WingedAnomaly

A decent game utterly destroyed by the fact that the AI play by different rules than the player. Not only is the rubber banding so awful it's almost funny, but AI cars can speed around corners without braking or sliding. This isn't too bad in most events, as, while they may cheat, they're also exceptionally dumb, but in the (mandatory) off-road events, this problem reduces the game to a matter of frustration and dumb luck. There is nothing that makes me want to rage-quit more than needing to stomp on the brake to get around a corner without hurtling off the road, only to watch the entire AI pack pass me by whipping around the corner at full speed. Avoid at all costs. Buy Forza Horizon 3 for a similar, and better, experience.

A brilliant game with some key, but passable flaws, Warframe rapidly became my favourite game after starting to play over a year ago. It's fun, fast, with excellent gunplay, graphics, sound design, incredibly fast and fun base gameplay blending wallrunning and acrobatics, various forms of firearms, and countless disciplines of melee weapons, and the best part: it's free to play, and it's business model ISN'T a giant ****. Digital Extremes is an excellent development team that listens to their users, and the game has rapidly improved over the course of the year with massive, free updates introducing and revamping large swaths of gameplay, turning what was good a year ago into something truly special today. Now, I'm not going to ignore what it does wrong. The game often resorts to heavy grind to extend the life of content, though the situation has been gradually improving, and currently has a lack of endgame content, though the devs have promised that will be changing in the near future. As it stands, though, the base gameplay formula is fun enough that I don't mind the grind, and have continued to not mind it for my 1300 hours played. Highly recommended, though it's best with friend to be sure.

Hey, it's more accessible than earlier X titles! ...which would be nice if it ran at more than ten frames per second on high end systems. The performance is a bloody atrocity. A machine that can giggle its way through Assassin's Creed IV should NOT be showstopped by this game. It's pretty, but it's not THAT pretty, particularly at minimum bloody settings.

I'm a long-standing fan of the series, and while I was disappointed to see that the latest entry does things differently, approaching it from the perspective ****, not a fan, allowed me to see that not all was lost. The game was immediately marred by a loss of personality. It decided to go for a 'gritty realism' atmosphere, in opposition to the high-flying epic action of the previous games, and that combined with uninspired and repetitive level design packed with backtracking seriously damaged the experience. As a matter of fact, for a long time, I was hard-pressed to describe this as a Lost Planet game, rather than a generic sci-fi third person shooter. However, it's my opinion that the game's benefits outweigh its generic feel and repetitive levels. First off the game is visually gorgeous, and unlike the first two, very well optimized for PC. This comes off best in the extremely high-resolution facial animations and PC-exclusive high-resolution textures. Second, the game's writing is outstanding a merit the first two games lacked and is packed with believable and likable characters that I found I quickly started to care about. Third, three enjoyable series stables have returned the towering mechs, adaptable grappling hook, and creative multi-stage bosses and minibosses, and while all three have gone through some measure of change, most notably the mechs (or rather, singular mech) but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The mech you pilot through the game, the Utility Rig, becomes almost a character of its own as you customize it and unlock various attachments and upgrades that will aid you in your journey. In conclusion, the game often wound up being drab and repetitive, but I've always said: repetition doesn't matter as long as what you're doing is fun, and doesn't outlast its welcome. The basic shooting that composes most of the game is uninspired, but the epic boss battles, well-realized story, and incredibly fun mech piloting do just enough to balance the experience out.

Clever, thought provoking and full of heart, what Remember Me lacks in innovation, graphical fidelity, and openness it more than makes up for with a stunning setting, incredible visual and audiatory design, and mountains of character. For me, it's a lot like Metro: Last Light. It's not doing anything new, but what it tries to do it does well and that's more than enough to forgive its flaws.

The only thing keeping me from handing this a solid ten is the odd server behaviour, but even that is probably run of the mill early post-launch bugginess. It's fun, hilarious, fast-paced, pretty to look at, and loaded down with character couldn't ask for much more at ten bucks.

Viciously difficult, but immensely satisfying. A Devil May Cry in 2D, Shank is anything but brainless action, requiring you to carefully swap between weapons to chain together the lengthy and effective combos needed to slay the game's most persistent enemies. A silly turret section later on proved immensely frustrating, but aside from that, this is a gold standard 2D beat 'em up.

