Recent reviews by Highlord Balkan

*Sigh* So here we are again. Another publisher meddling with something that, had they simply left it alone would have continued to make them boatloads of cash unabated. Great job Sony! For turning what could have been a Game of the Year candidate into a pariah. You took what goodwill you had earned and burned it. I honestly feel bad for Arrowhead as it's obviously not a decision they would have made. This reeks of corporate interference. Not gonna go into depth on the game itself. We already know it's fantastic but the decision by Sony's greedy (and downright idiotic) suits to hamstring this game with forced PSN account linkage which isn't possible for nearly half the bloody planet leaves me with no other choice but to join the many, many voices decrying them. Make PSN account linkage optional again and this negative review goes away. Or don't, and get continued to be dogpiled by the very community that once praised you.


**UPDATE 2024-05-07**

Well, looks like Sony took the hint that people weren't fans of the forced PSN account linking and very wisely backed off. Hindsight's 20/20 eh you buggers. A great battle has been won but the war very much continues. We can't afford to give the big publishers and developers an inch or they'll take as much as they possibly can. I have now updated my review to positive to reflect the changes made.

I think the best way I can sum up this game is simply; painfully bland. After the last few Bethesda releases were, well; not particularly well-received or well-made for that matter, I kept myself from getting hyped for this. Built off the tired, battered back of the Creation Engine I already had concerns that Starfield wasn't going to live up to the hype. While it's not a terrible game per-say, it's not much better than. The main story is functionally one big fetch-quest because you know how we all love those, most of the enjoyment can be found in the faction quests as well as the Terrormorph questline although even those piddle out near the end. Despite being a game centred around exploration, I found myself going from place to place, following objectives and immediately leaving for the next set of coordinates. Nothing was ever close by and was never rewarding so I had no reason to stay long which is honestly extremely disappointing. I always loved games that heavily rewarded exploration like Skyrim or Metroid Prime but here it's so unbelievably dull. Gunplay is typical Bethesda only this time we don't have VATS to make it a bit more unique. The guns themselves are nothing to write home about save for a few meme-worthy examples. None of the weapons have any real impact or "oompf" to them. They all shoot and feel about the same and damage-wise they're all North of useless anyway as so few of them do any real damage. Modding your gear is even worse. Not only do you need to invest into perks to unlock better mods but now after perking up you then have to research the mods which requires an obscene amount of time and resources to accomplish which in-turn forces you to almost constantly rotate out your weapons or waste resources on weapons you'll never use, and that's before you actually invest the resources to make the mods you actually want. It's the same thing with your space suits, which act as armour in this game. It's an unbelievable amount of grinding just to get a mod you've been wanting. All in all, I don't think I've had such a disappointing experience with a game and I've played utter trash with the likes of Diablo 3 .The whole game feels so...incomplete. By the time I was halfway through the first playthrough I was already struggling to keep myself going and by the end I was excited to actually be done with it. I don't know what I was originally expecting, probably something along the lines a decently set space opera ala Elite: Dangerous but apparently even that was too hard for Bethesda to do. Despite being a fairly big part of the game, ship combat is downright abysmal. The balancing is just gone with the game expecting your dinky little ship to take on enemies several DOZEN levels higher than you with vastly better ships and weapons than you have. The ship building mechanic, despite having a ton of fun with it at first quickly starts to disintegrate once you start seeing the imperfections and arbitrary limitations imposed on it. The GUI in it as well as in other sections of the game are downright unusable at times. It brought me to the point where I broke one of my cardinal rules, don't mod a game until you've played it in it's entirety and God, was I ever quick to break this one for Starfield. Even once I found a reasonably suitable UI mod it still wasn't enough. I want to keep going but much like Bethesda making this game, I just want to be done with this review. Nothing I've said is new and has been parroted to near-death. Outside of testing computers at my day job I don't think I'll be picking up Starfield again anytime soon. Especially considering many modders have already forsaken the game before the tools to properly mod it have even been released. Stay away from this mess and go replay Skyrim for the 100th time, it's still be a far better and more exciting experience Starfield will ever be.

