RS13

Doom Eternal is the most disappointing game I have ever played. The platforming is a disaster, the UI is garish and counter-intuitive, the cutscenes exist, melee probably should have been removed if they were gonna make it this weak. The dash, while good in theory makes normal movement feel slow which is exactly the opposite of how Doom should feel. And finally, the ammo management. The max ammo you can hold has been cut by more than half since Doom 2016. Insecure fanboys will shout (and I mean SHOUT) all kinds of justifications about this at you, but the fundamental issue is this: Doom eternal wants you play the game a very specific way. For all the talk about how it's "strategic" it forces you to adopt one very specific strategy--use all the ammo in all your guns then hunt down trash demon and chainsaw it for more ammo. There's two problems with this. First, I don't want to be forced into a specific way of playing the game. Second, the game does a TERRIBLE job telling you that that's the intended way to play and even worse job encouraging it. If you're going to make killing imps/possessed the name of the game, you should make it so they don't stop spawning until the big baddies are dead. And should make sure that they aren't on the other side of the arena than the mini-boss enemies. Having to turn around and sprint away from a mancubus so I can chainsaw an imp in some odd corner of the arena isn't just a limiting design decision; it's an objectively bad one and on that runs counter to the supposed "keep pushing forward nature of Doom." Again, the fanboys who can't stand hearing their precious criticized will tell you that this is so you can't rely on one weapon, but you don't need an ammo limit to do that anyway. The devs did a great job ensuring that each weapon has it's uses, you can't ignore any of them. In fact, the ammo limit hurts here, because often you're forced to use less-than-ideal weapons simply because they're the only ones with ammo.

Doom Eternal is the most disappointing game I have ever played. The platforming is a disaster, the UI is garish and counter-intuitive, the cutscenes exist, melee probably should have been removed if they were gonna make it this weak. The dash, while good in theory makes normal movement feel slow which is exactly the opposite of how Doom should feel. And finally, the ammo management. The max ammo you can hold has been cut by more than half since Doom 2016. Insecure fanboys will shout (and I mean SHOUT) all kinds of justifications about this at you, but the fundamental issue is this: Doom eternal wants you play the game a very specific way. For all the talk about how it's "strategic" it forces you to adopt one very specific strategy--use all the ammo in all your guns then hunt down trash demon and chainsaw it for more ammo. There's two problems with this. First, I don't want to be forced into a specific way of playing the game. Second, the game does a TERRIBLE job telling you that that's the intended way to play and even worse job encouraging it. If you're going to make killing imps/possessed the name of the game, you should make it so they don't stop spawning until the big baddies are dead. And should make sure that they aren't on the other side of the arena than the mini-boss enemies. Having to turn around and sprint away from a mancubus so I can chainsaw an imp in some odd corner of the arena isn't just a limiting design decision; it's an objectively bad one and on that runs counter to the supposed "keep pushing forward nature of Doom." Again, the fanboys who can't stand hearing their precious criticized will tell you that this is so you can't rely on one weapon, but you don't need an ammo limit to do that anyway. The devs did a great job ensuring that each weapon has it's uses, you can't ignore any of them. In fact, the ammo limit hurts here, because often you're forced to use less-than-ideal weapons simply because they're the only ones with ammo.

Doom Eternal is the most disappointing game I have ever played. The platforming is a disaster, the UI is garish and counter-intuitive, the cutscenes exist, melee probably should have been removed if they were gonna make it this weak. The dash, while good in theory makes normal movement feel slow which is exactly the opposite of how Doom should feel. And finally, the ammo management. The max ammo you can hold has been cut by more than half since Doom 2016. Insecure fanboys will shout (and I mean SHOUT) all kinds of justifications about this at you, but the fundamental issue is this: Doom eternal wants you play the game a very specific way. For all the talk about how it's "strategic" it forces you to adopt one very specific strategy--use all the ammo in all your guns then hunt down trash demon and chainsaw it for more ammo. There's two problems with this. First, I don't want to be forced into a specific way of playing the game. Second, the game does a TERRIBLE job telling you that that's the intended way to play and even worse job encouraging it. If you're going to make killing imps/possessed the name of the game, you should make it so they don't stop spawning until the big baddies are dead. And should make sure that they aren't on the other side of the arena than the mini-boss enemies. Having to turn around and sprint away from a mancubus so I can chainsaw an imp in some odd corner of the arena isn't just a limiting design decision; it's an objectively bad one and on that runs counter to the supposed "keep pushing forward nature of Doom." The devs did a great job ensuring that each weapon has it's uses, you can't ignore any of them. In fact, the ammo limit hurts here, because often you're forced to use less-than-ideal weapons simply because they're the only ones with ammo.

