No remaster can fix the horrible story of the Last of Us II.
Graphically and sound wise the game is great. story wise, which is the point of a narrative driven singleplayer game, it ****. All of that is already known. get it on a sale since it does move the gameplay aspect forward.
No, this game is not "ok". I Understand some people have their standards reduced so much this is considered an "ok" game but it's really not. The game combat mechanics and "RPG" elements are very simplified. the graphics are "ok" for 2025 and the sound and audio design is decent. After games like KCD2, Black Myth Wukong, Elden ring and others to see a game like this come out in 2025 is depressing. NPCs do literally nothing. this world is more dead than Cyberpunk 2077 on launch. Games from 20 years ago put this game to shame with their level of interactivity and immersion.
NPCs, whether their enemies or friendly are simple to the extreme. in towns there's so little life and movement you'll think you're in a museum. NPCs don't interact with each other or the player unless it's scripted. There's a lot of jank and basic RPG mechanics missing (for example, there's no crime). This game is a bare bones. you'd think this is some Steam scam if it weren't from a triple A studio backed by Microsoft. This game is worse than Redfall. 100% don't buy and don't waste your time on **** play games from 20 years like Arx Fatalis, Skyrim, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic or a bit newer and more hardcore game like KCD 2 if you want to be entrained.
This is a beautiful game and I rather like the gameplay. feels like Doom with magic. The issue with this game for me is the writing. there's some good ideas there and the world building is decent enough but my god... the way characters talk and how the story happens are absolutely ridiculous. The gameplay is rather decent if not good and it looks great. Voice acting is great in my opinion even though I loathe the dialog. music is great, sounds are good. the only missing piece that would've made this game more popular is the story. It's really sad to see such bad writing and mediocre directing sinking this game. Got it on sale and it's worth it for the gameplay and to experience this world.
Starfield is a Bethesda game and as such it has some known qualities but it's their best game! TL:DR this isn't StarCitizen nor is it No Man's Sky Starfield is great single-player experience on all fronts. while it could do with more options to tweak the graphics and add more upscalers it's solvable with mods. Visually the game look great with a lot of attention to little details that make the world feel more immersive. Yes, it's not the latest in graphics we might be accustomed to from other games, but it looks great. There are some amazing vistas to be found around the universe. * Music. the music in this game is fun to listen to and changes between locations. there are some great tracks here.
* Sound. another front the game excels at is the attention to detail in regard to sound and how things should sound in different environments. surround is excellent and useful.
* Gameplay. Where to start? there's so much you can do in this game. bounty hunting, mining, building bases, missions, quests, trade. there's a lot. basically, play however you want, and you'll get there. and if you'd like to run through the main game you can jump into new game+ with your skills and research and try other things. I enjoy most activities and while Starfield might not be the best at any one thing it's good in all of them. variety is also key to the experience as you can switch between whatever feels fun at the moment. The game could definitely be better, and it has flaws but compared to other games that came out this year and compared to other Bethesda games it's pretty good at launch.
PoE:II is an improvement in everyway over the original and it sets a very high bar for any RPG to try and follow. Masterclass in storytelling and character development with every D&D mechanic you can want in such a game. I enjoyed it immensely and it deserves to be in the hall of fame along Baldur's gate 1&2 and their like. Obsedian are masters of their craft. they present a very compelling world with complex narratives, gods, characters, myths, magic and mystery. While in the first game you had a friggin castle to manage, defend and develop here you've got a ship! with a colorful crew too! I love the style of writing in this game which makes every character and location feel like they are truly part of the world. it's a brilliant game and I will be singing it's praises for years to come. This is the perfect game for RPG lovers and D&D lovers (though that mechanically this isn't D&D but close). A Highly recommended game!
