StanleyPain

Game is broken. There are several.glitches,but level 6 has a bug where it is not possible to win. Any rejection of obviously incorrect IDs counts as a wrong decision. Shame the game is being sold this buggy because it's a fun concept. Is it that hard to fix your game?

It's a very solid third person shooter sort of dragged down by a lot of fiddly mechanics, a depressing amount of grind, and not using it's setting or visual style to any great degree. While there is a significant amount of attention paid to the loot system and how you create a character that fits your personal play style, it feels like the combat system never really gets a chance to truly shine. There are some great boss battles and large scale moments in the game that feel great, but the same-iness of the environments and the repeating enemies really start to get boring and frustrating after awhile. It's also very bizarre/annoying that for a game based entirely around third person shooting, there are many places in the game that place in huge areas with absolutely no cover. Another problem is the rather slow moving story and what a slog it is. I knew going into SAO that since it was based on anime, there be a lot of that long-winded visual novel stuff meant for kids, but it kinda overdoes it. I swear, the game's opening is, like, 2 hours of high pitched Japanese girls screaming in your ear before you even get a chance to really get a feel for the game. Another huge problem is the difficulty balance, which seems totally arbitrary. There are parts of the game where you will be exploring an area that seems scaled well to about where you would be in the game, then you will suddenly, without warning, encounter enemies 20-30 levels higher than you which wipe out your entire party (since there's no way to run away or get out of aggro) in 20 seconds. This gates off areas you're not supposed to be in yet, yes, but it does so in a totally illogical and unpredictable way. **** just grind and grind to level up and, depressingly, the game's "missions" rarely provide additional exp, just crafting materials and money. And then there's the load times....holy crap, the load times. So, let me give players a PROTIP: You can fast travel in the game *from* virtually anywhere *to* virtually anywhere. Remember this (since the game doesn't tell you up front), because you will need to make good use of the fast travel to cut down on the already insane amount of load screens and travel times. Not only should the game have condensed all of its services to one area, but it is mindboggling to me that it takes longer to load fast travel within an area, then physically walking to some of the points. It is a slog sometimes.. There's so many things I wanted to love about this game, but it kinda felt like the setting was all in place, and then they only made use of about %60 of the game's potential. Starting out, it felt like it could be a spiritual successor to, say, Phantasy Star Universe, and in some ways it is, but not as visually interesting or with as much content. I ****'s hard to hate on SAO:FB for a lot of reasons, but at the same time it's hard to recommend.

DotO is a solid add-on for the Dishonored series and it's lore, but it does have a few aspects that make me not consider it as excellent as all the previous Dishonored content to come before it. While it has the same uniformly excellent art design and overall production quality (not to mention superb level design, as usual for Arkane), the little changes to the gameplay are both a good thing and a bad thing. It's good that the add-on has a slightly different (and noticeably more difficult) feel than the core Dishonored games. Billie Lurk's powers are sort of a trade-off situation. The ability, for example, to wander around as a ghost and scout out areas is insanely powerful and feels almost like too much, until you realize her other limitations like a shorter leap ability and none of the traditional slow time/possession type abilities. Her powers essentially make the game slightly different. If, like me, you love playing the game as stealthy as possible (I absolutely loved going for the no alert/no kill playthroughs), this game is probably the hardest in the series yet, mostly because your options are more limited. But not in a cheap way, moreso in that the level design is more realistically construction around parts of Karnaca that are more inhabited and not under bloodfly or plague restriction. So there's a different feel to the levels. Where the game takes a sharp and strange diversion from the previous Dishonored games is in the "Contracts" found in each level. Dishonored always had minor side-goals in levels (some were obvious, others had to be discovered, and there is *some* of that here in DotO as well), but they were always integrated into the setting and storyline of the level. Here, though, the Contracts, while an interesting way to spend more time doing more things in levels, are often extremely difficult while also putting you in situations were a full-stealth playthrough is virtually impossible and seem not related to the story. Also, a few contract involve killing people which, in some circumstances, can only be done directly, so you will lose your no-kill score if you complete them. Why would BIllie, who is trying to accomplish all her goals as quietly as possible, bother murdering someone in plain sight for some money? Thematically, it doesn't quite fit into the game as well as the other goals did in previous games. But, they are optional of course, and ultimately the core game is easily worth the $30 for Dishonored fans who want one last visit to this incredibly realized world. As with Dishonored 2, there are occasionally AI hiccups in NPCs and little glitches here and there, but nothing that kills the game. All of this said, if you have never played a Dishonored game, I'm not sure I would recommend this. To begin with, the story requires you to have at least some familiarity with the stories of DIshonored 1 and 2, but the difficulty is at a level designed for people already basically familiar with the structure and style of the game, so newer players would be kind of dropped in the very deep end when starting this. Experienced fans, though, you really should check it out.

