Walking Dead Saint and Sinners on VR.
10/10 so far.
Yes I know im late. I just got my first VR ever (Quest 3). Very fun, and, veeeery, scary! I sweat like hell when its dark and I have no idea where they are.![]()
Walking Dead Saint and Sinners on VR.
10/10 so far.
Yes I know im late. I just got my first VR ever (Quest 3). Very fun, and, veeeery, scary! I sweat like hell when its dark and I have no idea where they are.![]()
Against the Storm /w Keepers of the Stone DLC
7/10
Pretty fun roguelite city builder type of game. You pick a location to settle on a hex map and then play a game with a variety of conditions and features based on the biome of the hex you selected, along with any neighboring features (old battlefield, abandoned ruins, etc.) Fill up the blue reputation bar by keeping your people happy or filling semi-random orders from the crown before the red impatience bar fills up and you win! If the impatience bar fills up or everyone leaves or dies, you lose. And then you go back to the world map, pick another hex (with where you can pick being based on how far it is from your most recent successful settlement), and do it again. Your objective is to have your final settlement within spitting distance of one of the Seals sprinkled around the map, which then enables you to make one final game where you attempt to renew the seal located somewhere within the game map and imposes significant additional challenges - or you can attempt this (and end the entire cycle) at any time so long as you are in range of a seal. You get XP and loot from each successful settlement and spend these back at home base to unlock permanent improvements and features for future settlements, which is where the "lite" part of roguelite enters the scene.
I had about 30ish hours of fun with the game, which was well worth the $12 asking price Humble Bundle had for it. I was expecting it to last longer for me, being a fan of both roguelites and city builders, but I found that the game has a lot of issues with difficulty scaling. I reached Prestige 1 (which is the first difficulty above the base 4, and the first of 20 total Prestige ranks) and just found that managing the game became increasingly more of an annoyance than engaging.
The primary way that the game drives your villagers away (aside from things like starvation or random events killing them) is through a stat called Hostility. The forest hates your presence and the more active you are, and the more villagers there are, the higher hostility gets. Hostility dings a stat that each villager has called Resolve, and once total Resolve for a given species (of which you have 3 in a given game, out of a pool of 6 total) hits a certain point, it starts a countdown until the least-happy member of that species leaves. If a villager leaves or dies, the impatience tracker gets a small but substantial boost. So that's usually how losing works - people keep leaving or dying and it maxes out impatience (which increases at a slow but steady pace at all times.) But that takes quite a long time, even when things are very difficult. At the same time, reaching max Reputation to secure the win *also* takes a long time, and it gets longer when Prestige 1 increases the amount of Reputation needed to win.
So what happens is you have games on the lower end of difficulty that take maybe 45 minutes or so, and it quickly spirals into 90-120 minute games and it gets longer as more and more gimmicks are introduced to make it harder to keep your people happy (which is the primary source of Reputation, particularly at higher Prestige ranks.)
I never lost a single game. I don't know how high in Prestige I would need to go before I would lose one. But it got to the point that managing things was just... not very fun. And then the game crashed (I averaged about one crash every ~4 hour session), noticed it was about time to go to bed anyway, and I just never felt like logging back in. I asked some of the uber elite players on the community discord server if I was missing anything, if there were any elite strats I could use to speed things along or if I would unlock, but they all confirmed that I was already doing most of what could be done to speed things up and that I was at a level where there weren't any other major, fundamental changes or upgrades in the future. So I put the game on the shelf. I don't expect I'll return to it, as what I want from the game is unlikely to be what the devs have pictured for it.
Still, I had a lot of fun in those ~30 hours and I would definitely recommend this game for fans of city builders.
Horizon: Forbidden West - 8/10
That was a tricky one to evaluate. On the one hand I found that the combat was a bit less methodical than the first one, albeit things clicked back into a fun place once you get some of the mid-late game tools and face the most dangerous machines. The tribes and characters you meet are more interesting than in the first game, but the overall story suffers from some poorly thought out beats that take the whole "woman with bow fights robot dinosaurs" and still run too far with it. The map is massive and absolutely gorgeous in ways few games are, but there's a few too many meandering or collect-a-thon sidequests and stuff like the ridiculous upgrade material requirements made me ignore the mechanic after a point.
