gray but formless, so it is intentionally this dark - making navigation annoying. The intent to add tension just isn't there when it's confusing, dark, and repetitive. There were major FPS dips around candles/lighting on Series X causing some weapon misses and cheap hits. Combine this with uneven gameplay where some enemies doing a lot of damage while jumping out of corners, and it stops being fun or worthwhile very quickly. You can't move "slowly" to get an idea of where they'll come from because it's too claustrophobic and unfair with certain item scarcity. I stopped playing when I got to a hole and got rushed by enemies my strongest weapon wasn't quick enough to dispatch. Getting mauled to death felt like this game was going to be a chore with too many cheap deaths and bad resource management. Survival horror shouldn't come down to reloading a save so a cheap shot doesn't drain you of all resources.

A lazy buggy port to Nintendo Switch. This was built for mobile and I can see why it would get high marks... for a mobile game. But everything about this game is puddle deep, exploration becomes boring and tiresome due to high repetition and slow movement. There are a lot of pop in objects, hit detection is bad, and UI is clunky without using touch controls. It looks even worse while docked. The worst aspects are base building, sound design, and annoying bugs. The snap mechanics for building are really finnicky and some things can't be destroyed (ie beds). Trying to break one wall down to expand the base often times breaks things behind or near as well, ie trying to break a table to move position will often break the floor or wall near it. It's incredibly frustrating. Also many objects have to be broken from above, so if you accidentally destroy the second floor, you'll have to stack tables to get back up and delete specific objects. You'll also likely have to destroy ALL walls, roof, etc just to get the flooring to snap back in. The sound balance is atrocious and get used to low quality and very fake sounding animal growls and snarls because the spatial range of these sounds is wide, as in, you will hear them through mountains. Sure, it's to warn you enemies are nearby but it's constant. The islands being separate load areas make it annoying to set up new bases: either spend time moving loot over multiple trips or triple all your collection time and basically "start over" at each island. The bugs... taking melee damage from enemies at range, the aforementioned building bugs, item counts failing to update when used or collected, etc. Finally, some design decisions are simply terrible: No destroying objects to get materials back (this means you can run out of memory and crash the game), hang gliding burns through hunger making it a nearly useless form of travel, very limited storage so constant trips back and forth at turtle speed, and lots of exploitable situations (ie enemies stuck on objects). This is a truly annoying experience on consoles. Save your money.

Alone in the Dark commits a cardinal sin of horror games... it's not scary. Sure, it's atmospheric at times, spooky even, and has some nice nods and inspiration from Lovecraftian nightmare. But, the story is ridiculous, some settings are boring, the "gameplay" is worse than Resident Evil or Silent Hill, and it felt like it was full of half-baked ideas before it whisks you away to some new delusion. The characters also needed much more depth and it would've been interesting to explore different themes and mysteries surrounding each character. Some voice-overs were nice, but there is a lot of reading and piecing collectibles together to get any deeper lore - a very boring way to deliver exposition and narrative (there should've been more cutscenes). There is a lot of promise here, I enjoy the series (I even watched the awful movie), but I wish it had been something... more. This game very much falls behind its competitors. I would've been more pleased if they had leaned more into psychological horror like Layers of Fear or "run away" gameplay like Alien Isolation or Outlast. I would've even liked more exploration of the mansion with a more connected feel with specific items unlocking other sections (ala a Metroidvania approach). I didn't really enjoy too many of the "vignette" areas and they seemed to get worse as they went on. That's poor design and they should've focused more on the areas that worked and fleshed those out more. Or, considering the nature of the game, they could've pulled inspiration from Eternal Darkness. I don't hate that I played this Alone in the Dark, I just wish they would do this franchise justice.

What a nonsensical waste of time. The pixel art was good(ish- I've seen much better), but the nonlinear storytelling and extremely obtuse puzzle design (You take a dog chew toy then cut it on broken glass to make an object that can work on a broken elevator button?!) really make this short psychological horror story a chore rather than anything interesting. The ending (either one) doesn't justify the journey and there are far, far too many moments of "I genuinely don't care about any of this, the storytelling is a jumbled mess, and all of it is an exercise in futility." I'm glad I got this on a deep discount, but I'll never get my time back.

