gentlebenno

This is probably the most historically immersive game I've ever played. You really feel drawn into this world, and as a history guy I can't get enough of the character & historical depth. The game makers bring a dead world alive with such vibrancy and art. The problem is in a game that should be about your decisions, you're never really in the driver's seat despite what the game makes you think. This is a "choices matter" style game where your decisions only matter in the cosmetic sense. You'll get to the same ending no matter what you do. It leaves me with one of the most moving gaming experiences I've ever had. But it's just that, an "experience". As a "game", it fails. There is a healthy debate about how much of the plot, the choices, the ending **** should be in the hands of the player, or in the hands of the game makers. The game makers hold this game's outcome by the throat, they go too far, and it leaves the player feeling a bit empty at the end, as moving a journey as this was.

The art for this game is gorgeous. If only the gameplay could back it up. Turn based combat feels so empty in this game. See X-Com for where turn based combat can leave you screaming in joy or pain at the screen. I never once felt that level of emotion with this. Procedurally generated characters leaves them feeling empty and lifeless, like they were generated by an algorithm. Probably because they were generated by an algorithm. I saw through this facade so easily, because it's right in your face when you encounter the next procedurally generated character option, six hours into the game, that you've already seen. The art for this game has so much life and creativity. Why is everything else so lifeless?

When the time comes in this game, you're about to bust into the bad guy's palace and save your son. I loaded up on so much weapons and ammo I made Arnold from Commando look like a peace activist. And you get in there, and your son, your son is, ..., and, well, yeah. This is pretty much what this game is. You want to get excited, to like it, but in the end you just end up being disappointed by it's many, many flaws in gameplay, plot, bugs, and overall just seems like a lack of creativity. Like a vending machine named "Fallout" and you hit "Generate Fallout Game" button and out pops this. It's not a good game. I've never, not once, felt the desire to replay it. Then, though I've never been dumb enough to play it, they did Fallout 76 and that **** too. Is Bethesda dead? Only Starfield will tell.

Let's call this game The Blandening of Civ & Crusader Kings. That's about what you get. It's okay, but it didn't hook me. Because I've played this game before. It's just a straight reskin of these other games. I want to like it, but it carries the same flaws of these other games without really introducing anything that's new. So it feels bland and empty, and ultimately, just not much fun.

The most pretentious game I've ever played. You're hooked for about 3-5 hours until you realize just how bored you are. Your "decisions" are cosmetic and have no impact to the base plot and thus are irrelevant. At one point, I died from a heart attack after kicking something. Was this meant to be funny? Or is the game just, that, stupid? Your answer will tell you whether or not you will like this game.

This game is okay, I got a good 15 hours of fun out of it before I started to see the holes that bothered me. I did enjoy the early ride though, I was quite hooked. It has some neat original mechanics and it's fun to master the concept. However after a while it wears on you because the story plot is garbage (dead father, save the world, zzz), the game constantly throws missions at you that are gimmicks that seem like betrayals because the game has taught you to play it one way, then with the gimmick you have to learn all over again. It feels like you have to hack the game concept several times over just to finish, which is never a good feeling and shows a bit of laaazy on the game designers part. Also, the worst part is after a while you really, really, really get the feeling you're just playing a Warcraft clone where the combat is no different than 1995. I think I got this on sale at GOG for like $8, I got enough play out of it for that value. Don't pay over $10 for this game.

There's nothing quite like needing that one critical shot, and you tune up the alien and the green blood is spraying everywhere. It's a wonderful feeling. I love this game.

A game of it's time, it's still a lot of fun. Some good replay value. But I'm always hoping for a bit more. I still keep coming back every now and again though. Worth the price you pay nowadays for sure. Lots of medieval colony sims out there and none have yet done as well as this one though.

This game is a masterpiece of joy and pain. I get so into it and get shot up so many times I have nightmares about it. And yet I keep coming back and become obsessed. It doesn't help that I don't allow myself to use the pause button thus further increasing the difficulty level. I should be institutionalized.

This has one of the most entertaining gameplay experiences of all time, with one of the worst overall plots in any game, period. Ken Levine clearly thinks he's a smart guy, way smarter than you. So smart he detonated his company and put his employees on the street right after they made this game and he hasn't made a thing since. Despite the stupid plot, I've replayed this game like seven times. If only it had a plot / ending I cared about, it might have then been my favorite singular game of all time.