Ultimately a solid 8 feels like a good spot. I think I liked Zero Dawn a bit more since the mystery of what happened was so compelling to unravel, but the sequel does a lot of things better than it. It's just kind of a shame that the main story ups the scope and stake so much that I feel it jumped the shark a bit. Not enough to ruin the experience at all but enough to hinder it somewhat.
Also, Sylens is by far the best character in those games and I hope they can find someone to properly replace Lance Reddick for the third game. Aloy would be a much more annoying character if he wasn't there to serve as an effective foil to her.
It is all that is left unsaid upon which tragedies are built -Kreia
The internet: where to every action is opposed an unequal overreaction.
Deus Ex GOTY edition: 10/10
I don't remember ever finishing it as a little kid, so I got it for like a euro, which is a steal.
This game is lighthing in a bottle. Everything that could go right, went right. Games started becoming more serious at the time of its release, focusing more on well written stories and characters. Deus Ex smahes through triumphantly at the peak of that Zeitgeist.
The writing is something truly special. Normally when a writer (or a team of them) becomes too ambitious, the end product is generally garbage. This is just high octane AMAZEMENT for dozens and dozens of hours. Even the goddamn random HOBOS on the streets of Deus Ex have extremely interesting dialogue/monologue. The story is an absolute conspiracy nut's heaven. It is so good it's downright 100% believable, and it seems people hail this game today as prophetic. Deus Ex enters the holy trifecta of top tier-written videogames, together with Planescape Torment and Disco Elysium (at least for me).
The game is an immersive RPG/sim in a first person perspective. This means that every single thing can be done in every single way imaginable. Every single level contains over a dozen ways to be progressed. Stealth, pacifist, computer hacking, or shooting your bazooka at everything that moves? If you can think it, you can do it. Infinite replayability. It's also really funny to me, you have these super serious dialogues about planet-wide conspiracies with random characters, and the next thing you know you are in their room stealing their underwear or fucking around with their water dispenser.
The graphics are low poly 3D, which most people think of Minecraft, but Deus Ex actually looks decent on 4k. The sound is also something else, they absolutely nailed that futurist vibe with the weird techno soundtrack.
Of course, some mechanics like shooting and moving around and ESPECIALLY climbing down ladders are a janky mess, but that's just the age of the game showing. This game is like driving a Lamborghini over a speedbump: it's clunky and you pray to god it works afterwards. It was a design choice to make shooting more accurate with proper mods, but it's just really clunky without, and one of the biggest things I hate about this game.
Nevertheless, this game is an absolute unparelled narrative masterpiece and one of the rare works of art that will stand the test of time.
Last edited by hellhamster; 2025-01-21 at 12:11 AM.
One of the games I've played through multiple times even when I had actual new games waiting for me. I kept finding new things with each play through. Especially one sticks to mind: I didn't realize you could save Paul until my fourth playthrough. I guess on my first one I just failed to protect him and took it that his fate was inevitable, until on the fourth run I accidentally succeeded.
The sequel, Invisible War, pales in comparison, but I don't think it's a bad game. It entertained me well-enough for one playthrough.
Now you see it. Now you don't.
But was where Dalaran?
Man, I had completely forgot about Invisible War. Then I googled it and it was like unlocking a core memory. I don't know why but I played the shit out of that game in my late teens, and remembered liking it more than the OG. Then I promptly forgot the game existed until this very moment
Moral of the story: Young me had shit taste in video games
Manor Lord 0/10 cos I suck at it lol...
No seriously its an amazing game. I cannot wait for more updates. Not sure what I would rate it yet cos its unfished, but its so repayable. Finally moved onto the more harder modes of the game and it is soul destroying me lol
I love Warcraft, I dislike WoW
Unsubbed since January 2021, now a Warcraft fan from a distance
Gave up on Hogwarts Legacy. Apparently I'm halfway through the MQ. The open world is too large, probably that way just as a reason to allow you to fly. The menus feel clunky and annoying (playing on Xbox). I don't care about the challenges. The story is OK. Gearing/loot sucks. Hogwarts is impressive, but I don't enjoy navigating it. So glad I got it cheap, I'd be mad if I paid full price for it.
It is all that is left unsaid upon which tragedies are built -Kreia
The internet: where to every action is opposed an unequal overreaction.
