Recent reviews by Hydros

I've enjoyed the time I've put into Wilds, it has some problems currently as many other reviews have pointed out and I've had a few of these myself.

On the positive side, the combat here is good, it feels fluid and reactive, the monster designs are great, there are old favourites, new fights that feel fresh and the music is evocative with a lot of personality. The addition of the Seikrets make the game world much more traversable and calling on your Seikret mid combat for a quick escape to heal has saved me a fair few times.
Your Palico is now able to use a lot of the tools they got in world but without having to lock into one (these are unlocked via sidequests)
With a greater focus on elemental damage, the weapon switching is nice, you can opt to have two of the same weapon type for different elemental builds, or two different types for a change of playstyle.
That leads into the separation of the skill gems into weapon and armour skills, which given the weapon swaps, makes a lot of sense, if we still did all gems for all slots, you'd could end up having useless skills on your armour or weapon after a switch. I do get the complaint about the shift from equipment set builds though and that's valid.
For people who haven't been able to engage with Monster Hunter before, this may well be the title that gets you in the door.

On the more negative side. While I enjoy where the story has went, it does feel restrictive, with it regularly introducing you to a new map then immediately whisking you off to the next, the pacing feels off as we're given no time to really breath in a new area and explore. This combos with the game being noticeably easier than previous titles, which I think is down to player damage being much higher than before, I think a bit of a nerf on player damage could be in order, along with a stacking resistance on wounds as I've often found that once I destroyed the first wound or two, wounds start showing up all the time and it makes a lot of the fights feel more like bullying than hunting.
Finally, I understand the complaints that Wilds feels like it's lot a chunk of the personality of the previous titles, specifically with the lack of a kitchen area, replaced by your hunter cooking their own meals most of the time, and I'd agree, there is a bit of old world MH charm in the different villages, something that players who only played World/IB wouldn't have got.

The performance issues are real, and should not be ignored, it isn't acceptable that so many people are having issues with a modern AAA release. It seems from what I've seen on the technical side of the conversation that the RE Engine just hasn't been optimised to run such large areas in high fidelity.
I'm recommending the game on the understanding that Capcom/the MH team are taking these performance issues seriously and working to fix them. If they aren't I'll edit this review (not that it counts to the score since I got my copy from Humble)

This is a cozy arcade flight game, the controls are more star wars squadrons than ace combat. By that I mean pitch and yaw are on the left stick, with roll on the right, though throttle is on the triggers.
I liked the map, it had a ghibli-esque charm as did the soundtrack and characters, both in their art and personality.

The flight doesn't haven't any real weight, or momentum, which I would guess wasn't the focus of the game so much as being a team project with a simple concept.
The painterly graphics are a good choice for a small project like this, they help hide the low detail models, however I found the edge bleeding and pixelation on the cliffs to be a bit strong, I actually thought the game was being upscaled from a very low resolution first time in.

Also of note is that the settings don't seem to save after you exit, not really a problem for a single sitting game however I felt I should point it out.

I think this was a decent little game, took just shy of an hour for me to get through all the content and I enjoyed that hour.
I think a fuller experience like this would be something I'd purachse, though I'd like more in depth flight mechanics.

A friend got this for me on the notion that it would be funny to see and hear me react to what is essentially, Millennial teens written by boomers, and in some ways he was right, some of the dialogue in this game is cringy and some of the voice acting sounds like the first read with facial animation, or lack thereof, in the same boat.

However, with that being said, this was still an interesting narrative game that kept us engaged, most of the characters were compelling, they seemed to act and react like real people, and the overall arc of the story was consistent and engaging with a lot of the choices feeling impactful.

Still suspicious about that squirrel though.

After Subnautica I jumped straight into Below Zero. So my review comes from the perspective of someone already familiar with the series, it's visual language and logic.

First thing's first, do you need to play Subnautica before this? No, the story of Subnautica ties in to Below Zero however it's not super relevant to what happens here and serves more as set dressing. The parts that are relevant are told again here.

Below Zero is much more story rich and driven than Subnautica. As I played Subnautica, I felt that my main push forward was to find significant places, but with only a few hints I was left up to my own devices to do so much of the time. Below Zero differs in that your character has a goal, a drive, and an inner monologue to give you a direction to go, a place to find and things to do.
To be clear, I don't think this is a bad thing, in fact it improved my experience with the game over the original, I never had the same moment I had in Subnautica where I was feeling a bit lost and aimless, then had to change focus to diving deeper because that's the only thing that made sense to me.

Gameplay wise, resources were much easier to gather and find, the resource scanner was a nice quality of life addition that helped me find the only resource I hadn't stumbled over, nickel.
I hear third-hand that people don't like the sea truck and honestly, I'm not sure what the problem is with it. The sea truck is a slower seamoth, it's your first vehicle (well, most likely to be your first vehicle) and it lasts all the way to the end of the game. We don't get the seamoth or cyclops this time round, but the sea truck is a middle ground between the two. With expandable modules that can be freely attached and removed, you can build a sea truck to be what you need as you go further.
I'm with Fred, I love my sea truck.

If you like Subnautica, this is more Subnautica. If you liked the idea of Subnautica but felt that the reliance on self led exploration caused you to lose interest, Below Zero is far more likely to keep you engaged, and if you wanted an expansion of the world of Subnautica, this has a lot of story and world building.

Of the two games currently out, I think this is the best one to play before Subnautica 2 as it's likely that the one that will tie in the most, also it's just a genuinely good game.

