Bioshock is still an amazing game 14 years later. The setting is one of the best we've ever seen, the visuals and art direction are beyond stunning, the gameplay is unique and engaging, and the storytelling is also at a high level throughout most of the game. The ending is poorly thought out and executed, but that remains the only real weakness of this masterpiece. However, this version is utterly broken. I am among a very large group of people who have experienced regular crashes. In my case the game would crash every few times I access the map and on occasion when loading a level or when saving. I had to restart it probably 50+ times to get to the end. Then it crashed right at the final pre-rendered cutscene, so at that point I just gave up and watched it on Youtube. The remaster has done virtually nothing to enhance the visuals as well. The remastered dev's name is kind of telling. As the saying goes, even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while. Blind Squirrel didn't this time.
Looks CD Projekt Red made its developers crunch for months to release a product that still is nowhere close to ready. I have a game-breaking visual bug from the very first scene (the infamous tree glitch). This is beyond embarrassing. Next time stick to a more realistic timeline, we can wait until you finish the game properly without abusing the work/life balance of the developers that work for you. I will update my score in a few months once the game is actually fixed.
14 years after it came out Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is still a decent game, but I'd argue it was never really a great one. You see, if you play a really similar action/RPG hybrid such as the first Deus Ex today (and that came out 4 years before Bloodlines), the gameplay feels a little bit dated, but it's still a lot of fun with a ton of engaging options and just works. Bloodlines, on the other hand, was a complete mess when it came out and its core mechanics are still garbage after all the years of fan patches. The melee action is barely passable and extremely boring, the shooing only works (somewhat) once you max out all the relevant skills, and the sneaking is a complete embarrassment as you can literally assassinate a bunch of enemies in front of all of their buddies without them noticing. Even the storytelling is pretty cumbersome at times with convoluted dialogue mechanics that make it a bit annoying to go through the otherwise excellent dialogue. The main story is pretty basic too with the side quests providing most of the real fun. The appeal of the game is pretty obvious, of course. The vampire lore, world building, and overall atmosphere are spot on. Some of the character classes offer unique play styles throughout the otherwise linear story. The music and voiceover are spectacular. The side quests are all unique and for the most part interesting. However, a big part of the game feels like a chore because of the badly broken gameplay. While I didn't really hate my latest playthrough, I really didn't love it that much either. I think it may be time to move on...
The phrase "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" may be a bit of a cliche, but it could well have been the missing subtitle of HoMM 4. This game is a rather awkward attempt to give the series a fresh start after the nearly-perfect third game. The gameplay has been revamped in a few major ways. The battlefield is now isometric, heroes participate in the battles, creatures can wander, and you can use caravans to bring more units in without having to use a hero. That is all great, but both Age of Wonders and Disciples did a much better job of modifying classic HoMM gameplay than NWO could manage. The original creators simply couldn't top their own creation and ended up destroying it. Overall the game is relatively fun, but there is honestly no reason to invest time in it when there are so many better options out there. I would rate that aspect of HoMM 4 6/10. One of the elements that made the previous HoMM games not just fun, but charming was the visual style and in the case of HoMM 3 - the beautiful maps, towns, and strikingly rendered creatures, as well as the perfectly visualized and organized interface. All that is completely gone from the fourth installment of the series. The overall visuals look almost amateurish. All backgrounds are extremely plain and uninteresting, the towns are just as badly rendered and uninspired, while the interface is tasteless and very hard to look at with its bright yellows, lack of contrast, and poor choice of fonts. The creatures are also devoid of all the character they had in the first three games. Overall I would rate the visual appeal 1/10. Complete disaster and after more than a decade it is very difficult to accept how this game looks, while HoMM 3 still pleases the eye every time. In the end HoMM 4 is a game that has a tiny group of dedicated fans, but most people have either continued to play the amazing HoMM 2 and 3 (and the similar HoMM 5-7) or moved on to other series of turn-based fantasy strategy games.
For those who weren't around or don't remember, Redemption was originally a brilliant game with massive potential that was badly hurt by two major (but very easily fixable) design flaws: the player couldn't save anywhere and there was no pause feature (big no-no for a party based game of its type). Unfortunately by the time patch 1.1 came out, the damage had already been done, but the developers repaired both of these issues, which made the game much, much better and I'd say it still holds up very well. With the exception of some bad pathfinding and a slightly less enjoyable clickfest experience compared to Diablo 2, the game is actually pretty awesome. The story is very engaging and has some pretty good characters, the visuals were well ahead of their time for the genre, the music is a masterpiece and the party twist on the point and click Diabloesque action RPG differentiates it from other games that came out at the time. I think it has actually aged better than its successor - Bloodlines.