Personally, I liked BG1 :-) more than two but that is not to say BG2 isn't amazing as BG1. I really think that together they are an epic pair of games that are still unsurpassed in many ways. I liked the relatively straight-forward main story with the many supporting stories around it. I like how the world feels and behaves and how well grounded it is. you can get lost in it without being reminded you're playing a game (story-wise). The graphics and visual style of this game are very similar but improved over BG1. as with BG1 I think they hold up very well due to their design how they are presented. this true for sound as well. I love BG2 for all the reasons I loved BG1. it's a deep RPG with great mechanics and implementation. it's not held back by trying to say something about modern times or trying to echo present day issues in the game. the story and world takes priority and it shows. I love it. It's a legendary game any RP fan should play. *I use RP liberally as I like most RP games whether they are D&D based on things like Disco Elysium
I have played this game numerous times during my life. I first played it as a young teen and this game left a very strong impression me. for me this is one of the fundamental games in the RPG genre. Personally, I don't mind the graphics as to me it still looks great. the visual style and how they chose to present the world is still great in modern times even if the game is not fully 3D. If you appreciate art and design there's a lot to like about the visuals of this game and it mostly holds up. overall sound design in this game was amazing for it's time and as with the graphics I think it holds up very well. I love the apparent freedom you have here, they did an excellent job in allowing you to explore and play how you want while creating a rather believable world and location which are entirely fantasy based and are mired by modern day speech and behavior like other titles that came after it. gameplay-wise they were very clever in how they implemented combat and other uses of your abilities, especially for the time this game came out. this game established the very handy feature of pause while allowing you to play in realtime. it also has auto-pause (amazing) for many situations, for example to prevent you from unintentionally stepping on a trap. it's a well thought out game with a surprising number of things to discover considering when it came out. truly one of the legendary games of the genre. this is a game I feel like any RP fan should play.
Disco Elysium captivated me from the moment it started. it's a very deep game in how it play and the options it gives you. I like the fact that while you have options to do things that would seem "objectively" good they're still warped by the twisted perspective of reality your character has. it's a masterclass way of telling a story and specifically the story of this character. The voice-acting is amazing. every feeling, every thought is voiced and has its own personality. it's amazingly done. the music accompanies you with beautiful and haunting melodies throughout and it is etched in my mind alongside some of the voices I heard during my playthrough. This game stirred some questions and reflections in me like no other. I absolutely love this game and think it's one of the best RP games to have been made. Highly recommend it.
The gist of why I gave this game a lower score is that while I think it's a great game with a lot to like and a large variety to solve most situations you encounter the story and writing is severely lacking in my opinion and that can hamper the experience. The game itself is beautiful (for the genre it is in), the music is mostly great, the cinematic is amazing but sadly there's just the one. there's a lot of gameplay options in most things including combat. it's a great experience and most of the times it plays great! The biggest downside for me was the story and characters. the writing feels too contemporary bringing in modern day issues and dilemmas to a fantasy setting. things that don't seem to fit with the world that you're presented with. unlike previous Baldur's Gate games which felt very grounded in the world. Due to the writing and the Larian style it can feel like you're playing Divinity Original Sin. It's the same humor and quips, the way NPC behave. it was all to DoS-esque for me. while DoS is great a different would have been refreshing. Not everything has to play like some kind of mediocre Marvel superhero movie. Luckily you can choose to skip a lot of that if you don't like though it might hamper the experience. Any annoying character you don't like can be dealt with (usually) with brute force. Surprisingly this was a refreshing experience as I usually play trying to, mostly, save everyone and resolve things in clever ways that don't require, much, bloodshed. so, playing a bit more cold and indifferent character was very refreshing and lead to some satisfying moments like pushing Asterion off a cliff. Technically the game has some issues and bugs. there's a very wide range of them and some of them can greatly affect your game if a quest breaks for some reason. items can disappear. encountered traps that would not stop or invisible clouds that would damage me as if a trap that was disarmed was still spewing gas. Won't go over everything as this can be easily found elsewhere but do save often. very often. The camera can be very annoying and make it difficult to interact with the world. I hope that a mod will fix it but those seem to disable achievements for now. There's a lot to like but to me the writing really drags this game way down and I play a RPG to be invested and immersed in it. As a sequel to a the great Baldur's Gate series? I think the tone and writing miss the mark by a lot for it to be the successor of those games. reading some other reviews I can't help but think people haven't play many RP games.
