Feels like the game has a very, very narrow niche - you have to be both an Alien franchise fan (I am), but also love learning tons of game mechanics and buttons, to still have not really much control over the situation. I don't mind a challenge and complete all of the games at least on Medium or Hard, but here you have to sweat A LOT, because pressure is coming from everywhere, also without any kind of reward/satisfaction. A lot of bugs and clumsiness. Aside from that, all the aspects of the Alien vibe are preserved really well.
Bloober Team are the masters of darkest stories ever told in the game industry. This time, they didn't disappoint at all, absolutely loved it. A great symbiosis between art and script, with super atmospheric locations and music. Rutger Hauer's voice is something out of this world. The only con is gameplay design, sometimes it's clumsy, sometimes it slows down everything and distracts - wish it was more polished and immersive (more obvious object/button locations, but at the same time more challenges and puzzles). Anyway, in Observer you can already see a lot of inspiration from Bruce Bethke, Philip ****, and at the same time Silent Hill and other cult horror games - trippy unending nightmare that makes no sense and has a lot of sense at the same time, and activates all of the brain cells to force you finish the journey and get to the point of relief (aka another darkest ending you could possible imagine).
Amazing game. Story is very sad and moody, but always illuminated with some true Hope and Love, which moves the protagonist forward. There are a small number of characters, yet each has developed very well and always evokes interesting feelings. The ending is very touching, especially. Amazing graphics and an insanely beautiful world... I think the game could be like 30% shorter, less repetitive and have more unique gameplay moments, rather than regular sandbox things like clearing the spot x100 times. It would be a masterpiece! Can't believe such small team developed such huge open world game that easily competes with GTA series (not mentioning it destroys both Last of Us completely), even having some aspects like weather changes a lot better.
Amazing game in each aspect - magical music, authentic to both metroidvania genre and POP lore, yet refreshing level design and gameplay, balanced and ideally hard fights and parkour (I can see Rayman Legends developers' brilliant touch here), engaging trippy story - literally can't complain about anything. Maybe the story could be even more dramatic, like Sands of Time or Warrior Within. Overall lovely game and a great unexpected return of POP series. We need more Ubisoft games like this!
Just finished pro goals - every minute spent in the game is lovely. My first entry into the franchise was THUG1, then my favourite was THUG2, followed by American Wasteland, etc. So, even knowing some of the content was cut from the original game, it's a great chance to revisit the classic, and I still enjoyed the humour and late 90s vibe I grew up with. Level of nostalgia is insane, with also still perfect OST (I love both 90s and mid 10s eras, and understand potential problems with extending licenses after more than two decades of release). Goals are fun and even hard to-dos and not obvious ones that have this cryptic old games feeling.
Still, I have a lot higher expectations for THUG1+2 remakes as they both had tour campaigns with open maps, overall madness and sense of freedom was on a very different level we love old games so much for.
I could describe for years how mindblowing and futuristic this Remedy's magnum opus was in 2001. All of the John Woo, Noir Cinema, and Nordic Mythology references that could form a fat book. Each pixel, each second, each word, each enemy, character, easter egg has a huge soul in it. Extremely hyped for the Remaster as it might be the ultimate game ever created.
A great example of when 99% of the budget is thrown to the promotion instead of the game itself. Super boring, dropped it like 4 times and came back just because of how bloated the hype was, and dropped again.
DI2 has a lot of effort put into it. Graphics is very cool, lovely locations and their post-apocalyptic designs, the gore system is something out of this world, and each building is very detailed. However, all of this feels somehow repetitive and quite soulless; it doesn't make your heart pump like the first part did or DR/DL series. Gameplay lacks some unique concept/mechanics besides bashing zombies, again, like combining it with parkour or making a complete madness out of it, like in DR, it feels dull. Even elemental things don't help, as they're copypasted and there aren't many unique situations like RE brings to the player every minute. The keys/locks thing isn't catchy and rewarding at all. Really appreciate all of the developers' work and some contributions to the genre tho, also some of the side quests are funny af and better than the main plot.
Boring, cringe and over-promoted. Gave it a credit because of Arkham series developer involved, but it doesn't have any of its quality at all. PS2 games felt somehow a lot more true to the original, and better as games overall.
