This is a game that seemingly makes all the right decisions with its mechanics; the antagonist is agile and adept, like I wished you were in Assassin's Creed games. There is a broad crafting system, forcing you to scrounge for components, if you wish to partake, but it's not that tedious. There is a learning curve...like attacking a gun-wielding enemy with a hammer. My advice: craft/buy a bow (the Ranger Bow DLC is the only weapon I used the entire game, after crafting): its craft components are fairly common, and regular arrows are constructed from common components. This turned the game into what I wanted it to be, though the choice is yours. Bows also don't degrade, and at least this bow has perfect handling, so slap in 2 +2 dmg upgrades for 500 dmg (can also create/buy 3 other types of arrows). And arrows can mostly be retrieved (some just disappear). It's also a silent weapon, so it doesn't draw virals, unlike guns (except for explosive arrows). This also frees up alcohol for use with just medpacs, instead of dividing with Molotovs, which you won't need anymore. You'll see/hear things about your successes, like a crowd of people talking about your fighting technique, which is a nice touch. There are interesting sidequests with interesting characters involved. The parkour is solid and enjoyable. I didn't do much melee, but really enjoyed the Ranger Bow's play. The Following changes up for the formula, but in a good way - adding a buggy (which is fun to drive) and respective skill tree. You'll be in the countryside instead of a favela and city. It's not perfect... - There's the annoying trope of lose all your weapons (multiple times) and fight with weapon with which you are unfamiliar...then you have to individually place them back into your inventory, instead of auto-requip. - Some boss fight scenarios where the game's formula completely changes. - Some intense areas where you arbitrarily lose access to your grappling hook, for tension purposes.
If DnD could be considered a genre, it would be my favorite. This is a rare, solo game (single player campaign, at least). First off, EE has UI scaling (up to 1.5)! That's a big deal to play this on a contemporary computer! Last time I played through Diamond, I could find no such mod/override and had to turn down the resolution so I could read what was on screen! This feature, alone, is worth 1 star. - A lil rest override to speed up the duration of the resting animation from 5s to 200ms. - Tweak encumbrance (even though using a STR-based build), via override, so that I don't have to constantly mess around with inventory management, magic bags, constantly going back to sell stuff, etc. - Boots of Speed consoled in to make movement speed faster, as it's too slow, by default (unless you're using, say, a monk). - Difficulty to max. We're ready to kick ass. - The pathfinding is still pretty awful. 3-point turns are too prominent. - The keyholing is a nice feature for better visibility. - Set a key to scroll all the way out, as it will constantly tamper with view distancing. - OST is pretty darned tootin. - AI will occasionally disengage, whilst enemies swing away at you. Unlike my prior 2 runs, with Diamond, I went with a straight up thug, devoid of subtleties (Fighter/WM/Bard), and it was foolishly dominant, even on the hardest difficulty. And I didn't have to constantly worry about looking for places to rest, to get back spells/abilities. HotU is top 2-3 expansions ever made, with the likes of Lord of Destruction, Throne of Bhaal, Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep, and HL2 Ep2. Must get Enserric - love that sword! Along with the male manic psychotic voice set - hilarious. I know people complain about the Deluxe Edition, but when it's @ 90% off, it's one of the best deals in gaming. Yes, most of the premium stuff is awful, but I am looking forward to playing EOB 1 and 2 in the Aurora Engine! And you get the Diamond Edition, as well, iffen you prefer.
I have a soft spot for isometric shooters, and this scratches that itch. It has more polish than the Alien/Zombie Shooter games (though, not as much fun and over-the-top - this is more plodding), but I didn't quite enjoy it as much as the Shadowgrounds games. These are good, brainless, palate cleanser games after you've slogged through The Witness. You can manually change an INI's bUsingFPSMouseAim to aim where you roll your mouse, but I found aliens would get stuck under my feet when I was trying to swing around to aim at them. I found this mode better for exploring, but less good for combat (more important, in my opinion), but give it a shot. There are some issues... - Getting hung up on invisible objects - no fun when you're trying to run from a full, alien assault. - Not having a button to recall last used weapon, which would have been perfect for this game...quickly switching between your pistol to x would have been sweet, instead of desperately searching for x gun. - Not having an upgrade path for your pistol, that I used, by far, the most - to conserve ammo and to destroy far off and smaller enemies, as well objects...as it has unlimited ammo. I didn't use/upgrade the flamethrower, as it has no stopping power (maybe it does, upgraded?) - so I sold its ammo (when full) for other upgrades. And I took the medkit upgrade. I, basically, never used grenades - I found them to slow/cumbersome, when you most often need quick reactions to not be swarmed. There aren't that many of them in the game, anyway, unless you purchase them; thusly, no upgrades there, for me. Melee was the same deal - never used, never upgraded. The game is seriously repetitive, which you may often see in this genre; I was a lil bored by the end, so once I got the damage upgrades, I just bought up all the ammo to be able quickly buzz saw my way through the rest of the game, without plodding along, using the pistol. As 2-3 came out the same year, I'm expecting the same experience.