Multiplayer:
This game has been a non-stop disappointment since release. The multiplayer at release was a never-ending slog of Oddball and the sloppy netcode made it a chore to play. Most of the weapons are so unbelievably useless that they might as well have not even existed and for the absolutely mind-numbing battlepass progression if you were forced to try and use said weapons you would be letting your entire team down as you get wasted repeatedly until either your were reported and kicked or the match ended. Even now, things haven't improved and even the battlepass rewards have been lacklustre. I'm not going to harp on the battlepass itself, that's already been done to the point of insanity and everyone and their dog has heard about it.

Campaign (Spoilers ahead):
Oh boy, 343 has done it again! They made the story even more insulting and cliche! Admittedly it starts out amazingly with this seemingly new antagonist Atriox laying the smack down on Chief. However, once the campaign actually starts a new antagonist yeets Atriox from the story. Enter Escharum, the atypical, self-centred, obnoxious, monologuing villain that gets zero introduction other than pointing out that Atriox apparently got murked by Cortana in a suicidal attempt to redeem herself. Now that, in and of itself doesn't sound bad and it could've been a great story point...if it hadn't happened off-screen. Of yes, Cortana; the "big bad" of Halo 5 and who we were expecting to continue to be the villain for the rest of the series for a short while dies off-screen, with only expository flashbacks and recordings to fill in the blanks of what the hell happened in-between Halo 5 and Infinite because, y'know not all of us read the books, comics and whatever other Halo media is being peddled to us nowadays. So not only did the big bad who wiped the floor with us gets completely removed from the equation before the story really even starts but Cortana, arguably the most important character in Halo next to John, who sacrificed herself only to be resurrected with a new, perverted sense of purpose and becoming the single greatest threat the series has ever conjured up, gets unceremoniously killed off-screen. Ultimately getting replaced with a boring, cliche and stereotypical nimrod that gets ganked like he's nothing. Even on Legendary, he's a sorry excuse for a boss. Lacklustre story aside, the gameplay does hold up with it being some of the tightest and most rewarding in the entire series. It's not hard to pull off some downright janky physics nonsense, at least until 343 nerfed most of it because we're apparently not allowed to have fun in this game. Although to be honest, once you unlocked the Scorpion you could genuinely steam-roll through most of the campaign until it forced you on-foot or into the air. Air vehicles in this game, while absolutely necessary for exploration and travel between certain areas might as well as be made out of paper mache and are worse than useless on the higher difficulties in combat. You're either using the Warthog or the Scorpion for combat, nothing else is worth using. Speaking of useless in combat, let's talk weapons. Much like in multiplayer, almost all of them are pointless to use. Most engagements occur at medium-long ranges so Battle Rifles, Carbines and Snipers will quickly become your best friends. Close-quarters engagements are rare but typically forced in certain points in the game but even then the long-range weapons are still typically preferred to the close-range gut-busters due to their superior accuracy and damage. There's nothing quite like wrecking an energy sword-wielding boss in a tight arena with a sniper rifle in just a few minutes. Now, in Infinite there's both the normal weapons and their unique counterparts that come with new firing modes, stats and more. Unfortunately, they mostly still succumb to the failings of their base counterparts. It's honestly saddening as they're a blast to use, if and when you can use them.

Conclusion:
Ultimately, this game fails on a number of fronts. From the absolutely pathetic excuse of a story to a mind-numbing multiplayer to the poor handling of long-time characters to the disgusting level of monetisation that I have desperately tried to avoid mentioning up to this point out of fear of rupturing the rage-induced aneurysm that it created. Seriously, this is some nightmarish garbage that could only be dreamed up by the likes of EA or Activision-Blizzard. All-in-all, Halo Infinite has been one massive disappointment after another and it's apparent now that 343 has become entirely bankrupt of good ideas and has completely lost sight of what made Halo great in the first place, not that they really knew to begin with but I digress. Given its current state, I have to give Halo Infinite a 3/10. It's a playable, but that's really all that can be said of it as there's nothing to really keep you interested in the game or invested in the story at this point. My only hope now is that 343 realises what a steaming pile they've turned Halo into and choose to just let it slowly sink into obscurity rather than haul it's now-ragged corpse out for another showing.