Just finished it... wow! I thought the franchise peaked with the Eternal, but this time was something different yet very classic. Lovecraftian levels, even being more out of Quake/Cthulhu world, are outstanding and suddenly hit exactly how the first game felt far back in time - some forgotten, abstract, lonely place where there's only you, monsters, and creepy dark ambient music. Graphics and level design is amazing at least 2/3 of the game while at the very beginning it's just a bit cliche-fantasy, in pair with quite unnecessary half of the cutscenes, it's the only minor con. Gameplay is perfect and refreshing, yet again feels like an upgraded classic Doom, longevity ~corresponds with Doom 2. Overall, so happy with the game, it's worth every cent, id studio with Bethesda didn't disappoint at all. Hyped for the next part already.
Game was surprisingly good and a decent comeback of Bethesda. The first 30-40 minutes it felt very clunky and boring, but when you get to the open world, the game starts thriving. It's a really next-gen revision of all good classic early 00s shooters, with extremely complex levels full of fun stuff, easter eggs, puzzles, and everything that fits the Indiana Jones aesthetic/type of gameplay perfectly. I wish there would be more character development and arcs as the only shining one is the main villain, his cutscenes are full of random fun. Overall it's something just a bit lower than Prey's level, but higher than Wolfensteins and definitely incomparable with the last Fallout and Starfield. Bethesda really should focus on such compact and conceptual games, instead of creating huge empty/soulless worlds.
They somehow managed to break everything that worked and was polished to perfection in the Arkham series. Very dull experience in all aspects of gameplay, story, world, graphics, etc. It's a shame for developers and publishers to let this happen after all the masterpieces that were released in the last decade.
One of the most boring games ever created. They put so much effort into the hype, and keep upgrading graphics, but in a nutshell, the game has extremely weak and outdated mechanics, even Fallout 3 still feels fresher than that. It's like a regular polish shooter with cheap cyberpunk skins and designs made by some scholars, despite all their hard work on improving Ray Tracing stuff, etc. I waited for it for years and pre-bought it, and simply couldn't believe how bad everything was when launched it first and tried to have fun for 10-15 hours, then gave it another try one year later and the game was still bad af but with better graphics. Feels like a complete scam.
I had so much fun playing it. Puzzles are engaging and complex, a very replete world that feels alive in every square millimeter, and extremely ridiculous plot/dialogs/social caricature make this game outstanding from most of the games of the current gen. I wish it had a bit more replayability and more unified puzzle difficulty. Still, can't believe that this one and the original are done by almost single person, pure genius!
Just completed it - another Bloober Team's masterpiece. It contains every advantage of the original game while meticulously improving it and removing weak moments. Most of the levels now are a complete nightmare thanks to reworked battles (still just a bit repetitive but ok), fantastic level design, textures, lighting etc., and awesome 5D sound design that alone is already a horrific cinematic gory landscape that tells different side stories and drives you insane. Again, the environment is on a whole different level than modern games and most of remasters as well - every pixel is crafted with love, and unique and helps tell the story, shout out to the designers' team. You experience all of the possible emotions going through the game - from fear and constant paranoia, discomfort, to hopelessness, sorrow and guilt. So psychological aspect is 10/10 as well. Really hope that Bloober Team will continue re-crafting Konami's masterpieces in the future, adapting these 00s grungy mental vibes to the current era, which it fits perfectly honestly.
As a person who completed both Remedy's Max Paynes around 15 times and thinks this is the best game ever created, I could say that Alan Wake 2 is another meh take on the universe. On the one side, it's extremely cool Noir York part, genius musical part, graphics, plot, and puzzles, and on the other is quite boring policeman's gameplay, bugs, old and dull mechanics that lead with very very very repetitive battles. I wish devs removed like 80% of boring notes that are way too insane/psycho to try to align into the whole lore, and instead, work on delivering it through fun gameplay more as it was in Max Payne, Half-Life, GTA etc. It could be a masterpiece as the studio already invented the perfect working wheel back in time.
The concept is just a little bit outdated, but stands solid yet. I wish the whole plot would be more engaging and dramatic as well. Besides that, this is still a perfect sandbox with an insane amount of lovely details, I loved spending a ton of time there! Very rarely a great game of current time!
