Living_In_Exyle

The latest installment in the Borderlands franchise is a tale of two halves ****. The first half being complete misery and the second half improving to sub-mediocrity I played as Vex who is this games Siren class and thank goodness I chose her. Between her action skill and her Emo bratty teenager I hate you mom and dad attitude she quite literally carried me through the game The loot in this game is easily the worst in the series. It's at it's lowest point right at the beginning of the game. At the point they should be drawing players in they are instead giving us garbage. I was about 10 hours in and I was considering taking the game back for a refund. I'm not joking it's that bad. The going rate for me was about one level per hour and I was getting crap loot until I was level freaking 20. That's 20 hours of being disappointed anytime I completed a quest or killed an enemy. Until level 20 the best you can hope for is the occasional epic It wasn't until I hit level 20 that legendaries started dropping. I do have to defend the game a bit here the higher up in level you go the more common legendaries seem to drop. Once you hit or get near max level legendaries start dropping like candy. I ended the game with 21 legendaries. Yes 21. Here is where the good news ends however. Out of the 21 legendaries I got there were only 2 that weren't complete garbage. 2. Really? You are going to make us wait that long to even get legendaries? and they're all crap? Completely unacceptable. I don't know if it's just me but enemies health seems way overtuned. I had to rely heavily on Vex's action skill to kill anything. It would take 30-40 bullets to kill even basic enemies even with increases to gun damage. Bosses and Badass enemies would have been unkillable for me if not for Vex's action skill. The use of elemental weapons is more of a requirement as using the wrong element for shields, armor or health will have you doing chip damage at best. I don't have an issue with this at face value but they made the foolish decision to unmap your weapons from the d pad. You now have to hold down triangle and select your weapon from a weapon wheel. it makes switching weapons in the heat of battle really annoying. The U.I. of the game in general is complete trash. To navigate the games map or even your own inventory instead of using the d pad and R1/L1 or R2/L2 they instead give you a cursor. Moving the cursor around using the analog stick feels really bad. There is no minimap instead it is replaced with a compass and a radar. This really hurts exploration and basically had me ignore much of the games side content until I completed the main quest. There is a lot of side content. I was completely burnt out by the time I was even halfway through the games many collectibles and side quests. The side quests in this game are far superior to the games main story. The entire game takes place on 1 planet. This is a huge reduction in quality from Borderlands 3 where you go to multiple planets each with their own ecosystem. You do go to the moon for a few hours but that's it. All of the interesting NPC's from previous installments are gone. Tiny Tina, Brick, Mordecai? Yeah they are all gone. Instead they get replaced with NPC's that are uninteresting and forgetful. Nothing happens in the story that is relevant to the overall lore with the exception of one thing. But that's it. The main villain is generic and barely even in the game. He mainly just taunts you through your echo device. All of the bosses are forgetful and don't even matter outside of the planet you are on. The movement in the game is probably the one thing keeping this game out of being one of the worst games ever made territory. It's just superb. You can glide which is not new by the way it's the same gliding mechanic used in The Pre-Sequel. There is grappling, double jumping, dodging and air dashing. Sliding is still in the game and you even get a vehicle that you spawn at the press of a button instead of having to run to a catch-a-ride. All of these make for insane movement and its fun to use these in combat to either escape danger or to provide yourself an advantage. Performance wise the game is pretty stable and was able to hold it's frame rate for the most part. I did have 1 hard crash but that can be forgiven. What can't be forgiven is all the freaking bugged quests and long loading times. The game isn't any more graphically impressive than Borderlands 3 but when I spawn in or when I fast travel it takes a good 20 seconds to load the game. Every. Time. That might not seem like a lot but you are going to be fast traveling a lot. I ran into several bugged quests. Missing prompts or missing objects. The most frustrating one I came across. Was "kill all the enemies in an area". Well where are they? They didn't even freaking spawn. At this point I am done with Borderlands as a franchise and I don't really think there is anything they can do to bring me back

The Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remaster is a really really good game that is kneecapped by poor performance. Story 9/10 One of the areas where this game really excels is in its main questline. It is a good 20-30 hours long if you play straight through it. It falls into that sweet spot for me where its long enough that I feel like I am getting my moneys worth without overstaying its welcome. There is only one mission in particular that I really don't like and is obvious padding. You have to request aid from all the major cities in the game, but they won't help you without first closing an Oblivion Gate located outside each respective city first. Oblivion Gates are the games name sake and they are really... boring. When you step through an Oblivion gate you are transported to a magical land of fire and brimstone which is really cool at first until you realize all the area is is capture the tower. You fight your way to a tower and then fight your way up said tower before removing the core that closes the Oblivion Gate instantly teleporting you outside the gate. It's like this. Every. Single. Time. Doing them spaced out isn't too bad as each one only takes about 15-30 minutes to complete. But, having to do 6 or 7 of them back to back to back? Yeah, no. A black eye on an otherwise amazing story. Side Quests 5/10 Quantity over quality I'm afraid. There is a ton to do but most of it quickly devolves into fetch quests. Don't get me wrong there are several side quests that are really good or get you a really good item which makes it totally worth it. The main issue here is the games dungeons. They all feel the same. There are two types of dungeons a dirt hole in the ground or a dirt hole in the ground that's been covered over with stone. Boring and uninspired. I will take a game with fewer higher quality side quests over a game that just vomits side content onto you that is go here collect the thing, go here collect the thing. Which unfortunately does seem to be the norm. There are Guilds you can join and these are hit or miss. Unsurprising, I found the shorter ones to be significantly more enjoyable. Graphics 8/10 Enough doom and gloom. It's time to talk about the games beauty and my oh my beautiful it is. From the vibrancy of the colors to the swirling and movement of the water. The fire in the game looks fantastic and when you have an elemental enchant on your weapon you can see it and it just looks great. It's near perfection. The only reason its not a 9/10 or 10/10 is it lacks that just little bit of extra effort. When your character moves through tall grass or brush it doesn't move or interact with the player. When you jump in water it plays a splash sound effect (most of the time) but water no splash. Some of the textures namely the textures that make up the ground look blurred and just not quite right. These minor issues and they are minor did detract from my enjoyment of the game. I did find myself admiring the scenery several times especially that water. There is definitely more good to say here than bad. Gameplay 8/10 There are from what I can tell three ways to play Oblivion. You can be a mage, a warrior or a stealth archer. I played as a stealth archer of course. I wanted to see if it is as broken here as it is in Skyrim as I had not played Oblivion before and the answer is... kind of. There is one enemy in particular that no matter how high my sneak was they always seemed to be able to see me from all the way across the room. You still get the 3x damage multiplier when hitting something in stealth. Oddly I had several times where a 1x multiplier showed up on my screen and I never did find out why as it happened randomly whether they were facing me or facing away from me. Speaking of sneak you level up your skills by using them which is in my opinion one of the best leveling systems out there. Level up your skills enough and you get a character level up to further increase your skills. There is an enchantment system in the game but its basically worthless. You can only put one enchant on any given item and the enchants are really low in power even using a grand soul gem. You can find better enchants out in the wild if you get lucky that are far better than anything you can make yourself. My favorite being "Detect Life" this is crazy broken on a stealth archer as it basically allows you to see enemies through walls and you can already have your bow trained on them as you come around corners. Definitely one of the highlights of my playthrough. Game Stability 1/10 You can play the game all the way through. That is about the extent of the nice things I can say about the stability of this game. You name it this game has it. Constant frame rate drops, quests not updating, fast travel that spawns you in the air, fast travel that spawns you in the ground, enemies that spawn in the ground that you now can't kill. I had the game hard crash on me FIVE TIMES. Completely unacceptable.

I get the feeling the devs of Resident Evil Village didn't quite know what genre they wanted the game to be as it switches genre exactly halfway through the game. Starting from the beginning the game is a confusing mess. Some government goons storm into your house take your baby and instead of explaining what exactly is happening they smack you on the nose with a rolled up newspaper tell you "no" slap a bag over your head and out the door you go. You then wake up in a car wreck and stumble your way into the village where your first enemy encounter is against a seemingly endless horde of enemies. In which the game simply tells you to "survive". Okay? Survive how? Do you fight them? Didn't seem likely to me as i barely had any ammo to my name. Run away then? Also didn't seem like the right choice as there was no clear destination I should be running to. I ended up surviving by getting the crap kicked out of me and trying to run around the mob of enemies until they just kind of left. This kind of I don't know figure it out game design really plagues this game at certain parts. So in the meat and potatoes of the game there are several main "dungeons" you go into to collect an item to progress the story. The first half are great, they are true survival horror. You will be chased, have to get creative in how you approach enemies and situations. Your weapon selection is limited to a few guns and ammo is scarce. Then there is the second half where the game completely switches genre to an FPS (First Person Shooter) where you get a ton of different weapons and you get a ton of ammo. Couple that with enemies that used to take 4+ bullets to take down are now going down in 2 bullets and I was left feeling a bit confused on what game I was playing. The graphics are really nice. The majority of the areas you will see are blanketed in snow which I loved because I think snow is pretty. In fact the graphics do a lot to carry the game. There are collectible treasures in the game which I don't mind as there are only a handful and they usually contain useful items or sell for a lot. However, there is a bug that I ran into and has been well known about for a while now that makes one of these treasures unobtainable as there is a gate that is supposed to open that doesn't open. Not a big issue if it wasn't for the fact that this game has been out for a while now and this bug is still not fixed. This is unacceptable and needs to be fixed. There is a merchant who is a degenerate pile of lard and I loved him so much. He sells things from weapons to ammo to weapon upgrades to health. If you want it he's probably got it. Resident Evil Villages main issue has to be the lack of direction and overly complicated story. Which is a common theme in Resident Evil games. I don't see this game having much replay value and I am giving it a 5/10. Not a bad game at all but a one and done for me.