This hurts to have to write, especially since I'm just starting to take my first steps into the VR ecosystem but it's gotta be done. I cannot stress enough just how much I am against the implementation of EAC in not just VRC but in any game or application. I can't run games with EAC built-in without constant CTDs or BSODs. From SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION to the dreaded KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE, anything with Easy in it is a guaranteed non-starter for my system. If the VRC devs do commit to adding EAC than I'll be dropping this app faster than a bag of bricks, not because I necessarily want to, but because I have no other choice. I know I'm not the only one who has technical issues with EAC and I can only guess as to the impact that will have on VRC's playerbase. The devs need to understand this hate isn't just born out of general dislike of EAC but also out of genuine issues that it brings on a technical level and that's before you even consider the issues that QoL mods and the like will have if EAC is implemented. VRChat Inc. please, for once listen to your community. Don't continue with this.

UPDATE: 2022-07-26.

Well, they did it. VRC Inc. has gone all-in on EAC despite the absolutely tremendous backlash that it has generated. I've already attempted running VRC with the new updates and my concerns have been all but confirmed. I forgot to entirely clean out EMMC from the VRC directory which lead to Easy spazzing out about it. Went back in and cleared EVERYTHING and went for the second attempt. Game completely locked up upon trying to load into my home world. Repeated attempts garnered similar results. As it stands right now, VRC is now unplayable for me. The online discourse has only further exploded as the new patch notes confirmed EAC's presence in the mainline updates and now I'm seeing people already making plans to jump ship to other applications. I hear Chillout is nice this time of year. All humor aside though, this is bad news for VRC. Unless VRC Inc. realises just how big of a mistake they're making and reverses course, we may be about to see the death of another beloved title due to developer incompetence. Fingers crossed the devs finally grow a brain and pull the plug on this before it's too late.

As of right now, going off of my experience I cannot recommend this game. This game crashes, A LOT. And it can and will crash anywhere and everywhere. In the middle of combat? Crash. Trying to have a conversation? Crash. Just wandering around, taking in the scenery? Crash. Just loading into the bloody main menu? You guessed it, crash. And the sheer amount of crashes means you're going to spend more time launching the game and loading back into a save than actual time playing. I'm trying really hard to look past all the issues I'm having and enjoy the game as I'm really getting into D&D and had a blast playing D:OS2 but the sheer amount of time I've spent trying to troubleshoot and constantly relaunch the game currently makes it impossible for me to find any enjoyment. I am unsure as to whether it's simply really bad coding and optimisation on the game's part or whether it simply doesn't like running on an AMD system as a few other titles are notorious for. Regardless, until the devs can ascertain what's going wrong and fix it. I cannot bring myself to recommend Baldur's Gate 3. Perhaps in time, when this game has a lot more polish on it, I may return and find my issues gone. If that happens, I'll be sure to update my review. For now, due to its broken state and near-unplayability I give this game a 3/10.

Update 2022-07-31:
Updating my review to recommended as with the latest major update and hotfixes things have improved exponentially. Began a new run awhile back and I haven't suffered a single crash since then while running the game with the Vulkan API. Everything is stable and a bit more optimized, my GPU fans no longer ramp up nearly as high as they used to. All in all, I'm now really enjoying the experience. It still does take a bit of time to really get into but it's honestly worth it, especially if you're running on one of the harder difficulties like I am. I've hit the end of Act 1 finally but I still have plenty more to do so even though only the first act is playable right now, you'll have plenty of content to keep you occupied! Upping my review score to a 6/10.