At first I thought the game was atmospheric and didn't want me to miss anything as it locked movement to a snail's pace (similar to the narrative-driven intro of Dead Space). Nope. I naively thought this game was at least going to be an entertaining Dead Space knockoff with some cheap scares and purchased at a deep discont. Even for $1 this game is repetitive, an awful slog, annoying level designs, slow and boring enemies, and there wasn't much "game" here. You get what you pay for and I'd rather throw a dollar's worth of coins into a fountain or waste them on a crane game than waste another second on this terrible game.

A lifeless depressing journey. The visuals and especially the music were enough to keep me going, but there's not a lot here. The story was interesting enough at first, but it gets too bleak for my taste. Bleak, but also pedantic if that makes sense? It doesn't tread original ground, but there isn't enough substance to feel deep. There are also some strange forced choices toward the end of the game and about halfway through this relatively short slog, I just wanted it to be over. Extremely mid game.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this game, it's just boring. It's beautiful, but boring. I didn't even attempt to play this until years after release but it's still a very pretty game. So it has that going for it. Unfortunately, Far Cry 6 is also the "gold standard" for boring repetition, boisterous but shallow characters, terrible writing, overly punishing or needlessly limiting systems, has many systems/mechanics but incredibly shallow or are beneficial far too late (have fun going all over collecting gear that improves survivability by .001%), and the "boiled down to evaporation" approach to open-world gaming. I'm glad we are already moving away from this, but dumbing down even further and overusing procedural generation isn't the answer either. Make games worthwhile and fun. The money will follow.

If my rating was based on the first half, it would be closer to a 9.5. However, it definitely wears out its welcome by the end and is now closer to a 7.5. Many aspects are improved upon from the first game, but some core elements don't work well, either by design, or oversight. This is a Soulsborne-like game that misses a key component to From Software's success: Difficulty done so-so: Overcoming diffculty should be rewarding, not a test in patience and a way to add bloat hours to an already lengthy game (especially for a fancy hack-n-slash). There are multiple "tough" enemies that have one-hit kill moves. All the leveling, stimpacks, and grinding is very diminished by this lazy approach to difficulty. This design will ruin some fights that could have been awesome, instead turning them into dodge-fests with a healthy dose of snooze. More is worse: In the pursuit of "more" we get more open world design but also get collectibles ad nauseum, frequent and often unrewarding platforming (with finicky mechanics), and an overly confusing level design with a lackluster map that gives Starfield navigation a run for it's money. But the plot is good, right?: There are epic moments, but also missed oppurtunities. The shallow depth of some characters diminishes their story impact. They also gloss over some basic plot details most game sequels address, like "why does my character start out weak again?" They sweep you up in an ever-moving plot, but since most character development is paper-thin I stopped caring and just wanted to get to the credits. You can also see the plot twists coming from a parsec away. My recommendation is to get this on sale or wait until it gets added to a subscription.

Melee attacks have a crosshair outside of the range of the weapon. If a monster gets inside that range, you can't hit them... Let that sink in. The first of many bungling design decisions. Wasn't even worth the deep discount and purchase with Nintendo Gold Coins.

The gaming industry is a massive money-making machine that is oversaturated and extremely competitive. The consumer is oftentimes pushed around by the whims of current cultural trends, profit model trends, and key decision makers that have either lost sight of what gamers want or don’t care and are laughing all the way to the bank. Mortal Kombat 11 suffers from an identity crisis. The push to maximizes profits and make shareholders happy coupled with a company trying to reinvent its aging and outdated brand in the current cultural climate has diminished that same brand. A brand that was once at the forefront of the “games aren’t just for kids” movement. Was never about social conformity. It’s not about counting quarters anymore, but much bigger money. The pressure to keep profit margins and brand awareness (and acceptance) high has ironically led yet another game down the wrong priority path. Come on, this is a game that spells Combat with a K and has fighters ripping other fighters in half. They purposefully chose to go with a grind that pushes toward microtransactions! It doesn’t matter that they patched it. They had intended to squeeze as much out of the consumer as possible (and the biggest reason this is getting a 0). No skimpy outfits? I get both sides of the argument. Objectification Vs Censorship. Again, this is a brand known for its brutality but they seem to have said this isn’t a hill worth dying on? They did some picking and choosing on what they wanted to be socially responsible with. Like Battlefront 2, Mortal Kombat 11 is not a bad game, but the business has gotten in the way of the entertainment.