*Going to copy and paste my PS4 review here. However one thing that needs mentioned is the PS4 to PS5 save data transfer. In typical gearbox fashion they screwed it up. There are several things that DO NOT transfer over. These include unlocked cosmetic items, any items stored in your vault and any Mythic Ranks you may have acquired. This is unacceptable and I am taking away a point from the review score for it.* Tiny Tina's Wonderlands starts out a bit slow, but it really picks up about a quarter of the way through the game. From what I can tell there are 2 main ways you can play. You can be either a magic caster who focuses on elemental damage and spells. Or you can play as more of a strength build that focuses on gun/melee damage and stringing critical hits together. Both are extremely fun, it does take a few hours to start getting into some of the better abilities though. Speaking of abilities some of them are ripped straight word for word from Borderlands 3, which I was a bit disappointed in. I just simply didn't play as those classes. Story is great, it's Tiny Tina after all. There is a ton of craziness and silliness but the story does take on a bit more of a dark and serious tone as you near the end of the game. I'm confident that if you loved the Assault on Dragon's Keep DLC, you will love this game. My game completion time was 40 hours (includes doing all side quests and getting most but not all of the collectibles)

Final Fantasy and... Pokémon? Yeah, you read that right. World of Final Fantasy marries the story and turn-based combat of a Final Fantasy game with the catching mechanic of a Pokémon game. The story is pretty good. It takes you through areas designed from previous Final Fantasy games, where you also run into and do missions for characters from those same games. However, those areas you go through are one of the main missteps this game makes. While some of the areas are really nicely designed and gorgeous to look at, other areas take on a very bland and hallway like appearance. With two specific areas being completely unacceptable as they just copy paste themselves over and over again, and they just go on and on and on. The combat and monster catching Pokémon style is amazing. There are so many different systems at work it's honestly amazing that they got everything to work together as well as it does. In combat to catch a monster you have to have it enter a state called a "prismtunity", which is indicated by a flashing aura around the monster . You can then use a prism which is basically a pokeball to attempt a catch and yes a monster can break out of your catch. How you create a prismtunity varies from monster to monster, some can be as simple as just dealing damage, while others you might have to use a magic element its weak to while others you might have to inflict a status ailment. This is all explained pretty well in game, one thing I don't remember the game explaining is that you can create multiple prismtunities on the same monster at the same time. Doing this increases your catch chance. The monsters themselves come in sizes small, medium and large in which you can create a "stack". A stack is a small on top of a medium on top of a large. Each monster has its own unique ability board, in which they can unlock stat increases, abilities and even evolve your monsters into stronger monsters once they reach certain level requirements. This is where the stack mechanic really gets interesting as monsters that are in a stack share any of their unlocked abilities, stat boosts, strengths and weaknesses. Some monsters synergize really well together and I had a lot of fun combing through all the different monsters until I found combinations that I really fell in love with. There are also summons of which there are two different types. There are champion medals that summon a champion which is typically a main character from a previous Final Fantasy game. These typically do damage and provide a stat boost. Then there are the summons that replace the monsters you have in combat and you take direct control of. These are very powerful summons and are usually only found as the final stage evolutions for certain monsters. The only thing I really have negative to say about the combat as a whole is some of the boss fights are really unfair to the point you have to have your stacks set up a certain way to even survive their signature attacks. The two main characters named Reynn and Lann are brother and sister and I liked them. They aren't the most memorable of characters but I had some nice laughs with their interactions with some of the other characters in the game. The brother is the goofy comedy relief while the sister is the serious one who helps the player understand the story. World of Final Fantasy is one of the better Final Fantasy experiences out there and is in my top 3 Final Fantasy games and of course one I highly recommend if you are a fan of the franchise. You will see a lot of characters from previous Final Fantasy games, that will really give you feels of nostalgia. *There is DLC for the game that I have not played yet even though I really should. I will update this when I do get around to playing said DLC.

