barrybonkers

TFD doesn't push back so hard early on being a F2P that wants to keep you interested and get you invested so it can then beging to monetise you, the problem being it can be overly simple for quite a few hours from the off. It doesn't help that the story and its presentation are utterly banal tripe. The game can be fairly mind-massaging if not exactly mind-numbing in those first dozen or so hours where progress comes far too easily - and this is probably as much of the game that most of the critics see, hence those 3s and 4s, Very few paid for their output are going to spend the dozens of hours to actually reach end game and engage with the game's many systems and judge it fairly. but that's probably OK because... Once those heavily Warframe-inspired systems take a bigger role and the game opens up, the push-back begins. Unfortunately, that's also where the cash shop and MTX come into play in a big way. You can ignore the spend and grind away for practically all the game has to offer (at least in meaningful gameplay terms), but there's clearly been more time been spent designing methods, systems and activities that increase spending vs. producing a genuinely fun and compelling game experience. 6/10 is me being my absolute most generous and optimistic about what this game has to offer today and the slight promise it holds for the future. It's a 3/10 at the very best viewed from a more cynical side-eye. So it's lands teetering on a precarious 5, arms flailing. Without meaningful ps+ freebie incentives dropping regularly, I don't see this game in my future rotation as what's there isn't worth spending a penny on right now, but more importantly, not worth the alternative massive time investment the game demands when you're unwilling to open the wallet for some of the most horrendously-priced MTX ever witnessed. It's be nice if there were ways to spend a little to unlock more variety and reward their efforts, but that's not how they wish to operate and instead they want P2W hard cash for stats. Nah.

(Xbox Series S)Starfield isn't quite what I wanted from a Bethesda game. Over anything I valued the ability to roam and encounter organically in Oblivion, Fallout 3/NV and Skyrim. That was the big thing for me. Find stuff I should have had no chance competing with but finding ways to scum around it. Starfield prefers loading screens and cuts to black over real exploration. The promise of a star system to explore is a pretense and the action combat passable, good in Bethesda terms, but ordinary at best vs proper shooters - I'd give it up for VATS any day. I'm old, the old games still exist, I'll keep going back to them until Bethesda rediscovers what made their older games the best in genre.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This "expansion" is very, very light on content - it's the sort of thing that you'd normally expect for free in other games as a bonus between seasons or real updates. The campaign will be over with in an evening no matter what your skill level. It's not particularly interesting and ends startlingly abruptly as if they ran out of time and just shipped what they had. The new "end game" beyond these few story missions is a single, static dungeon (with a very awkward-sounding name) with a super-glitchy end boss. While the new mods are interesting and the knock-on build variety boost is definitely well crafted, the offering as a whole lacks any real reason to engage whatsoever when there's literally nothing to do with your new gear and builds than repeat this dungeon over and over to make the numbers go up. It's tragic. In an attempt to disguise this fact, they're made the level grind (Apocalypse tiers) incredibly, painfully slooooooooow, but it won't deceive most. The previews I read and watched back in April were puff pieces, there's just not anything here worth close to the asking price. If you loved the base game buy it on deep discount and enjoy your weekend with it.

Diablo Immoral. Dumbed down Diablo with the most mind-bending contrivance of obfusticated currency models and spending I think I've ever come up against. For a few hours it was glorious - and as a game, pure gameplay joy, despite a level of jank in its beta stage it's not at all without merit - but predatory is the only way to describe the monetisation. It must be soul-destorying to be on the traditional gameplay-side of making this game at Blizzard, seeing all your hard work ruined by psychologists and gambling industry vets brought in to reduce Diablo to a dependency-inducing, money-taking device.

On paper this was a sure-fire winner. In reality mistakes were made. It's got legacy bugs, new bugs and a whole lot of questionable decisions the length and breadth of the whole pacakge from graphics to performance. It sours the memory of what were fun games in my youth. Seems cynically rushed to market for an xmas period cash grab :/ Rockstar have the talent and resources to do the very best the industry has to offer - none of that is on show in this offering. Avoid at all costs.

If like me you play on an xbox series s, this game performs very poorly for a last gen game. Maybe the proper new current gen version next year will improve things, but running the xbox one version on the series s is not a good experience at all. It actualy plays, runs and feels better on my old 1x!

unlike any other game you have played, even the first one. a must play. putting a number on it seems pointless, but ten is where it lands. wonderful.

There's already enough content to justify the price, but it's the potential for what comes next anot just in terms out output but the Dreams toolset itself. Astonishing.