After a highly publicized, rocky launch, Cyberpunk 2077 has become a fantastic but still flawed gem. Pros: +Masterclass story and quest design. This is where CD Projekt Red shines. The stories that they tell, and the quests that they design to tell those stories, are A-list examples in the video game industry. I have more fun with their side quests than most games’ main quests. +Memorable characters. +Night City. This is probably the most believable depiction of a large metropolis in gaming. +Gameplay similar to an immersive sim at times. I was surprised at the amount of player agency that the game allowed in completing quests. +The music is varied, fits the world, and is of high quality. +Professional voice acting abounds. Nothing felt phoned in or out of place. Cons: -Bugs. Yes, they’re still there. And while I didn’t encounter anything game breaking, there were certainly enough problems to be annoying. From UI elements getting stuck on the screen (save and reload to remove them) to graphical glitches (watching a character whose hands didn’t render strangle another character), there were too many bugs still present and no real excuse why they haven’t been addressed. -Performance is inconsistent at times. Some sections will absolutely tank your framerates, even with high end hardware. -Boss fights are lame. Thankfully they are few and far between. But they always felt boring, out of place, and tacked on. -The ending sucks. It feels like a completely different person wrote the ending of the story... and he was stoned at the time. Probably the best thing that I can say about Cyberpunk 2077 is that I didn’t want it to end. Whereas most games wear out their welcome with me and I get anxious to finish them, I wanted more to do and explore in Night City, even after nearly 100 hours in the game. I’m just hoping that the upcoming DLC gives it a proper ending; similar to what Blood and Wine did for The Witcher 3.
Having finished "Acting Lessons", I decided to give Dr. PinkCake's most recent title a shot. And while not perfect, I can say that Being a DIK sets the standard by which other visual novels (and adult titles in particular) will be judged. Pros: +Interesting, if unrealistic story that is well written with good pacing. +Genuine humor. While I didn't find it as funny as Acting Lessons, it does have its moments. +Branching story with multiple outcomes and choices that matter a bit more than your average VN. +Most characters feel genuine and nuanced. +Sex scenes are well animated for the most part. A definite improvement over Acting Lessons. +Music is varied and well used. +Mini games that break up the monotony. +Sets the standard by which future adult visual novels will be judged. Cons: -Some choices are missing, leading the main character down paths that you, the player, might not want him to go. -A few characters are rather cookie cutter. More like stereotypes rather than actual characters. -Mini games are too easy. While I appreciate their inclusion, they don't really offer any risk vs reward. -Very, very slow development. At the time of writing this, there are two seasons with a third in the works that's due to be released.....sometime. Dr. PinkCake needs to learn that hiring people to help make your game doesn't mean you have to give up creative control, as the excuse for not doing so has been. Overall, it's worth your time. The story and skill with which its told are on par with the best that the VN genre has to offer and the porn aspect is as good or better than most adult games on the market. Add those together and it really doesn't have an equal. It's not going to replace Pornhub for your fapping needs. But if your interested in adult games or want to experience one for the first time, you can't really go wrong with Being a DIK. Just don't expect this level of quality anywhere else in the genre.
I'm not a huge fan of the visual novel genre, but this one got some pretty decent reviews so I decided to give it a shot. Overall, I'm fairly impressed with what I believe is Dr Pink Cake's first game, although it does have a few very rough edges. Consider this more of a 3.5 star, rounded up. Pros +The story is interesting and kept me guessing until the end. +It's genuinely funny at times. Most games barely manage to get a chuckle out of me but I actually laughed at several scenes in this game. +Liam. Probably one of the best sidekicks in video game history. +Choices that matter....somewhat (more on that in a bit). +The music isn't bad. Nothing that you'll recognize from the radio, but it gets the job done. Cons -The characters can be really shallow and one dimensional. There's not a lot of growth that happens during the story. -While some choices matter, the ultimate ending is pretty set in stone. Basically, choose A, B, or C. -There's no voice acting. I'm not expecting Mark Hamill or Jennifer Hale, but they could have hired a few local actors to add some life to the characters. The game is called "Acting Lessons" but they didn't seem to take their own advice. -The porn is pretty bad. This game features very poorly animated models getting it on in 3 second loops. All of the sex scenes vary between "so bad it's almost funny" to "struggling for mediocrity". There's clipping issues, texture stretching, inadequate model rigging; and that's just on a technical level. The dialog in these scenes is on par with some of the cheesiest porn I've ever watched. I think that it needed a lot more effort put in if it's to be included. What we got is just lazy, incompetent, or both. Overall, I think that it's worth it for the story but it's not going to change someone's mind if they don't like the visual novel genre. The characters are fun even if a bit cookie cutter and the writing is decent for the most part. If you're looking for porn, just go to pornhub.