The missions are fun and totally in line with the rest of Watch Dogs 2, but it's pretty obvious this was content that was in the game to begin with, then removed just to be resold as shamefully overpriced DLC, as per the usual way Ubisoft operates these days. The DLC contains 3 mission lines which can only played once you've gotten to a certain place in the game's storyline (if you already beat the main storyline, you can start them right away obviously). The DLC also adds new online co-op missions at a new difficulty level, "Elite", that effectively takes the previously existing missions and combines them in some way (for example, you might have to rescue a hostage then also go to another location and download a file). The new missions are an interesting variation on the existing ones (and there's a few new locations for them as well), but if you all you care about is your leaderboard score, it's clearly faster and more efficient to do 2 or 3 of the normal online missions then spend all the time on these new multi-goal ones only to get a few extra points. These "elite" missions also add in a new type of enemy, the "jammer" which is an NPC that has a field around them that prevents all hacking of any type and prevents you from using your remotes around them. They add an interesting wrinkle to the gameplay. Again, while the content in this DLC is fine, the fact it's isolated into a $15 DLC is complete and total BS.

I really, really wanted to like this game. There are a lot of things to love about it. It's a cool hybrid of the planetary exploration of ME1 (which I really liked, personally) with the faster paced combat that ME3's multiplayer brought to the mix. Much has been made about the game's weak voice acting (which is true) and the bizarre, awful facial animations and general character portrayals (which is also true), but as much as I wanted to really get into ME:A, the technical problems this game has right now are just making it a hot f-in mess, and I'm just being brutally honest. The texture problems, characters morphing in and out of scenery, team mates getting stuck, important dialog that doesn't trigger until 1-2 minutes AFTER the important thing happened you needed the dialog for, and your character randomly freezing in mid-action are just a handful of what is wrong with this game. With a patch or two, ME:A could be a generally solid sci-adventure. But, man..I am sincerely disappointed. This goes beyond just the aesthetic problems; personally I can live with the weirdly bad animations and **** the game has to be PLAYABLE and the second time I got killed because I literally lost control of my character while the game merrily kept going I just really had to be intellectually honest: this game not only needed more time in the oven, but was released in an inexcusable state. I am really bummed. I hope they fix some of this crap soon, cuz I feel pretty ripped off on this one.

It's Skyrim, which is good, but the "special edition" is basically just a GOTY release at a ludicrous price. As a game, Skyrim is well established: a very good, nicely made single player RPG experience. As a re-release, the only thing different is mod support and a tiny upgrade to the engine which allows for slightly better lighting and cleaned up texture smoothing. Weirdly, though, most of the classic bugs are still present, and in my own playthrough there were actually a lot more than I ever remember. I didn't run into anything game-breaking, but there are some pretty bad glitches and such. Mod support is by far the biggest deal, but it seems like the mods for Skyrim are nowhere near as good or comprehensive as one would find for Fallout 4. You get the usual batch of garbage like "GIVE WOMEN BIGGER **** or tiny, irrelevant cosmetic changes, and then you get some legitimately helpful, well constructed, passionate mods designed to enhance the experience. But, the ratio of good-to-meh seems much more even than it did when FO4 mods hit the console. By far and away one of the best mods is the famed "Live Another Life" mod that allows you to start a new game with a number of options for how you step into the game and where you physically begin, which adds a lot of dimension to creating a new role-play focused character. But, for all the good things, this feels like a very cynical, bland re-release that could have had some very significant improvements attached to it. Most notably, Bethesda could have taken the time to potentially improve the Hearthfire content to be more like the house customization found in FO4. They certainly could have ironed out a lot more technical problems. As it stands, Skyrim is still basically Skyrim, but if you've already spent 40-60+ hours in it on the 360, there really isn't much reason to upgrade to this version. Maybe at some point some of the major, massive Skyrim mods will hit the consoles (the ones that add huge amounts of content) but it seems like right now they are slow to be converted.