The removal of a single-player campaign is indicative of a company that follows the money (and the trends). The Battle Royale mode does not offer the same level of risk/reward that PUBG does. In fact, the devs of PUBG took lengths to create a balanced game by removing "luck-based" items from normal gameplay. More often than not in BLOPS4, the winner of a Royale game comes down to "is their armor better than yours" I even recorded a gameclip of someone coming up a ladder in level 3 armor, me draining every round from my LMG into them, still shooting them as they got up to my level, and then they turn around and kill me in a few hits (apparently no lag detected). The lack of tactical options (ie not being able to switch firing modes, no leaning, etc) also makes this a subpar Royale offering. The attachments were also underwhelming except for what level of zoom you were using for a scope. The entire experience obviously feels more like COD than a Royale game. However, it does offer a much more enjoyable Royale experience for someone who wants to play a few games by themselves. On an Xbox One X with a new 55" 4K TV and HDR, the graphics were underwhelming and not much has changed. Even with the caveat that the graphics need to support 80 players in Royale, I just wasn't impressed. COD4 blew my mind, BLOPS4 just blows. Ultimately, the price does not justify the content and the flashy new Royale doesn't have the staying power or the draw to keep me coming back time after time.

There are only a few reasons to buy this game on new gen consoles: 1: You've never played Minecraft but can't play on a computer (or prefer not to). 2: All your friends have it and you want to play with them. 3: The arguably minor improvements over last gen (The Touchpad controls are a nice touch, pun intended). 4: You want to port over a saved world from the PS3. 5: You're addicted. Know this, as of release content is identical to the previous gen console versions (No horses, no hoppers, no mesas, etc.) with the addition of bigger worlds, longer draw distance, and 60 frames per second. While updates have been promised (duh, it's Minecraft) be wary that Microsoft purchased the rights to this game so PS4 users may get screwed. However, Minecraft in general does deserve to be scored an 8 or above because there truly is nothing else like it (except for the clones). Minecraft is also polarizing and some people may be turned off by it's blocky and ugly graphics and lack of modern game features players have come to expect (plot, voice-acting, etc.). I however love the game and I have spent hundreds of hours on previous generation consoles building everything from castles, to hedge mazes, to roller coasters, and sprawling towns. And now, unfortunately, I feel like I've seen and done it all in any console version of Minecraft. So I can't in good conscience tell anyone to buy this game if they already have it for last gen consoles. As is, with the amount of fans and the money earned, 4J Studios (who recodes and ports the PC version of the game developed by Mojang) are going painfully slow now and I can't help but get the feeling that they won't stop milking this cash cow and continue to over-promise and under-deliver while still being way behind it's PC forerunner.

