JohnMalcolm

Most of the negative scores are coming from Russian language shippers who can't accept that they aren't a first-class market for anything. I'm somebody who hasn't enjoyed platformers in general because I find them boring when they're not too difficult... either way a downer. But Psychonauts 2 is to platformers what WoW was to RPGs... a whole universe better! It's a bit short of an open-world MMO/RPG, but the writing and art are outstanding. You can turn combat damage down or off and just enjoy the jumping puzzles and the story line. Every part of this story has its own unique style and challenges. Don't miss it!

In the world of small indie RPGs, Wildermyth is a standout. Certainly a lot of major studio releases costing four times as much have been less satisfactory. That said, if you need something that stresses your equipment, brain, and reactions to the breaking point, this isn't it. But the stories are interesting, the relationships complex, the battle tactics rewarding, and the replayability outstanding. The game bends over backwards to give you all the help you want, so your energy goes into figuring out what to do rather than puzzling over how to do it. For the money, it's hard to beat. Following are comments from a relevant reddit thread: Is Wildermyth actually deep and replayable? I’m thinking about buying the game, but I’ve noticed something kinda strange about the reviews for Wildermyth. Most people are saying that it has amazing procedural storytelling and you can play it endlessly. But then there’s a handful of official reviews saying that it gets old after a single campaign, and some of the most upvoted steam reviews are saying that you’ve seen everything after only 10 hours. Just wondering if there’s any truth to the latter opinions. Edit: Thanks everyone. Sounds like most of the negatives I heard weren’t as bad as I thought. Definitely gonna pick this game up soon. In the sense of Civilization being deep and replayable or a roguelike being deep and replayable. Each campaign has a similar high level arc and foundational strategies. The events that happen are random, with each campaign experiencing only a fraction of them. The evolution and stories of the characters are random, though somewhat guided by you. I've played through most of the fully scripted story campaigns and a few fully procedural campaigns; there are still several major possible events I know about from this community that haven't happened. There are a few others I've seen 3+ times. In my second campaign I saw a bunch of repeated events, which led me to think I was rapidly seeing everything there is to see. But I think I just got unlucky - in the several campaigns I've played since I have seen almost all new events. I do think that the combat gets pretty stale rather quickly as there is really just one dominant strategy - move forward, kill everything in range, new monsters advance in but weren't close enough to attack, repeat. BUT this is mostly due to playing on too low difficulty AND there are a ton of mods by Smoker which greatly expand the items, abilities, and re-balance the combat a bit. This has immensely improved my enjoyment of the combat system. And I'm sure there are more mods coming to continue this process, adding new events or even new entire campaigns. You should only buy it if you like playing amazing games. I’m not sure what your expectations are for a $25 game but I’ve played about 30 hours and when I consider the value **** I compare it to a $10 two hour movie. Given that, I definitely think it’s worth it. I’ve been playing RPGs for decades and I found a lot of the narrative to be really heartfelt and the experiences very original. Events tend to repeat now and then but I wouldn’t say it takes away from the game enough for me to review it negatively. I’m really looking forward to some of the fan made content (and DLC?) and will probably try my hand at making some myself :) I have 50 hours and have done 5 or 6 campaigns. I am someone who hates repetitive gameplay or stories, but in this game it hasn’t gotten old. Even though events repeat, a. I’m still getting new ones at 50 hours, and b. the ones that do repeat are still interesting because it’s happening to new characters, or with different interactions or choices made. I think it is a perfect secondary game. Something you don't binge, but rather play though a campaign every couple of weeks. I usually play I in between games or if I need a break from my primary game. I've got nearly 40 hours and I've only seen a few repeat events happen so far. Thing is, for those events that repeated, the dialogue wasn't the same because the characters either: had different personalities that changed the dialogue, or they were rivals/lovers that also altered it as well. You definitely could play it 'endlessly', but it won't be 100% unique events every single time. But different choices do change the outcome of the event, especially if you fail an event's roll which also has a different outcome for your characters. [I would have just given you the link, but apparently Metacritic won't allow that]

This RPG had the bad fortune to be issued right before Witcher III put previous sword-and-sorcery epics in the shade. It has many strengths for its era, but some glaring weaknesses, too. I personally found many of the quests frustrating because needed info was not provided and had to be garnered from web articles. The final fight against the big, bad dragon, which I undertook at the recommended level, was a nightmare for me. I realize many players dote on high difficulty for its own sake, but I meet enough insoluble problems in RW. In gaming, I want to be a hero. I didn't get that here.

I have given AC Origins and AC Odyssey my highest rating; both games ran superbly on my PC and were full of fun adventures and learning. AC Valhalla is only worth a 9 to me because of some really stupid decisions about the launcher. Make no mistake, Valhalla is a worthy successor to its distinguished predecessors: it has adventure, fun, and all the freedom one could wish. It generally runs well, though I have had a few mysterious crashes. The biggest problem is the load time: I start the game several times a day (because I don't like to leave stuff idling in the background, especially stuff that's connecting my system to the Internet). Each start takes 2'30"... unless it crashes, in which case it's 5'. That's five minutes of staring at screen after screen of logos, boilerplate warnings, advice, and other nonsense. Yes, I get the reason to expose naive users to this stuff, but not every time! The previous games allowed me to Esc or "hit any key" to fast-forward. This one, no. It's a wretched imposition on the user's time and deserves censure by all players.