You know you've made one of the greatest games of all time when it still has emotional replay value a decade later. You the player know what's going to happen, yet you still feel when you play this game. It's a masterpiece.

This is a playable game, that's just begging for an upgrade on the plot, construct, and characters. Instead we got large maps with a DA:I construct, which leads to boredom, and lots o' fetch quests. It's still Mass Effect, just not great Mass Effect, which makes it a huge disappointment about what could have been. The dysfunction of this game's development has become legendary and it shows. Will bioware ever make a good game ever again?

When I first saw the trailer for this game I starting laughing because I was certain it was a joke. Oh no, it wasn't a joke, that was the actual game. What?! I guess these dudes think it's really cool to shine on and show complete contempt to their multi-decade loyal fan base. Good luck with that in the long run, if this is where they're taking our games, we won't be sticking around.

This DA4 clone starts off well but then completely derails because you discover it's got nothing new about it that hasn't already been done in ten other games, has near zero player agency, and ultimately you find out has a plot that's bat **** crazy and laughable.

What imbecilic human being decided that platforming and Doom made sense? Or that Doom needed a story? Doom is about killing demons and this game seems to forget that constantly. So disappointed, I love Doom 2016 but I just can't stay with Eternal. Every time I get into it I have to face another platforming nightmare and I just quit the game. Hmm, Fallout 76 was a huge downgrade to the series. Hmm, Youngblood was a huge downgrade to that series. Hmm, Eternal is a huge downgrade to this series. Hmm, wonder what the connection is?

Developers did the impossible, faithful to the classic, delivered. What a ride. My only "complaint" is you're supposed to feel like a demon killing badass but this whole game I felt like I was running for my life. I guess I could have turned down the difficulty but then it felt too easy, haha, I guess I enjoy pain.

This game hates you and wants you to fail. It sets you up to die 10 times in each main plot quest until you realize it's trying to pretend you have to be badass to beat it, then you realize they're just jerks. It wants you to fail to pretend it's a real, hardcore, game; when it's not. I suppose I'm a dumb man, I spent four hours playing and then got mauled by four bandits in a one sided fight that lasted 10 seconds; but since this game doesn't have an autosave feature I lost all my progress. So is it that I'm dumb and should have remembered that this game required me to save constantly (at a price)?, or that this game doesn't have an autosave feature because it's so badass (dumb)? I don't care, I stopped playing and looked up the end of the plot online. Don't waste your money. **** this game.

So this is how the conversation went inside MachineGames’ lair when they wrote this game’s concept: “Hey, you know, we’ve made three masterpiece games. But man, we’ve been making **** killing games for over five years and I’m tired. Let’s just phone this one in.” “Yeah man, I agree, let’s phone it in.” “So what we gotta do is cut out most of the plot, main characters, and interesting story.” “Let’s just make a bare bones shooter and slap the Wolfenstein logo on it so it appears it’s a real game when it’s not.” “We also can get Arkane Studios involved so we can do less work and have a disjointed creative vision.” “Also let’s just fast forward two decades from the last game and throw Blazco’s kids in there because that’ll be a nice cover for all that story stuff not being in there.” “And we’ll tease the fans, we’ll put a throw away one liner in there about how Blazco killed **** in the 60’s, and make the player scream in anger about why they couldn’t play that game instead of this hot garbage.” “What about a coop shooter? Even though it makes no sense for the franchise, it’ll be a nice gimmick and also a nice cover for our lack of work. It’s not that we didn’t put in the effort, we’ll just tell them we’re taking the franchise in a new and interesting direction.” “That’ll work, because it’ll also allow us to shoehorn in all the microtransaction and online poison that our Bethesda Masters now demand of us.” “Let’s make a false open world game, where the player has to continually recross the same territory as they incessantly grind to level up so they can face the bosses. This will be less work for us, and also infuriate the gamer as they continually have to mill **** who respawn over the exact same ground again and again and again. It’ll accomplish what nobody ever thought possible: make butchering **** boring.” “And we’ll debase the combat to the point where it’s no longer a precise, deadly encounter where every kill, every mission feels like a true accomplishment. Instead, we’ll make it so it’s more of a 1990’s arcade style shooter where dying means nothing because your sister can just regenerate you, and the **** are bullet sponges who take shots straight to the face and don’t die, and your best bet is just to run right up to the enemy (including the last stage of the end boss) and you blast away with a shotgun from three feet away like it’s a D grade multiplayer shooter.” “But wait, how can we write proper dialogue for a pair of Texan white teenage girls? We’re a bunch of middle aged European white dudes?” “Don’t worry, remember we’re phoning this in, and we can just lie and say it’s not that we wrote immature, annoying protagonists, it’s just that we’re taking the franchise in a new risky direction.” “But wait guys, this all sounds like a really bad idea, it shows such contempt for our fans, who worship the first three games.” “Don’t worry about it bro. Remember, we’re still getting paid, and we’re phoning it in. And remember, all the major successful video game companies of our era show nothing but disgust for their fans. Just look at the contempt flowing from Rockstar, Bethesda, and EA. They all treat their fans like filth, and still make a bunch of money. We can do that too!”