You can stare at a puzzle for an hour, thinking "I don't think this is solvable", and you might be right - sometimes you must view a puzzle from a different lens. You'll have to screen cap some, from another angle, to be able to switch back and forth to solve. As it's an open world, you'll run into puzzles long before getting to the tutorial area for that genre - and you might long forget its location, by the time you reach said tutorial. A map, with note-taking capabilities, would have been a welcome guest. I had to bust out Excel as my makeshift graph paper for some of the Tetris puzzles. You'll find audio clips and vignettes that seem to be divorced from the game at hand - perhaps JB using this as a vehicle to express his personal views/spiritualism, which definitely comes off as pretentious AF; you can Google interpretations on the "truth" of which they seem to speak. There are puzzles where you must guess as to where your cursor must be to start a puzzle, ones where you can't see your mouse cursor and it doesn't line up with the on-screen display as this puzzle scrolls. There is a monitor that spin out of control, as though possessed, as you're drawing a line - by this time, I pretty much had it with this game - gimmicks rather than honest, solid puzzle design. The game became more about how many ways can it confuse/misdirect you than actual strong puzzling. While not terrible, this, along with World of Goo and Fez, are my most overhyped puzzle games ever. This game made me change my golden rule of no walkthroughs to be for just excellent puzzle games - life is too short. Play Braid instead - it's much better and has a wonderful OST (The Witness has none)...though it's a lil too easy. For a somewhat similar, openish world - Antichamber is far superior - my alltime fave puzzler. There are plenty of other, better, cheaper, hard puzzle games out there: Jelly No Puzzle Hanano Puzzle 1-2 Baba is You The Portals Toki Tori 1-2 The Swapper Tetrobot and Co
At first, I was thinking - I like Ring of Pain better, but the addiction set in... Card games aren't really my thing. Or they weren't, anyway; this game changed my mind. Roguelikes are definitely my thing, however. So, I gave it a try and holy is this game addictive. Next thing I know, I'm in over 100 hours, rocking A20 runs. There graphics are pretty rudimentary, but it doesn't matter - gameplay is king. The OST, however, is excellent. There is a big learning curve if you want to get good and do A20 runs. The variety and the depth of the numerous builds is pretty staggering and daunting, but persistence is rewarded. I even started doing mods like Infinite Spire and actually came up with a new infinite on a Ironclad tank build (until you get blighted with a 15-turn max), via black cards, doing 999 damage a shot. I built a computer to conquer all the AAA games, but I find myself still spending much more time in the indie scene because they are the innovation and better gaming. This is in my top 3 favorite roguelikes. This is what gaming greatness and addictiveness looks like. I gotta stop playing it. Best run was an A20 Ironclad tank build, scoring 3,821. Can you beat it? Seed: 2L68MQA3MIXRR.
I don't think I've ever played a shooter/platformer/roguelike before, and I liked it. Items don't really change your build, like a, say, Ring of Pain or Isaac, where you make a build around an OP item. I didn't have it on my radar, but said, what the hell, I'll give it a go; this was good fun, and well worth it at 75p off. As another poster mentioned, the epilogue is a lot incongruous with the first 3 comics, and dumps your items, which is blah. The save file is just XML/text, so you can readily edit it to circumvent the grind (add levels/skill points). You can also force a blueprint item to spawn at the start of your next run via setting its status to 3. BP.Status.30 to 3. This will spawn an ice repeater at beginning of a run.