One of the best games that I've played in a long time! I found it thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end with only a few minor quibbles that hold it back from perfection. Pros: +Epic story with just the right mix of sci-fi thrown in. +Perfect voice acting. +Fantastic soundtrack. +Gameplay can be challenging but is also rewarding. +Suits different styles of play. You can sneak around and take out enemies with stealth or bypass them completely. Or you can rush in "guns blazing", so to speak. There's no wrong way to play. +Most character abilities and upgrades are useful, with only a few being filler. +Graphics are great. Weather, snow, and lighting effects all impress. +It's really well optimized. The difference between playing on my gtx1080 and rtx3070 wasn't much. +There's a ton on content. I did every quest except two and collected most items and it took me 80 hours. +Huge open world. I could go back now even after 80 hours and still find spots that I never visited. Cons: -Sony wants to spy on you. You can choose whether to send them basic data or allow full data collection, but you can't opt out. That's BS and the sole reason why I removed a star from my rating. -The writing is hit and miss. They don't exactly hit you over the head with the "girl power" hammer, but this game definitely has an agenda. Unfortunately, the writers follow Hollywood's lead by making their female characters look strong by surrounding them with weak male characters. Almost every male character is either an incompetent moron or an insufferable jerk, just to remind us how awesome the women are. Also, every time that Aloy speaks to a female character, you can expect the female equivalent of a circle jerk to ensue. -Some of the dialog cutscenes go on for way too long. Just get to the point! -A few minor bugs. Fell through the world once. Got stuck on a tree once. Enemies spawned in a weird place once. -The DLC is an oddly huge leap in difficulty.
Anyone who is a fan of immersive sims or curious about the genre should play Prey. My biggest disappointment is that there aren't more games like this. PROS: +Great level design that allows freedom of movement and multiple paths. +A "play your way" style of gameplay. Want to use stealth? Go for it. Want to go in guns blazing? Do it. Interested in alien space magic? Knock your socks off. +Lots of replayability as you experiment with different powers and how they affect your gameplay. +Rewards exploration and thinking outside of the box. +Multiple ways to solve any problem. +Interesting, world-building side quests that add to the overall experience instead of feeling tacked on. +Interesting story touching on loyalty, trust, morality, and the "greater good". +Multiple endings that aren't just "choose A or B". +Excellent music and visual presentation. +Mods that further change the experience, making things either much easier or harder. CONS: -While I wouldn't call it a horror game by any stretch, it is a very tense game that jump scared me at several points throughout. (Damn mimics!) -If you skip all of the optional side quests and just stick to the main story, it's a fairly short experience that fails to invest you in the story. -Much of the world building requires you to read a lot of the various reports, articles, and emails that you'll find throughout the game. -There are a few times where the game takes away your options in order to force you in one direction for story driven purposes. Overall, Prey is an excellent example of an increasingly rare genre of game; that being immersive sims. Instead of creating a problem and programing a solution, Arkane Studios creates obstacles and trusts the player to use their skills, equipment, and brain to find their own solutions. Such design requires a certain amount of trust between the developer and player, and I wish more developers would take such risks in game design. I highly recommend Prey.
In my opinion, this game is deserving of neither the 5 star nor the 1 star reviews that it has. Many people seemed upset when they discovered that this wasn't going to be Fallout: New Vegas in space and labeled this as the worst game ever made. Others seem to treat this like some sort of masterclass of RPG gaming. It is neither of those things. PROS: +High production values throughout. +Excellent music. +Excellent voice acting. +Runs smoothly (at least for me; YMMV). +Great sense of humor. +Interesting premise. +A few interesting quests with multiple outcomes. (Emphasis on "few".) +Borrows heavily from Firefly. (Good if you liked Firefly.) CONS: -Most of the quests are very same-y. Go here, get this, return. -I guess it's technically an "open world design", but the levels aren't very open. It keeps you close to a path most of the time and doesn't reward you for exploration. -98% of the loot is boring. Every once in a while you'll get a cool new weapon or armor, but mostly it's just the same old junk. -There's no Bioware style relationship system with your crew, and nothing to take it's place either. Every crew member has their own quest, but those quests don't really draw your player character into the story. They're just more fetch quests. The result being that I ended up not really caring about any of the characters. -The game runs natively in 21:9 but switches to 16:9 for dialog, even though conversations happen in engine. That's lazy game design. -Gun play is just okay. Nothing to write home about. And other than a few exploding barrels scattered around, combat isn't very dynamic or interesting. -RPG mechanics are pretty dumbed down. Skill points make weapons do more damage or allow you to regain more health from healing items. Nothing really changes the gameplay from one "build" to the next. All in all, I enjoyed my 35 hours in The Outer Worlds. The humor really helps sell the experience, even if that experience isn't a very memorable one.
