dacritic82

Watch Dogs, as many hyped games, was a let down for many people, who considered it fell short on its premise of "controlling" the city from their cellphone. However, this is hardly the case. These are some of the elements you can hack: - Controlling traffic: traffic lights, steam pipes, bridges, blockers, road spikes, gates, garage doors and even trains. - Accessing Information: personal cameras, cellphones, CCTV cameras, computers. - Causing distractions by: activating lifts, forklifts, junction boxes, making transformers and other utilities explode/burst, triggering car alarms, ringing enemies' phones. Additionally, you can disrupt helicopters and enemies' comms, - Invading: you can hack cellphones to: steal money, download music, read text messages, overhear conversations (some of them will lead you to objects of interest or give you a tip on a crime). In addition to all of that, you can also craft grenades, mines, proximity mines, distraction lures, jam comms, scanners (CtOS Scan). If you're still not satisfied you can cause blackouts throughout the city. Of course, not all of the above is available from the get-go, they require you to unlock the required skill. Speaking of skills, the skill tree is vast, allowing you to take control of more elements, but also improving your attributes (such as handling, focus, shooting, etc.). Weapon variety is not the best, you have: melee, pistols, sub-machine guns, shotguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles and grenade launchers. Now, the main story is solid, nothing extraordinary, but it's not bad by any means. Additionally, you have all sorts of side quest to undertake. Believe me, it's where you'll spend most of your time. Most of them are pretty fun and you'll all of your skills will be tested (stealth, driving, crowd control, puzzle solving, shooting, reflex, balance and more). Online activities are not too varied. Basically, you have: races (which are pretty fun), invasions and free roam. The music is great, but graphics - and probably voice acting - could have been a little better. All in all, it's a game that is totally worth checking out.

Assassin's Creed Unity is set in one of the best scenarios for an Assassin's Creed game, the French Revolution. A time full of plots, intrigues, treason and social unrest. That being said, let's cut to the chase. - In terms of graphics and visuals the game is beautiful. However, even after more than a year from its release, the game suffers from stupid glitches and FPS drops each time you enter a crowded area. - Online Features: there are no PvP modes, only PvE. Online missions are, for the most part, like any other mission. Heists require the players to be as stealthy as possible, since being spotted reduces the reward. - Main Campaign: the compelling main story provides around 30 missions split in 12 sequences. As usual, each missions will also have multiple optional challenges. - Side Quests/Activities: there's just too much to do in ACU. You have Paris Stories (additional quests), Nostradamus Enigmas (riddles), Murder Mysteries (investigations), Helix Rifts (race through an area to collect as many points as possible before the time is off), Social Club Renovations/Missions (additional side quests). On top of all these, you have almost 300 chests, over 100 **** to collect and a fair share of artifacts to find. - Gameplay: compared to Black Flag, I feel the gameplay has suffered a downgrade. You can't whistle, nor move bodies. The stealth component has been reduced to a minimum - blending is never required and avoiding detection is required only once (if you're going for the 100% sync, that is). Furthermore, the "Disguise" skill allows you to instantly camouflage yourself as any character at sight, which makes infiltration a piece of cake (as long as you keep a few feet away from near enemies). Also, it's worth pointing out that Arno's parkour mechanics are oftentimes plainly stupid. He'll hang from the back of a chair, he'll refuse to make simple jumps, he'll ignore your command to throw a smoke bomb while in combat, etc. - Weapon variety: you have a fairly decent number of weapons and weapon types (swords, long weapons, heavy weapons, pistols, rifles and guillotine guns). All in all, ACU is a great game that offers tons of content. It was a great Platinum for my collection, despite some glitches here and there.

