SugarHBear

When I first played ER with seemingly everyone else in spring 2022, it was my first souls-like and a great game about which I obsessed (I even named my best weapons and spirits)! I loved the fact you could make yourself Gandolf, Kratos, Shinobi, or whoever. But I thought it was flawed in how long it was, how unrewarding treasures could be if they didn't match your build, and how the early game is more fun with frequent leveling up and painstakingly crafted areas. Ultimately ER made me want to try other games that were like it but even better. Here we are 2 years later, and now I appreciate just how wonderful Elden Ring is. For all its glaring flaws, no other game approaches ER's fun customizable combat and builds. No other souls-like (mostly) respects your time by not subjecting you to boss runs -- the equivalent of lengthy unskippable cutscenes before each boss attempt. I originally gave ER a 9 on my first 100+ hours. On my new playthrough 2 years later, I'd say it's a 10 given how apparently hard it is for any other game to come close.

I feel like I got ripped off, since I bought Legends to crossplay from PS5 with a friend on PC. While co-op worked the first day, now we are unable to try PVP (just says friend is "In Menu"). As a strategy fan (though not complex strategy), I'm disappointed in the campaign. There are fun moments plotting your course to take out a piglin base, but a lot of time spent is dictated by the game. Often I have to interrupt my activity to go collect more resources (the reviews mention allays that do the collecting for you, except you have to point each one where to collect, and they'll stop even if your resources aren't full and there's more to collect nearby). Other times I have to go defend an arbitrary village/homestead from a nighttime raid. These defenses so far have been disappointing, though I am only in the first half of the campaign. Some of the piglin units are invulnerable to my forces, so my main "strategy" is just to run out the clock by distracting these units like a matador at a bull fight. So I'm let-down by an OK campaign mode but without the PVP that was the reason for my purchase.

This game is very niche: less than 30% of players have finished this FIVE hour game, according to Xbox achievements. So the odds are it won't appeal to you. While I liked the art and the music was fine (I actually preferred the folk stuff on the title screen), I was not into the limited gameplay or the drawn out story.

With this DLC, Origins has really overstayed its welcome. A big new map filled with the samey locations and quests, only this time there is backtracking across the map for the main quest (sure you can fast travel but I can only fire so many arrows in the loading screen). By the time you max out all your upgradeable gear the game is over and you don't need it, although you may be sick of overpowering enemies anyway. The story makes no sense. I wish I had stopped with the base game, which I thoroughly enjoyed. At least I have learned a valuable lesson to stay away from DLC in the future.

Spent $60 for Shield and my 9yo has played it once and says he doesn't really like it. Disappointing because I assume this is the target audience. Personally I was amazed by the complete lack of voice acting in a 2019 AAA title.

This is a near perfect online co-op game. My son and I play on separate Xboxes (sharing a single copy of the game), and we have played every minute together (including the opening intro). Mission progress counts for both of us, and we use the setting where we don't have to fight for loot. The game is great in that you can play together or split up for a while (on the same map). This is the first co-op game that I have been into as much as a single player experience. We've experienced minor but no game-breaking bugs. Performance is fine with performance mode on my X, and he hasn't complained on his base Xbox Elite. On the downside for playing with kids, while you can turn off much of the gore in settings, there is no option to filter the language. I don't think there are f-bombs, but I've heard basically everything else.

I'm having a blast and cannot wait for crossplay to finally play Borderlands in coop. I like how the variety of guns allows you to enjoy different play styles. The story is pretty crap so far (cults... fascinating), but on the positive side this just lets you focus on the arcadey destruction. I also like the quirky humor. I haven't suffered any performance issues so far on my GTX 1080 Ti.

No pro controller support. So I can't play a 4 player game with the controllers I have.

Might be an OK mobile game. Not hilarious, and the puzzles are less about solving and more about clicking all the options until it animates the solution.

A JRPG? promoted as an action game. Unsatisfying bullet-sponge combat, sparse muted-color world, not fully voice-acted, constant manual collecting of crystals.

Fun for a while if you're into shooting everything. I had never played Far Cry before. I was expecting a mission-based story akin to Grand Theft Auto along with a free-roam open world. However in Far Cry the world is populated mostly with things you're supposed to shoot and that are attacking you. It reminds me of a battle royale game, but one in which you are a superhero and your opponents are weak and stupid. There are some missions, but there's a lot of blow-up-this-thing-on-the-map, and kill-all-the-enemies-at-this-place-on-the-map. These can get boring if you're not that into the shooting. I couldn't find ways to do much stealth. I think more experienced players learn ways to do more stealth, since you are rewarded for killing all the enemies at an outpost without sounding an alarm. I found gunning with the controller on PC annoying, because sometimes aim-assist seems to work and other times it seemed like I had to perfectly line up my shot.

My 7 year old son and I love this game. It's great to play couch co-op battles. If you are OK with cartoon violence and assertions e.g. "My big butt makes big poops," this is a great family game and a good introduction to turn-based strategy and tactics. The coolest hook of this game is that at the end of most matches you can recruit the final remaining enemy to join your team for future battles. I like the easy-ish difficulty -- there is an "insane mode" for those who want a challenge.

My 7 year old son and I love this game. It's great to play couch co-op battles. If you are OK with cartoon violence and assertions e.g. "My big butt makes big poops," this is a great family game and a good introduction to turn-based strategy and tactics. The coolest hook of this game is that at the end of most matches you can recruit the final remaining enemy to join your team for future battles. I like the easy-ish difficulty -- there is an "insane mode" for those who want a challenge.

Not a great party game. There are two things required to solve many of the puzzles: (1) figure it out (2) execute. Solving puzzles as a group was mildly fun, but executing using the fiddly characters and controls seemed more like a chore.

Unskippable torture mission ruined this game for me. So much for being able to switch characters.

I got this for the 2-player competitive mode that first appeared in Sonic 2. That mode remains pretty fun, with the drawback that you have to play each level in 1-player before you can play it 2-player competitively. This is dumb, particularly since this is tied to each player profile. The 1-player game is pretty meh. Gone are the digestible levels of Sonic 1&2 -- now the levels are crazy long, and yet they kept the 10-minute timer. I don't have fun exploring these levels because they're so long, winding back and forth, so I just want to get to the end and be done with it. I was also hoping for the slot machines from Sonic 2 Casino Night Zone. I don't believe those have returned.

Living in western Washington and being a fan of houses with secret passages, I LOVED the scenery and visuals of this game. The story started great, but for me it petered out as the game went on, and there was no satisfying ending.

Difficult: definitely. Fun? Only if you enjoy the difficulty. If you don't, Assist Mode doesn't really help make it more fun, since it doesn't assist with the timing (other than giving you the option to slow everything down, including dying).