Seriously, Fallout, how do you make getting abducted by aliens boring? Mothership Zeta is barely more interesting than wandering around the wasteland killing raiders for a few of hours, and only then because aliens are slightly more interesting than raiders. But if you decide to go raider hunting and get bored, you can always just go do something else. Mothership Zeta forces you to do nothing except kill aliens for hours. Yay. The aliens have no personality, no motivations, no nothing except a big head and a desire to kill you. There are other humans in Mothership, but they don’t really do anything. They don’t help you, they aren’t interesting, and you’ll probably just ignore them. Other than the alien weapons you’ll pick up in the first 10 minutes, there’s not any cool loot. There aren’t any side quests: there’s nothing to do except escape the ship. That is, there’s nothing to do in this DLC except get it over with. Which raises an obvious question: why bother?

Disclaimer: I write this hoping that I will someday revise this with a higher score. However, at the current time this game is for me unplayable. My review is based solely on my experience with this game. Yours (hopefully!) will be different and far less buggy. Even if I revise it, it is highly unlikely that the walking dead for Mac will receive a score above 7. I bought this game as a pre-packaged whole rather episode by episode, so I hoped and expected that the major bugs had been worked out. Nooooooope! Through 1 episode this game was everything I'd hoped it would be. And then none of my decisions transferred over into episode 2. None! Since the game is basically a glorified choose your own adventure novel, this completely an utterly destroys any reason you have to play the game. This is a bug so crippling that, for the first time, I give a game a score of 0. Now, apparently, not everyone has this bug. But from what I've read it's not limited to the transfer from episode 1 to 2. Second, there are fixes out there for PC. But God help you if you play the game on Mac because no one else will. As I've said, I hope that I can find the a fix for this problem and give this game a better score, but until I can I'm not awarding a single point to a choice based game that loses track of my choices. But even I can fix this, I'm going to be far more afraid of this happening again than I am of any walkers. There's another serious bug that I have yet to mention, though it's minimal by comparison. When playing in fullscreen, the game's nigh unplayable because the mouse often gets incredibly sluggish. I could rapidly and repeatedly swipe my finger over the length of the mousepad and get minimal movement. This was usually merely annoying but in action sequences it was fatal. So I was forced to play in immersion breaking windowed mode. I was able to fake fullscreen by using Apple's universal access features to zoom in on the window, but it's far from a perfect fix. There's no other way to put it: The walking dead is great game weighed down and ultimately utterly crushed by two serious bugs. It is completely inexcusable and an absolute embarrassment that telltale hasn't fixed these bugs yet. I cannot recommend this game to anyone.

