Considering the game was released 17 years ago, the visuals still hold up. Compared to most of the gray and brown shooters released around this time, this game stands out with colorful visuals. They successfully portrayed Mexico in a way that avoids the visual style of a Breaking Bad episode. The story follows two characters, Billy Candle and Rev. Ray McCall, one seeking treasure and the other redemption. Techland was exploring the idea of finding redemption in the wild west long before Rockstar. Shooting is clunky and the weapon degradation does not help at all. McCall is more fun to play because you get to use guns, but the down side is that between episodes, you don't get to preserve weapons. But by far the most annoying mechanics are the melee combat and duels. I can forgive the awkward melee combat, but I absolutely detest the duels. I remember playing the demo way back in the day and totally hating it. That hasn't changed 17 years later. There is very little player agency during duels. The mouse has a mind of its own. I restricted the frame rate to 60 using RTSS, and I think it made the experience marginally better. In my opinion, it's incredibly bad game design to lock a player into a specific situation and impose very narrow criteria for success. Billy leans more towards stealth, and using a bow is fun. However the worst part about playing as Billy are the platform sections. First person games around this time were not smooth enough to attempt first person platforming. To say these sections are awkward and boring would be an understatement. The game's default control scheme is a little weird. Horse sprint is mapped to Caps Lock on default. Why not use Shift? Who thought this was a good idea? The disappointing part is that this could have been a timeless classic, but needlessly poor design choices prevent this game from reaching its potential.
Tomb Raider: Anniversary is a beautifully remade version of the classic 1996 game. It features modernized controls that are very much like Tomb Raider Legend, and while the majority of the game excels, subpar boss battles detract from the experience. Boss battles in this game are simply awful. The combat mechanics overall are not great, and the boss battles are even worse. The biggest issue is the adrenaline dodge mechanic, which is necessary to defeat a boss. This involves dodging an enemy that is running towards you, and when the circle turns red, you have to press fire to damage the enemy. Without activating this dodge, it is impossible to win, no matter how much you shoot at the boss. I faced this issue while trying to kill the big mutant boss in Atlantis and had to give up on the game, as I tried everything from reducing graphics, lowering FPS to lowering the resolution, but nothing worked. This is beyond poor game design. This means that no further progress can be made. Tomb Raider: Anniversary is was a good game overall. It managed to capture the essence of the original game quite well, but the boss battles tarnished the game. They were disappointing and felt like a blemish on an otherwise well-crafted experience. Unfortunately, I was unable to complete the final two boss fights due to technical issues. While I only paid $0.98 for the game, I feel that it was worth the price. However, I wouldn't recommend spending more than that on it.
Sadly, there are some long standing issues with the PC port that are never fixed. In addition to this, this game does not quite the same polish in terms of gameplay that Sands of Time had. I absolutely would not recommend this game. Save you money and buy the later games in the series instead. They are at least functional.
Where do I even begin talking about Cyberpunk 2077? It's a very divisive game, and while I believe it was somewhat redeemed by the developers, it is a cautionary tale about hype, false advertising, and misleading marketing. Some wrote this game off as a lost cause. Soon after the awful launch, CDPR issued a statement and went on to release some much needed fixes to the game. The December patch fixed some problems with the game, but it was nowhere near the quality we got to expect from CDPR. Patch 1.6 Edgerunners Update adds some much needed features to the game. I started playing this game after the release of Patch 1.5, and during my playthrough Patch 1.6 was released. There is something surreal about the atmosphere of Night City. CDPR did something magical with the setting. The city is a wonderful playground. To anyone looking to play CP2077, I would thoroughly recommend using bikes. There some driving issues here and there with bikes, but generally speaking, they are a LOT of fun. There is no vehicle customization in the game and I think this is a huge missed opportunity. I confess I did not understand parts of the story. I cannot tell you why Johnny Silverhand is hell bent on taking down the Arisaka corporation. The player gets to choose the starting point of the story. I played as the Nomad. I was fortunate enough to play the game on a very powerful PC. I am glad I waited to play this on my PC because the game looks fantastic. On a 3080Ti, at 3440x1440 with RTX and DLSS on, the game is truly breathtaking, no pun intended. Without DLSS, the frame rate takes a big hit on performance with RTX on. However, RTX really elevates the game, so I recommend playing the game with a card capable of ray tracing. Do temper your expectations. Enjoy the game for what it is, do not go into it expecting it to be groundbreaking like Witcher 3. On a PC, especially one with a medium/high end GPU, this game is amazing experience. Verdict - Must Play
The story is set in late 19th century America, specifically in the Old West, and involves finding the lost city of Quivira, where this is lot of gold to be mined. Its somewhat of an open world game, and the player gets to backtrack between cities. There are quite a few side missions as well, and completing these missions reward the player with cash, which can be used to buy weapons and upgrades. The game has a thoroughly budget feel to it. It is a poor man's Red Dead Redemption. The save system is confusing. It appears that you can save the game at any point, but when you load the game (and you have to quit the current game to do so), it begins at the start of the mission. There is no auto checkpoint system to go along with the manual save system. There were times when I forgot to manually save the game, and I lost progress. Very annoying. I would much rather have a manual save system, and a quick save system, but modern games have taught me to expect a checkpoint system, which I loathe. Visually, the game looks alright. There is no support for widescreen resolutions. I played the game at 1600x1200. I have a computer that is dedicated to playing older games, and on a 1080p monitor, the game is very playable. I would not play this game on my ultrawide monitor because it would not scale very well, and it would end up looking awful. By far the worst aspect of this game are the boss battles. They are horrible. It feels as if the enemies cheat, and have wall hacks the way can shoot you when you peak from behind the cover for a second. This gets really annoying towards the end. I had to find a way to cheese my way through because it was damn near impossible to play fair and square. Its possible that the reason I had this problem because I did not play any of the side missions, however, that means there is a problem with scaling the difficulty of the boss battles. - Bad boss battles - General budget feel of the game - Weird save system Verdict - Worth about $2.
