This is a childhood favorite and it holds up beautifully. I play this in 1024x768 in a 4:3 box with lots of antialiasing and it looks fantastic. It's crazy how cinematic this still is. The missions are designed very carefully and success often comes down to tactical positioning more than anything else (although knowing what comes next is also a big one). The story is great and introduces a small number of memorable characters. Worldbuilding, especially considering the limited production scope at the time, is exceptional. Music, sound effects, voice acting and unit designs are all excellent. It's a unique game that executes on its ideas with confidence and for my money it captivates from start to finish. But let's talk about Dark Conspiracy. The one thing this expansion has going for it is its narrative. It's hard to resist wanting to know how things unfold. Despite DC being even more limited in terms of production design than GC, what is there works and is quite intriguing. The gameplay however... Oh boy. It suffers badly from lack of polish and it's painfully obvious to me that the whole thing was rushed. The Phoenix units are excruciatingly slow (and they also look rather questionable but okay) and the maps which were so critical to what made GC tick are a lot less engaging this time. Units will get stuck on hills. You will traverse endless distances. Phoenix hates pathing. The missions are often a headache. There is stealth now which for me is an unwelcome addition. The game will also do dirty tricks such as landing dropships in the middle of your troops depending on your position. There are nasty mission triggers like your units accidentally destroying critical buildings, or the game hiding marine squads that will destroy crucial units. Also you'll be hunting for crates and escorting units. You have to REALLY want to see how the story plays out to endure this expansion. DC does have heart and charm, but that may not be enough for you to deal with it all.
I mean just look at those screenshots. That's some chunky and serious looking stuff. Big bold colors, awesome creatures, some proper sci-fi right there. It just invites you to play it. How could it not be fun? I'm clicking buy! Hold up. Don't. When you actually play the game you never experience anything that resembles those screenshots. The game is way too dark, the monsters are nondescript and the combat feels poor. That's really all you need to know about a first person shooter, so what else is there to say. Don't buy Quake 4 and don't play it. Buy the Quake 2 remaster instead and after you're done with the campaign play Call of the Machine.
I just finished a playthrough of this remaster's main campaign and it's incredible. I played at 1440p with my 6650XT and I love how everything just works. No need to fool around with ini files or external downloads anymore, no more interface scaling problems or bad FoVs. Ofcourse the game looks better than ever, particularly the lighting pops more and the textures are higher res. I would recommend turning off the bloom lighting since it will remind you a little too much perhaps of games from the mid 00's (it's a bit tacky). Apart from that though the visuals are a huge hit and the game ran like a train on my modest video card. But above all I appreciate the gameplay changes. Some monsters are more reactive than they used to be and in later parts there are also more spawns. I was skeptical about the nerf to the railgun, but now having actually played the game I have to admit it's for the better. It does make other weapons like the rocket launcher (which seems to have a higher rate of fire now) and grenade launcher more purposeful. I would say that this careful re-balancing applies more broadly: the game is more dangerous and in terms of feel more reminiscent of Quake 1. There was even a section in the Lower Palace where I was forced to use the BFG and Invulnerability because I was simply overwhelmed. That never happened in the original. The game feels tuned sharper than it used to, I always felt like Quake 2 had a bit of a bland, complacent feel to it and this remaster alleviates some of that without adding garbage nobody asked for. Well done! I think I'll give Call of the Machine a shot now.
When I first heard of KC:D, I was led to believe that it was this really in-depth medieval simulator. Now having actually played it, I wouldn't say that it is. In my opinion this game plays very similarly to other modern RPGs, it just adds its own unique things in certain places (most notably the combat system). This game will probably start feeling very familiar to you as you get more into it. I think Warhorse stuck with what works, while still making their game feel different enough to have something fresh to offer. As such they did a great job creating a beautiful, likable medieval setting that in itself is something you probably haven't experienced in many other games. My biggest criticism however is that the game's narrative loses steam too early. By the midway point I felt that Henry's personal grievances had mostly been resolved, and the game offered no other story element or quests that really kept my interest. The greatest missed opportunity is in my opinion the lackluster development of your relationship with Radzig, which desperately needed a stronger and more engaging arc. That said though, this is undeniably a well made game. And while like I said I don't think it's quite true to its reputation, maybe that's a good thing.
The most deceptive thing that we see often in cashgrab projects is that the quality of the game gets worse as you keep playing. No, it's not you or your character that's the issue. Torchlight 2's Act 1 is great. There are lots of dungeons and side quests, the loot keeps improving and your character progresses. There are boss fights with accompanying music and staging; it's all there. But then Act 2 happens. And everything is now much worse. You roam around the barren desert endlessly, crossing big empty spaces looking for juicy progress. Instead you eat dust. Not nearly as much to do, not a lot of monster variety. Your skills always seem to be behind the curve, because the level ups have dropped off a cliff. Act 3 is where quality in fact becomes subpar. The lack of care, the "we didn't have time or money for this" is painfully obvious. Act 4's concept is copied over entirely from the final parts of TL1. "We'll just do the hell thing". Monsters are extremely bulletspongy by this point. Most builds don't have the scaling to keep up. Your character feels like a failed experiment. This is where fun goes to die. A game that gets worse as you play more leaves you with no satisfaction. You get hooked by the first act, play more, you get rewarded, but as you bask in your excitement, you notice a change in the air. The boulder has started rolling the opposite direction. Reality hits you. You have better things to do and you quit. Maybe a year or two later you pick the game back up, start in Act 1 and you wonder "This is so cool, can't believe I didn't play more of this". Then you see the pattern. The game isn't finished. It's not balanced. The loot didn't get the attention it needed. Builds and skills don't have enough thought behind them. Your pet sucks. Fishing sucks. Torchlight 2 was idealized to be the creative success Diablo 3 wasn't. The little indie project that stayed true to its roots. The sad truth is that TL2 was no better.
