Recent reviews by Ardgathen

Excellent game, badly balanced late game.

I've loved playing Elden Ring, but going into it having played all of the souls games on console and PC, I'm unfortunately a bit biased and stuck in the old ways of expecting it to be like x previous game I've played from FROM SOFTWARE.

As a standalone game it's an amazing adventure and really is great fun to explore, the combat and balance in the first 1/3 of the game is extremely fairly balanced, and whilst bosses like Godrick and Margit gave me trouble as hell, I didn't find them unfair, just a learning curve to get used to the changes from previous FROM games.

However...the next 2/3s of the game were a 50/50 of either way too easy bosses, or stupidly hard that it isn't fair anymore. There's a great post on the Elden Ring subreddit from today - 31/03/22 - that did an analysis of the protection armour actually gives you, and its a joke. Full heavy armour grants you an extra hit over light to no armour. Having on the stat buffing talismans that give you bonuses but make you take more damage barely affect you, yet the first thing many people will tell you if you complain about the balance is that "you have the soreseals on, what do you expect?".

Bossfights like Malenia and the Elden Beast are barely filled with any learning about what there attacks are, and I personally counted 4 separate 1-hit kill moves from Malenia alone. There's so many bosses in the game that just aren't fun to play against whatsoever, and they devolve down to blind luck. Strength builds are basically ruined due to large nerfs to the damage of greatswords and colossal greatswords. The majority of shields are quite terrible in the end game unless you know which ones to use along with which talismans to equip, which is a huge shame as the guard counter system is such a great new addition...that becomes terrible for you to use in the end game, but great for the AI.

And the regular AI enemies...they're the single most aggressive AI I've ever encountered in a game - which is great!/awful - whilst they're challenging to fight due to their high level of aggression that makes them feel more realistic, they're almost hyper aggressive. Some enemies and side bosses are so aggressive to the point that you sometimes don't really have any opportunities to do anything...which makes builds like greatswords that are slow wind up attacks nearly useless for some players.

I've played every dark souls game as a Strength build first with big swords - I love the Zweihander, what can I say, it just pancakes people - and yes Elden Ring is NOT SOULS, but it really essentially is if you boil it down. I couldn't do it. I gave up. I tried again after finishing the game to give them another chance and its just suffering. Call me bad all you like, I'll fully admit that while I think I'm alright at the game, in most likelihoods I'm probably terrible. I joined the bandwagon of Moonveil (after it had been patched I should add) and a regular katana. It didn't even make the game easier, it just made it slightly fairer. I've loved using the katana's in the previous games on a repeat playthrough just to mix it up a bit, but I can't see myself wanting to switch weapons for if I do another playthrough of this game, I don't think I would be able to manage it.

For all it's faults though, I love it. Absolutely adore it. It took me 65 hours to reach one of the endings, and I don't regret any of it - apart from all the time I probably should of been writing my dissertation instead of procrastinating it by playing this...meh, time well wasted.

I'm still doing areas I missed, I'm still fighting bosses I somehow walked past, I'm still finding cool stuff that was hidden and I can't wait for the expansions to come out so I can play even more. Whilst it's not perfect - and by no means a 10/10 - it's a solid 9/10 for me. The problems I have with it haven't been bad enough to make me stop playing, and I know it probably reads like nothing but critique, but for me the problems I have feel more like bad design choices that need to be fixed - I managed to adapt and leave old playstyles in the past due to their lack of viability in this game, but I know many players won't and haven't.

I can no longer with good confidence recommend people to play this game.

This was one of my absolute favourite games to play with friends, but since Team17 acquired it, they have put it on a firm downward slope. It's obvious that they don't care about all the time and effort that was put in to making the game by the previous developers, and only see $$$ when they analyse the game. The recent update with the british forces, on top of the trailer released 11/06/23 just show how little they truly care. Both are clearly horribly unfinished, and it just shows they are trying to push content out the door no matter what.

Don't buy this game, go buy Post Scriptum, or Red Orchestra 2. There you'll actually find a good game.

