I bought Tharsis for PS4 a long time ago then got it again on sale here, put a lot more hours into it on PS4 than on PC where I've yet to unlock the Cannibal and Commander (the best classes). Guess I'll start with the most controversial element, the RNG and general difficulty. The game is well balanced for play on Easy and Normal, Hard is almost unplayable and I'd be surprised to learn anybody other than myself got the true ending (all 4 astronauts survive 10 turns) on Hard. Having played it on all 3 difficulties the game does not seem purely random, in fact it seems the game has enormous control over your dice rolls in the background as Hard mode seems to function not only by making events worse but your dice rolls terrible. The thing with the difficulty (outside of Hard) is while there is a lot of RNG and bad luck can screw you over, with good strategy and knowledge of the game you can pretty consistently win, even pretty consistently get the true ending. Ditch the terrible Specialist as soon as you unlock a different, much better class. Realize that the Doctor needing a roll of 5 or more to heal 1 hp and only in the same room they're in is kind of bad compared to the Commander being able to turn bad dice rolls into higher ones without rerolling. Realize that 3 of the 'end' points of the ship, Flight Control, Operations, and to a lesser extent the Laboratory are not useful and can be ignored if they have a 1 Hull Damage or ESPECIALLY a SysFail event. Presentation is pretty great, the diorama aspect of the ship looks great (on PC you can even click on things and get little sounds and animations) and all the different events have fun visuals to go with them. The models for the astronauts are goofy but expressive and it's fun to watch them go insane from eating human meat. The soundtrack, instrumental versions of a Kid A-esque EP on Bandcamp is pretty great and fits the rhythm of the game well. The atmosphere is also spot on in its intensity for the situation.
FEAR is what I consider the second best first person shooter behind the untouchable masterwork that is Perfect Dark. There's flaws to be sure. The environments are bland and repetitive (though convincingly, realistically mundane), the story is meh and the few horror elements there are were clearly tacked on late in development because The Grudge came out. But purely in terms of SHOOTING you just won't find better. The sound, the massive dust that blasts out of walls, objects falling over and being destroyed, big chunks being taken out of walls, the way the enemies react. And the AI. To this very day this is the best enemy AI of any shooter, if not for the Pawns in Dragon's Dogma and the Dwarf Fortress characters I'd say this is the peak of video game AI period. They'll work together to flank you, run behind cover, call out your position, knock over objects to slow you down, panic if you're too strong or surprise them, and more. Even just things like them being able to see your shadow or your flashlight and springing to action if you're not paying attention to the lighting. The AI is so detailed and good that you can play the exact same firefight several times and it'll be engaging and end up different. The pacing is absolutely stellar too, the gameplay loop of going from the most engaging combat encounters in any FPS to the more exploratory 'haunted house' segments works perfectly. It's a damn shame that the franchise went to crap, 2 had better horror but worse everything else. 3 isn't even worth talking about. And no other developer really picked up where FEAR 1 left off in terms of AI and encounter design.
I played through this with my brother in co-op on the Xbox 360 version a long time ago and had a blast. It's a bit slow paced, it's clunky, the open world is far too damn big for its own good. So why did I love it so much? The game oozes charm and cheese everywhere from every orifice, the purposefully bad voice acting, the super memorable and quotable dialogue, a secret unlockable power metal concert, the devs clearly had a lot of fun making this. Also you can play as ancient egyptian-esque cyborg dogs with megaman arm cannons and jetpacks, which is just insanely ridiculous. Also the sense of progression is really nice in this game, going from having only a basic attack and being slow and barely able to fight a small group of pirates to being a speed demon with several crowd clearing attacks and a mount to explore the world on is a good feeling.