Diablo IV is a nice addition to the franchise that executes the Diablo formula well in terms of gameplay. Visually it is far superior to the cartoony Diablo III and seem to be somewhat of a return to the visual style of Diablo II. The music and sound effects are top-notch, and they add a lot to the atmosphere and gameplay satisfaction. The story sadly is the weakest link. other games tried to steer away from the more problematic aspects of the world lore and simply left them up in the air, which is a great choice. but starting with Diablo III we started to get a more American Hollywood like story and trying to over explain everything to the player. While Diablo III had some of that it didn't get to the silly lengths Diablo IV goes in trying to simplify and explain the story to the player while making every character and event a hollow shell of what could have been. The main story as well as the side content are mostly forgettable. it's sad Blizzard decided to take a more Hollywood like route in terms of storytelling. it doesn't fit Diablo and doesn't do justice to the game. Nyrelle is the most useless character out of the bunch and could be cut completely from the game without meaningfully changing the story. story points are forced, and it doesn't even try to seem like it evolves organically. Vigo is another silly character that later is even shoved in some kind of armor/contraption that doesn't make sense in the context of Diablo. Hardcore players might want to wait. as with Diablo III there are some issues with this game at launch which can cause you to lose many hours of gameplay for reasons outside of the game or your control. (They did mention they are going to add fixes for all of that) the cringe marketing prior to this game maybe should've clued me in to the level of storytelling in this entry. also, since it is extremely important... the always online BS continues and guts the HC experience. it's maddening to lose characters to server/game issues and there are more than a few. g*da*nit Blizzard! Again?! And to put the final nail in the coffin... scaled difficulty. this destroys the game. and how tiers work is dogs**t. I was bored out of my mind by the end of the campaign from the repetitiveness and lack of challenge. TL;DR - A Good game in terms of game-play, sound, music, visuals but laughably weak storytelling and there's nothing new under the sun after you finish the short and unimaginative campaign.
what's the point of reviewing this game in the tail-end of 2023? well, just to add my voice to the choir after what seems to be another lesson not learned by Blizzard. When this game came out, I was excited! I loved D1 & D2. they were iconic and impactful in their day and then comes along D3 which changes the feel and style of the game to some kind of cartoon. I loved the cinematics; Blizzard seems to have nailed those down to perfection. the story was a bit weak and not very interesting but hey... it's Diablo. that wasn't the strong suit anyway though it would've been nice to get something more out of this game aside from the lottery hook & sinker. there's no one glaring reason why Diablo 3 isn't as popular or good as D2 or even remembered as D1. it's a combination of poor decisions and ignoring players. As a hardcore player I was very dismayed at launch and didn't actually finish or play the game for more than a day at launch due to the numerous issues plaguing it. the always online BS especially. I have dipped my toes in from time until a few months after launch when I started playing more and have since sunk a lot of hours into it. but as any HC player my Hall of fallen heroes is filled more by HC characters dying to server issues and game balancing issues than any 'real' death and in my opinion this very big issue for HC was never fixed. Apart from that, it's very clear they didn't think about post campaign gameplay as there is none. you just do the same things over and over. without going into the details and why their additions to the game didn't really work just know you'll essentially be doing the same thing, exact same, over and over. combat is mostly unchanged from previous titles and it's all about the numbers and little else. sadly, by this time at 2023 we know Blizzard learned nothing.
Loved the gameplay and story in this game. they've done a great job with setting up the atmosphere. Long rides in countryside, taking on hordes of zombies to see you can get them all... It's a game that does many things well and manages to deliver a compelling experience.