I'm going to keep this short and sweet. Anyone who rated this below a seven simply didn't bother to put the time into it. It badly needs a tutorial, which is why this didn't hit a perfect ten, but for chrissakes, PLAY a game before you damn it. Besides, there are tutorial vids that it shoves in your face in the gorram launcher but hell, I've been playing since before those, and it only took me about a half hour to figure everything out. Stop pissing yourselves and wrecking the score on an awesome game. Out.

This is what happens when people rate a game based on how it relates to the rest of the series instead of the merits of the game itself. I am a long-standing Devil May Cry fan. I own all the games and have run through them all on Dante Must Die, and I'm still capable of enjoying this new game because I'm not expecting it to be the same game as DmC 3 or 4, and honestly, expecting that is downright unreasonable. This is a reboot of the series made by a new developer, so QUIT GIVING IT ONES AND ZEROES. Moving on. The first thing I noticed is that this is an excellent PC port. While I played DmC 3 and 4 on their respective consoles due to the general crappiness of the ports, I played DmC on my computer and loved it. The graphics were astounding with the HD upgrades, and the combat was butter smooth at 90 FPS. The second thing I noticed was the voice acting. As much as I love the previous installments in the series, the voice acting has always been downright awful, and this change was a pleasant and welcome surprise. The third thing I noticed was that the combat was FUN, unlike what so many users will have you think. Sure, it's missing the style system and the Stylish Rank gauge has been declawed, but the combat is fast, fluid, and completely worthy of any previous DmC title. Sound, visual, and enemy design is perfect, without an iota of overstatement. Limbo is a thrilling, diverse, and visually stunning setting, and the level design reflects that with each group of levels taking you to a new and shockingly unique setting. The enemy design is delightfully dark, featuring everything from weak, shambling biomechanical nightmares to demonic ninjas with masks sewn to their heads. As a fan of the New Phyrexia set from Magic: The Gathering, I just loved *looking* at the bad guys. In terms of sound, each weapon has a unique and entirely satisfying battery of noises, from the classic 'swoosh, schwing' of Rebellion to the ethereal roar of Osiris, and all this is backed up by music that is an awesome fusion of pulsing electronic and hardcore metal. Overall, as a fan of Devil May Cry, as a fan of action games, and as a PC gamer, I've got to say that DmC: Devil May Cry is an absolutely brilliant piece of work. It lacks some of the combat depth and brutal difficulty showcased by its predecessors, and the inability to manually lock on is a genuine frustration at times, but the impossibly high development values and bursting package of thrilling, new visual ideas and epic boss fights more than makes up for the shortcomings. If you're a PC gamer and a fan of spectacle fighters, a genre woefully underrepresented on PC, then it'd be a crime not to pick this game up.

Stark and simple, but immeasurably exciting. Each step forward is an adventure as reality seems to bend and fold around you, and you're left wondering, moment to moment, what the game is going to pull out of its hat next. But unlike many games that might give you a few 'oohs' and 'ahhs' before wearing thin, Antichamber forces you to examine your surroundings and use what it gives you to solve expertly crafted puzzles. There is no real reward except a new way forward and the distant promise of an ending, but that was plenty for me. A shockingly unique game in today's colour by the numbers market, Antichamber is everything that makes art games good.

A brilliant, beautiful, and thrilling throwback to the early 2000's, when space flight sims of all kinds and colours graced the PC market. And I, as a massive fan of those games, welcome this return to some of the most fun I've ever had. If you enjoyed games like Tachyon, Freespace, and Dark Horizon (though I may be the only person to like that one) then this is definitely a worthy and nostalgia-inducing purchase.

This game moved me to tears. After having completed it, I feel like I've learned something, or gained something in my life. I have never, *never* experienced something that touched me like Journey did. The experience is brief and very subtle, so if you prefer being beaten over the head by an overwrought and emotionally bankrupt 12-hour FPS campaign, this is not the game for you. But if you're looking for an experience that is simple, pure, unique, and truly, truly beautiful, you owe it to yourself to experience Journey.

No game has ever hit me quite the same way this one did. It was so sad, yet so engaging and so hopeful. It can be difficult to get the hardware to play it these days, much less an actual copy of the game, and emulation is always a bit sketchy... a real shame. This one's a classic.