A worthy successor to the first game A Plague Tale: Requiem is gorgeous, it has a lot of the same doom and gloom areas. However, instead of the entire game being straight out of a plague infested nightmare this time there are some gorgeously crafted open areas. The story is a fantastic continuation of the original with some huge twists thrown in that I honestly didn't see coming. The combat is vastly expanded here. There are skills you can acquire based on how you play. You can either play stealth fully and take out your enemies from the shadows or perhaps a more heads on approach is your style or perhaps even a little of both. There are weapons and tools at your disposal that make any route you take in combat both accessible and fun. There is still the issue of close combat, the devs still seem to not know what to do here. This time around instead of being insta-killed the enemy just kind of donks you on the head and lets you go on about your way before pursuing you again. It looks very goofy and is still a black eye on the games combat system especially in the forced fight situations the game unfortunately does throw you in multiple times. This time around there are some rather large areas to explore instead of the more hallway like level designs of the first game. Only other thing of note I can think to comment on is my boy Lucas. My favorite NPC from the first game is turned into the tutorial giver this time around and unfortunately this does make him sound like an imbecile. He goes from being an alchemical prodigy to someone who doesn't know the difference between salt and Sulphur. I'm sorry they assassinated your character Lucas all in the name of teaching the player how to use alchemy. :'( Though the NPC's you meet later on are fantastic and very well designed straight down to their dialogue. :)

Simply put one of the best indie titles ever made and a strong contender even in the mainstream gaming space. A Plague Tale: Innocence combines dark and unsettling environments with gameplay that will keep you constantly on your toes as you never know what danger is lurking in the shadows or around the next corner. You play as Amicia, who is suddenly thrust into danger with her brother Hugo as a Plague sweeps across Europe. There are several characters you meet along the way with my favorite being Lucas. He is an extremely intelligent prodigy in the alchemical arts. He joins Amicia and Hugo on their journey and even teaches Amicia how to use alchemy to avoid and even vanquish her foes. The combat is both amazing and the only misstep in an otherwise flawless game. When you are sneaking around in stealth or attacking from stealth the combat is fantastic. However, when you are spotted and you have to engage in hand to hand combat the devs didn't really give you anyway to defend yourself from pursuers who are faster than you are. So you will inevitably get caught and be instantly killed. There is an alchemical weapon you can use to escape an enemy that catches you but it is very expensive in the resources it requires to make so I usually chose to restart the checkpoint rather than waste precious resources. Puzzles are an integral part of the A Plague Tale: Innocence experience and all of them are really well designed and a joy to figure out. There are a number of boss fights in the game with the final boss being simply amazing and a fight I find myself coming back to again and again to give him a good whack in the head with a rock. I highly recommend this game if you enjoy story driven linear experiences.

My biggest issue with Dead Space is that I simply wasn't afraid at all. The game feels like a worse version of the Resident Evil series. You get plenty of ammo to deal with any and all aliens you come across and you will come across a lot. Some weapons are clearly superior to others. In fact and I found this to be quite funny the weapons that are the far superior weapons are the tools that any mechanic would be using. They are far stronger than any military issue assault rifle or pistol that i found and tried to use only to find their damage output lacking. There are sidequests that aren't really sidequests as you will likely complete them just going about the main quest line. The sidequests felt included to just kind of check a box rather than something that a lot of time was spent on. Speaking of the story it is actually really good. It felt good slowly repairing the ship to try and make it home. The enemies are extremely fun to shoot off their limbs and there are alien possessed babies that you can stomp to death. Which I did, a lot. Took no time at all getting used to shooting off limbs instead of going for the head as that is the main gimmick with all the enemy types you come across. Their weak points are their extremities not their heads. Only negative with the combat really is the game has a really bad habit of spawning enemies behind you. Which unless you know they are there will almost guarantee you take a hit, which is an issue as the enemies deal a ton of damage. You get pseudo super powers as you cross further into the ship. With the stasis power being extremely powerful and something I found myself using for nearly every enemy encounter. You play in the third person camera angle which is great as the devs take full advantage of this by putting some of the HUD on your characters back, such as health bar and stasis meter. This was an incredible idea as it allows us to easily see our health bars and other meters without having to take our eyes away from the action. There is some resource management but you do get a ton of inventory space as you upgrade your suit, so much so I was able to carry four weapons, several stacks of ammo for each weapon and health packs. All while having room for anything I may pick up along the way to store in the store for later use. Dead Space is a game that starts out somewhat difficult but gets easier as you progress further into the game. This would vary with how much you explore and how you upgrade your weapons. Actual score of Dead Space is a 7/10, but lowered to a 6/10 because of EA being a garbage publisher that murdered Dead Space's original development studio.