Love this series, but this game isn't without its flaws... - Mouse sensitivity. Does UE4 only expose a 1-10 option? C'mon, developers - I'm sick of games not allowing for enough mouse sensitivity. A 10 takes me 2 swipes to do a 180 - that's just friggin unacceptable. And my Windows mouse sensitivity is already high. Developer hint: Go nuts - give us a 1-100 option. Make 100 circle the Earth 7 1/2 times a second fast. - Creature sounds when there are no creatures around...especially annoying with the mouse sensitivity mentioned above. - The camera is too tight without an option to affect it at all (except for the UE4 setting that takes the camera too far out, with a fisheye lens). - No map. I know this was a conscious design choice to remove the map, and it was the wrong one. Along with the new combat (which you can revert), the developers removed the map - they are trying to be Dark Souls here. Some gamers might want to explore every nook and cranny, but if you don't give me a map where I can see where I have slash have not been, I'm not doing that. Look at the Ori games - you get an option to see everything on the map, and that enticed me 100% both games! And a map where I can flag, say, here's a purple spot - come back later. I rarely spend more than 2 weeks with a game before moving on to the next - no map means I spend less time in your game. I thought Darksiders 1 (Warmastered Edition) was the game I wanted Dark Souls 1 (remastered) to be. I wanted to give this game a 5, as I really enjoy this series, but, because of the above, I can only go 4. I did really enjoy it - and if the mouse sensitivity weren't broken, I would have given it a 5, as it is another excellent DS game.
I say pseudo-interactive in that your choices barely make any difference - maybe a lil cutscene, here and there, which the developers add in based upon x decision. It's not like a CYOA/FF book, where wildly different paths are possible. The good... - Great art style aesthetic. - Story. - Excellent voice work. I don't really care for these TTG (RIP, sorta) P-I stories. I played Tales From the Borderlands, and this one was a lil better. It's missing the "game" part of a game - gameplay is king, in my books; a story is a nice-to-have. There is no way to actually lose - except for a QTE, which you can quickly restart. No challenge. I "played" it to pass the time, during the Olympics, when all that was being broadcasted was figure skating. So, TWUU filled that gap, in that it's easy to pick up, and put back down at a moment's notice. Just mute the pretentious commentary, and wait for an actual sport to come on... ...expresses the rest of the review via interpretive dance... Choice is a facade in this game - I made all the worst/horrible choices, and it didn't affect nigh anything. I'd rather play a CYOA/FF book. Where gameplay is king, this is a pawn. 2 stars for the goodly mentioned above.
I only played DS3, in this mix, as I've already played 1-2, including their respective DLC. A few gripes... - I wish there were a bigger picture map, even though the game is pretty linear. I found myself following the quest pointer, all the time, without getting a greater appreciation for the entirety of the environment. - The initial keybinds are no good. Change left/right camera shift to movement, and assign a key to camera movement (CTRL for me). It was a mess, having up/down move you such, and left/right spinning the camera. - Katarina, who I selected, has a pet that doesn't follow you. You have to summon when monsters are upon you, or it will wander away, and do nothing. - The game wears thin at the end, given how long it is. - I find Obsidian storytelling to be quite boring. - No AI options for companions. Stop using a 2-handed weapon, Lucas, when I didn't give you any 2-handed skills! You're a tank, dummy! I did really enjoy this game. I'd think about a 5/5, but this package, as a whole, is missing 2 DLCs, so I can only give it a 4.
This game is harsh out of the box. I upped DOSBOX cycles to 10,000 in conf, to speed through the crap. I played the PC, CGA: the only keys you need are arrows, and enter. Took Cedric for his leadership, as I don't bother with jousting or raids. I use an aggressive strategy of grabbing all open territories I can, then purchase a catapult and rest soldiers. Ask for Robin's help, and go after a Norman (red) castle to capture all their territories. Since I started at the top of the map, I went after the one on the east, and then after Saxons (blue), as they will eventually attack your home castle (if you lose that, you lose, even if you have other castles). The siege is *bleeped* at any sort of fast CPU cycle count. Use CTRL+F11 to slow the DOSBOX cycles down to 30-. Select boulder, and press enter to start the catapult. Let it pip down 15 times, and press enter. The lag should mean the catapult actually pips down one more, to 16, and then launches, to take out the top of the wall. After launch, CTRL+F12 to speed it back up, hit, and then slow it back down again for next. Then, do same with disease, as it's most effective early, and you need a hole to do it, so this is as early as it gets. Then, 4 more boulders, as I think you can only knock out 5 walls anyway. So, same as above, except 13 (launch on 14), 11, 9, 7. Boulders decrement the castle's defensive property, for when you get in to attack. The disease kills off men. Since I use Cedric, I use "outflank", which leadership is suppose to benefit. Later, with knights, and overwhelming forces, I use ferocious. Tip: Don't amass too much gold, or you will get raided and lose half. There should be a lil GOG reference stating, for the PC version, you only use 4 arrow keys and enter. And note the intros are unskippable, so wait - it is actually loading. And, for siege/raid/joust, you have to slow down the cycles. Bewm, 3-4/5.