Scorn is an adventure, an experience. I can't really call it a game per se. It has some "ok" puzzles and serviceable combat encounters but where it excels is in presentation and atmosphere which I feel are the main points. Game is gorgeous and playing this with headphones on and exploring this mysterious and decaying world was a trip. It is too short in my opinion but otherwise it's a brilliant experience. It's probably best described by what this is not (the list is relevant to what most people might mistake this game for. it is obviously "not" a lot of things.) What this game isn't: - a horror game - a shooter - a story driven game - a puzzle game
My original review of this game (in hindsight) was quite roesy. while I still gave it a low score I was willing to ignore a lot of the issues. I'm writing this review at the end of 2022 to amend that. The game has been hyped to heaven and back but you should be aware that at this time the game can be extremely buggy and an unoptimized mess. PC players can tweak things a bit but that's not what I expect from an AAA game that has been developed for as long as CB2077 has. --------------- 2 Years Later --------------------------- We are now 2 years after launch, gave the game a try due to patch 1.6 and sadly it's still very much the same game. The open world is still boring and lifeless, AI is still beyond simplistic. no dynamic and interesting events, no car chases. nothing. They kept saying they have added a lot of DLC's to the game but for CDPR DLC = cosmetic items in game. but they keep marketing it as this awesome thing you should be excited about and mentioning how it's so great that such DLC is free.... 2 Years later and CDPR is still trying to save this game with Marketing instead of actually improving the game and fix basic issues with it. The levels of delusion around this game are truly baffling. people praise this game and outright lie about what is in it. They can't all be bots or CDPR employees so I'm not sure what's this phenomenon is. This game is not total **** (to some people) but it's definitely not a good game. There are points of light in it for sure, but people tend to play them up to be more than they are. The overall game and story are still very basic and simplistic. The game recently got mod support so that will extend the life of it and maybe we will have something decent to play thanks to modders. Things to know: - Amazing soundtrack - Beautiful world - Open world in name only (it's a lifeless shell) - Rudementy AI - Simple story with a lot of holes in it - Boring simple side quests (Mostly, there are a few gems, but they are the exception not the rule) - Plenty of bugs and broken systems (yes, even with 1.6) I'm sad for Mike Pondsmith and the Cyberpunk series. we really thought CDPR will do it justice, but it seems all they can do is pure perfume on the pile of **** they created.
This game looks beautiful and it feels very Star Wars like. I was excited for it coming to PC. Little did I know it's going to be an unoptimized mess. The gameplay is lacking. Sekiro did it better and this is just a sad clone of souls-like games. it doesn't feel smooth when controlling the character. It's hard to believe it's the same Respawn that made Titanfall. Levels are poorly designed and have no logical sense to them. Am I supposed to believe in this world? it's not a living breathing SW universe. it's a bunch of standalone levels with some platforming , puzzles and combat. Story. Lazy writing right from the start. silly characters with silly dialog and no depth. it's filled with excuses. There's a lot to discover via the in-game wiki thing which is more laziness. instead of actually having content in the game you read about most of it. They have tried to take what they think makes Souls-like games great, combine it with a loot, puzzles and that SW magic and hoped it would make a great game. it didn't. I could forgive the obviously bad level design, that makes no sense if this was an actual universe, if the story was brilliant but nothing in this game is exceptional. It should have been better. SW fans deserve better but sadly things are getting worse.
Halo, What a great series! I feel in love with Halo for it's story, music and solid FPS gameplay. It's similar to Half-life in that way. A Great FPS story-driven game. Sadly, 343i decided to throw the story out of the window. The plot in Halo 4 is there to justify the visuals and that's it. it's contrived and lazy. It doesn't respect Halo lore that came before it. It a sad day when something you love becomes a cash cow. (Looking at you SW: Force Awakens). Halo 4 is a beautiful game, can't take that away, sure. BUT it falls flat on it's face in every other aspect. Adding sprint and crouch doesn't count as innovative gameplay. It's the worst kind of action flick. It goes for dazzling beauty with big "epic" scenes with little sense. The campaign which is the main reason Halo is such an awesome beloved series is the weakest part of this game. The Good: - Beautiful - Sprint/Crouch The Bad: - Soundtrack - Story *Doesn't take a genius to see that most 9-10 reviews are simply fan-boys. some would even say the campaign/story isn't that good but still give it a 10.
