The first in a trilogy and one of the crowd-funded games that helped bring cRPGs back to prominence, Hairbrained's Shadowrun Returns is a fantastic little turn-based RPG taking place in the Shadowrun universe. It's a small game in its scope; the story towards the end goes into a silly save-the-world direction, but it doesn't start like this. At first it's personal, it spends time world-building and introducing likable characters that set the stage. Mechanically, it's simple but not without depth; plenty of build options, turn-based combat that requires a healthy amount of strategy and engagement and, like all proper RPGs, a good amount of different routes that compliment the various character builds. There are only a handful side-quests, so for the most part, you're engaged in the main story and that works in the game's favor. We're used to different choices meaning different outcomes, but you won't find this here; the different choices exist specifically for roleplaying flavor and that's ultimately a good thing. It has been a long while since a RPG had replay value just so you can approach the same scenario in different ways without the carrot of different dialogue and cutscenes at the end of the stick. I haven't played the sequels at the time of writing this, but I enjoyed this one quite a lot and I wholeheartedly recommend it.
One of the earlier examples of how to properly modernize a very, very old series. Sands of Time has wonderful storytelling and great presentation. at its core, it's a platformer with a clever "time rewind" feature to mitigate the frustration of the trial and error platforming. Unfortunately, it also has the worst combat ever put in a video game. The idea behind its fluid acrobatic swordsplay is great, but the game has no manual lock-on (making it finicky in battles against multiple enemies), the camera spazzes out all the time, there are no real iframes, you can get swarmed and stun locked easily and there's no real depth to the thing, it's just a matter of exploiting specific moves. To say that it hasn't aged well would be an understatement. Ironically, considering its theme, but Sands of Time has been obliterated by the passage of Time.
So, after about level 10 in this very enjoyable ARPG/Diablo-clone, I noticed loot drops diminishing considerably. I thought it was a balancing choice of some sort, so I ignored it, until I realized that loot did drop, I just couldn't pick it up because it was locked behind DLC. This was in the core game. I went through the entirety of the Parnassus caves without a single loot drop. Ornate, Quality and Majestic chests dropped nothing but health potions and spare change. Now, nobody plays these types of ARPGs for their robust combat systems or rich storytelling; loot drops are at the heart of these games. Loot's the carrot at the end of the stick and the means to develop your character. The devs most certainly know this. They're trying to force you to buy the DLC (Ragnarok, at the very least), to have a decent experience with the game. Mind you, outside of a sale, this is a game that costs 20 Euros and you're getting it with blatantly inaccessible content. The DLCs cost *at least* as much per piece. I think the most annoying thing for me is the simple fact that when I bought this game, it was sold to me as the update to an old, quite well-liked game; when in fact all it is is a platform for new, overpriced and invasive DLC.
Great (for its time) presentation and a surprisingly engaging protagonist. Gameplay, however, is jank galore; melee combat is repetitive and messy, ranged combat is all over the place. The various abilities are good on paper, but don't amount to much in execution. The "dynamic acrobatic combat" advertised is hyperbole, to say the least. There is no structure or strategy to combat and the player has little control over it, outside of mashing buttons. More than that, the game's difficulty spike in the third act is insane and it is so, because there is no way it was playtested. There is blatant sloppiness in the third act that points to development time running out. It's a 6th gen game, which means it's a 6-hours-long campaign designed to fool teenage you into thinking it's longer, by making you repeat the same levels for a week straight. The lack of mid-level checkpoints only add to the frustration. This quasi-remaster should've addressed what is clearly broken design. It's tedious and boring. It's not terrible, but it's old in ways that don't hold up. I most certainly don't recommend it at the asking price and even on a sale, only pick it up with its sequel.
There are some games that were panned upon release that benefit from hindsight. Maybe the time wasn't right. Maybe development was troubled. Maybe the execution doesn't quite land, but the ideas are good. Daikatana isn't one of those games. This was bad by 2000 standards, it was bad by 1997 standards, it was bad by 1993 standards. The thing about Daikatana is that it was definitely ambitious; a transchronologic adventure, with AI partners and a whole host of diverse weapons, as well as an overwritten plot. Certainly for its time, it could even be considered innovative for the genre. The problem is that the execution isn't there and it's not there in a big way. Buggy and glitchy; AI partner pathfinding breaking or getting stuck in geometry (leading to entire level reloads). Level design that is tedious at the best of times. Melee combat that is woefully unresponsive (big problem when your game is centered around a magic sword). Ugly, with repetitive music loops and sound effects. Even the story, as innovative as it might sound as an idea, is terribly written. What the game does have is a nice combat flow; shooting and movement feel good, but this is not enough to balance out everything else. Don't play it. Don't buy it. Even as a curio. It's not worth it. Even the 1.3 fan patch, as much as it fixes some things, can't fix the shattered foundations of this disasterous piece of electronic abortion.