Half Sword [Play Test] 9/10 (Loses a point for jank/bugs)
Pretty sure I posted about this one already, but I took a break and started playing again last week. I was getting pretty good at mastering the controls, but after taking a break and coming back with a fresh mind, I have taken things to the next level and am having so much fun again.
As a person who practiced/studied German Longsword for a short bit, this game allows me to implement what I know into the game in a way no other has before.
Most people pick up the game, swing the sword left to right rapidly like an animal and take their wins that way. I tend to play like a practiced fencer. Taking forms and stances, moving from defense through a strike back to a defense. And generally playing in a more realistic way.
Early Access should hit Steam Q4 of this year. From a recent interview with the Dev team there is so much in store for the actual game outside of this play test. I am very excited.
To learn how to play the game the way I like, I followed this gentlemans guides. Here is a final word from him about the lessons he provides and what the game offers you in a way of a platform to experiment and evolve.
RIP Genn Greymane, Permabanned on 8.22.18
Your name will carry on through generations, and will never be forgotten.
atlas fallen: 5/10
a lower budget open world action/rpg, or "jiminy cockthroat" as yahtzee called it - it's... fine. bland. the rougher edges of the game play loop in this genre pokes through a bit more in a game which is so clearly on a lower budget, and unfortunately the studio didn't do anything interesting or cool with the story or how it unfolds to compensate for the lack of innovation in any other aspect of the game.
i can neither criticize nor praise really anything about this game, it's a serviceable couple of hours spent mindlessly dicking around if you like the genre, and it's free on PS+ right now.
diablo iv: 3/10
without the diablo franchise pastiche and the one thing that blizzard is still consistently good at (making games that aren't eyesores to look at within their current generation) this is a big old wad of fail on every level.
the story is ass and it didn't have to be, turning diablo into a jiminy cockthroat for the campaign was an incredibly bad idea that really REALLY doesn't work in this game setting (oh, sorry, is lilith about to absorb the powers of a prime evil and destroy the world? sorry, i gotta go fetch 9 boiled worm rectums for this old woman i met in a peat bog), and the game is shockingly riddled with bugs.
there's not a single positive thing i can think of to say about this game other than some of the voice acting (which of course has nothing to do with blizzard anyways), but of course i've only just completed the main campaign and have just started the expansion, and so i'm sure in the next 200 hours i play this damn thing in all the post-game fuck-around content my opinion will blur into a slightly smeary haze of arm cramps and tired eyes.
Invisible War, Human Revolution, and Mankind Divided are all solid games but they just can't match up to the original. I think all of the core Deus Ex games (I think there were some shitty mobile games or something too?) are worth a play, but none will match the original. JC Denton is just too fucking perfect for the game and the sheer breadth of lines they recorded for him is astounding.
Grand Theft Auto IV: 10/10
I never actually finished it because it was running like ass on my previous computer. The PC port is hilariously bad and you basically need a mod or 3 to run it.
Anyway, this game is fucking bleak. It has a very depressive story and a very sad protagonist, which makes it automatically the most soulful GTA game. The grey palette and slower gameplay are also a step away from the norm.
The missions and gameplay are not that far off from the previous entries, but shooting and driving feel slower and more methodical.
From a storyline perspective, it is the strongest GTA by far, but the gameplay is much more realistic and slower that may turn people away, especially coming from GTA 5.
I had to stop playing the gay Tony one because the helicopter controls on keyboard and mouse are so bad i couldn't finish one of the first missions where you have to shoot down some boats that are attacking a yacht. So i`d not recommend that if you are not comfortable with the heli controls.
Slay the Princess The Pristine Cut 8/10
Honestly a fun little story made me cry at points made me laugh had a good bit of morbid curiousity that got me a lot of endings before resorting to a guide to fill in the holes and quite honestly was the most amount of fun I had with a visual novel since Phoenix Wright. Points off cause I feel 8/10 is great for someone who's into these types of games but if you aren't this isnt going to change your mind
Balatro: I might have a problem/10
This has turned into my new just because time waster game. I will give the game credit because I am actively resisting buying it on my phone because I know if I do my ass is going to get fired or killed
3 Major Rules of World of Warcraft Players:
1. No one on earth wants to play World of Warcraft less than other World of Warcraft players.
2. The desire to win>The desire for anything else in World of Warcraft. NO EXCEPTIONS
3. Efficiency will be king no matter how you think it will improve the game.