The game is perhaps best described as an isometric Castle Crashers. It looks a bit like Diablo, but is a bit more simple and focused solely on a "get to the end of the level" type mentality. On a very basic level the game functions as a decent co-op brawler type thing, but it has some very weird gameplay decisions that drag the whole thing down. Most notably bad are the thoroughly unbalanced weapons in the game. As you play the game, you slowly earn enough currency to unlock different weapons that behave differently and offer players different play styles. The problem is that there are huge disadvantages to using some the weapons; for example the crossbows and guns have to be re-loaded in combat which basically makes the game literally impossible to play. Magic wands, on the other hand, let give you ranged attacks with no drawbacks and melee weapons allow you to deal with the constant flow of melee enemies. In this respect, the game feels a bit like Gauntlet; you are going to get hurt a lot, the question is how do you deal with it? The other really poor game design aspect is that the game is virtually unplayable for a single person. The difficulty spikes are quite massive, and only a 2 or 3 player team will be able to get to any decent depth in the dungeon. I'm not sure what would have been so hard to create a proper scaling mechanic (Diablo 2 was doing this over 10 years ago), but there isn't one so if you aren't playing with other people, it's highly doubtful you'll get much further than depth 2 or 3. The grinding to get currency to buy more weapons and such is pretty bad as well. Additionally, the game has some weirdly long load times for a game that it so relatively simplistic. Between levels, loading the menu, etc... can take nearly 1-2 minutes which is pretty crazy. I have to wonder if it's attached the game's oddly huge 5 gig size, which suggests some poor optimization and/or compression issues? (for comparison, Skyrim, before DLC, is around 6 gigs) With some fairly minor tweaks, this would be a fun, casual dungeon crawler, but it kinda feels like a chore as it is now.

If I had to quickly sum up Imaginators to someone already familiar with the Skylander games, I would basically say: it's got some of the best gameplay of the series yet, the ability to create your own characters is pretty fun, but it's also the priciest Skylanders yet and the fact that the vehicles basically have no function in the game is super disappointing. For a longer review: Basically the action/RPG style gameplay of the series is definitely at it's strongest here. The combat is faster and more tactical for lack of a better term, and the added in gameplay elements like mini-games and such feel much more focused. It all works much better now as a whole and while the game still babies the player a lot (it is made for kids after all), it really pulls off some fun action, especially at the higher difficulties which are legitimately challenging. It's easier to level Skylanders now thanks mainly to the short, replayable Sensei levels (you only need a matching Sensei to unlock the level, not to play it again) and the combat challenges you get right on the main map (just attack the random little monsters running around and you get a short arena-style combat sequence). It moves a long at a very nice pace and while the storyline is pretty weakly executed (it's basically just a big commercial for the Academy series on Netflix), it never gets boring. The creation crystals are a lot of fun. Basically you pick a class and then, from there, you can build a Skylander out of various body parts, RPG style gear, and even change their colors, voice style, etc. It adds a whole new dimension to the game, but the new set of characters, the Senseis, are pretty cool too. However, this brings us to the really big problem with Imaginators: the cost. Skylanders games have always been pricey if you want to own everything, but the games themselves have usually been pretty generous in letting you experience virtually everything with just the starter characters. Here, though, the Sensei's are way expensive ($15 each, similar the Giants series) and having to pay $10 for each creation crystal seems kinda like greedy BS given that they are not specialized figurines. Add to that the expansions and such, and it feels like this is a very costly entry in the series. Additionally, you can pay real money to unlock Imaginator parts and customization options faster by buying chests. It feels a bit forced compared to previous games. Last thing to mention: While the game includes all of the race tracks from Superchargers, the vehicles are basically not part of the game AT ALL. I found this to be really, really weird. There are no more option vehicles sections of levels, no new tracks, nothing that involves the Supercharger characters at all. The race stuff is basically on its own as a separate thing and that's pretty disappointing. Also, weirdly, while you can still win gold and cogs in the races, I have been unable to find anywhere in the game where you can SPEND the cogs to level up your cars. And, as you don't have to even keep the vehicles on the portal to earn the cogs, I am curious where these earned cogs are recorded, if at all. So, you cannot access the level up system for the vehicles, only a quick menu to switch your customization parts you earned in Superchargers. For a series that went to great lengths to back everything backwards compatable, the way they did away with vehicles is really strange, sort of like how Superchargers had nothing at all to do with the Trap Team stuff. Putting aside the flaws, though, this is a really solid SL game and I would probably say it's a great entry point for someone who's never played before.