There's a lot of good things to say about Dying Light, but gameplay as always is most important. The problem I have is that DL becomes too easy too quickly, and the survival aspect gets lost. It's all really fun when you start out; there's lots of cool abilities to look forward to and you're hungry for every upgrade and plan you can find. You feel like a badass trooper, moving from rooftop to rooftop to tactically choose your engagements in order to get ahead in the game. However, after a few hours of playing you already become so incredibly strong that the game becomes trivial. The encounters get so easy that they're a minor annoyance at best, and the game never throws any interesting challenges at you in the form of boss fights or things like that. You can go to some of the DLC areas and they're interesting for a bit but the game doesn't introduce them to you very well and you don't feel any urgency. They're also not needed for any purpose in the game at all. Everything else about Dying Light I find quite good. Even in 2023 the game still looks incredible, especially at higher resolutions. The sound is good, the melee weapons look really great. The parkour feels good, so does the combat. The zombies are done very well. The plot is kinda silly but it has its moments. It's a well made game and unlike a lot of modern games there's fun in the game's DNA for sure, but sadly it runs out of steam much too early. I'd rate Dying Light 3.5/5, but I decided to round upwards because of my appreciation for a lot of the things this game does well.
I tried to play this game multiple times and just couldn't do it. I then tried to watch a playthrough on youtube and after less than an hour I STILL can't do it. The characters are so horrendous, not a thing they say is interesting or smart or funny. Nothing. Not a relationship felt, not one genuine interaction. It's vapid. Artyom! You are a fool for thinking people live outside the metro! You are so bad! Oh people live outside the metro! Derp! The gameplay is just terrible. Running around like a clown going pew pew with your silly machine guns against AI that just stands there and takes it. How is it that it's now 25 years into the future and we can't beat Unreal and Half-Life. Are you really telling me we can't top an alien dodging a rocket? Why are the maps so bad. Another swamp, a wintry landscape with square white textures that are "snow". Why did we give up the metro setting for this? These games have nothing about them that makes them interesting. Cutscene, cutscene, poorly edited talking, generic gunplay, running around the swamp like an idiot. Undercooked systems like crafting and stealth. None of it is committal. No atmosphere, no music; let's ditch the setting that made the first two games good and pad the heck out of the whole thing with dumb cutscenes with boring characters. And then I see all the reviews... "Masterpiece!" Are you kidding me man. This dime-a-dozen piece of shooter is a masterpiece? It's all the graphics. That's the only reason this game gets the love it does. It's 'cause people don't wanna think, they wanna sit there while the dumb npcs go off talking about something nobody cares about and the player goes "well these graphics are the best I've seen yet! This is great!". While not caring at all about everything else that's actually awful, you know the stuff that's supposed to be where the substance is at? Nobody cares. Just get your raytracing garbage, and play your dumb game. Sad to see where gaming has gone in the last decade.
First off, F.E.A.R has a weird bug that will crush your FPS. Here's the fix for that https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/789-directinput-fps-fix. I love this game. I am not afraid to call out shooters like Half-Life and Return to Castle Wolfenstein for actually not really being all that great. I will admit Half-Life's intro sequence is iconic, it actually is amazing and I was around in 1999 to bear witness to it. But what else? What does it really have to offer? Some of the levels are terrible (Zen, On Rails) and the combat is weak. The weapons lack impact, the monsters are dull and there's lots of cheap deaths. In my RTCW review I pointed out how lackluster the game feels and how annoying the endless hitscanners are. I don't consider these games great shooters. With any game, I always ask myself, what is great about it. What is that thing it does that sets it apart from the rest - a distinct reason to play THAT game. Some games have more than one of such a thing. Fear is one those games. First off it's a game that was clearly playtested to death. The encounter design, the complexity of the levels, the placement of equipment; it's all high quality and intuitive. The graphics are just stunning. This game needs to be played on a monitor with deep blacks and high contrast for the right experience. Massive black shadows, tasteful color palettes and subtle lighting make up the levels. It has aged so well. The combat is a delight. The tools you have combined with the clever map layouts and stealth makes it possible to get the drop on enemies. Slow Mo gives you a fighting chance when you need to break out. What I'm saying is the combat feels fair. You don't need to rely on quicksaves if you play smart. The weapons are highly satisfying, especially the shotgun. The gunplay looks and feels awesome. It's unique and exciting. I advise to adopt a "check point only" style of play, to prevent save scumming. Trust me, it really brings out the thrills in this game.