It would have been hard to top New Order, and this game doesn't, but it sure comes close. The plot is slightly less interesting and there just doesn't seem to be as much depth and passion to the story as New Order but it's enough and it works and you care. The combat remains the essential element though and is electric as always. I also respect them for making a game that is also at times just bat **** crazy. They took some massive risks here and some of them are so weird as to be nearly off-putting but it works, good for them for taking said risks, where so much of modern gaming is bland as **** To those who down-checked this game because of the very obvious political aspects, I get where you’re coming from, but this is the world we now live in. It would be great of politics could stay out of most of our lives but those days are over. It ****, but it is what it is, we’re going to have to learn to live within it because it’s not going to change. You can forgo Nike, Gillette, Kellogg’s, all you want. Good for you. Nobody is going to make you buy that stuff. You can also forgo Wolfenstein II if you want. Nobody made you buy this game when it very clearly had a political message in the trailers. What did you expect the message to be? The message at times does bother me too, immensely, but I can look past it and enjoy the game for what it is. And also absorb a point of view that at times I can disagree with, but also understand. Also, this is a game about viciously disemboweling ****, and to me the political aspect is a marketing gimmick first and a plot point second. I recommend you just enjoy a great game where you get to butcher ****. Or just don’t buy it, either way.

This game came from nowhere and in a different set of hands would have been absolutely terrible. MachineGames turned out a true masterpiece that will forever remain a classic.

It lacks the full characterization and true dialogue of the first game but it nearly makes up for it with a plot that's simple, but works, and holds you throughout the game. The combat remains stellar and there are enough broader themes to hold you. An excellent prequel.

This game has a lot of vending machines in it. You can comically sell weapons to a static vending machine. Last night, I think I sold about 30 firearms to a vending machine. Go ahead and contemplate that thought as you determine whether or not this is the space RPG you've been waiting for. It's close, but it's not. It’s truly not. I get the idea a bunch of folks got together and they're like: what if we combined Fallout/Firefly/Skyrim/Mass Effect/RDR2 into one game, and made it a unique space RPG! Then (because they were cheap/lazy/didn't know what they were doing), what they did was take (steal) the ideas of all these other games without crafting their own unique cohesive theme. You get Fallout’s walking around wastelands, retro art concept, and extremely similar armor and weapons; you get Red Dead’s dead eye; Mas Effect’s companions, crewmates, and ship; and so on. The problem is this game doesn’t do any of these same concepts well or even as good as the games they stole from. It’s all mediocre and bland. You’ve played this game before, but when you played it the last time it was a better game. However, all of this would work if the game produced quality quests or interesting characters. It does not. Go somewhere, kill everyone/everything, grab an item, return to quest giver, receive payment (falls asleep playing). You literally meet one of your companions on the dock, he’s an unemployed laborer. You can just hire him right there and you learn/know nothing about him. Another one is a robot on your ship already and you just power him up randomly. Gee, interesting characters and story arcs (falls asleep playing). Couldn’t care less about the Obsidian / Bethesda hate ritual, I didn’t like Fallout 4/76 at all. But this sure isn’t a good game. It’s cheap, tedious, and most of all it’s just plain boring. Look elsewhere for a space RPG you can care about.