I got this when it was still an early access kind of thing on Steam as I thought it was a cool idea and wanted to support it. When I asked about the possibility of controller support (there was none in the first few months of the game's life cycle) the dev told me to "go f**k myself." The thin-skinned babyman that mostly developed this game went on to make a name for himself on the Steam forums by basically just acting like an idiot any time even the most minor criticism of the game was made. And, in the end, the game was never improved beyond just the barest minimum it needed to get a full release. Don't support these devs or their crap games.

Technomancer is a hard game to review. As a continuation of what Spiders was doing with Mars War Logs (a game very few people seem to have played), it works on the level of story and setting, but the gameplay seems to really, really drag it down. If you read other reviews, you get a general idea for the game, so I'll just get to why I think this game really doesn't work is simply: the combat. The combat system is a derivative of the Arkham Asylum-style beat-em-up (also seen in Shadows of MOrdor, Mad Max, and a few other games), but it lacks all of the visual cues and technique necessary to make it work. You have a myriad of special abilities, no matter what class you choose to focus on, yet it seems like none of the moves really change the nature of the situation in any meaningful way. Most battles are best settled just punching your way out, because the fancier movies either do pathetic damage or leave you too open to attack. Easily the most fatal aspect of the game is that while even the weakest enemies in the game can withstand loads of attacks, your character, no matter how high a level they get and no matter how advanced their abilities and equipment, can be decimated in a matter of seconds by simply succumbing to a few melee hits. Yes, the advanced cyber-augmented special security forces of the distant Martian future can literally be layed flat by a few punches from a street punk, meanwhile I have to an assortment of guns, melee weapons, and lightning bolts just to whittle that very same punk down to maybe half health. It makes no sense in-game, in-lore, and it especially makes no sense from a design perspective. The needlessly over-complicated crafting system allows you to modify your equipment (because, of course, when cops are sent out on duty, they are expected to just have their own equipment or build it themselves), but I am not exaggerated when I say that no matter how you upgrade your equipment, it will make minimal, almost unnoticeable, difference in combat. In summary, this makes Technomancer a chore to play, frankly. Even on the easiest difficulty, combat is a controller-breaking, maddening experience especially once you get to the point in the game where most enemies have guns and can just outright murder you before you can even start the fight proper. Outside of that, the game clearly wants to be interesting and immersive, but it takes so much effort to enjoy it since so MUCH of the game relies on the combat.

This is a fairly fun little casual adventure game. Basically you travel through randomly generated island worlds with the goal of finding magic "tablets" that will allow your ship to travel further. It's kind of like a board game. The number of the tablet determines how far you can move along the current chain of islands. As you explore, you find companions who will add abilities you will find useful for locating all of the treasure and other optional things, which is good if you want to buy upgrades and skills. It's a very well made basic "play for a few minutes" type of thing. So why the low rating? Well...because for some reason the developers decided not to add a save feature. None. At all. **** heard me.. in2016 a developer released a console game in which you cannot save your progress. Initially I thought "Oh, but you can save once you finish a world and you save after beating each world, right?" Nope. No saves. At all. When you beat a "world" of islands, you can then skip ahead to that world again, but when you do so, you do it without any of your abilities, companions, or upgrades whcih means the warp function is pointless because you would be starting late into the game with nothing, making it much more **** than it needs to be. I get that they were going for a roguelike-style atmosphere, and I am totally cool with the perma-death idea, but not being able to stop playing is ridiculous, especially since it probably takes about 2-3 hours to finish an entire series of worlds unless you get REALLY lucky with the tablets and items. Now, the Xbox One can be put in sleep and you can just resume playing that way, but that's not really "saving" your game. In my opinion, this is a great little casual title and it's totally ruined by this mechanic. The whole "Can't save" thing works in SOME games like, say, Spelunky, but not in something like this. If they update it to save at *least* between worlds, I'd easily give it a solid 7-8.

