dr_yev

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

The game suffers from two issues: originality and performance. Gameplay-wise the only thing it succeeds in is making me want to reinstall COH2. IH offers no improvement to that formula and it also has less depth. The friendly AI is bad, the cover system does not always work and the mechs, while cool, do not offer much of a new mechanic. The number of units one can comfortably control is similar to tactical games (your xcom, wasteland and the like) rather than an RTS, where you might control dozens of units. But, there is not enough control to justify a focus on so few units at a time, therefore, the experience is limited. Even the first COH offered better control and an experience that did not feel limited. Furthermore, UI suffers from quality of life issues that have been solved for at least a decade in the RTS world. For instance, why can't I shift click unit portraits to combine units? That's just silly. But, I suppose, if you are new to this type of RTS, it is not terrible, per se. I'd give it maybe a 7 based on originality and gameplay. Performance is another story. This game does not deserve to have such terrible performance. It's by no means ugly, but it does not look THAT much better than 10 year old games. I won't bore you with the details but my benchmark-level PC runs the game at around 50 FPS with not much going on; when explosions start, the game becomes unplayable; even clicking around menus results in noticeable performance dips. This is the first modern title to have this issue (one exception being RE Village but that has significant ray tracing and a documented memory leak). Folks with older graphics cards and CPUs are reporting almost exactly the same problem, with similar FPS, which suggests poor optimization rather than a hardware issue. Given that we're now in DLC territory, it seems that the game will never be properly optimized and that's a giant FU to customers.

I have a high end PC so the game runs fine with all the settings cranked up. And, I waited for a patch so I did not see any game-breaking bugs. Are there bugs? Sure. Crashes? One hard one so far. But, nothing I can't live with. But, even with everything working as intended, it's just not a great game. The story is meh; the main character has a definite personality and I do not like it; really does not feel like an RPG in that regard. Looks-wise, sure, there are lots of reflections, neon lights, and what not, but it does not look amazing even with all settings turned up to eleven. There is still occasional texture pop-in on stuff I'm looking straight at and it takes seconds to happen. Honestly, GTA5 on the PS3 looked better than this in most open-world scenes. There are a ton of side activities that are not all that interesting and they really make me want to go in guns blazing because, though I prefer the stealth/hack game play, there are too many of these mini-levels and they're not clearly marked (as in, I'll wonder into a gun fight by accident and have to just kill everyone with a shotgun). That, combined with the gunplay being just OK does not make me want to participate. Another point about combat. It’s too easy on Normal and everyone’s a bullet sponge on Hard. Definitely, the cheap MMORPG approach in that the AI is garbage and difficulty is set with health bars. Ideally, the behaviors would change based on difficulty. I’m sorry, a headshot is a headshot, having to “upgrade” a gun to make it a kill is immersion breaking. The brain dances are a neat idea but they're, so far, the buggiest part of the experience (points of interest not being cleared, for instance; can't say more without spoilers). Add to that npcs walking through doors, duplicate civilians spawning, car AI (and driving, honestly) being terrible, and it’s not a good or memorable experience. Should have focused more on the core game rather than filling it with throw-away side experience and eye candy. There is so much wrong besides the bugs that I would not recommend anyone buy this game unless it is on deep deep sale and there is absolutely nothing else to play.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Picked this one up at a deep discount and it was still disappointing. There are no meaningful graphical or mechanical improvements over FC3 and the story is lacking. This title feels like an MMORPG version of the previous games; the experience is very similar to wrapping up Skyrim and jumping into ES Online. It looks and feels similar for a bit, until you get into the action, you realize you've been had. Just smoke and mirrors that keep your attention long enough to get past the refund window. Story-wise it gets into the weeds of good preppers vs bad preppers--which is a bit weird and possibly promising--but, honestly, who cares if the game isn't fun? On top of it, it's buggy as hell. Things and characters just kind of spawn. There is little continuity. I thought it would be better on a gaming rig (that's why I didn't pick it up the console editions) but it's the least satisfying shooter I've played in years.

Boring, slow, uninspired story punctuated by completely unrealistic and unnecessary "puzzles" that involve slowly panning the camera around and having to remember patterns. Given that the protagonist is a an AI from a few years into the future, the slowdowns are silly and just serve to elongate the process. I probably got about half-way through and I do not know that I will be able to force myself to return.

I have read plenty of "it's OK but something's missing" reviews but this game looked great on paper so I bought it. The reviews were right. This is a hex-based city builder with some exploration and supply chain management elements. It's alright. But, I cannot help but think "so what?" when I play it. The challenges are straight forward, the aesthetic is a bit weird (wooden space ships drawing inspiration from Land and Overland, maybe?), and there seems to be no incentive to move forward. I really doubt that it is because the game is incomplete; I did not run into any bugs or any unavailable content, at least not yet. It also does not seem like anything is implemented incorrectly. There just seems to be an inherent lack of hook or personality that will most likely remain unless it is completely gutted.

