As much as I had anticipated a sequel to the original trilogy, I was cautious about buying this game. Then I saw the patch for 1.1 and read what people were saying about the patch. It was convincing enough at that point. I have a 2080 Super, Ryzen 7 3700X, and 16GB of DDR4 RAM for any hardware context. The game has had some technical issues but nothing like I had heard about before. It failed to compile shaders on launch which 1.1.1 or 1.1.2 allowed you to skip if that happened but hasn't happened again. Sometimes while going to an area I wasn't in previously causes massive framerate loss but otherwise it's been stable enough to not be bothersome. It's crashed mid-game once on me, it crashed once or twice before getting into the game. A-Life 2.0 probably still needs updating but enemies don't just spawn in on me for every encounter. I have heard fights in the distance so it seems like it's working on some level. AI having consistently great accuracy despite having beat-up Viper5 SMGs has been my biggest annoyance and caused me to lower the difficulty from whatever the hardest was to the medium one. I'm about 20 hours into the game, doing a bunch of looting and side jobs. I've been to 4 major areas and fully explored about 3 of them as of this review. I enjoy this game a lot and unless the game design gets worse or they stop updating it right now, I don't see how it won't continue to be as fun as it has been. The AI should be challenging but on the hardest difficulty they are far too accurate and perceptive of you and it feels like a chore. As long as the fixes keep coming though, I imagine I'll be playing this for a long time. The cinematic animations and conversations don't feel like they are taking away from your agency to play this like a Stalker looking for loot. They happen for specific interactions and quest moments (usually the main story ones). Will update further if I find qualms with the design but so far, so good for me.
Disclaimer: I own this twice on other platforms not GOG. Simple to learn, play, and find success in runs but challenging to fully learn and master. As you master skills of deckbuilding and choices, the Ascension system will help push your limit and learn further. Every time you beat the game, you unlock the choice to start a run on the next Ascension level. You can always choose to go back and play the normal game or any lower level Ascensions so if you don't find the system fun or are struggling and just want to relax, you can just crank the difficulty back down. While there are obvious relic & card combinations that encourage synergy, the most successful way to play is to be adaptive to the holes in your gameplan and patch those up as best as possible. So forcing an archetypal deck can be detrimental once you start cranking up the Ascension numbers.
While an early access title, the devs listen to feedback, have a roadmap of updates throughout the next year already planned. A turn based game that features extraction based mechanics set in a demonic scifi apocalypse in our solar system. Pretty awesome. Game can feel absolutely easy if you are a patient player who doesn't rush into every fight and plays on the backfoot slightly (don't get too defensive of course). Most of my deaths are from being impatient, overconfident, or insanely bad luck. Which I'm 100% fine with all of those. Extraction games need the threat of losing your gear to have any meaningful drama in them. If you always extract, you will be too far ahead even if you're making horrible decisions in strategies. The future updates planned seem great and I hope they are as good as the game already is. One of my favorite new games in the past few years.
Lots of surprises, well made and interesting ones too. Endless mode does exist on the GOG version that adds more replayability and optional challenges to work on and unlock. Gameplay itself will not feel insanely innovative but its not bland and copying other card games either. It definitely has its own style game wise and the visuals reinforce a lot of it well. Highly recommend if you like games that have stories with mysteries, card games with good play and challenges, and a darker visual tone albeit with humor and goofy tones at times.
Shadow of Chernobyl is a very unique experience. It's a shooter that will scare you and keep you thinking. You can only carry so much, weapons degrade, you can get hungry and thirsty, you can make allies or enemies. If a shooter game ever wanted to feel like an RPG without actually being one, this game does it well. The world feels awesome. There is so much going on that you can replay this game numerous times and each time you will probably have a new experience in places you would not have thought that the AI almost kinda lives. Taking a new spin on Roadside Picnic and Stalker and making it a very entertaining video game, this is a game I'd highly recommend. The mod community for this game still lives today. The fans love it and if you play it you can see why. There are two major branches for the main story and both have more than one ending (one has two endings and the other has about six or seven I believe). This game is a spectacular game for fans of survival and/or shooters. 9/10
My third favorite game in the series. I'd give it a 4.5 on here if I could. The game takes what works in Fallout 1 and makes it a bit easier to play and gives you a lot more content to explore. The game isn't much different from how Fallout 1 plays besides a companion interface, a way to make companions move out of your way, and a bit better inventory. I'd suggest this game to anyone who played Fallout 1 and wants some more good old cRPG Fallout. If you really like cRPGs, I'd say you should heavily consider playing this game as it is a solid follow up to a legendary RPG.
I have two Fallouts I hold in high regards. The other one, is my personal favorite but I'd say the first game stands out above the rest. Many people will say Fallout 2 is superior and it is only in a few ways. Fallout 2 does improve on some UI and companion options and has a lot more content but it misses some of the original's feeling, designs, and ideas. Fallout feels absolutely eerie and mysterious. The combat is alright at best but the death animations really help spice it up. The world leads you through wonderfully and you'll visit very interesting places. The amount of options and ways to do things in this game are awesome and most of the time satisfying. The time limit for the first major quest is really not that bad as long as you're not just running around on the world map pointlessly for a long time. Fallout 1 is a classic and in my opinion, should be played by every person who loves cRPGs at least once. Oddly, the goodies that used to be given with this game are not longer present if you buy the game now but you can find all of the old goodies somewhere else. Hopefully GOG can get the goodies back anyway for convenience.
Shadowrun Returns is an okay RPG. It's very linear with no narrative/story choices that I can recall. I've heard great things about the games that followed this one and if they really do improve upon this one, they're going to be great. It's not super long either, took me about 12.5 hours. If you have it, or get it cheap now, it's definitely fun to play through once.