So I'm playing through the Subnautica games prior to Subnautica 2 dropping.

Anyway, Subnautica is a great adventure game that doesn't really hold your hand.
You'll get some waypoints to investigate and some PDA entries that push you to explore further and deeper.
The visuals hold up well, it's not the most impressive looking game out there, however the art style is consistent and you get a sense that the art team put a lot of love into the designs and aesthetic.

Speaking of aesthetic, I would be lambasted for not mentioning the soundtrack, and rightlyfully so. The music in this game isn't looking to be iconic, but what it is aiming to do is set the tone, and it does so wonderfully. The music in this game put more fear of the deep into me than anything else. Wandering into the Sea Treader's Path I was haunted by the shift in music, visually I was descending into the deep, dark ocean, unable to see the surface above or the floor below. Audibly I was being made aware of the pressure of the water on top of me, I wasn't in the bright coral reefs of the shallows, the plant dense Kelp forest, or the spartan tranquility of the Grassy Plains anymore, as I passed 250 meters and kept decending I was entering a world alien even to the one above me and the music is what made me feel it.
The first time I experienced the change I actually stopped and took a second to consider if I was ready, and honestly, if I wasn't hunting for resources I couldn't find elsewhere, I might have turned back.

There's still some glitchiness to the game, ocassionaly you'll go to grab a resource and it falls through the world, you'll sometimes see schools of fish swimming through your base, for me, none of this really dimimished my experience and I would recommend this game to anyone who thinks that exploring and surviving on an alien world sounds like fun

Listen, I could only recommend this on deep discount and only then if you really, really wanted to play a game that would take you through the DBZ story but more closely that any of the other 10 thousand DBZ games available.

It's more 'a game with fighting in it' than it is 'a fighting game' and it shows in the boring combat, you aren't expected to stay for the fights, you're expected to stay for the story, which if you've watched and/or read DBZ, you already know without having to mash a button to get through the fights.

Honestly I think making the fights boring is the biggest sin possible for a series like DBZ, since it's all about the fights.

A nice little puzzle game, more relaxing than challenging. Very much in the vein of The Room series of games.
The little bits of story in each level are interesting but don't go as far as you'd want for a game this simple.
It very much feels like the mobile port that it is, which for a game like this isn't a bad thing but sometimes mechanics like 'turn the crank' that work well of a touch screen get in the way when playing with a mouse.

I'd recommend this game if you want to burn about 5 hours (which is all you'll really need to 100% the game as long as you pay attention) and you pick it up on sale or in a humble bundle.
Al the achievements are progression related as well, so if you pick up the two crystals and the story scroll in every level as you go you'll get all the achievements by the end.

A lovely little escape game with well made, thoughtful puzzles and a surrounding mystery that doesn't get in the way.
As with many escape games how long it takes to complete depends on how quickly you can solve the puzzles. My playtime is how long it took me to complete the whole game and find all the secrets.
I would also note that I never felt the need to look outside the game for solutions, everything you need to solve a puzzle is in the room and there are no logical leaps needed.
If you like escape games this one is well worth your time and money.

I have loved MW5, I have loved it in all it's dumb janky glory.
I have almost 200 hours in MW5 and I would have loved to put more in, but this DLC killed it for me.
Myself and my friends played through everything offered so far together, every questline we could find, every DLC, and despite the fact that most of it was lackluster in terms of story, we had fun.

This one however, the Devs decided that forcing single player, single mech missions on us would be fun, also making those missions run like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ was a prime idea as well.
So I'm done, I'll probably pick up Clans when it drops, but I don't think I can go back to MW5, not for a long while anyway, as this DLC, effectively the swan song of MW5, has soured me on it completely.

Having now completed AC6 in it's entirety I feel I can weigh in on recommending it.
The answer is, if you like mechs and fast paced action games that reward high aggression, then yes, absolutely.
If you want a more ponderous paced mech game, I'd say get MechWarrior 5 instead.

Some of the boss fights here can feel overtuned on your first run, hell, some of them feel overtuned on NG+.
A lot of people are struggling with Balteus and I get it, it's the first fight where you have to be super aggressive, you don't need tank legs and cheese to beat him, you need to boost right into his face and he'll have real trouble hitting you.

I've enjoyed my time with AC6, I'd recommend it to anyone who wants a solid singleplayer mech game.
I enjoy the range of customisation, the emblem maker is great fun, as is the PVP.
While the bosses are generally the low point in the game, again because they mainly feel overtuned, I'd say the AC fights and arena are a highlight, and there's more of them than bosses.

My criticism is this. The bosses are generally a poor experience, at least two of them I felt were fights that I didn't win through being better or learning how they fight, but by getting lucky and avoiding being stun locked.
The game seems to lean into it's stagger mechanic too hard, making it certain that you'll end up with the biggest impact heavy weapons you can get on your frame. When we get a new Armored Core game I'd like to see it without a stagger, or at least with the stagger reduced in prominence. Also real talk, how dumb is it that when you stagger or get staggered mid-air you just float there?
The lack of any long range options, you'd expect a mech to be able to hit a target from probably 1.5km away but the fights in this game are sub 500m, and regularly within 100m I feel like the people in the AC universe have missed the point in having a walking tank.

Anyway, my gripes aside, I have clearly enjoyed the game enough to not only complete it fully, but also write out this review and I'm looking forward to more content, maybe even PVP matchmaking, that'd be nice.