Much like most of the star wars movies from the past 30 years, this game falls short of greatness on many levels. It could have been amazing but a lot of poor creative choices (most likely to reach a wider audience) were made so it is just slightly better than mediocre. Had this not been a star wars game and had I need grown up steeped in the original trilogy, I would have stopped playing it about 10 hours in. It's a crappy imitation of metroidvanias, soulsborne games, and, weirdly, the uncharted/tomb raider series. It started out great. The 1 on 1 combat works well and some of the platforming sequences are breathtaking. But, after a while the fact that one still has to put effort into killing all but the lowest enemies becomes immersion-breaking. I mean I have a laser sword that can cut through anything and melee units can block my attacks with stun batons? Also, dismembering humans would have made the combat more satisfying but I get why they would leave that out, ratings and all. But, how does it fare in its aspirational categories? Metroidvania: definitely lacking. They clearly want you to revisit areas but most of the stuff you find is cosmetic upgrades that are underwhelming. Who cares how my saber hilt is arranged? I can't see it during game play and there is gameplay benefit. Furthermore, some sections become locked forever after platforming or quick-time events, therefore, keeping one from collecting anything. And, the gating is artificial. It's obvious that areas cannot be reached without the double jump, which you do not get until quite far into the game. And what's behind this invisible wall? Probably some boring lore thing or cosmetic nonsense. It seems they want you to revisit areas and explore but they also punish you for doing it. Soulsborne: very poor imitation. it is clear that this game takes a huge amount of inspiration from from software games, sekiro in particular. But, there is no stealth. There are also no I-frames, meaning that you can be damaged by a trash mob while trying to execute another trash mob. Further, rather than introducing interesting enemies with different combat mechanics, they just make them sabersponges and put dozens of them in a room. After a certain point in the game, it turns into a series of arenas, which seems against the spirit of a soulsborne game and is just busy work. Finally, it seems they decided to give a difficultly slider to make the game more accessible but then also did not polish the combat, because, hey, you can just turn the difficulty down. The combat gets CLUNKY and CHEAP a few hours in. I turned the difficulty down it all the way down to get past a couple of particularly cheap bosses and I just did not feel invested enough at that point to learn their dance. And, as the protagonist grows in power it almost makes more sense to turn the difficulty down. Can a jedi knigh seriously find himself in a bind against two or three melee troopers? How the hell are they resisting my force powers? Fights with other saber wielders are really rare and are all boss fights. There could be some rank and file sith to chop into bits but I guess that goes against the whole theme of redemption. That actually poses another ethical point: what are storm troopers but just soldiers that signed on to fight in the army? Why is it cool to turn them into chopped liver when force users deserve redemption? It's a difficult line to straddle, maybe there is no solution. Uncharted/tombraider: here the game is pretty strong. There is lots of stuff to discover and the levels can have a lot of verticality. But the worlds are rather lifeless. There is only so much learning about a poorly fleshed out minor culture in the star wars universe I can take before getting bored. Ultimately, I wound up forcing myself to finish the game and then deleting it. I hope to forget it soon.

Control does not come close to living up to the hype. It was supposed to be a mindbending experience in a fascinating setting. Instead, we get a slightly non-linear arcade shooter in a drab brutalist building. The setting is stylistically interesting for the first hour but then it becomes clear that, aside from brief interludes, we are to return to the same stereotypical government building over and over. The map is just awful and should have been three dimensional. The storytelling is just weird. The "insight" into the protagonist's thoughts is unnecessary and could have been accomplished by more expressive facial animations. The endless notes and memos provide little background and get old quickly. I'm usually all for reading this kind of thing but I have been just skimming them for clues lately. I am yet to come across something that is a clear Alan Wake reference but I played Alan Wake nearly 10 years and many games ago. Who has the time to pay that much attention to boring text notes? The combat is repetitive and each new iteration of the service weapon or new power adds little to the gameplay. It is launch-headshot-rinse-repeat action at its core. It is similar to the earlier games in the mass effect series combat without improvement. Jesse can't figure out how to crouch behind cover? There are also some rather cheap mechanics that allow the ai to turn the tide of battle and, before you know it, you respawn at one of the sparsely-placed checkpoints and have to run half a mile to get to the action. It is not difficult, it is annoying. The combat is not unenjoyable but I find that I get bored after about an hour of playing. Now, the elephant in the room: the real-time ray tracing. It's pretty, sure. But, you really have to pause and look for it to notice it; it matters little during combat. I'm yet to play this game on a 4 k display for which I will most likely have to turn RTX off, I suspect that it may look better with a higher resolution and no ray tracing. I got this game for free with my computer so I guess I cannot complain much. I would have been pissed off had I bought it.

