Recent reviews by Goredema

If Counter Strike feels too arcade-y, but Arma III feels like too much micro-management, Insurgency may be the FPS for you. The weapons and setting feel very authentic, the sound design makes every bullet flying past your head terrifying, and the damage model means that getting shot HURTS. There will be times when you die and you don't even know where the shot came from, and times when you've shot into a room or alley, and THINK you've killed your target, but aren't SURE you've hit anything. You take a step, not really wanting to move forward. Suddenly a grenade flies out of the dark room, and with no time to react, you're dead. The tension and terror feel very real. It sounds overly dramatic to say, but playing this game gives me a tiny sense of how real life military personnel end up with PTSD.

Gameplay is solid, with most action happening in the PVP matches, but the Co-Op mode is also very solid, with you and a small squad of other players cautiously advancing toward an objective. Even once you've learned when and where Co-Op attacks will happen, there's something gripping about you and a few human players trying to survive a rush of incoming attackers.

On a closing note, I really appreciate that a game set mostly in the Middle East doesn't descend into the standard "Americans=good, Arabs=evil" cliche. For instance, when playing as an insurgent and starting the match, you'll often hear your character yell things like "Let us push this invaders from our homeland!" The game doesn't celebrate or denigrate any of its characters, it just soberly presents the conflict between them, and captures the terrifying, violent desperation to survive.

Superhot is the most innovative shooter I've played in years.

It's a fun game, but there's no button to skip the cutscenes.

Would you like to go to space today?

Elite: Dangerous is a visually and aurally gorgeous game, but with a steep difficulty curve that makes it hard to just "pick up and play". In addition, there are gaps in the experience that still need to be filled in. For fans of space flight and "space games", I do think this title is worth buying when it's on sale, but be warned that it's not a game everyone will love. If you want a little more detail, read on.

First, let's talk about the new player experience: it's not great. There are a series of tutorials available in-game, but it's easy to miss them or skip them, and even after playing all through all of them, the beginning of the "real" game is a little abrupt: here's your ship on the landing pad, and it's your responsibility to go find something to do. I would have greatly preferred to start the game with some[]many[/i] games do this; I believe City of Heroes even had a series of missions that would slowly introduce you to combat, then to traveling around the beginning neighborhood, then to the idea of traveling to other areas, and then to the idea of indoor missions. It made the beginner experience a lot less intimidating, and gave clear direction to new players right out of the gate.

That being said, when you do take off for the first time and the sound of your engines fills the room, it's a genuinely thrilling moment. And the first jump to light speed / interstellar travel, with its audio countdown and sudden thump of bass, is truly memorable. The initial learning curve is a bit of a rough climb, but the core of the game is solid, and shows incredible promise.

Elite: Dangerous is clearly a work-in-progress: certain sections of the game, like the sound design and flight model, are incredibly polished and satisfying, but there inexplicable gaps in the experience. For instance, using the Frame-Shift Drive to jump between star systems is visually and aurally satisfying, but it's sometimes difficult to keep track of where you've been in the galaxy without keeping a notepad next to your joystick. The control scheme, once configured properly, is enjoyable and has nice depth without being overwhelming, but the configuration menu itself is a long, vertical list, with no way to easily save multiple control schemes if you want to try different types. There are billions of star systems to visit, but no real storylines or reasons to go to one place or another, other than for better commodity prices or because your "local" base doesn't carry a particular piece of equipment. There is a friends list, but in-game player guilds/orgs aren't an option at all. This is a game that had me breaking out a spiral notebook to jot down reminders and bookmarks, and for that to feel necessary just feels jarring and awkward.

Frontier Developments have been honest about this project still needing work, and they have taken steps to improve the game. The first "expansion", Horizons, added in a lot of new content, including landing on moons and other non-atmosphere planets, as well as racing around in a moon buggy to look for treasure and shoot things. At the end of 2016, Frontier added in some new passenger missions, ship-launched fighters, NPC crew members, and some mysterious alien archeology sites. Many of the things I complained were missing from the game are already on the list for eventual inclusion. In the long term, multi-crew ships, landing on atmospheric planets, and even walking around in your ship or on the surface are all in the works.