It brings tears to my eyes to write this, but this game is awful. An absolutely *incredible* premise was absolutely trashed in this truly, truly unfortunate failure ****. Let me get more specific. Graphically, the game was pretty good, and at first, it was a blast. The controls, while... unique, were fun to use for melee combat, the enemies were interesting and fun to fight, particularly the towering mechanical Troll. Unfortunately, a number of issues quickly emerged. First and most importantly, there is literally no camera control in this game. It will get you killed, again and again. Secondly, while the enemies were initially interesting and unique, the game seemed desperate to show them to the player again... and again... and again... It seemed the game's only way of keeping you playing was to lock you in a room with fifty more dudes. And while hacking your way through lots of squishy enemies can be fun (Dead Rising 2 comes to mind) there's the thing: the enemies *aren't* squishy. Even with endgame level equipment on a second playthrough, the game stops throwing the squishy baddies at you really quickly, in favor of similar, but much *less* squishy enemies. The fluid combat system stagnated as I stood for long seconds, trying to cut down an individual enemy. In the end, interesting boss fights couldn't save the game. It's short and badly paced - four levels that take multiple hours each to complete - but it wound up feeling very, very long. The only reason I gave this a 6 was for the premise - sci-fi norse mythology? It should've been *awesome*. Hell, the fight with a massive, biomechanical Fenrir WAS awesome, but it was one of the very few high points in a massive, massive **** ****. Purchase as a form of digital tourism only - the first level was mostly fun, but don't expect to last long after that unless you're *very* persistent.

Overall, really quite enjoyable - second to the original SupCom, this is probably my favourite RTS. I do miss the layers of nuanced complexity that lofted the original stories above the competition, but SupCom 2 is still an enjoyable, rock-solid, and gorgeous RTS.

I'm going to keep this short and simple. It's not DA:O - hell, it's barely an RPG, but it's a good game. I found myself wrapped up in the world, the characters, and the story, enjoying the combat and the tension, reveling in the soundtrack, and generally enjoying myself. There are a number of glaring flaws, but if you don't walk into it expecting Dragon Age: Origins, you'll probably enjoy yourself, just like I did.

Compared to previous installations of the series, which were effectively just clones of one another, Black Ops 2 stands out remarkably well, given the fact that it is still a Call of Duty game. As a PC gamer who's been on the market for a very long while, I have little love for the Call of Duty franchise, but Black Ops 2 pleasantly surprised me. Offering DirectX 11 support on PC, excellent optimization, smooth framerates, and brilliant eye-candy graphics, dodging around the schizophrenic quality hiccups of its predecessor, the game looks absolutely gorgeous. The audio design has also taken a step up, and unlike the last time around, most of the guns have some good clout to them. But all that should be par for the course - it's a little upsetting that things that should come standard are now viewed as assets for a new product. So let me talk about what's got me enjoying this game, and what really makes it a good game: the nature of the campaign. In previous CoD entries, the campaign is always dead linear and fairly short, starting you in the same spot with the same weapons and the same objective, the same every run through. But Black Ops 2 does something entirely unexpected: it adds a level of choice, giving a modern military shooter, a genre well known and hated for its linearity, a branching storyline. Choices you make impact not only the outcome, but the missions to come. Optional side missions provide a break from the main story, and directly affect and are affected by the paths of the main characters. Pre-mission prep screens give you the option to fully customize your loadout, enabling you to approach the upcoming mission in any of a number of different ways. This is no Deus Ex - hell, it's not even a Crysis 2 in terms of the player's freedom of action, but the addition of player choice turns a dull, boring shooter into something that I might come back and play through a second time. In conclusion, it's a Call of Duty game, and it will never escape from that, but given the recent path of the series, it's a breath of fresh air. I recommend picking it up, but I recommend waiting for a sale more.

