Recent reviews by JimmyTheBrush

The game needs more.

More maps, more bosses, more reason to keep exploring after the bounty has been collected, a risk great enough for bounty owners to stay longer on maps.

Random bounties, events, special monsters, less of a grind to max out charectors. it can still keep the same feel the same emptyness in areas and have greater variety of what players encounter.

Given over 100hrs in this game and reaching past lvl50 I felt it time to give an in-depth review of a game i'm very much enjoying? Starfield..

Pro's
there's a lot of loot, the object design is brilliant, guns look cool and so do the outfits and ships. It's a good relax sesh, but that's pretty much where the good points end.

the Cons.

Con being very much the word here.

- It looks and feels like it was completely Ai written, like if someone took all the data from prev bethesda games and generated ''a bethesda game in space'', THIS is what you'd end up with.

- There's no radio. HELLO! no spaceport radio, no pirate radio, HiveMindFM, no UC collective coming in your ears! just the endless dead of space with some background orchestra.

- the guns look good, but they don't sound good, it's all a bit flat sound wise. and the lasers don't have that satisfying pew pew.

- no space crocs, how am i supposed to believe this is the future?! footwear in this game be dull.

- in the future of space, there is only humans... This blew my mind, no selection of playable alien races, no alien strip clubs. plenty of alien food, but it's just humans at the top of the tech/food chain? no little green men, just wild animals on planets, no intelligent life anywhere.

- The start of the game is awful, i really think no one should've been forced to become a space captain because it forces the player to go through all this extra learning in an area a lot of people will have no interest, it just becomes extra work to essentially just fast travel. And that's the crazy part, your ship is just a fast travel waggon, (I'll come back to ships later!) But yes, one really good busy world to start on and take whatever path you wanted to take would've been much grander and much more interesting than what we all have to go through. Travel to other planets could've been bought on hyperdemension trains or you could've paid to travel with someone elses's company. Not all players needed to own a ship or be given one in the least convincing way possible. ( I saw streamers quit the game after that point)

Ships... the ship builder needs a lot of user-friendly work, it vastly makes no sense, and myself and 4 grown adults ( 2 programmers) really struggled to get our head around what means what and how to do what with it. It's bad.

Planets should be all manner of diversity and the ground work is done for that, it's interesting how each system has ''liveable'' planets in that green band where life would be if your planet is the correct distance from the sun and dead planets outside of that, i like the realism and touches to gravity with it but planets with life should be so much more than what they are. You'll have 3-7 forms of life, and it will be largely just scared and primal, no starship troopers bugs or invading aliens that are terrifying and give you a reason to set up an outpost to defend or learn from a planet, Outposts are just cosmetic build fun. In short the 100's of worlds to visit are dull. - Even the planet full of terramorphs that '' the aliens own '' was very dull and peaceful and i found bandits and other civs chilling on that planet.

Quests and places of interest are dull. It really feels like no one checked them over to make them meet the standard. E.g. the worlds are full of caves but they are 99% empty and bereft of any interest, most of them finish just as they start to get interesting and go nowhere. Lots of the places of interest be it smuggler dens, pirate dens or places where settlers are found dead have no story, or you don't get the full story, the computers that have the logs on just give you basic plot but nothing interest or with heart and soul behind it's writing. The POI's get repetative quick.

in short the game feels lifeless and falls short of the Bethesda standard. I feel bad for Microsoft buying them and anyone who paid full price for this alpha gameplay. It is in no way worth the pricetag, i'd say it's worth 1 months sub to gamepass and nothing more.

In revisiting the forest I felt it necessary to make changes to my previous review. The new version was an incredible improvement over the game released on launch and I felt it worth going over the pro's and con's of the current version..


Pro's
- The additional free content they've added is more than most AAA titles have included in their DLC. The videos on updates don't do the game justice, it's just the tip of the iceberg of what they've added over time.
- Great graphics
- Very satisfying shooting cannibals
- It has a large crafting system.
- Daytime is good and long meaning you can really get a lot done as if you were really spending a day surviving. Some games get this wrong and spend too long in night time which can be very frustrating.
- It is an enjoyable game to spend 40+hrs on with friends and the environments underground are great if a little empty at times.
- The traps are great.
- The environments you explore are very interesting!