Dead Money is bar none the most frustrating DLC that I've ever played. It may be the most frustrating segment of any game I've ever played and it's certainly the most frustrating that I've ever finished. The fact that it's a DLC makes it all the more frustrating since you can't get back to the main part of FNV until you're done with Dead Money. So, first and foremost, SAVE BEFORE YOU START DEAD MONEY! Otherwise, there's a small but real chance that half way through you'll find yourself wondering whether it's better to start FNV all over rather than finish Dead Money. What makes this so frustrating? Where to start? First things first: Dead Money plays differently than the rest of FNV. That's not necessarily a bad thing (just usually), but it must be noted. Now, when you enter the Sierra Madre Villa (the area outside the Sierra Madre casino) you are stripped of all your weapons and equipment (excluding quest items--keep that in mind). This is almost always a bad idea, but Dead Money handles it as well as possible, giving you the new rules of the game right upfront. 1) you have a slave collar around your neck and it will explode it you get too close to any speaker. They'll beep first, so there's some warning. 2) the are clouds of poisonous gas all around and they'll kill you if you stand in them. 3) The villa's filled with "ghost people" (people in dark biohazardesque suits that WON'T STAY DEAD!! unless you blow off a limb). Sounds cool right? So why is it so frustrating? 1) the villa is all very similar in architecture and thus difficult to navigate 2) There are traps everywhere. Everywhere! 3) The gas clouds: deadly, impossible to see through and just a general hinderance. Add in the fact that beartraps are often located in the impossible to see through, but killing-you-as-you-disarm-the-trap gas, and controllers will fly. But the biggest frustration comes from 4) Speakers. Are. Terrible. They are everywhere and clustered together. So you'll walk out of range of one speaker only to be a step from being in the range of another. Or they overlap completely. And they are often impossible to see. And they seem to be placed at random. Some other gripes: Ghost people are actually pretty creepy and force you to adopt new strategies until you almost immediately get a perk that keeps them from coming back from the dead (unless you already have the bloody mess perk, then they're almost no different than non-ghost people.) Also, while you're required to get three companions in order to break in to the casino, they don't really do anything to help you break in. At least not anything on screen. So you're hopes of pulling an Ocean's Eleven FNV-style are left unfulfilled. Instead you're just fetching companions. So the whole time that your lost amongst the trap-filled poison gas and radio-lined corridors yeah, that's just filler. The pros: There is seriously good loot. The holorifle is awesome. So is the gun you can take from the main baddie. Or if you're willing to leave that gun, you can steal up to 389,943 caps worth of stuff. Also the casino deals in pre-war money so if you max out your winnings you'll have another 100,000 caps worth of loot. If you don't care about that, then there isn't a lot to recommend here. Most reviewers seem to have liked the characters and story, and while they were good, they weren't speculator. All told, then, only loot nuts and completionists should bother with this and only then if they are willing to deal with the frustration of it all.

Really, this game should be about a 6.5, but MC won't let me give that and I'd rather this be counted as a "mixed" review. There's a lot that's good about AC, but it's held back by a few serious flaws. The first, and most common , you won't know where to go or what to do a lot of the time. The map is not very helpful when indoors. Second, you often have to use a very specific combination of gadgets to get to your goal. This wouldn't be as big a problem in a more linear game or if the game gave you hints or skyrim style "go here" arrows. If you decide to play this game, find a good walkthrough on youtube and favorite it. You'll need it. Second, the combat can be infuriating. Often, the game throws a **** of normal enemies at you and one or two especially annoying enemies (e.g., baddies with armor, shields, guns or stun batons) at you. If you could (A) easily target the annoying enemies or (B) take out the normal enemies and then deal with the annoying ones last, things would be fine. But neither of these can be done. Often you'll knock down all or almost all of the bad guys but be able to knock anyone out because Batman's ground finishing moves take so long. (It's not even worth trying, once you start a finishing move you can only be interrupted by an enemy's attack. And trust me, you will be interrupted.) Quick-firing a gadget is far too imprecise to hit any one specific enemy and long-firing takes too, well, long. The end result is that you're forced to adopt a needlessly defense battle strategy and battles take far longer than they ought. This makes the truly difficult battles extremely frustrating since you're liable to invest (repeatedly) gobs of time in a battle that you'll ultimately lose (often because you'll get frustrated and attempt a more aggressive strategy.) So that's the bad. The remarkable thing is, AC's still a lot of fun to play. At it's best it really is everything you've heard. The atmosphere and characters are great. And very little is more fun than hearing criminals cower as you stealthily eliminating a room full of them. One. By. One. You really do feel like the terror of Gotham's underworld. Also, combat is still fun most of the time (It's only the fights with a big bad *and* loads of normal enemies that are likely to incite controller throwing.) So, that's it. Is it as good as everyone says? No, the flaws are just too glaring. Does that mean that it's not worth owning or even playing? No (after all, a 6.5 from a metacritic user isn't quite like a 6.5 from IGN), but you should know what you're getting into. It's score would suggest that AC is happiness dressed in a batsuit. Under the mask, it's really the love-child of happiness and frustration.