Halo 5 is a big disappointment for me in many ways. Having spent many hours in multiplayer mode, and being almost about to complete the campaign for the second time, I have to say that 343i has learned barely nothing in all these years. Let's first talk about the good. - Playing as a fireteam. I truly like it. I'm personally not too fond of the whole 'one guy saving the universe' thing we've seen over and over so many times, so this was a great addition. AI works as well as you can expect, so I hope they stick to this for future releases. - Warzone. It's great to have a PvP mode with ads storming in. Unfortunately, I've been able to play this mode only twice because of the crappy servers. - Weapons sounds. They really sound nice. Now, the bad. - Graphics. Though the visuals are good, the graphics seem rather outdated. Come on, it's 2015 and most of the metallic surfaces look plastic. Also, some weapons look like toys. There's a general lack of details, which makes look the game a couple of years old. - The story. To be honest, it's rather underwhelming (and predictable). The trailers were misleading in a lot of aspects, but I'm not going to go into too many details so I don't spoil anything for you. - Microtransactions. This is something very discouraging for a lot of people, me included. When you introduce the pay-to-win concept into your business model, it unbalances the game. Fortunately, it only affects Warzone, so if you want to stay out of it, just play Arena. - Couch co-op is gone. Yeah, it's gone. You can kiss the evenings with your pals goodbye. 343i said they were doing this because they were prioritizing graphics quality. I honestly believe it's a ton of horse crap. The graphics are barely acceptable, so I don't see how split screen could possibly harm the quality. - Lack of content. After you complete the main campaign, which should take you around 10 hours, you are left with nothing but the multiplayer mode. There's absolutely no end-game content. I know 343i announced content is on the way (probably by December), but I just can't overlook the fact that they shipped the game knowing it wasn't complete. - Customization. During the main campaign there's absolutely nothing you can customize. I know this is something that all the Halo share, but I think it's about time to do something in this department. For PvP you can customize your ID, weapon skin (only the color) and pieces of armor, but you can't configure loadouts. I wish we could select the weapons to spawn with from a basic armory (nothing acquirable from REQ packs). - A feeling of general underdevelopment. After spending several hours with the game I got the feeling that A) there's little innovation when comparing to Halo 4. B) Most of its competitors have a lot more to offer technically and in terms of content and features. I can only think of 2 possibilities for this half-assed release: either it was rushed out the door, or this is the best the designers had to offer. In any case 343i should have known better.

For some weird reason there are studios that think it's okay to release retro arcade games for next-gen consoles. It's not. They profit from our nostalgia. However, if I'd want to play an old-school game such as this, I'd use my tablet or phone. I'm giving it a 2 because you and your friend can have 5 minutes of fun in this otherwise boring, repetitive, poorly designed game.

I got this game for free because of Vote to Play. For me it was the weakest choice but it got voted somehow. It's clearly a game meant for 5-year-old kids. I had fun... for 10 minutes. Then, it became boring and repetitive.

This reivew covers Halo 3 available in the Master Chief Collection for XBOX ONE. Halo 3 carries the great story in Halo 2 on and I have a fantastic time throughout the campaign. In terms of graphics and music, these are top-notch, as usual. However, having played the Halo 2 Anniversary edition in the Master Chief Collection, I was disappointed that they didn't remastered this game too. Vehicles stay a main part of the game and that's awesome. And, with the inclusion of new weapons, the games remains always fresh. Dual-wielding is also available, though there's been some changes (e.g you cannot wield 2 Needlers). The only con that I can think of is that each of the so called "missions" is a collection of missions in itself separated by a cutscene. So, if you play short sessions, you'll most likely lose a bit of your context regarding your objective (and the story) because you might just end up running from checkpoint A to B.

This is a great game, with a dark atmosphere and plenty of puzzles of all difficulties. If you're like me, then you'll die a lot, A LOT, trying to solving the puzzles; but don't get discouraged, the game is very rewarding!. The con is that it has no story and it's completely up to your imagination to say what's going on. I can deal with that throughout the game, but I want at least a hint by the time I get to the end. Unfortunately this is not the case. Of course, you could think of Dante's Limbo, but that Limbo is not supposed to be a place of suffering.

This review cover Halo 2: Anniversary included in the Master Chief Collection for XBox One. Before you think I'm all hyped about this game, you can check my review for the previous game, Halo CE. I gave it a 7 and I was very hard on it. Now, this is probably the best, or at least top 3, FPS I ever played. Everything I critiqued about the first Halo game has been greatly improved in this sequel. - Graphics and Music: they are really nice and the remastered version represents a major upgrade. - Story: while I considered that Halo CE had failed miserably at making the story interesting, Halo 2 hooks you from the very first minute with an amazing opening cutscene, and remains the same throughout the entire game. In addition to the great cutscenes, you play as a Covenant outcast, and you get to know the beauty of the Covenant cities, the complexity of their society, and how fragile this allegiance really is. - Gameplay: this time we have 15 missions which take between 30 and 45 minutes each. You'll change players between missions, so this will also help keep the game fresh. - Combat Mechanics: I considered this the weakest aspect of the previous Halo. I could say that this has been improved so much. Not only there are more weapons available, but now dual-wielding is also possible. Additionally, Master Chief's agility has been enhanced, which allows faster combat sequences. It's cool that you cannot throw grenades while carrying 2 weapons because, while being stronger on 1 on 1 situations, you have to be more careful when facing crowds. - Level Design: levels are varied and many of them have been designed with vehicles as the central element. From making your way through highways to combats in space. You even ride a tank through ancient ruins. During a considerable number of sequences we have different factions fighting each other. These are probably the parts I enjoyed the most. It really showed us how complex this universe is. - Enemies: We have basically the same enemies that we encounter the first time. Additionally we'll have to deal with the tough Brutes. - Weaponry: these are also the same we got in the first game, with a few exceptions. In my opinion, the weaker weapons have been balanced and now you can have fun with either of them. - Vehicles and Turrets: this is probably what I enjoyed the most about this game. I'm really glad to see a FPS in which vehicles are so important.