It is pretty and the combat is fun at first. However, it descends into a boring lengthy slog with not much combat or power variety. Sure, you have to be very careful picking off units silently. Sure, you have to account for the increasing bullet sponginess of even trash enemies as the game progresses. These things make the game difficult but not in a good way. I had plenty negative of things to say about XCOM games but at least the environments did not get old. Here, the whole overgrown wasteland thing wears thin pretty quickly. There is also very little environmental interaction possible. The combat is of course in better shape than the fallout games from 20+ years ago but it does get very boring. The lack of meaningful choices or even interaction with NPC further make this a chore to play about half-way through. This should either have been a proper RPG or a short and sweet shooter (maybe half the length?). There's nothing stopping a game from being both but it's better to get one thing right than two things wrong.

This game was a disappointment. Critic reviews seemed to say that it was great despite some minor shortcomings. I do not agree. In fact, none of the aspects of the game are done well and, it being a hybrid of a few genres, is a stark reminder that it cannot hope to come close to any distinct genre in depth or quality. The combat is boring; this game is by no means XCOM-like beyond superficial details. There is little skill involved and the AI seems to use cheap tactics. The incremental upgrades lack any impressive oomph. The locales are rather generic and get old after a couple of hours. The campaign is boring, the writing is bad, and the acting is worse. Not enough background is given to induce caring about the protagonists. Though this game bears a resemblance to the latest Civ games, there is no visual indication of sector improvement and the improvements are generic and limited. I can imagine someone enjoying this game for more than a couple of hours but, given how many choices there are this year, this seems like a "don't buy".

There are a lot of games out there that I purchase and don't end up liking. But, generally, I see how someone else might enjoy them and therefore do not feel jilted. Not so with Fade to Silence, this game is an abortion. Here are the highlights: A lot of systems but none feel meaningful or enjoyable. The setting is boring. Add to that their take on rogue-like games--none of the fun or the intensity, just tedium--and their take on "soulsborne" combat--hit, step, recharge, rinse and repeat, only danger coming from the poorly implemented camera--and I want my money back. My wife and daughter were out of town and I spent a whole weekend trying to get into this game. I want that time back as well.

I thought I might like the game despite the poor reviews since the oft-quoted problems were technical and could be patched. On paper, it sounds great: - soul's like combat, check - post-apocalyptic landscape, check - vaguely lovecraftian influences, check how can this game possibly be as bad as people say? Well, I did not see a whole lot of glitching or crashing but, unfortunately, this is a boring game with a muddled story, overly punishing and uninteresting combat, boring characters, and no reason to continue playing. Soulsborne (or souls-borne-sekiro?) games get to be punishing because they also offer fascinating worlds to get lost in and a tangible sense of progress both with shortcuts and with actually getting good at the combat. The labyrinthine environments would be a joy to explore even without the varied enemies to defeat. But what does this game offer? Samey environments with like 4 types of enemy, most of which soak hits forcing one to do the "heavy hit-step dodge" dance over and over and god forbid something blocks the poorly controlled camera. This, coupled with the completely unexplained and an unwarranted attempt to make this a rogue-like makes for an unpleasant slog. Why on earth would I want to do the clunky base construction again after losing all my lives? And, don't even get me started on the sled mechanics.

Don't get me wrong, this game is fun. Being able to actually aim adds a lot to the experience and I would be lying if I said that I was never startled by bugs jumping at my face. However, take away the VR, and it is at best an outdated shooter with poor graphics and an uninspired story. If it had any competition, a score of 6 would be generous.

For a 5 hour single player campaign to be worth purchasing the game, the story has to be amazing. Not so for this game. The characters are generic, the plot is riddled with holes, and the whole thing is permeated with poorly understood and even more poorly expressed notions of heroism, patriotism, and sacrifice. The whole thing is hard to fathom: the captain goes on old ground and air missions? That being said, the campaign is for the most part pretty fun. But like most COD games, finishing it made me angry.

When I played this game for the first time, I really liked it. I could see the bugs and the flaws pointed out by others but they seemed negligible in the face of the setting, mostly the music. Apparently, I exhausted the good parts of the game during the first couple of hours. When I played it for the second time it was a chore. The bugs become more obvious, the acting quality diminished, and it becomes obvious that the game is riddled with plot holes. The combat with the stupid AI is fun at first since the weapons have a nice feel to them but it gets old very quickly as bugs like being seen through walls become more prevalent. Such a shame! This could have been a fantastic game if they spend more time working out the kinks.