Stealth action adventure where you mow down hordes or Uruks? Very nice Does it get repetitive? yes Lots of abilities to help you in battle, fastpaced combat and smooth controls. Proceduraly generated elite enemies spice it up, even if sometimes you get the short end of the stick, like a captain that is a battle master inmune to ranged attacks and cannot be jumped over. even if it's not canon the story is interesting, and since I'm not that into LOTR I couldn't care less about lore accuracy. Unfortunately I couldn't complete all side quests, the last quest for the sword bugged out and couldn't complete it even after several tries, other than that performance was flawless. It didn't blow my mind, but is good enough I was gonna give it a 4 star, but since the game robbed me from that sidequest I'll give it a three
This is a stand alone DLC for SR4, brings in a new map, new enemies, new weapons and the ability to fly instead of glide. Unfortunately there's not much more I can say about it, I was like a couple of hours in, having a fun time doing an activity when the game crashed and now it refuses to boot up again An unfortunate change is there is no wardrobe, not even the alternate costumes Gat An Kenzie had for SR4. If you liked SR4 you'll like this one, if you don't get it broken as I did.
The narrative of the third was weird, with little interaction between the saints and the bosses, this game fixes that, bringing back the story to a more personal space, it also improves on the gameplay, at least for the most part, the supoerpowers render vehicles useless unless you have to use them for missions, same goes for the guns , of which there's a wide variety, now customizable too. activities now have rankings from bronze to gold, and only bronze is required for map completion, but the challenge is there for the completionists. Unfortunately they really didn't improve much on the wardrobe department, 95% of the clothes are recycled from the third, I don't mind they carrying over all those assets, but it should be 60% of the wardrobe at most, upper and lower body are still packaged instead of allowing the more complex customization of SR2, and clothes from suits are not available to buy separately. hell, I even saw random NPC with better clthing than the MC, with glow in the dark high heels, The map is the same from the third game too, and again, I don't mind them using old assets, but apart frm the few alien structures scattered around there's not much change. I also have to say, I still hate the controls for vehicles, whoever thought of accelerating with R2 is a sociopath that should be fired and blacklisted from making games ever again, at least if they let us remap the controls, but nope, still shitty as in the third. Still worth playing for the solid gameplay and the whimsical story, even tho this entrie thing feels more like a DLC for the third game. It usually goes on sale for a couple of bucks, so really, there's no reason for not trying it out
Let's cut to the chase. If you think a sequel should build upon a game, I got some good news and some bad news for you. The good: +Better graphics overall. + Better animations, now with melee takedowns. + Weapon upgrades. +Character upgrades are no longer tied to activities so you don't need to be a completionist to access them all. + boats and flying vehicles are a lot more maneuverable and actually fun to ride. + more enemy variety with specialists and brutes. But if you look closely you'll notice some unwelcome changes: - The story is still ridiculous and cinematic, but the moment I saw my character jump into a moving plane trough the windshield, mid air, and not die, I knew the writers didn't give a f***, SR2 was silly, full of tropes and steoreotypes, but it carried some drama with the detahs of Aisha and Charlie, or the fantastic end to the graveyard mission. Not here, is all explosions, action set pieces and buddy cop comedy, but with gangster. - You'd think the wardrobe would be vastly iimproved, and it is in some ways, but there are no longer Slots for shirts, coats or sock, is all integrated into "upper body" or "lower body", and if you don't like the combinations, well, it sucks to be you. - The audio of the vehicles is absolute garbage, motors are barely audible, you can tell when the audio loops and sometimes it bugs out and keeps playing the wrong clip, like ending a slide, but your car keeps doing the screeching noise afterwards. - You take damage during takedown animatios. There are some minor anoyances that are not really that important: - The "wanted" meters now cannot fall under 1 if an enemy is in your radar, doesn't matter if they have line of sight or if they are stuck on the other side of a building. - The addition of a "sex appeal" slider in the character creation is a welcome addition, but I'd exchange it in a heartbeat for a character height slider. - Escort and snatch activities are as frustrating as before. - no custom weapon colors
It is basically GTA, but more bonkers, as a matter of fact, I like this one more over GTA IV, it has a Vice City vibe to it, and we all know VC was the best GTA, you got a character creator to make your own protagonist, a wide variety of missions, some of them are very impactful (loved the cinematic flare of the graveyard mission), the weapons are punchy, the vehicles handle pretty well (fuck helicopters tho). in game the violence is gratuitios and over the top. but they evade any gory close ups in cinematics. Side activities can get repetitive, but they are fun for the most part (again, fuck helicopters), and reward you with some seriously broken upgrades like infinite ammo for some weapons and infinite stamina All is not perfect, the physics engine can be wonky at times, bringing to teh table the worst enemy of sport cars: sidewalks. Also, in cinematics object tend to float around, specially when characters are "holding" tehm with their hands. And the game crashed multiple times, curiously enough, it happened most of the times when I was entering a car. Still, great game, had a lot of fun, highlly recommend it for sandbox fans, just save often, and don't worry about grabbing all the collectables, just enjoy the ride.
My PC is beyond the recommended specs for the game so I decided to play it on max settings, all went smoothly, until I got to the end of the creepers' stage, game crashed with an error "Unreal Engine is exiting due to D3D device being lost", I read about it and tried to do some troubleshootingg, updating my drivers, reinstalling the game, using MSI afterburner to lower the GPU clockspeed, I even tried playing on minimun graphical settings, none of it works, the game keeps crashing during that boss fight, a shame, I was having fun
I'm not really having fun with it, the art and sound is good, level design is fine, but the controls are all over the place, it feels like if it had input lag and floaty at the same time, I feel I'm fighting the controls more often than the game, and I have beaten the path of pain in Hollow Knight.
First/third person shooter puzzler where you control a squad of special operatives, each one with a particular skill to solve enviromental puzzles to reach the end of the level , the idea is pretty cool, and when the game flows is fun and engaging, that said, you could cut the squad in half and little would be lost, i.e., Carter is only used to interrogate people and open certain doors that are color coded for him alone, as if the other members of the squad were mute or couldn't open a door. The combat is shallow, little weapon variety , team tactics are inexistent, the only order you can give to your team is to follow you currently selected character and they often fail even at that. Some levels are long and require a lot of teamwork, which is great, but some times the answer is so obtuse you can get stuck running around the same corridors inspecting every inch to see what clicks because the questlog is bare bones. As I said, I like the idea of teamwork to solve puzzles, but this one really shows its age. A modern reimagining of this game to play in co op would be interesting, but I'm not sure I'd recommend this one wholeheartedly, at least is dirt cheap so try it for yoursellf.
The redux may have better textures and lighting, but the contrast is horrendous, all the colors look desaturated, I prefer the og version, it has a strong contrast that intensifies the visual effetcs and feels more fitting for the game, And that's why I give it fours stars instead of 5, the story is great and the whole journey is bonkers, impecable voice acting, amazing music, just woonderful. If you can get your hands on the OG version, do so.
This is a narrative game, is not scary, is not action focused, the gamplay focuses in troubleshooting a space station that is in a mysterious mission where things go wrong pretty quickly, the puzzles aren't hard, controls just fine, graphics are gorgeous,I love that retrofuturistic look, (yes, the 90s was a long time ago, big oof) and the ambnient music sets a dreadful mood, all in all, it's pretty fun cinematic experience, highly recommended if you enjoy narrative games.