An instant-classic "whodunit?" style game where the Crewmates have to complete various tasks assigned to them all the while trying to avoid getting horrendously and hilariously murdered by the impostors. A genuine treat to play, especially if you can get a whole group of people in a voice chat. The only things that maar it are the occasional networking hiccup, NA server instability and the frustratingly idiotic, clueless and downright toxic players you'll get playing on public. Overall a great game, just play it with friends for a better experience. Oh, and play on EU servers.

An absolute blast to play. The cutesy graphics and the little bean men belie it's difficulty. Fall Guys is deceptively difficult. There's multiple ways for you to get beaten up and screwed over from grabbing and bumping into other players to bad timing and or a network stutter. Think quickly and intelligently and you'll get far. If not, enjoy your swim in the slime! Hours of fun abound so as long as you don't take things seriously. So what are you waiting for? Come join the Cult of the B E A N!

Don't even bother with this mess of a game. World of Warships has devolved into yet another money sink courtesy of Wargaming, half the ships in the game now never existed outside of some technical drawings and schematics at best and at worst, were just pulled out of a dev's arse and turned into a ship (see Soviet Tier X Battleship Kremlin development video). The meta is so screwed at this point that entire lines of ships have been completely invalidated and are near-unplayable. Other ships, especially the older premium ships have been left behind to gather dust as Wargaming stopped updating them and have become nothing more than expensive showpieces for your harbour. To top it all off, Wargaming's sheer incompetence, neglect and greed have turned the game into a dumpster fire with the addition of the much-maligned and reviled Research Bureau along with the devs breaking their promise to never implement submarines into the game, the beta for which only further proved that they are beyond broken even with all the caveats and reservations they had to make just to give other ships a "fighting" chance. This used to be an absolutely stellar game but now it only serves as yet another example of what NOT to do with a "Freemium" RTS game and another reason why Wargaming is a garbage-tier developer.

Picked this up when it first came to Steam after what? 6, 7 months of being an Epic Store exclusive and I gotta say I'm both satisfied and disappointed with the game. The overall story is downright abysmal and rather insulting in some sections and the characters range from absolutely fantastic to tolerable to OH-MY-GOD I JUST WANNA BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF WITH THIS SNIPER RIFLE THAT CAN CREATE LITTLE VOLCANOES FROM YOUR CORPSE!!!! levels of insufferability. The overall game play is the only redeeming factor in this whole mess. Combat is faster-paced and more rewarding than Borderlands 2 and enemies are competent and keep you on your toes. If you're in it for the gunplay and mayhem and don't give two s***s about the story or character development, you're gonna have a great time but if you're more for the story and characters than stay far, far away. Final thoughts: Gearbox definitely dropped the frowny face warhead on this one.

I was so excited to play this, to the point where I got started in the opening minutes of release and boy oh boy was it ever worth it. To get this right out of the way, is DOOM: Eternal any good and should you buy it? Yes and mother of God yes! It is an absolute blast to play (pun intended) and if you loved DOOM 2016, especially the arcade mode you're gonna love Eternal even more. Gameplay-wise, it's as if the campaign and arcade modes got amalgamated into one, glorious abomination with extra lives, keys galore and brightly pastel-coloured pickups. The overall look closely and I do mean closely resembles that of the original DOOM II from the weapons to the demons themselves so for the DOOM purists out there you're gonna love it. As someone who didn't really touch on the arcade mode back in DOOM 2016 it did take some getting used to but after the first few hours it grew on me to the point where I was content with it. On a technical level, the game even at release is extremely well-polished and stable, only encountering one CTD throughout my entire playthrough and with no noticeable bugs or glitches. Story-wise, Eternal picks up some time after 2016 with some time clearly passing between the events of the two games. The story's depth varies heavily where in some areas it's deep and well-versed and in others has the depth of a puddle. One way or another, this game's gonna take you for a ride. Playing on Hurt Me Plenty (normal) to start off with my first playthrough took approx 15 hours so for those of you who like nice, long, uninterrupted play sessions this is definitely the game for you. Overall, I can't recommend this game enough to arcade lovers although for those of you who like a nice, deep story may want to look into watching a let's play or two to see if it's worth getting.