I was preparing to give it a strong 8 before the final boss battle - I loved everything there - art, music, vibe, puzzles, and especially the level of complexity. However, as I found out, devs recently patched the last boss till making it ridiculously impossible to beat. I wasted two evenings for that without the possibility of even reducing a 1/3 of his life + an extremely annoying super easy first battle that goes before an unskippable cutscene you have to watch every time. Even had a lot of fun completing both games (it felt like 6/10 difficult which is perfect), this random spike at the very end to around 100/10 hardness, ruins the whole experience and leaves just a pit of frustration. I'll not buy any more DLC or 3rd part and according to many complaints, I can see that many people felt off on that part too.
I don't get the hate completely. Looks like EA bots or something. Got a copy at the Epic Store for free, and it's already the almost perfect experience so far for my 4 hours of gameplay. UE rocks a lot as well as level design, nice feel of masculinity in every detail - sound, animation, gory and brutal atmosphere, which is rare in the era of amorphous games. I see it as more of a mix of Dead Space (I haven't played the remake yet) and Riddick, made with true passion. The cinematography is on the highest level (I prefer this a lot more than Uncharted or Last of Us), the deep dark atmosphere and the gameplay keep you on a hook every second - I really couldn't force myself to leave for lunch break even if none of the modern games held me for more than 30 mins straight. I wish it could be a bit fewer jumpscares and more smart moments instead (like when someone crawls in the lift shaft while you waiting for it and attacks just in the lift instead of immediately or no attacking at all as it was in the game). Also wish it could be even more metroidvania as a lot of areas are locked after you pass the door and you lose tons of stuff for selling that you find in secret rooms. Overall I feel guilty for getting that game for free, for the first time at all. So lovely.
Utterly disappointing game. One of the rare times I regretted buying stuff. If you feel it low-budget/poor anime parody of DMC while looking at gameplay footage, then no surprise it will be exactly the same. I gave it a lot of trust credit but still dropped at 1/3 of completion, it's just extremely MEH.
As a huge fan of SR2, III and IV, I have to admire this game is so terrible that I dropped it after 2 hours (wanted to do it earlier but franchise had a very nice credit of trust). Some of the previous parts were so ahead of time and addictive af, this one feels like a fanmade stuff from 2004 or smth (in a terrible way).
Don't understand hate over a game at all. It's one of the very rare examples that makes me quite upflited about the current state of the game industry. I can't finish this review thanks to broke Metacritics review engine and 404 error.
Whoever decided to make the game for VR, and especially SteamVR developers - just burn in hell pls. I ruined around 8 hours of my life trying to figure out how to run it as with each new method it just spited another error and in the best case showing black screen instead of game (it worked well on pc screen tho, just couldn't do anything). Don't understand why it was a probleem to just make 2 mods (VR and no-VR) so everyone could try it. Valve could focus on a great gameplay/concepts as they always do, instead of just putting the same game into VR which bugged af and even doesn't work. They'll soon complain that no one buys single player games anymore and continue add new hats to DOTA.
I don't know why everyone's hating on that part so much, but Origins truly one of the best games ever created, with insane attention to details, descent plot, a lot of additional content after credits, awesome dark city vibe etc. Yeah it's lose comparing to Arkham City and Knight as iconic masterpieces, but still must play and better than 99% games nowadays.
One of the best games ever created and the most underrated one for sure, which every piece made by ultra-talented team with a passion to details. Plot, riddles, vibe of the city, complexity of levels, batmobile, few ending, tons of secrets etc. Played it a half year after release and it was pretty well optimized, also recompleted in 2020 at 100% and really wish it lasts even longer (as you can dissolve in game's atmosphere forever).
Don't believe the media, this game is just another stylized call of duty clone. The most frequent argument of fans is about storyline, but who cares about it if it's still unplayable? I actually don't want to smash LMB+W for 10 hours just to learn new things about in-game pretty cliche world events. First game of franchise was really awesome, a new word in rpg genre, this one doesn't has anything with original, putting player on railway through copy-pasted bad designed decorations. These pseudo contrasts of blue and yellow colors are also awful, while being crammed on each square meter, making sick after first 10 minutes.