I'm giving this game a 4 because I feel insulted. It's not a game, it's a SHORT DEMO. It took me 86 minutes to beat (and that's because I ****). A Metal Gear savvy can complete this thing in less than 45 minutes. No game that takes more time to download that to beat deserves to be called "a game." It's one mission with two objectives, and that's it. One cutscene at the beginning and another at the end... and Hideo Kojima's name all over the place. We get it, dude, you did this. Graphics are good and the voice acting too. I spend most of my time hiding, trying not to be seen. Once I discovered that you can just run past your enemies and that they'll eventually lose sight of you, it was a piece of cake.

This review is for the version of Halo CE included in the Master Chief Collection for XONE, and I'm keeping in mind that it was originally released 15 years ago. Let's begin by saying that, though I wouldn't say the game is ripping off other IPs (either movies or video games), it's clear to me where did the Bungie folks get their inspiration from. Now the actual review. - Graphics and music: I loved the music, but the graphics are just okay. It's really cool to be able to switch between the original graphics and the remastered ones. There are some lighting problems and some areas are too dark, also ponds of green water where you can't see **** and you don't know where to go. - Story: It's nothing to lose your lose your sleep over, really. The Master Chief is utterly boring and uninspiring. Fortunately we have Cortana, his virtual companion, who can access stuff and guides you throughout the campaign. She's a lot more interesting and her voice acting is terrific. - Gameplay: the story is divided into 10 missions, taking you around 1 hour to complete each. These long missions are more like Chapters than actual missions (you have multiple objectives in each of them, which are revealed to you sequentially). I prefer short missions, where you can actually accomplish something during a small game session, other than just running from Checkpoint A to Checkpoint B. - Combat Mechanics: maybe this is the weakest aspect of the game, and here is why: there's no aiming mechanism, so you must get close to your targets in order to shoot them down. This is okay for the first half of the game, since you can kill them fairly easy without endangering yourself. But, the second part gets tricky. Enemies explode, throw grenades, or carry a rocket launcher, so a lot of them will instantly kill you or land a critical hit on you; while requiring many shots to go down. I also noticed that a lot of mob groups keep spawning on and on. So, oftentimes there's no point in stopping to kill them, your best option is just running for it. - Level Design: I didn't really like it. I felt like I was playing the same generic 3 or 4 maps over and over. - Enemies: there isn't a great variety of them. And no boss... yes, NO BOSS FIGHT! Huge letdown. - Weaponry: there are like 6 different types of weapons and you'll frequently feel underpowered (unless you have a shotgun with you). Ammo for the more powerful weapons is scarce, forcing you to switch, which is something positive. - Vehicles and turrets: this is also a great addition. I really enjoyed making my way through crowds after hijacking an alien vehicle or climbing into a turret (specially when ammo was running low) to obliterate incoming waves of foes.