I have nothing but praise for this game, but first, I have something to say addressing other reviewers' complaints: If the game was too short, you were doing something terribly, terribly wrong. My thorough (lethal) playthrough took me about 16 hours, doing all the sidequests, tracking down as much of the gold and as many of the runes and whale-bone charms as I could. I can only imagine it'd be much longer if you went non-lethal. Now, to the actual review. Graphics: Using a heavily modified version of the Unreal 3 engine, Dishonored portrays the steampunk city of Dunwall with a style and flair that hooked me instantly. The models and textures are as high-resolution as a PC gamer could ask for, and the unique shaders and strong, hard shadows conveyed a strong, graphic novel-esque sense of visual atmosphere. The world's grim visual glory was even further enhanced by the spectacular art direction, taking queues from Half-Life 2 and blending that aesthetic with elements lifted from steampunk subculture to create a unique, rich, and enthralling visual experience. 9/10. Gameplay: It's difficult to address the gameplay and story separately, as the two are inexorably intertwined, but I'll do my best. Missions fling you into vast, open environments littered with hidden nooks and crannies, open windows, and rooftops just begging to be explored and immersed in. As you explore, you come across runes, coins, and whale bone charms. Runes are used to unlock elements of a supernatural toolkit, handing you various new strategies with which to engage in combat or exploration, but never overwhelming you with too much at once. Coins are used to purchase upgrades to your more physical gadgets, such as new lenses for your clockwork mask, or an automatic reloading system for your hand crossbow. And lastly, whale bone charms are equipped to give you small perks of a sort, such as gaining token amounts of health from drinking water, or swinging your sword slightly more quickly. Charms are randomized as well, so you'll rarely find one in the same place between playthroughs. Taking the elements the game gives you and combining them is where the real gold is, and every solution you come up with is something you created, not you being funneled through a narrow pathway or being told to do things a very specific way, as is common with modern games. This isn't a game where you're disappointed by hitting yet another invisible wall - this is a game where you're thrilled by discovering that yes, that did, in fact, work. 10/10. Story: And this is where the game truly gets into its stride, and this surprised me. Before I played the game, I was expecting a thrilling experience, not really a complex story, or good characterization. Dishonored had the courtesy to hand me everything. I'm not going to spoil anything, but the story is intense and emotional, despite the fact that it can only really be advanced between missions. But it's not the pre-set story that's the best element here, no... it's how the player's actions impact the curve of events. The game gives you tools of death; it gives you a pistol and crossbow, it gives you mines that fling razor-sharp shrapnel in a metallic tornado, it gives you a power that summons a swarm of ravenous plague rats, but it also gives you a warning: if you take too many lives, the story, characters, world, and even you will change for the worse. Many disregard the warning, much like I did... and were left distraught when, at the very end, the game solemnly held up a mirror. There are games with intense stories and endings that make you tear up, but there is NOTHING as harsh as this. Games like Mass Effect or Spec Ops: The Line, as much as you can impact events in the former, are sending you along a predetermined path. The ending isn't a product of your actions - it's simply affected by them. When Dishonored came to a conclusion, I knew that all the horrible things that had happened were MY fault, not because I'd been forced to take lives, but because I'd CHOSEN to. 10/10. Conclusion: Dishonored was everything I'd hoped for and so much more. This game is a work of art, and you owe it to yourself to play it any way you can. It doesn't matter what the magazines say, this is my game of the year without a moment's thought.

An absolute blast to play and a significant improvement over its predecessor, Sniper Elite V.2 is a sniping fan's wet dream. The singleplayer campaign is fairly lengthy and packed with interesting and fun shooting scenarios, the core shooting mechanics are rock-solid, the layer-by-layer X-ray killcams are fascinating and bloody, and the addition of coop for the entire game is just icing on the cake. Its story is lacklustre, yes, but that's the only bad thing I have to say about this immensely satisfying title. And to those complaining about historical accuracy: this is HISTORICAL FICTION. Crawl out of your box and do some research before being an ass.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I adore. This. Game. Very few modern shooters manage to be so much FUN that it doesn't matter if the levels are repetitive and linear, which certainly wasn't the case here, but I don't want to talk about the level design: I want to talk about the gameplay, graphics, and story. Gameplay is insanely smooth. You have two human arms and two demon arms, each operable independently, but controlling this hydra of a character never feels overwhelming in the slightest. The upgrade system adds some wicked awesome powers and this great feeling of progression, and the use of light as a deterrent and weapon against your powers was a really cool feature. The graphics were, in a word, insane: Not quite as high poly as some other modern games, but the textures were flawless and pixel-free, the cell shading was a welcome addition, and the whole thing was optimized to a point and never once lagged on my machine. But the best part... the best part was the story. I don't want to spoil anything, but it's emotionally intense: I've never felt so compelled, so driven to move forward simply to find out what happens next simply because I'm wrapped up in the emotion before. It succeeds in planting the seeds of uncertainty into the player's mind as you progress so well that, by the end, you'll be completely unsure as to what's real and what isn't. It's short, but sweet: quality over quantity is a mantra the developers embraced with warmth. If you want a sprawling adventure that lasts for a long, long time, go play Skyrim or Human Revolution - but if you want to be taken along by an epic rollercoaster ride of emotion, play this game, however you can.