Recent reviews by Calain

As a avid Souls fan (began with Demon's Souls on ps3, was told by cashier that game wasnt worth it when i bought it before it got 'popular').

Elden Ring takes what we loved of story, voice acting, and deep lore from previous titles and manages to move away from the "single path forward" concept of the previous titles into Free roam.

To accomplish this you are given assistance with traveling about, no more only forced to run on foot!

From Software has successfully managed to make a linear game into a free roam one, you are always free to explore, venture around (with some limitations due to bosses or quests holding access to new areas), but the sheer size of the map is incredible, and there's always something to find.. something to do.

Compare that to other free roam games who just feel empty, it's impressive with the amount of work put into keeping the game interesting for your average gamer.

The introduction of Spirit ashes (summonable NPC's for fights) also helps for those who required some assistance in their (majority) solo adventure.

I still feel like a miniscule creature as a "Tarnished" versus the insanely huge backdrops of castles, forts and other structures made for creatures in size of Giants.

Overall, even though there are still some technical problems regarding stuttering, the game has really captivated the "souls" game format of the previous titles, and continues to engage the player even after only defeating 2 main boss characters, and probably 10's of smaller bosses, i have not even come halfway of what the game has to offer.

There's also the underground map, which adds on yet another area to explore, if the overworld wasnt enough.

Been playing Monster Hunter for ages, began on ps2 and Psp, moved towards 3ds, didnt follow it to wii or switch.

Being a PC user mainly, i always wished for Monster hunter to come to PC in the west.

Now onto the actual review:

As Monster Hunter World is a first in it's own series, it lacks many of the previous titles monsters, and as such it needs to have continous monsters added to keep "fresh" as there's a very limited amount.
Now events are going on in a accelerated form on PC, which is VERY NICE not having to wait it out.
There is one thing i miss, and thats a snow biome.

For the game mechnics, they are fine, more than fine actually, they run just as you'd expect from a MH game.
The removal of transitions between the map zones is really nice.
However i think it was fun playing as a pelico, which is now no longer possible.
The online has been a mess, but is way better now.
Mouse controls were horrible at first, but fixed for me now.

All the main gripes regarding technical issues have been more or less fixed.
The other issues (lack of monster rooster, lack of a snow biome, lack of innovative weapon models) all remain.

If you are hoping to find those funky weapons from previous MH games, this is not (so far) it, the weapon models are pretty lame and boring.
(nothing like the gunhammer or weird funny weapons of previous MH games).

But how it's progressing i can see nothing but positivity, they are invested in it's future and are actively fixing stuff that people are voicing concerns about.

While not as big as it's predecessor Planetside 1, This game during it's life cycle of different teams has kept most of the first games feel and fun intact.

Some features are still missing but if you're a person who enjoys FPS's and grand scale of things, this is for you.
3 Factions, (well some say 4 :P) to pick from, multitude of servers and a active community.

The positives outweight the negatives, but don't expect to grasp this games mechanics from the get go, it's a steep learning curve.
Once you understand the basics though, the rest flows along nicely.

Continous work from the devs keeps the game fresh with new weapons, new cosmetics and improvements across the board.

Loved Planetside 1, and i enjoy Planetside 2.

A Walking simulator, without any real meaning.

It begins with peppering you with some guilt for your wife which has a mental disorder, continues to hit you with guilt through the entire starting sequence.

After playing through this (have about 20 hours of gameplay, most in offline mode) and noticing massive plotholes or side stories that doesnt conclude at ALL, it leaves you with a even WORSE ending where you just simply get no answers to anything.


In recent news, the lead developer of Firewatch Seab Vananam on Campo Santo game studio has gone full SJW and gone after PewDiePie for something PDP ONCE in a livestream (IN ANOTHER GAME, unrelated to Firewatch), promising to use false DMCA takedowns on PewDiePie and encouraging other companies to do the same..

I can no longer support a dev which is actively trying to ruin the community of Youtube, Twitch and the entire gaming society just cause he has a hissy fit over a bad word.
Not that this studio has made more than a SINGLE game ever, but this shows just how much damage a single person can do to a whole community.

Source: https://i.imgur.com/uIThRf0.jpg

Bethesda keeps trying to force people with their paid mods system when we, the community and made their games functional and good from sluggish and badly optimized.

Creation club is Bethesdas SECOND attempt at ruining a flourishing modding community that has been around for longer time than Zenimax (owner of Bethesda) even existed, now with the 2gb patch they are pushing their crap on the harddrives of people without your choice of wanting this or not, occupying more of your HDD space for no good reason.