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands starts out a bit slow, but it really picks up about a quarter of the way through the game. From what I can tell there are 2 main ways you can play. You can be either a magic caster who focuses on elemental damage and spells. Or you can play as more of a strength build that focuses on gun/melee damage and stringing critical hits together. Both are extremely fun, it does take a few hours to start getting into some of the better abilities though. Speaking of abilities some of them are ripped straight word for word from Borderlands 3, which I was a bit disappointed in. I just simply didn't play as those classes. Story is great, it's Tiny Tina after all. There is a ton of craziness and silliness but the story does take on a bit more of a dark and serious tone as you near the end of the game. I'm confident that if you loved the Assault on Dragon's Keep DLC, you will love this game. My game completion time was 40 hours (includes doing all side quests and getting most but not all of the collectibles)

Open World: The Game This game is simply dreadful and encompasses all the things I hate about open world games, while adding a few other game mechanics that only make the game worse. The game started out okay but once I got out of the tutorial area things went downhill quickly. Any attempts to further progress the story was met with a swift end by any number of enemies that will one shot you and you will randomly encounter these enemies just trying to get from point A to point B. Getting more hearts and stamina in this game is a chore. You have to complete a trial which you have to find first just out in the wild with no real easy way to locate them. Then you have to complete 4 of them to get 1 more heart or a minimal increase to links stamina wheel. I lost my patience doing these trials really quickly. Link needs stamina to pretty much do anything running, swimming and climbing all consume stamina and Link has so very little of it that trying to get anywhere takes so long that I would just rather turn the game off. There is cooking in this game because of course. Cooking is also an activity that takes forever. You first have to find a cooking pot and ingredients again randomly out in the wild. You then have to navigate some menus before adding ingredients one at a time to links hands before tossing the ingredients in the cooking pot which the ingredients will dance around for a bit before you get the meal you cooked. The meal you cook typically gives you health or stamina and thats pretty much it. It all just wastes your time everything in this game is just a waste of your time. There is a weapon durability system that is awful makes me not even really want to fight anything. The only thing enemies drop are monster parts that can be used in cooking to make elixirs that give you buffs. No recovery hearts. No rupees. No anything that I play The Legend of Zelda games for. There are certain areas that you cant go to without appropriate clothing or food buffs because the areas are to hot or to cold. Just a very unfun game. I tried doing some sidequests but the only rewards I got were weapons and shields. Since these shatter like glass anytime I try to use them I just didnt bother anymore. Returned the game for a refund after playing for roughly 8 hours and the only reason I'm not giving the game a 0/10 is because the game works and the graphics are actually pretty nice. Everything else about Breath of the Wild is terrible.

I haven't played a game this good in a very long time. Graphically stunning and a game that doesn't waste my time with repetitive busy work. The protagonist Kena is very cute, which is a nice bonus. Collectibles that I actually want to collect as they make Kena stronger by giving her more health or abilities. A story that is very enjoyable and doesn't overstay its welcome. The only misstep the game has is in its final boss. It's not very good in the way the fight is designed, it's one of those multistage fights where if you die its all the way back to the beginning. Also the only way to damage it is by hitting weak points, which runs contrary to all the other better designed bosses that came before it. A black eye at the end of an otherwise flawless game. Giving the game a 9/10 although the game is more of a 9.5/10 and one that I also highly recommend. Kena: Bridge of Spirits is an easy top 10 game for me.**UPDATE** Update for the free anniversary update. The anniversary update takes a game that is already a 10 and takes it to an 11. It adds a new game plus mode in which unlocked abilities, hats, rot and currency all carry over. Trials are now available which require you to defeat bosses, complete archery challenges and run obstacle courses. Charmstones are put in chests across the world, these are equips that give buffs and debuffs. Most of these are available in a standard new game, some are only available in new game plus. New game plus actually feels like a new game plus. Instead of just playing the same game over again with everything unlocked from the start this game has completely reworked every single enemy encounter including bosses, which includes adding new enemy types not seen in a standard new game. I had given this game a 9 with the only dark spot being the games final boss. With all these free additions to the game that dark spot is now such an insignificant speck that I don't even care anymore. TEN TEN TEN out of ten and easily one of my favorite games.