Even years later folks agonize over this game and rightly so. When you take ME2 and combine it with ME3 you get perhaps the greatest gaming experience of all time. UNTIL, you get to the last 15 minutes of ME3. I can’t comprehend how the same team that made these great games decided that this was the way to end it, nodded to each other, and said it was good to go. It still baffles me. It’s probably not the worst video game ending of all time; but it’s certainly the worst video game ending of all time for a game that was actually good. Nobody who loves these games, this lore, this universe of gaming will ever get over it. When I did my last replay I stopped before the final mission, I refused to play the ending. But still, this is an incredible game, you just have to ignore the last 15 minutes and pretend something else happened inside your brain. EA daggered BioWare and ME:A was a mediocre, soulless slog, but really it’s the ending of ME3 that ended it for us all.

This is the best of the trilogy. Playing through this again is like returning home to good, enthralling gameplay before EA crushed it from existence. This will remain one of the best of all time, and proof that when done right single player games are life changing.

This is a near perfect game that still has replay value over a decade after it was made. One of the best of all time.

Subnautica is an impressive game in the way it keeps you guessing and challenges you to survive in a gaming construct that’s entirely unique. The problem is that all the great stuff is dragged down by performance issues and bugs. In a game where underwater visuals is critical to survival the rendering, draw distance, and lagging are a constant headache. The Scanning Room, a huge necessary component if you don’t want to waste hours searching randomly, is so filled with bugs that reading about it online is pure laughter. I spent hours trying to get that damn thing to work only to find out that the problem was not me, but the game. At its best moments the game is a lot of fun as you explore new areas, filled with impressive themed music, where sound as well as sight guides you and you learn something new or discover a clue that questions your previous assumptions. I want this game to be so much better, the thought and ideas behind it are enough for a 10 rating. But the performance issues and bugs are inexcusable; I played this game well after a developer patch should have fixed these major issues. Instead, they’re writing a DLC.

This is a transition game. The studio that once made pure gold now churns out things like Anthem and ME:A. DA:I is where you see the start of a descent into fail. It has just enough of the great things that made BioWare among the best to keep you going. But when you stop and really think about what you're playing, you realize the problems, and you see the trends of darkness coming for your soul: - Fetch quests: So many, many fetch quests. 4/5 of the gameplay of DA:I can fall into this category. - Side quests: Do you like side quests with real character development and interesting plots? This isn't the game for you. - The grind: There's nothing so enjoyable as feeling like you're in the South Park episode milling monsters in a forest until blood starts coming out of your eyes. - Characters: There's just enough of these characters to make you care, sort of. But it's barely there, and all it does is make you mourn for how much you cared about every single person in the ME series. - Plot: I wrote the entire plot of this game on a metaphorical cocktail napkin after I played the first hour, about how I thought it would play out. Turns out I was right. Nobody who's played the game will be shocked by this. It's just as bland as ME:A. This was the last gasp, then it was all over, goodbye BioWare, EA ate your soul. So I somewhat enjoyed the ride of DA:I, I guess? After a while, the slog of the game got to me, and I'm like, "Man, I just want to replay ME, again."

Last year I joined this game on Beta and easily cranked north of 200 hours in the first two months, I was quite obsessed. Many months later, I put it down for a while and then came back upon release hoping for a return to the same. I liked Thronebreaker, but overall Gwent as released is a huge disappointment. I'm not sure what CDPR was thinking in conducting a massive overhaul of the game, but it truly is a different game. And I, like other long time Beta fans, I'm not happy with the changes. Gwent is now an inferior game to the Beta version. I could list about twenty reasons why, but I just don't have the energy because I'm sad. They spiked this game, for whatever reason, and it makes me sad. To me, the Beta version of this game was like a 9 or 10, but I can't rate the released version the same. Maybe CDPR will fix it in the long run, but at this point they must be committed and so I doubt it. Thus I shall remain sad, and quite nostalgic for the glory and excitement I had while playing Beta.