In a strange way, Frontier Developments are following a Steam Greenlight model: they released a solid base game, and are now spending a few years adding in more and more content and game systems. It's a frustrating wait, but they seem very committed to the project, the updates they've released have been solid and well-tested, and the final product should be very impressive.

This review droned on a bit, hasn't it? To summarize:

1. If you're a fan of "space games", and
   
2. Steam is having one of their constant sales, and
   
3. You're prepared to turn to Youtube tutorials and/or online game guides to overcome the initial learning curve, then
   
4. Elite: Dangerous is probably worth the purchase.

If "The Office" or "The IT Crowd" added a gigantic zombie invasion and no censorship, they would look a lot like Corporate Lifestyle Simulator. The game is short but sweet, and includes some great zombie killing, plus cut-scenes and in-level voice acting that is actually funny! Although I would've liked some Steam Achivements thrown into the mix, even without them, Corporate Lifestyle Simulator is well worth a look.

I bought this for $0.99 during a Steam sale, not expecting much. And to be clear, the graphics are a little sloppy, the game-play is straight out of God of War, the "plot" is B-movie fluff, and there are no Steam trading cards for this title. On the other hand...

Marlow Briggs is AMAZING! It completely embraces the cheesiness of its premise, and delivers absurdly over-the-top action on a scale unheard of in most video games. Through it all the protagonist delivers a ton of action movie one-liners and amusing meta-commentary on the number of puzzles involving spikes, swinging blades, and fire. Instead of long, boring cut-scenes, we get cool "freeze frame" moments, with the camera swooping and panning around the frozen tableau as Marlow Briggs defeats an army of giant bugs, or cuts a helicopter in half, or survives the explosion of a cruise-ship-sized mining vehicle. It's also nice to see a black guy as the protagonist, with no one else in the game making a big deal out of it.

There is nothing new or original in this package, so don't expect it to change the definition of gaming. What you DO get is a fun, amusing, and action-packed game at a criminally low price. I HIGHLY recommend Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death.

Still hewing closely to the Grand Theft Auto look and feel of the GTA3 clone "Saints Row 1", Saints Row 2 gives only a few hints of the inspired lunacy that would soon arrive with "Saints Row: The Third" and reach its crescendo in "Saints Row 4". Still, the game is an enjoyable romp, and if you're planning on playing the next two installments of the franchise (or you already have), this game features a lot of plotlines and characters that continue on into the rest of the series.

If there is any flaw, it's that the game DOES has a few bugs: some minor, some major. The good news is that the fan community of modders have fixed almost every problem, and improved a lot of things in the game. My suggestion is to do an Internet search for "Gentlemen of the Row", the title of a mega-mod that fixes most existing bugs, and adds a lot to the game. In its default configuration it fixes some major bugs, adds in new (but subtle) functionality to the game and incorporates some character costumes and vehicles that are normally inaccessible to player characters. If you decide to customize it though, it can add in cheats, give you new over-powered weapons like the "flamingo gun", and generally make the game really, really bizarre. I ran it with default settings and barely noticed it was there; it just made the existing game BETTER, without getting in the way.

Saints Row 2 can't measure up to the insanity of its sequel, but it's a heck of a lot of fun on its own, and is often on sale for a stupidly low price. Grab it, grab Gentlemen of the Row, and have fun in the city of Stillwater!

One of the best games I've played in quite a while. Why? There's no way to explain it without ruining everything. Let's just say that if you like videogames, you really REALLY need to play this game, Stanley, and then replay it a least a handful of times.

The world of Sleeping Dogs feels detailed and real, and the story of Wei Shen is good enough that I actually cared about him and his friends. Unlike the conclusion of GTA IV, I was emotionally engaged with how to plot advanced. I ended up spending a lot of time playing through the game, trying to avoid ending my very enjoyable time in the Hong Kong of Sleeping Dogs.

DLC: The "Nightmare in North Point" and "Zodiac Tournament" DLC are worth the cost, and add some fun missions to the game. The others are fun, but may not be worth paying full price.

This game is the new standard by which all other "stealth" games will be judged.