My experience with Witcher games began 9 years after the release of the first game. I played The Witcher in November 2016 and I followed up immediately with The Witcher 2. I would have started playing Witcher 3 right after, but I did not own the game. In November 2017, it went on sale, on GOG.com, and I purchased the GOTY edition for $19.99. I spent a little over 300 hours playing the main game. This is by far the most time I spent on a single player game. I remember reading some articles leading up to the release of Witcher 3 that this game is going to have a lot of content. I thought it might be filler, and to a small extent this is true, but by and large, I was entertained enough to complete all the side quests in all areas. Since I played on the PC, I had the luxury of upgrading my hardware and installing mods. I started playing this game with my MSI GeForce GTX 1080. The game looked absolutely beautiful. However, at 1440p, I was not able to keep a steady 60FPS with all settings on high. On MSI GeForce 1080Ti, the game was running at well over 60FPS with all settings on high, and there were hardly any dips. It was an amazing experience. This is the best looking RPG I have ever played. I did not play Skyrim yet, so it remains to be seen if Skyrim manages to look better than Witcher 3. I felt that the developers created a fantastic world, and exploration, which is something I enjoy a lot, is rewarded in the game. For the most part, I enjoyed the main quests and side quests. Given the number of side quests, not all of them are going to be excellent, there are some fetch quests here and there, but even some of the most mundane side quests are voice acted, and they make a very sincere attempt to entertain and engage the player. Dynamic weather has a big positive impact on immersion. This combined with the excellent audio make the gameplay experience so much better. Voice acting and dialogue are excellent for the most part. It really got predictable towards the end. The final parts of the main quest felt weak in comparison. The endings were excellent, but the quests leading up to it felt boring to me. There are some mods that make life a lot easier, such as the auto loot mod. The fast travel mod is also handy, but it is best to exercise caution when using it because it can break quests. It is useful when exploring for hidden treasures etc, but do not using when doing any quests, especially when indoors. I thought the combat was excellent compared to the previous games, especially compared to Witcher 1. I do not like how signs have to be equipped before they can be cast...I do not understand the reasoning behind this. There is a mod that will change how this works, but I never installed it because this wasn't a huge issue. The crossbow controls are awful. After every shot, Geralt puts away the crossbow, and its tedious to put the bolt in place and the middle mouse button needs to be held down to take aim. Horse riding is another mechanic that is not fully fleshed out. Holding down shift would make the run, and to make the horse sprint, you would have to double tap and hold Shift. There are plenty of keys on the keyboard that can accomplish this without resorting to the double tap nonsense. Slashing at enemies when on horseback feels sluggish. I am still glad for the addition of the horse in the game, given how big the game world is. In conclusion, The Witcher 3 is the best open world RPG I have played to this date. I would still rate the story of the original Deus Ex higher than this, but the gameplay experience of Witcher 3 has surpassed Deus Ex. + Excellent open world + Smooth combat + Fun side quests + Beautiful visuals + Great soundtrack - Horse controls - Crossbow controls - End game is not as fun Veridct - Must Play
The Witcher 2 has done a lot of things better than the original. It is an overall polished game. This also meant that it is much more mainstream, and some elements are made with the consoles in mind. Combat received a much needed overhaul. It is more free flowing, and it an overall better experience. It has some quirks, such as the target locking system, which can be unwieldy at times, especially when multiple enemies attack in a very narrow corridor. Combat styles are gone, and there is much reliance on dodging and using signs. I enjoyed this system a lot more compared to the first game. Story picks up where the first game left off. It has a lot of very interesting side quests, and the main quest sets itself up for the next game. I am looking forward to playing The Witcher 3. I imported a save from the first game. I am not quite sure how this has changed the game compared to starting without importing a save file. I took a backup of the savegames, so if Witcher 3 allows me to import them, I intend to do so. The choices in the game have a much larger impact than in the previous game. I discovered that depending on some key decisions made in the first act, the second act will branch into different story lines and then both converge for the 3rd act. This offers a lot of replay value. Visuals got a huge upgrade compared to the first game. I installed the Better Texture Environment Mod. The game looks fantastic on my GeForce 1080 on Windows 10. I played it at 2560x1440 on ultra settings, and it rarely ever dropped below 100FPS. The game did crash to the desktop a few times, but nothing major in terms of performance. For all the freedom the game offers, the boss battles are terrible. There is no room for improvisation here. This is by far the worst thing about the game for me. Skills is another aspect that could have been a lot better. I went through the entire game without allocating a single point to alchemy. There was no reason to use it. Just make sure you upgrade Quen, and upgrade your swordsmanship, and you are good to go. There were only a few instances where I found potions to be useful. Certain sections of the game require you to drink a potion, but otherwise, Cat was the only potion I found useful. The inventory system is a mess. It is very poorly designed. The developers announced at the time that they were targeting consoles as the primary platform. The inventory system in the first game was far superior compared to this. All in all, it is a fantastic game. I thoroughly recommend it.