I've been playing Gears of War since the original launched on the 360 back in 2006, and have played every main title since. I only got Gears 5 christmas 2020 and have thoroughly enjoyed everything I've played. Campaign has been decent of what I've done so far, and the multiplayer is great fun solo queue and with friends. The Escape mode has gotten a lot of flak since release for being a bit samey with its maps but I personally really enjoy the mode. I'd thoroughly recommend Gears 5 to old fans and new players alike, the multiplayer may seem daunting at first but once you get the hang of using the Gnasher 24/7 it's great fun when you start popping off and top scoring in lobbies. My only complaint would be the challenge system, the versus challenges you usually get screwed over often as you'll find you're in the same lobby as other people with the same challenge as you, meaning it's a constant battle of you standing on top of grenade and sniper spawns just so you can do your challenges. This isn't the Coalition's fault, more a fault of the players since everyone wants to do their challenge first time and not have to wait.

Get Gears 5, it's great fun - the cosmetics may be a bit annoying but it takes zero time to earn gold to buy the characters. I've also only logged 37 hours at the time of this review, and I've nearly Re-Upped twice (the equivalent of a prestige system), gotten a horde/escape class to level 15 (5 off the max) and am 3/4 of the way through the equivalent of a battle pass. Levelling and doing challenges is not a problem once you get used to doing them, and the content comes easily to you.

Cash Banooca is good stuff

I've only played a few games of World War 3 so far but in terms of gameplay alone, I have nothing but high praises for it. I like others have been plagued by connection issues but once I've gotten into a game I've had the most fun of any game I've played this year. The gun play is satisfying, the depth of customisation is amazing and the strikes (killstreaks) are satisfying to use.

The developers seem to be extremely on the ball on fixing these connection issues, and do seem geniunely sorry for the issues. I look forward to seeing how the devs develop the game in future, and hope to be a part of the community that grows around the game.

I'm starting to think that we as consumers have gotten impossible to please.

Everytime a new release comes out in the last couple years, immediately we all hit the store page and find page upon page of mixed reviews, and in many cases these are deserved - the gaming culture has changed to one of loot box galore and tacked on microtransactions - as releases are rushed and games are plagued with buggy launches.

This game is by no means perfect, but I don't believe it's outright garbage like every other review would lead you to believe. Every review is slating the game practically as we all want everything to be perfect now with no bugs or flaws. I'm not trying to make excuses, I know some have had horrendous issues even trying to start the game, and for those people I do feel sorry for as they've spent their hard earned money, only to be bitterly dissapointed that they can't play the game they've spent £45 on because the game has trouble with certain setups.

Now onto the game itself:

The campaign is enjoyable and reminds me a lot of the older Medal of Honor games due to the soundtrack. Yes there's innacuracies and some weapon sounds are dissapointing, but it is still a good bit of fun. Not sure how long it is as I've only played 3 odd hours of it, but I know I've been enjoying it.

The multiplayer is also very enjoyable, much like Black Ops 2's multiplayer back at release. Great fun if you're prepared to be laden with those who seem incapable of playing objectives. Currently there are issues with the servers going down but I'm hopeful these will be fixed in due course. There is quite a reliance on sniper rifles now unfortunately, some of the maps in the war gamemode are just not balanced for sub-machine guns or shotguns as they are based on long sightlines but in other modes every weapon is perfectly viable.

So far the game has run perfectly for me with a 3.0 GHz i5 and a GTX 970 with 8gb of DDR3 RAM. Not had a single issue performance wise, nor even a single crash. The only issue I've encountered is my FOV keeps resetting and if I equip a heroic weapon then the loadout resets after every game.

In essence, buy this game if you want. I enjoy it, and I've had a great amount of fun with it just over the weekend after release alone. This may be down to me having had no issues, and being a general sucker for WW2 games but I honestly think it is a good game.

I currently have 14 odd hours at the time of this review, but it only shows 3 as that's all I've played of the single player.

"A cardboard box? Why are you... ?"
"I dunno. I was just looking at it, and suddenly I got this irresistible urge to get inside."
"No not just an urge - more than that."
"It was my destiny to be here; in the box."

Day of Infamy is a lovely gem that's appeared in the current cloud of Modern Shooters, bringing the FPS genre back to the early 2000's with classic WW2 gameplay. Developed as a standalone mod from insurgency the game blends skill and teamwork well, giving an experience that is well balanced and is neither too hard or easy. If you like the gameplay of Red Orchestra then you're sure to enjoy Day of Infamy!. At the time of this review however the playerbase isn't very large like it's parent Insurgency, but I'm sure given time that the modding scene and playerbase will steadily grow, creating a great community.

Underwear changing simulator 2k14, 10/10

In all seriousness, Depth is a refreshing take on the class based multiplayer concept, blending co-operative gameplay with light human snacking as a sidenote. Be warned, you'll never look at seals the same way again...