This is a beautifully crafted game, somewhere between Diablo and Baldur's Gate, that unfortunately suffers of a couple of problems that made it hard for me to play it for too long. The first one is overcomplicated progression and crafting system. Leveling up characters and their equipment is quite tedious and not that intuitive either. The second problem is combat. Unfortunately the player abilities are kinda limited in the fun they do provide in combat, and enemies either shoot or come closer for melee. After 2-3 hours, fun is a big gone. What remains is a beautiful huge dungeon with secrets to find, well written dialogs and gorgeous landscapes. Gets a 65/100 from me, not 100% my cup of tea, but many will probablty love it.
Hard West is an incredibly good tactical shooter, with a couple of faults that made it too hard for me to finish. Most of the game is spot on: good UI, beautiful graphics, a solid story line, lots of contents, random events, etc. The problem comes from quite long tactical maps with no saving nor intermediate checkpoint whatsoever. That, together with the high mortality rate of all the characters (included the main one), makes the game at time extremely frustrating. And the lack of overwatch is unfortunately heavily felt. Nevertheless, a very solid pleasant game with clean mechanics and a lot of character. I like it, 75/100 for me.
A technically complex and potentially beautiful but cold and incredibly hard heir of the XCom series, from which it copies most of the concepts, mechanics and style. Don't get me wrong, for some people it's probably an awesome game, going back to the time of the first XCom games with a strong original vibe. Unfortunately then the game turns deadly at random times, with the player not being able to do much to prevent it apparently. I had the feeling i might have loved it, then when i started it I felt i would not, then in less than one hour i had it uninstalled. It really is more a simulator than a strategy game in a way it seems to become quickly repetitive. Like i said, some might love it, but me I didn't. Gets a 60/100 from me because i mostly see the potential for others, but for me it was a miss.
While some elements of this game are incredibly good, age was merciless with it, and that shows in a lot of design choices. From endless and repetitive labyrinths, to really weirdly designed quests, the biggest issue in my playthrough was that i made a physical character (melee-specialized brujah) but such a character in this game won't work (you can argue that the same is truth on the RPG game, but we're now talking about the game and I played the RPG the last time 15 years ago or more). Combat in terms of controls, mechanics and gameplay is very bad, so that a physical-oriented character i think has a hard time in the game. I did put quite some points in intimidation too, but i rarely had a chance to really use it. A pity cause the story, settings and characters are delicious, but after almost 15 hours, i had to give up in frustration (Chinatown, I am looking at you). And when that happen, i can't be overly happy about a game, no matter its age or reputation. Gets a 60/100 from me, i guess it might have been even a bit less but nostalgia glasses work a bit like beer glasses.
BG&E is unfortunately a game with a beautiful flair that suffers from a very obsolete and badly aged gameplay and UX design. While the settings is fun, the characters incredible and the story looks promising too, playing it feels really clunky and awkward. It's an early 2k game for consoles, and that says it all in terms of UX. Fixed save points, horrible fixed cameras, an awkward inventory/tasks panel, and big problems in supporting the controller. The uPlay version had huge performance issues but supported the controller, the GoG version doesn't support controller natively an can't alt tab during the game either. A pity, a game that would have been really nice to play in its own time, but after approx three hours i had to give up.
This is a very old but very fascinated little game, that in its simplicity, nice lightweight humour and colorful (but mind, very old school) 3D visuals, could constitute an excellent entry point into RTS games. Few units but quite specialized, very simple base building. It's simple, but it a throwback to a good golden time, and it while it feels the aging, it didn't age as bad as one might have thought.
Let's start strong by saying lound and clear that this game is the best game I did play in the last ten years. While it might have some tiny imperfections here and there, the overall package is incredible. A work of love, of beautiful writing (far better than the books) and an incredible lively open world. Each subquest has a story, a moral weight and feels interesting to finish, not just a chore to farm for xp point and gold. The main story, while based on a concept that doesn't overwhelm me (the whole explaination of what the Wild Hunt is, compared to how it was presented in the games before and books) is incredibly complex, nice and well structured. Everything that was a little clumsy in the previous games has been taken to the next level, polished and made incredible. While the visuals in general are good for everything, the award goes to the CDProjektRed environment artists, that made the best looking and most suggestive landscape and environments ever. And got them even better with Blood&Wine, where Toussaint is vibrant and booming with colors, while never losing the grim charm of the overall settings. UX is flawless, UIs as well, music is top class. Let's find some negatives even though they are not many. Some cutscenes feel a bit rushed and a little out of style with the rest of the visuals (talking about the ones with ink-on-parchement effects). One must admit that quests solution tend to be repetitive in terms of mechanics (either go and kill or go, activate witcher senses and follow tracks), but the quests flair manages to hide that and keep them pleasant. One last mention goes to the 2 DLCs, that are absolutely awesomely made, with great stories and rich contents. All in all, more than a game, a huge immersive experience crafted with care, skill and love. Got the first ever 100/100 on my books. Despite the tiny imperfections, if not this game, what game ever could get the best score?
A superb game that while cutting a bit shorter the open-world aspects of the 1st one, offers a far deeper and involving plot with meaningful choices, deeply characterized characters and a vast amount of tits displayed with a sort of grim elegance. Very very pleasant game, feels a touch shorter in comparison with the first one, but at the same time far more memorable (also including the simplification of the combat system, that while not yet perfect is far less frustrating and far more smooth than the previous one) UX-wise, a few things are kinda awkward to handle, as for example mutations (OMG, who does get how to use them without googling it?!), but the overall interaction is pleasant. Performances optimization doesn't seem to be excellent also on a solid gaming rig like mine. The feeling is that a few times it bottlenecks on the CPU causing a bit of lag (not much, but a lot for the CPU i have it running on). But one can totally live with it. Very solid game, a couple of flaws but excellent otherwise. Gets an 85/100 in my boards.