I don't mind troubleshooting games. I don't mind crashes, I don't mind having to give up basic features like exclusive fullscreen to get something to work in an acceptable way. I do very much mind a game crashing my entire system, locking my keyboard access in the process and forcing me to hard reset, several times, because the Radeon control panel keeps complaining that the drivers just outright stopped working during loading. Devolver, I love you, but the quality control on this is, charitably, abysmal.
I've put about 20 hours into the game and I can't be bothered to play any more. Not only does the game have a myriad of technical issues (from bugs and glitches to terrible optimization), the content just doesn't flow. My biggest problem with Cyberpunk is that it doesn't feel organic. Gameplay is clunky in every aspect; from the driving, to combat, to stealth. The controls are terrible, mouse movement feels laggy and imprecise and keyboard bindings are all over the place. The different aspects of the game never quite come together into a cohesive whole, there's a feeling of constant disconnect throughout every aspect of it. The game is also terrible at communicating side-content. At the 20 hour mark, most of the side-content I've has been stopping crimes in random events on the map. Most other side-content requires digging. This would be fine, were Night City interesting to explore; but it feels terribly manufactured. Pretty, but without a soul. A decorated box full of robotic ants on a loop. The main quest(s) is the relative highlight. The writing is solid and the performances are amazing; but even the story feels fractured at parts. The game doesn't ease you into this world, it bombards you with terminology and characters, you feel disconnected at all times. Remember how confusing Witcher 2 was for anyone not into the books? It's the same deal here. Remember how organic everything felt in Witcher 3? It's the opposite of that. Unforutnately, the 'meh' content, combined with the technical issues, make this a hard sell. A mediocre game can get a pass if it's entertaining, but not when story-critical dialogue gets cut-off, because the timing is off. First person immersion is clever, but not when everything glitches more than a Bethesda game. Sorry CDPR; I love you guys, but this just isn't it. I'd like to believe it can be fixed, but its problems go deeper than QA; the very core of the game is broken.
Saints Row 2 is one of the best open-world games. It's funny, it has great characters, the combat is fun, the driving is insane, the soundtrack is banging, the sandbox is incredible with a number of varied and imaginative activities that never feel played out or phoned in. All of it still holds up and I will always recommend everyone plays this game. The PC port, though... it's not good. It has been patched to at least work (as opposed to the launch version, which was unplayable), but the PC port is based on an older build of the game. Compared directly to the console versions, there are features missing, balancing issues and a whole host of technical and performance hiccups. Reportedly, someone found the final version and they're making a patch for this, but until that comes out, I can't really recommend the port; it's playable, but it's currently the suboptimal way to experience the game, even with mods. If you own a console, especially a XBOX (because of its b/w compatibility), choose those versions instead. I'd recommend this only to anyone that doesn't have any alternatives.
That's how I named the player character in the nearly two hours I played, where a tiny girl murders the crap out of mentally challenged Mafia dudes. The game looks adorable and it plays quite well. I'm not a Nintendo kid, so I don't have experience in your Mario Sunshine or Odyssey or whatever; but it is probably the only such game that exists on PC. So, what's the problem and why I ejected at only two hours, knocking off a very generous two stars? Optimization. The game chugs and lags and stutters with option changes making very little difference. It's Unreal 3 at its worst, being all grumpy and insecure and making it difficult for any developer team under 500 people to work with. I'm not going to say the performance issues make the game actually unplayable, but there's not enough "adorkable" in the world to convince me to deal with the technical issues. I'm not marking it down completely, I see potential past the point I could tolerate, but I do caution prospective buyers.
Without a doubt, one of the most tedious, forgettable shooters I've played in my life. Beyond the Quake name and iconography, the campaign for this is "generic space marine simulator 2005". The weapons are all pea-shooters with underwhelming feedback, the enemies are bullet sponges, the levels are stupid-linear, the vehicle sections are clunky and way too long for their own good. The game looks good, especially with a texture mod or two, but every second of the campaign feels like a waste of time and life you're not getting back. There are many games that were lambasted at the time of release, but they're fun to play many years later. Doom 3 is one of them. Raven's own 2009 Wolfenstein is another. Quake 4 is as generic and tedious today as it was 15 years ago. It wants to be Halo, but lacks the pace and flow of that series. There are much better alternatives out there, even for space marine-enthusiasts.