Dead Money is probably the most frustrating game or DLC that I've ever played. The fact that it's a DLC may make it more frustrating since you can't get back to the main part of FNV until you're done with Dead Money. What makes this so frustrating? Where to start? First things first: Dead Money plays differently than the rest of FNV. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it must be noted. Now, when you enter the Sierra Madre Villa (the area outside the Sierra Madre casino) you are stripped of all your weapons and equipment (excluding quest items--keep that in mind). This is almost always a bad idea, but Dead Money handles it as well as possible, giving you the new rules of the game right upfront. The rules: you have a slave collar around your neck and it will explode it you get too close to any speaker. They'll beep first, so there's some warning. Also, the are clouds of poisonous gas all around and they'll kill you dead. There are also "ghost people": people in dark biohazardesque suits that WON'T STAY DEAD!! (Well, unless you blow off a limb). Sounds cool right? WHY SO FRUSTRATING? 1) the villa is all very similar in architecture and so difficult to find your way around in. 2) There are traps everywhere. Everywhere! 3) The gas clouds: deadly, impossible to see through and just a general hinderance. Add in the fact that beartraps are often located in the impossible to see through, but killing-you-as-you-disarm-the-trap gas, and controllers will fly. 4) Most important. Speakers. Are. Terrible. They are everywhere and clustered together. So you'll walk out of range of one speaker only to be a step from being in the range of another. Or they overlap completely. And they are often impossible to see. Add all these together and you'll want to get this over with as quickly as possible. Some other gripes: Ghost people are a unique enemy. Well until you almost immediately get a perk that keeps them from coming back from the dead. You're required to get three companions so you can break in to casino but that's just filler. They don't really do anything to help you break in. At least not anything on screen. So you're hopes of pulling an Ocean's Eleven FNV-style are left unfulfilled. Instead you're just fetching companions. The pros: There is seriously good loot. The holorifle is awesome. So is the gun you can take from the main baddie. Or if you're willing to leave that gun, you can steal up to 389,943 caps worth of stuff. Also the casino deals in pre-war money so if you max out your winnings you'll have another 100,000 caps worth of loot. If you don't care about that, then there isn't a lot to recommend here. Most reviewers seem to have liked the characters and story, and while they were good, they weren't speculator. All told, then, only loot nuts and completionists should bother with this and only then if they are willing to deal with the frustration of it all.

Suppose I told you a story: Big bad guys invaded the galaxy, alone hero struggled to unite the galaxy in opposition to the baddies. The baddies weakness is discovered. There's a final showdown with the baddies above the hero's home planet. The baddies lose. Suppose I told you this story: Big bad guys invade the galaxy and no one can stop them. But in the darkest hour plans for a super weapon is discovered. Now our heroes must race to complete the weapon, before there's no galaxy left to save. The first one's probably a little better, but each is a decent story right? Now suppose I told you they were the *same* story. Wait, what? And suppose I told you that this story was made by a developer that prides itself on making "Story-based gaming." "Ha!" you'd say "that would be a terrible story. Each story gets to the same conclusion, so putting them together renders half of the story useless." "Besides, the stories are really incompatible. The first is more about a single character. The second is more about teams of scientists and engineers and the soldiers who buy them time. In the second the bad guys are unstoppable in the first they're just hard to stop. In the second the galaxy would be throwing everything they had at the enemy, just to slow them down for a bit. In the first, those troops need to be saved for the final battle." And now you'd realize this isn't hypothetical. Forget what you've heard about the ending. Mass effect 3's story just isn't any good. (And if you're wondering the half that you *play* is the half that gets rendered useless.) Toss in the facts that: -31 of the 68 ME3 missions are fetch quests (For comparison ME1 had 5 fetch quests and ME2 had 11) -The ending you get depends on how many of these fetch quests you do, though not in any narratively coherent way (you get a better ending the more you do). -It is impossible to get the best ending without playing multiplayer (YES, that's right. The ending to a three game single player story depends on whether you want to play multiplayer.) -Of the 15 possible surviving squad mates you get no more than 4 back. -Most of your decisions in ME1 and 2 are irrelevant, including some of the biggest decisions in the game. -Your dialogue options are more limited, often including only a top and bottom choice and Shepard sometimes speaks without you having any control over what he says. -None of Cerberus's interactions with Shepard make any sense. What's their endgame? Why do they care if Shepard unites the galaxy? And of course, -The terrible ending. To be fair, ME3 did have much better combat than ME1 or 2 and some of the missions (Rannoch and Tuchanka) are among the best in the series, but those two points do not a good game make. Combat's a side issue in Mass Effect and those missions are part of a larger story that utterly fails.