A decent dungeon crawler absolutely crippled by it's insanely aggressive and ludicrous In-App Purchase scheme. Dungeon Hunter 4, on a mechanical level, feels like a continuation of it's predecessors, but the game is just a nonsensical parade of awful business decisions. Loading screens are advertisements for buying items with cash, virtually everything in the game costs money, and the player is continually punished if you don't spend money. Don't listen to the people saying that this game is "playable for the patient." Patience has nothing to do with it. The game has an IAP wall so high that you can't even see over it. Anyone who actually sinks money into this instead of spending $5 on a quality iOS/Android game basically should never complain about any IAP ever again.

I don't usually write reviews for video games on public sites (I think I have like, two here or something), but I felt that Defiance is the kind of game that needs some defenders. Or maybe not so much defenders, but people who have actually played the game for more than 1 hour and then go trash it on the internet giving people a skewed view of the game. Personally, I think the game is a lot of fun, but I figured it would be good to give a balanced opinion about it to people out there seriously considering buying it. I won't go into the basics as I'll assume you know what the game is and the basics of how it plays, there are videos all over the place, but by now many of them are outdated due to features and fixes that have already been added in patches. Let me address some of the common complaints: 1. "The game has bugs/issues/server problems." This is somewhat true, but I have never played another game in my entire life where the problems have been so frequently addressed and dealt with. The game is improving continuously and the developers have a very honest, open relationship with the players which is a far cry from most companies nowadays who basically just have a "DEAL WITH IT, PEONS" attitude towards their customers. 2. "There's not enough loot!" While the game shares many mechanical similarities with Borderlands, this is not some loot-fest game where you are constantly finding dozens of guns and crap everywhere. Loot is not sparse, but it also isn't just handed out like candy, and seriously, who wants to play a game where 95% of the loot is crap anyway that you just have to sort through? 3. "The Graphics ****!" No, Defiance doesn't look like Skyrim or Bioshock infinite. This is because it needs to stream properly and load properly and handle a massive amount of players at once, so the graphics are good and serviceable, but not mindblowing. Graphics obsessed people will probably be disappointed. If this is the only reason you play games, you probably shouldn't be playing games. As for the world being "bland", it's no more different than any other game on the market right now set in an urban ruin. It's forests, swamps, and ruined buildings. It works for what is. 4. "Your weapons don't get stronger and you don't level up." You don't "level up" in Defiance, but you do earn skill points (Ego) which are pretty crucial to how you develop your character. You also earn "Ego Power" which effectively increases many things about your character. As for the weapons, to say your weapons don't get stronger is technically true, but you earn exp. levels based on weapon proficiency and also mods which can make a dramatic difference to a weapon. But, most of these slow-witted Call of Duty types complaining about the weapons fail to notice that the strength of the weapon is not as important overall as its functionality and how you use it tactically. Another option **** a better weapon, smart guys. 5. "IT TAKES SO LONG TO PATCH!" It's true that this game takes nearly 2 hours to fully install and patch. This is unfortunate, but if you're giving the entire game a 0 because of the technical aspect of it being patched to fix problems, you are functionally ****. 6. "IT TAKES TOO LONG TO CHASE DOWN ARKFALLS!!" If an Arkfall is so far away from you that you literally have to spend 15-20 minutes traversing the map, then gee..maybe you should just wait for an Arkfall in your area. Arkfalls are easily one of the most awesome parts of the game and yes you ARE rewarded for participating. No, you don't get tons of useless loot, but rather in-game currency and Ego Power which is WAY WAY more useful for improving your character. And, no, Arkfalls are not a DPS circle jerk. This is not WoW. Everyone who participates gets something appropriate to their level and there's no reason not to help out fellow players. 7. "The skills have no depth!" If the skill system in Defiance has no depth, than no video game currently on the market has any depth at all. 8. "The story is terrible!" The storyline is not great, I will admit. And the overall writing and presentation is pretty juvenile, but it functions for what it is. This isn't supposed to be some deep, involving ****'s a balls-out action game. The story serves the setting. 9. "You have to spend real money to get good equipment." Absolute BS. You can pay real money for random chests, but like all games with this scheme, it's usually better to just use what you have in-game rather than pay money for stuff you might never use. Also, the Ark Hunter code system on the Defiance website will give you more than enough starting bonuses to make any low level character happier. 10. "There's nothing to do!" If you are playing this game and missing the missions and the random events, then you are playing it wrong.