This is a short, text-heavy, easily-mastered coming-of-age romance from a one-Norwegian studio. As such, the graphics are blockish and the story a bit simple-minded, but you can easily get to a satisfying conclusion. There's no voice-acting and no time-pressure, which makes it relaxing in a way. Sometimes it seems slow-paced, but that fits the setting and story pretty well. It took me about 6 hours to play through the first time, and I wasn't pushing the pace at all. The English version is easy to understand; several other languages are available. If you like graphic novels, you'll probably enjoy this game. If you're addicted to action-adventure titles, you'll likely find it a snooze. I admire the author's concept and ethical constraints compared to most computer game stories today.

I've been playing on easy difficulty as leader of Babylonia, and am currently 150 years into my 200-year stint with a comfortable lead. I've built a dozen cities and conquered a half-dozen more. I've found this game diverting and without major flaws. It's as enjoyable as any strategy game I've played (and I've done at least a half-dozen).

I don't normally do platformers anymore, but this isn't a normal platformer. It's two guys with a weird sense of humor who have collaborated on a totally original genre: part platformer, part point-and-click, and all wicked fun. To begin with, you see the usual corporate credits on the march. It goes on and on, and you may begin to feel you're being had... and you are! Then you meet the two guys, one of whom can jump like crazy and the other can cleverly manipulate objects but can't get up onto the sidewalk from street level. Their dialog is a stitch and the solutions to their problems will tie your brain into knots. Highly original and makes me smile (though my head is ready for a warm bath every time I get to a save point).

An interesting little game with novelty, important choices, and lack of need for violence. You spend most of the game exploring the visually interesting but rather small universe in which your actions will have a major impact on the future of the larger universe. When you've made all your choices, the authors show you their idea of your choices' impacts. The godling I chose was the most amiable but didn't have the skills to hold his creation together, so the ending I got was a downer. I haven't looked at the other endings. One small but annoying tic was the persistent use of 'they' in reference to singular persons. Apparently this is done to avoid persecution by the relentless forces of the politically correct thought police. It leads to sentences like "Once species started to disappear, they were reminded of Lutra's feeding frenzy." So who is 'they' in that sentence? Lutra? The species? All the gods? One particular god? English is not a perfect language, but fuzzy thinking is a bad enough problem already without writers making it fuzzier. Fie!

Comparisons to Fallout: New Vegas are warranted. I found the difficulty low in the beginning and rather challenging at the end. The controls were generally easy to learn and consistent with other games in this genre (for PC). It's VERY demanding on your video card; my Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 seemed stressed for the first few seconds of each new vista, and the fans ran a lot. The story was reasonably interesting with a nice variety of NPCs to interact with. Voice-acting and art were of good quality. Occasionally the keyboard controls were non-obvious, so I had to get a cheat sheet from the web. The retro-themed furnishings and tech seemed out of place, given FTL drives. The launcher is not ready for prime time: on my WinX system with reasonably capable hardware, the launcher was unable to reliably update the cloud saves it insisted on. I wound up with some annoying delays while it tried and tried, and some very kludgy starts near the end. Playtime was relatively short for the price, though it depends on how thoroughly you explore and work the side-quests. Getting into my library at Epic was often impossible due to problems on the website. Most of this game's problems may be fixed as 2020 ripens, though it surprised me that they weren't already. It's entertaining but not best-in-show.

I tried to enjoy this lamebrain story but failed. In the middle of the second part of the trilogy, I gave up.

The Good: You don't have to kill people. A lot of the story and art work are imaginative. Open world format. The Bad: You die a lot, and that always takes you to the same boring location, from which you have to repeat a lot of boring tasks very quickly to exploit your 30-minute shot at finding something new. It plays a lot like a 3D platformer with no chance to save your progress after successfully completing a difficult sequence. The Ugly: The system of planetoids seems relentlessly grotesque, without much uplifting in the first week of play... which is as long as I could stand it.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here's a brief video clip for your enjoyment: ****/F_iK5_jstvA

If you like zombie movies, you'll love this game. Otherwise, stay away. The atmosphere is relentlessly dark and horrific, and the best you can hope for is to decapitate numerous humanoid creatures with the most realistic gore imaginable.

This game might be worth a look for hardcore fans of maritime disaster epics, especially related to the age of sail. I found the interface difficult to master and the in-game help nearly nonexistent. It became quite a grind to find out 45 of the 60 fates, and not all of the problems are solvable. The ending was especially lame considering the work that went into a play-through. Replay potential is lacking.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

It's a lovely game... far and away the prettiest platformer I've seen; but I found the play too difficult to be enjoyable, even on the Easy mode. They need to allow saving between the more difficult jumps. That would make it doable for casual players.