This is a great game that has quite the steep learning curve. A whole bunch of reviews profess the game was simple and had little replay value. It's quite possible I'm an idiot, but I don't think that's entirely true. It takes a while to figure out this one and I got a ton of replay value out of it. At times there's more than enough going on to overwhelm you, especially if you're like me and you're hesitant to hit pause. But if you leave aside the building joy you probably once felt with the original Sim City games, the game does get a bit repetitive. They don't even randomize the starting resources locations in the base game, which is a comical mistake that would have been easy to solve in development. The game needs more additional scenarios then the four it comes with. I think this would have made it far stronger. Also the individual who developed the shameless cheesy clickbait title for this game requires torture. In general this was a good ride and well worth the price. I'm always looking for games that will grab me, give me that addictive feel, and after being gone for some time can pull me back to try again. This game has it. Not flawless, but a good solid game. Give it a shot.

This game is probably the most disappointing since Mass Effect Andromeda. It's astonishing how this game is rated as a 97. I mean, not ALL the critics could have been bought off by Rockstar. I think it's because of the overall quality of games in 2018. Go ahead and look up the top five rated games of 2018, and then contemplate the future death of console gaming. So if you're a critic, I mean you have to give at least one game each year a 9 or 10, right? I guess? After all, the game does LOOK great, doesn't it? Rockstar seems to have banked on two themes to make this game a success. 1) Make the game look exceptional (and after all, the game does LOOK great). 2) Up the violence and mayhem to the point where you the player murder/rob/beat/terrorize so many innocent people it makes you feel like a card carrying member of the Waffen SS (for Rockstar, FYI, that's not a good thing). That's about it. They ignored everything else and it shows. I knew something was deeply wrong with this game after I got done with the five hour intro/tutorial and I realized I didn't care about anything. The game does LOOK great after all. The combat is a lot of fun and at times even electric. But in general, I don't, like, FEEL anything while playing this game. The characters all are bland, cookie cutter, uninteresting blobs. The story reads like a five year old's choose your own adventure drawing of the Old West. You don't get to make actual decisions that impact the plot / scope of the game. You're a complete spectator in somebody else's game script. The bounty system is asinine. You can kill 20 lawmen, go pay your own bounty that same day in the same city, and then walk around and converse with cops that same day and even though they acknowledge they hate you, nothing happens. Okay, it's a video game, but is this the level of acceptable reality Rockstar was aiming for in an open world game that's supposed to be so realistic you have to remember to brush your horse? Between the lack of player agency, the bounty system, and the constant button mashing, it's like Rockstar made a game that looks like it's 2018, but with all the game mechanics and weak story for something made in 2004. It's baffling that they still think this level of overall quality is acceptable for a AAA game. And they'll still probably made a criminal amount of money anyways. So what do I know. After a while I only kept playing this game because I paid full price and wanted to feel like I'd gotten my money's worth. If I'd paid like $20 for this game I'd likely have put it down after about 15 hours and never played it again. At times the game is barely playable. Definitely would not recommend it to anybody.

This is still the best game I've ever played. Not sure what else I can say after all these years.

This is a solid game with some flaws CDPR delivers characters you care about, another journey into the Witcher world, impactful decisions to make, and an interesting take on a modern game. You don't need the most intense of graphics to hook a player. Red Dead Redemption 2's intro is like five hours and I couldn't have cared less about anything. Within one hour Thronebreaker had me hooked. It does come off too easy and repetitive, but I was okay with that until the very end where it was really becoming a slog. Let's also be honest though, this is Witcher on the cheap. CDPR can't churn out a full RPG every year so they'll probably do this instead. Okay, I'll take it, I'm a **** and it's better than nothing, but still. Another potential negative point, Geralt is prominent in the title art and in the trailer as actually saving Meve's life before execution. None of this ever happens in the game. Geralt is actually in the game for about 12 seconds. I'm totally fine with this, Geralt could only be in the Battle of the Bridge scene and they call it, I liked Meve as a character. But it's generally not considered cool to trick your fans, and this was a troubling move from CDPR. Overall, the game is worth it if you're a fan of Witcher, Gwent, or just want a thoughtful game with some good puzzles. It doesn't quite rise to the highest levels, but it held my attention for about 26 of 30 hours of gameplay. Given the mess that one has to go through to find a decent game, I'll go ahead and call this a big win.