They said it would be a "Mini DLC" rather than paid mods, and the quality would be on a whole different level.
This crap is worse off in most cases than the free mods, and they screw up the way free mods are loaded into the game.

STOP LYING BETHESDA!!!

Valve helping Bethesda remove negative reviews here on steam as Bethesda pushes to monotize the modding community again.

Would had given this a thumbs up if Bethesda would keep their "Creation Club" crap away from it.

The story of a sh-i-tty publisher trying to control a modding community rather than letting it flourish and support the community to keep the game alive with mods.

How Take Two managed to outlaw the modding tools of 10 years of age, just cause they want to make more profit themselves rather than seeing their games being around.

Stopped playing this some time ago, i really like GTA 5, but i wont be buying anything Take Two publishes from now on, Neither will i touch anything Bethesda unless both step down from trying to monopolize a free self grown modding community.

Loved the original Nier (Gestalt/Replicant) on Ps3, coming from that Nier Automata is an improvement in gameplay.
Music which is a major point alongside story pushes Nier Automata beyond what you mostly play.
The story takes you into one view at a time, you learn about the current character you're playing, the choices and paths this character takes..

Just to be plunged into another characters point of view upon completion of the 'Prologue'.
Once done with this new characters point of view and story, you actually begin the real 'Story'.

This makes the game very deep and lets the player connect the lines between what's going on and keeps you curious on what to come.

The animations are very fluid in combat, the artstyle very pleasant.
The graphics are not at the very top end, but aint something you'd scoff off either.

For the small flaws it has (mainly technical) you can actually aquire fixes from the community side of steam of Nier, like adding dualshock 4 buttons when using a DS4, or graphical corrections with a small fix.

Overall the game is very story driven, with lots of side content and interesting character development.
Has quite a bit of unexpected events and will not care about your feelings or connections, it will deliver the story no matter if it leaves you sad or happy in the end.

While i haven't ordered any OST for any game apart from Nier Gestalt, this is now my second OST for a game i own.. Let that be a telling factor about the soundtrack.

[EDIT]: So the game description says partial controller support, it actually has full controller support, i suggest you play this with a controller of your choice.
It needs a keyboard to type in your savegame file name, thus the partial controller.

Love the game to bits, 9/10 from me, will stay with me for a long time ^_^ Thank you Yoko Taro and Platinum Games!

Spent around 50+ hours in this game, finished it after obtaining MK6 equipment and being able to get the more expensive ships and guild ships.

Having played through this with a good friend watching it live on Stream for the majority of the playthough i can say i enjoyed this title a lot.

But i have gripes, gripes that comes from that it's meant to be played with a controller.
There is a distinct snapping with aim assist in this game, this paired with no pitch control (Y axis for your spacecraft doesnt exist, but exists for other smaller crafts and various world objects/projectiles)

The game felt huge at the beginning but the main storyline skips through sectors mid story, which leaves you just going through sectors without a reason to stay (unless you are doing trading, mining or hunting).

It feels like this game was ported over from a Console, but that could also be good.. hear me out.
In 50+ hours i have not had a single crash or bug, nor any weird software issues at all.
This could very well be thanks to that the game is polished in that sense, framerate feels solid aswell.

Game is beautiful (even if nebulas are tiny dust clouds compared to real life), the game allows custom music for: Idle, Combat, Space stations, ambient & main title.
This is a very nice addition and lets you (once you get bored of the ingame music) put your own tracks for various interactions in game.

Game plays well, no stutter or dips in general performance.
I highly recommend playing this with a controller, as with a mouse the snapping / aim assist gets very frustrating once you wanna have more of a freelook aiming.

Story should be made longer, or added with DLC as it felt short and kinda rushed, especially compared to the amount of sectors you dont even do any type of missions in at all. (you mainly just go find npc for mission->go and talk to npc->gate->gate->mission->gate back->gate back->find npc who gave mission->talk to npc.

It does have some issues in those areas i mentioned earlier, but because it performs so well, and compensates with positives i can only give this a thumbs up.

Improvements for a sequel in my mind would be:
Expansive story, more side quests (not just mission board money makers), get rid of aim assist/snapping and give us Y axis / Pitch.

One of my most loved Civ games, i began playing Civilization on MS-DOS on a old PC, the graphics were never the focus, but the building and maintaining your civilization was.

Much like it's previous versions Civ 5 brings on some new things, new civs, more customization in maps and more scenarios.

However Civ 6 takes a step away from this with more emphasis on graphics and fluid animations rather than focus on the gameplay i still feel Civ 5 is far more enjoyable title than it's sequel.

I'f you are a Civ fan, this is a must have.