Is this the reason why you bought a New Gen console? It was for me. And yes, I remember the extreme frustration that came with not being able to play this game. However, I was fortunate enough to trade in for multiple PS4 games so when Battlefield wasn't working I could play Assassin's Creed, Fifa, etc. However, if this was the only game I bought and the only reason I got a PS4, this game would get a score of 1... at the time at least. Now with the looming Battlefield Hardline, I thought I'd mention that this game is better than Battlefield 3 on previous gen consoles. 64 players make it hectic, fun, but can strain a slower internet. The single player campaign is more enjoyable than 3 but not quite the caliber of the Bad Company series. It's also relatively short (I beat it in around 7-8 hours) and I have a tough time not thinking that Call of Duty: Ghosts had a better story with more interesting "set pieces" even if it was over-the-top Hollywoodized. Comparisons aside, Battlefield 4 does offer a lot of variety in it's well-polished multiplayer and it can be fun to lone wolf as a sniper or help out random allies. However, Battlefield is the most fun while playing with friends and squadmates that know what they're doing and play their roles well. I'm also glad to see "Base and Spawn humping" has been addressed, ie. jets no longer have to take off and enemies cannot get to your base. That doesn't mean a game cannot be severely mismatched due to some balancing issues. I found myself quitting out of unbalanced matches after only one map and staying in balanced matches longer than I should have. I also think Battlefield 4 creates a better since of accomplishment doling out upgrades, new gear, awards, and "battle boxes" frequently. And balancing weapons and equipment better than predecessors. The vehicle controls take some time to get used to and are quite difficult. That can be a good thing because Air Superiority can more easily be combated. It feels as if the game has a more "rock, scissors, paper" approach to combat and an infantryman with the right equipment and skill can actually repel or defeat armored attacks. I also found myself using the PS Share feature for those awe-inspiring moments that your friends may not have believed in the past. Now you have proof. You may have heard of Levolution (sp?). Levolution basically alters the way a map or area plays. It is not a fluid organic thing however. It is a scripted event that you typically know is coming and when. They are cool, but some levels end up being cooler than others. Examples include map flooding, hurricanes, **** collapsing, etc. Also, I'm a big fan of multiple approaches in a multiplayer match, especially with this franchise, and Battlefield 4 really seems to take this into consideration. There aren't as many bottleneck areas or areas where a tank can dominate . Basically, all maps feel like they were tested thoroughly to ensure the proper ebb and flow of combat and to discourage any one aspect from dominating a map. Some negative staples of the Battlefield franchise still exist, like the aforementioned server imbalance, nerfed sniping, awkward melee, taking an objective only to lose it right after leaving, and "micro transactions leading to dominance" among a few other issues. Speaking of transactions. I am a fan of the Premium service. I waited and purchased it when the third DLC came out because I still got access to previous Gold Packs, Premium exclusive content (typically aesthetic), and it financially made since. However, I hate the fact that anyone can spend real money to unlock the best weapons, equipment, etc. It's pricey and a person still has to have the skill to back it up, but it can be frustrating in certain scenarios (especially with jets) or when your gun does get outmatched. Also, in case you didn't know; Battlepacks have different tiers (gold, bronze, etc) and have random goodies inside. These are typically scopes, camo, etc. and the odds of getting something more useful are increased (if not guaranteed) with the higher quality battlepacks. You can also spend real money on these. None of the micro-transactions should surprise you if you knew that EA publishes this franchise. All in all, I've had my fun with this game. The DLC is arguably worth it (I love it), Battlefield 4 is not perfect, but it is great. And I'm not quite ready for a new Battlefield to come out. I'd give this game a 9.5 now if I could.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

There are few other "licensed" games that actually play well and deserve a great score; this game is one of them. Is it perfect? No. Does it get a little bit repetitive? Yes. Even after the 100th Uruk Captain kill is it still satisfying? H*LL YES! The game features a satisfying and fairly long campaign, with some time trials and leaderboard driven tasks to keep you playing after you beat the game. Those modes are similar to the Batman: Arkham series of games. No surprise, since WB Games published ME: Shadow of Mordor. I must point out however, that while at times it feels like Lord of the Rings, other times it doesn't. In fact, the game could easily drop the Lord of the Rings licensing and still stand on it's own merit for delivering an Assassin's Creed style clone that actually plays really well. In fact, the combat is oftentimes more enjoyable than it ever was in AC. I must suggest that if you do play this game, don't get sidetracked by how fun it is to just kill stuff. Get through missions since it unlocks more content. I realized I had maxed out my RPG style upgrades and novelists pretty early. While this makes you feel like a demigod, or should I say demiwraith, when you can absolutely wreck a small army of Uruks (30+ enemies at a time) it makes missions an absolute snoozy breeze. I was still being taught "core game mechanics" in some missions and my abilities were mostly maxed out. The bad: Some of the animations and gameplay are downright wonky. Climbing can be frustrating and clumsy and some animations and move sets are not as fluid as Assassin's Creed or nonexistent altogether. For example, sidling a wall is really clunky, if you aren't perfectly lined up your character will oftentimes refuse to climb, and there is no way to jump from one ledge to another while hanging (unless it is close enough behind you then it gives an R1 prompt). Also, as much as I don't like comparing it to Assassin's Creed, it's hard not to notice the similarities. Graphics are much better than Black Flag, obviously, but aspects like building up a base or a large supporting cast just aren't in this game. However, the supporting cast are the Uruk Captains that you fight and without spoiling too much for you, I was really impressed with how this game adapts to the decisions I made; whether that was fleeing a fight, dying, or using a particular method to dispatch a Captain this game does a great job of making them feel like real adversaries. While their motivation isn't too deep (they are dumb evil Orcs, after all) it's really satisfying to use their weaknesses against them and finally get rid of that thorn in your side. I'd give this game an 8.7 or 8.8 if I could.