Ragnarok Odyssey is a bit difficult to categorize, though a lot of people seem to be trying to do just that. It's often compared to Monster Hunter, but the game really isn't much like MH apart from some aspects of it's crafting system and the way the game is organized and paced. If there is game out there that RO compares to most accurately, it would be Gods Eater Burst on the PSP, but even that comparison falls a tiny bit short. Regardless, RO is taking a beating in reviews (especially the insanely harsh IGN review in which the reviewer apparently wasn't aware the game is not some JRPG with tons of cutscenes and dialog, but is rather pretty much all action) but I think some people are being too hard on the game. Regardless, RO can be a fun, enthralling RPG if you don't take it too seriously and just take your time and learn to play it. I won't bother describing the game in detail since other reviews have done that, but I will say that one of the key things about RO is the understanding that 1.) there is no "leveling"..your character progression is based largely on how far into the game you get and how you choose to work on your equipment and 2.) any monster above a certain size cannot simply be hack-and-slashed to death; there is a lot of slow, strategic combat here. There is a lot of criticism about how the game's upgrade and crafting system is super-complex and nearly impossible to comprehend, but I don't get this AT ALL. I can't stand games with ludicrously complex crafting systems (like, say, Monster Hunter) and RO has to have one of the easiest and most hand-holding crafting systems out there. It tells you what items you need (and rare items are almost always tied to special quests and boss monsters) and pretty much the only crafting in the entire game that you need to pay attention to is items to create and improve new clothing (which you're only going to want to do on RARE occasions) and upgrading your weapon. All other crafting is totally optional and has no effect on the game, and the item drops in this game are so generous for the most part that I don't understand how anyone really has to "grind" that much. The game limits some of the rarer materials on purpose so that you only get them upon a chapter completion or by fighting the bigger enemies. As for the reviews saying that the game is boring, this also confuses me. Most games nowadays, by nature, have repetitive aspects to them. RO does ask you to revist a lot of the game levels, but as you get further into the game the enemies become harder and more varied and, eventually, you no longer be able to just run through a level to get to a **** will have to think about your route and fight monsters. If you don't, it will hurt you in the long run because when you are "ambushed" on levels, you'll have to deal with a lot of enemies you were unable to take care of before. Also, the combat is pretty fast and furious...I'm not sure how you would get so bored with this that it would make you stop. Overall, I found RO to be pretty fun when taken in small doses and played for what it is: a pretty straightforward hack and slash sort of thing. That said, it does have some significant flaws: 1. The menus are really un-intuitive. 2. The camera system is terrible because you cannot zoom out and the default camera position is WAY too close. You get used to it, but it's easily the most obvious gameplay flaw. 3. The game tends to put you in cheap situations too often; fighting 2 or 3 very hard large monsters in extremely small spaces with other smaller creatures attacking you to....things like that. 4. The game is not good about telling you about certain mission goals and what monsters you can/can't defeat at what point in the game. Some players might assume they have to defeat a super-powerful monster to finish the level, but in fact, in many case, you're not meant to fight those monsters until later. Still, I think most people going into RO understanding that it is all quest-based, very little story and primarily a monster killing sort of thing will enjoy it. It takes awhile to get used to the systems and how the combat works for each class, but once you get it, I think it makes a nice, bite-sized RPG.