This title is a great addition to the Lara Croft collection. It's very fun to play, specially with the right team/friends. In this adventure Lara seeks to avenge Osiris who was killed by his brother by bringing him back to life, so he can vanish Set. Throughout the campaign you'll pick up not only better weapons and upgrades, but also powerful amulets and rings which will really make the difference during combat. Enemies and puzzles are easy enough and defeating most of the bosses requires you to figure out the right approach, either by finding weak spots or by playing with the available elements to your favor. As usual wIth the Croft games, you're encouraged to explore and collect all sorts of collectibles.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a Mystery game in which you play as a detective with some paranormal abilities, who has decided to pay a visit to the hometown of a kid from whom he received a disturbing letter. As you explore Red Creek Valley a dark story will unravel and your task will be to put all the pieces of this puzzle together. The game sets a great atmosphere for a really compelling story, with awesome visuals and nice music. Unfortunately the game is too short (around 3 hours, even if you unlock every trophy). The cases you solve are way, WAY, to easy and the mechanics are as follow: 1- Run randomly for several minutes until you reach a location that requires your attention. 2- Once you're there, you'll get all the evidences (and the body) highlighted for you. Click on all of them. 3- Sometimes you'll have to look for some missing evidence for which you'll get its general location and a glimpse of its surroundings. You'll just have to walk on that direction until you run into it. 4- Some other times you have to move an evidence to its right position. 5- Go back to the body and click on it. This will allow you to sort the sequence of events surrounding the murder an thus solving it. Another con I found is that, although the murders are all related to the same story, they are completely isolated and not linked between them. Nothing you learn from a case will have any impact on another. Moreover, solving a case doesn't add anything at all to the game, other than a bit of history. You could just solve the last case and be done with it. Though I had a great time, I consider $20 bucks a bit expensive, considering that it has absolutely no replay value and that you'll spend 95% of the time running around and you'll only have to figure out 3 or 4 things for yourself in the entire game. It takes more that good graphics and a good, though very short, story to make a great game.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This game is awesome. Although it's among the first titles released for the next-gen consoles, its graphics are much better that many newer games. The main story is terrific (though there are not side quests), with a considerable length, keeping fresh and interesting throughout the entire game. The only con is the variety of weapons. For a game which story spans across many years and makes you face all sorts of enemies, I was expecting to get a hand on a larger weaponry.

This game is great, Although it's not a very ambitious project, it's put together very well. The visuals and music are good, but probably the combat mechanics and how your character progresses learning new tricks are its best aspects. I also liked the number of different enemies (although it's not that big, enemies evolve too, becoming more tough) and the boss battles, which are as hard as they need to be. You can add up to 3 more players to your party, what's brings additional fun. I played with my girlfriend and we have a great time. Unfortunately, it relies a lot on the comical element and if you don't speak Spanish (and if you're not familiar with Mexican slang) you'll miss much of the fun.

This game is absolutely beautiful, the visuals, the music, the gameplay... Ubisoft really paid attention to details on this one. It's a turn-based RPG that offers around 15 hours of gameplay, and that means battles will be repetitive. Fortunately, Child of Light provides a large set of different enemies (with their weaknesses and strengths) and a fair number of party members, which help avoid boredom to some extent, particularly if you have someone around who can join in to control Igniculous. The combat mechanics are turn-based at their best, with many things to choose from during the planning phase: you can flee, use potions, revive a teammate, act, change party members, and a couple more things I don't remember. The environment and the story go well together, though the latter could be more solid. It's not until well in the second part of the game that events start to unfold; the first part is just "I have to go there...." But again, everything flows so smoothly, that you feel almost compel to carry on. Regarding puzzles, there aren't many, probably 10, and most of them are pretty similar and not challenging. After finishing the story you return to the game to complete any pending side missions that you'd like. Unfortunately, there's no way (to my knowledge) of selecting a mission as the active mission to get some hints and information in the map. So, unless you remember what was it about, you'll have to Google it. Besides potions, you can scavenge for gems, which you can combine to create more powerful ones, and equip to boost your stats. This is also something that could be better. There are 6 or 7 different classes of gems, but you can only mix 3 of them. The skill system is a bit messy, too. The skill tree is shaped like a maze, so you don't have a clear idea of your progress. Also, you can't improve a particular skill more than the others because the perks are chained together and you have to unlock them in sequence. I thank Microsoft for including this great game in the Gold lineup.

Pretty much everything in this game is great. Graphics, visuals, music (you won't be forced to listen to gangsta crap for countless hours), including the driving mechanics, which will really adapt to your difficulty level. It has an incredible number of cars and events to take part in, including the online modes, which are also really fun. So, the game will always remain fresh, even if you don't buy the Storm Island Pack. For me it was such a good game that I can overlook some things like sometimes cars becoming unstable when turning, or always burning out when the race begins, even not being able to take your car for a spin before making up your mind and buying it. I can only think of 2 downsides. Firstly, the skill points you earn don't grant you anything of real value. Secondly, car customization could be greatly improved. PS4 fanboys must be so jealous. I own a PS4 myself and the best cars game right now is The Crew, and boy, what a mediocre game.