It's really hard to come up with what I feel is a fair score for this. As a game, it's about 1 or 2 stars. You shouldn't really expect much as you just move your character around pushing buttons and managing your giant land-yacht. As an artistic endeavor, it's about 4 or 5, giving a unique spin on a post apocalyptic world. +Beautiful art style. +Great music. +Manages to tell an interesting story without any words. +Excellent world building. +I didn't encounter any bugs or glitches of any kind. -Gameplay mechanics get old really quick. -Micro managing your vessel distracts from the interesting stuff that's going on in the background. -Puzzles are simplistic and easy once you figure out what the game wants you to do. -It's sometime very vague about what it wants you to do. -No replay value that I can see. I finished this in 2.5 hours, so there's not really a lot of content here. Given how tiring the gameplay loop gets, that's not a bad thing. I know that I'm being pretty critical here, but I just feel like the best parts of FAR, that being the art style and world building happening mostly in the background, is being ruined by the "game' part. This product would work much better as an animated desktop background or something similar. It's just not much of a game. Still, if you're a fan of artistic games, don't mind a short experience, and can purchase it on sale for single digits, then I'd recommend it. Otherwise, you're not going to find anything to love that you can't get from watching a video of this on YouTube.
I wasn't expecting much from Elex, but was pleasantly surprised by the whole experience. I haven't enjoyed an open world game this much for a long time. There's just a little too much jank keeping me from giving it 5 stars. +A large open world that's actually fun and rewarding to explore. +Combat stays fairly challenging all the way through. You never really become God-like. +Interesting, world building lore to be discovered. +It ran flawlessly on my computer without any major bugs. Just a few graphical glitches here and there. +Fully voice acted (although some characters are better voiced than others). -The main story isn't all that interesting, especially compared to the background lore. -There are sometimes different voice actors performing lines for the same character. It's very immersion breaking when it happens. -Conversations in the game suffer. From what, I'm not sure. Bad translation, maybe? But they too often don't feel like real conversations. It's hard to describe, but imagine talking to someone and they just randomly change the subject without any cause. It's like that. There's no flow. -Follows old-school design principles. Go here-Do this-Talk to this person. In that order. It limits player agency. -Parts of the map feel under-utilized. I think the developers had plans for those areas and just ran out of development time. -The game likes to make you sit through a long cutscene and then deposit you directly into combat. -Ending is a huge letdown. It just kind of stops with no real conclusion; just a set up for the sequel. I enjoyed my time playing Elex (67 hours). I'll likely never replay it, though I am looking forward to Elex 2 now.
An overall good game of the "old-school" design. It has its frustrations and isn't a genre defining classic or anything, but it's a fun time for a while. Pros: +Good voice acting. It's cringey, foul, and juvenile at times, but of good quality. +Runs good on modern systems. Ran natively in ultrawide resolution on my screen. +Lots of weapons. +Interesting level-up system for Lo Wang and upgrades for your weapons. +Fairly sizable levels that stay interesting despite being linear. +A few epic boss fights with huge bosses. +Surprisingly interesting story line. Cons: -Despite there being plenty of weapons, most of them feel a little unspectacular. Not bad; just unimpressive. -Too many ridiculous arena fights. Especially later in the game after it has run out of new enemies, it will just throw wave after wave of every enemy in the game at you before letting you proceed. It's a time waster and artificial difficulty spike. -Speaking of time wasters, the game lasts a bit too long. I spent 13 hours beating it and I was ready for it to end after 8-10 hours. -Ending is a bit anticlimactic. Maybe they're saving something for the sequel. It ran mostly stable; I think I had one crash to desktop. Also, the ending cutscene was unintentionally funny since Lo Wang's head wasn't rendered; only a set of floating eyes and teeth. This isn't the kind of game that I'll ever go back and play a second time through. But I did enjoy my time with it for the most part and I'm looking forward to playing Shadow Warrior 2 after a little break. I recommend it on sale or for fans of old-school style shooters.
There's not one big thing wrong with this game, but rather a bunch of little things that just add up to frustration and boredom. Pros: +Very diverse character creation with a plethora of races, classes, and skills to choose from. +Can play in "real time with pause" or "turn based combat" mode and switch between the two at will. Cons: -The writing is all over the place. It feels like 10 different people all writing different parts of the same book. Everything feels schizophrenic. -It doesn't explain anything. It just expects you to know the Pathfinder rules and build your characters accordingly. -It's punishingly difficult even on "Normal" difficulty. If you're not a master strategist and don't pre-buff your party before every tough fight, you're going to die. -Even basic enemies are O.P. Don't even bother casting a status effect causing spell because there's a 99% chance that the enemies will pass their saving throws and your spell will do nothing. -The kingdom building, while an interesting concept, is poorly executed. It takes too long to make progress, you lose progress too easily, and it's boring. -There are still a ton of bugs in the game. Freezing during combat became routine and there was at least one side quest that I couldn't complete because an NPC refused to talk to me. -Characters are super cliché and shallow. I found more character depth watching Saturday morning cartoons. -Doesn't reward exploration or combat. 125 hours in and I was still collecting the same basic loot from the beginning of the game. -It's slow. You'll play for hours without anything interesting happening. -It loves to throw permanent stat penalties at your party that can't be removed until you sleep at your kingdom, forcing you to leave the dungeon and come back later. -Not fun. At every step, this game seems to say, "Are you having fun? Well, stop it!", and throw something tedious or frustrating at you. -This is the short list. 125h 49m, and I gave up. I tried.