This is a great PS3 game. Yes, PS3, not PS4. It's a half-assed port that shows Square Enix's true colors. One of the many glitches we found corrupted my gf's save file when she was 75% through the story and she had to start all over again. Even the online mode looks old. The game itself is great, with many things to collect and places to discover. The puzzles are interesting and varied. The only downside for me is that Lara's voice acting is sometimes annoying. I bought this game at half its original price due to a price drop on the PS Store and I honestly think it was a fair deal, considering it never felt like a next-gen title and that it has plenty of errors even after more than a year of its release.

I got this game for free with my PS+ subscription. I guess the only way it's worth playing is if you also get it for free and have someone to join in. It has a nice story but everything else in it is just dull.

This game is a masterpiece. Pretty much everything in it is outstanding. The music, the graphics, the story, the characters. Even the infection that decimated the human race could possibly happen. The multiplayer modes are also great. But for me one of the best things is that changing the difficulty changes the experience entirely, forcing you to change your strategy from "making your way through" to "sneaking by" and avoid engaging in combat. I'd give this game 9.5/10 because I was expecting to find zombies in some of the multiplayer modes. I honestly believe that all those bad reviews come from X1 fanboys who can't tolerate the fact that they'll never going to play it.

You can only give this game a high score if you still live in 1995. It's the perfect example of how companies milk classic games. A shame of a fighting game. It screamed CASH GRAB!!! from the moment I launched it.

It's because of games like this that people hate EA. There's no innovation, no Next-Gen graphics. There has been so little effort put into this game that they didn't eve bother including the original badge of many teams (let alone players pics). Oh man, they just want to resell the same game year after year.

This is the best game I ever played. Perfectly accomplished in every single aspect. There's so much to do here that it would be practically impossible to list them all. It overshadows every other game in the genre and the level of detail demonstrate the level of commitment and effort that Bethesda put into the making of this game. I probably spent 500+ hours with a single character and I'm still far from growing tired of it.

This is probably one of the best puzzle adventures ever made. It's beautiful and touching with a lot of interesting facts that help you immerse in the story (and learn something along the way) . Well made in every aspect. Probably the only downside is that puzzles tend to become repetitive towards the last hour of gameplay.

If you like turn-based RPG this is a must-play. It has beautiful graphics, and incredible OST and the battle mechanics are amazing. There's a lot of skill customization and you'll lose access to some skills temporarily, forcing you to try out different setups. It also has a game+ mode, so there's some replay value there. The downside of this game is the story, it's kind of boring and you'll probably skip dialogues, etc. after an hour or so.

This game is great as a launch title for showcasing what the PS4 could be able to deliver. It takes full advantage of the PS4 controller (something than more recent games fail to do) and the multiplayer is probably its best part. On the other hand, the graphics are good, but not awesome. The story sets out to be interesting, but after a few hours it will turn out to be dull and repetitive. It's pretty much the same with the weapons and everything else in it. It's worth a shot if you got it for free when you bought the console, as I did, or if you find an incredible deal.

Let's put it this way: it's a pool game that must have been developed by people that apparently never got even close to a real pool table. Yes, it takes forever to load, the controls are not simple (but they are not terrible), menus are not clear. But what's really annoying is the awful physics of the balls, it's like playing golf with a cue. There are also many off-putting things in the mechanics of the game overall, being the lack of a power indicator and being unable to move around the table when it's your turn the worst of them.

Pretty much everything about this game is mediocre, with many half-assed features: a typical overhyped Ubisoft game. It doesn't come even close to delivering on its promises of an awesome co-op game driving across America. For starters, the graphics are far from Next-Gen, and I mean really far, which is a major let down in any driving game. Secondly, the so called "crew" is completely broken. It's limited to 4 players (who will often leave the crew or be forced out by random bugs), so you'll spend 90% of your time alone. This makes it only mildly interesting if you play with friends. But, above all, being in a crew doesn't really adds anything of value to the game. It's not like you can go on special missions with your crew members or anything (like the trailers led us to believe). It's just the same boring missions but with more cars on them. The story is boring, missions are repetitive (chasing down a guy, smashing boxes, race against time) and multiplayer is nothing to lose your sleep over. Not a shred of innovation. Cars, well, car customization is acceptable, but the original release didn't have many cars to choose from. Now they are adding some cars periodically, but you have to pay for them. Cars physics is also something that could be better, as well as the signs of damage in your car (which will be reset after a short while). The best thing about this game is the variety of skills available, these sorts of short challenges that will award you a better car part. It also has many hidden things that encourage exploration. For PS4 it's not a bad title, since by the time of its release we didn't have many car games to choose from; but for XBox it's not worthwhile.