Cons

- While the story and content has been worked on, it still leaves the player in a rather clueless state regarding the origin or goings on of it all.
- The map is very big but the areas all looked so similar, it lacked good landmarks around the place that would make it as easy to navigate like the original forest game where there was huge variation in it's areas. The game still lacks the kind of visual variation that lets you know your in a different section of the island, There could be much more wildlife on a secluded island.
- Despite the ability to leave markers you can't really ever get a full view of the map at any time, leaving you always frustrated in where you are going or need to go. And no ability to leave notes on your own map means you will re-explore the same cave a hundred times.
- Base building is still incredibly resource demanding. as in it will require you to cut down hundreds of trees or collect thousands of rocks to get to build what you'd want. it's a huge time commitment and while your building the game ramps up in difficulty possibly beyond what a builder is able to scavenge weapon and armor wise for themselves.
- The game is certainly hard for solo players.
- If you are in your inventory and get attacked it won't knock you out of it, this means if your halfway through crafting something you can get murdered rather than dealing with the situation at hand.
- Despite the updates and mini-camps everywhere for a luxury retreat island it doesn't seem like it would ever of housed the wealthy, with all the complex's hidden in caves? there are no above ground buildings of interest.
- We searched all ponds and waterfalls and never found anything in them, there was no hidden caves under the water and only one pond might of had some loot in it or golf carts it was really disappointing, we never really found a reason to use the diving suit other than to get from A to B.
- The seasons fly by a bit too fast for my liking and you don't really have to build anything to survive better in either of them it's kind of one-base-suits-all weather conditions. Building fires in the winter buffs disappear as soon as you leave the fire and you can't really make any huge log fires either to help dry out an area.
- Flares are pointless = little to no light and gone fast.
- The Torch is pointless it offers less lighting than if everyone uses their lighter and it drains batteries faster than the chainsaw, you could literally chainsaw a forest down with the same amount of batteries that last in a dim torch for 5mins.
- The players arms are bent weird and never really have a human pose to them. It just makes it awkward looking at anything you do the entire game, holding an axe or pistol just looks like a crudely drawn robot would imaging how a humans arms look from player perspective.



While the game has made significant improvements the biggest issue for me is there's nothing keeping you ''living in the game'' as soon as it's completed the ability to gold your stuff is limited, there's no events, monthly goals or changes to game play that would make you want to re-explore the island. and while

There's no horde day, no mutated random strain of cannibal., the number of resources in the game you need to collect are limited, there's no special spawns you need to harness for rare items, no unique or legendary items you could randomly find somewhere. no special grave loot. the enemies in caves don't change over time, it feels the cannibals get destroyed by the mutants as time goes on which is a shame. No good native faction that you would care to guard or look after.

Essentially the game lacks a lot of modern mechanics that would be used to keep you engaged with the game long after you complete it, which is a shame, as it's something myself and others would like to have a reason to keep building new bases in etc.

The ending still needs work.

it'd be nice to have a few more recipes for realistic things you could cook.

The fire-torch would be nice to hold in the left hand. The other light sources are all more or less useless still.

271hrs spent on the game and game completed as far as can be. Would I recommend this game to others?

Here are some key points that really stand out after some serious time spent in this game:

THE WORST PART...

As someone who appreciates high skill combat where your ability to play is more important than the gear you wear I would normally find this kind of experience rewarding, but with Valheim all it does is lock you into an eternal grind.

Your number one enemy from start to finish is - Stamina. No matter how fancy you make your home, or how much you stock up on potions, the number 1 cause of death will be when stamina runs out and you find yourself unable to escape. This can take many forms:

Big hardy viking warrior tries to swim 10 paces - dies
Climbing a mountain and suddenly an enemy finds you? dies
Get stuck on a tiny incline of land/rock/fallen branch while fighting - dies

In short stamina is the worst part of this game, and also the reason why the first god-power (eikthyr) you acquire is also the best and only one worth taking. As soon as you switch to any other god power you will really miss eikthyr's stamina boost and it's the only power you will miss taking out of all of them. Thus making all other god powers rather worthless.

Speaking of the grind. It is a lot of hard work, you'll lose friends over this ( we did! ) As more people join your game the harder it'll get and the more you'll all need to bring in to keep moving forward, this can lead to people keeping serious tabs on what resources are being spent, and if friends aren't pulling their weight, or if they're just coming on and spending what you gather and they don't want to gather themselves, you can quickly find yourself removing them from the game entirely as Valheim is a mistress that ever thirsts for resources and this time consuming stamina chugging fest will make the game utterly un-enjoyable very fast.

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THE NOT SO WORST PART BUT STILL PRETTY BAD..

The wizard class is great, but there doesn't seem a reason for it to be implemented so late in the game. There are plenty of ways people could start out straight away as wizards but the dev's for whatever reason have only given you the tools to do so right at the end where really your already very set in to your role as a warrior or archer etc and don't really end up with much time to enjoy being a wizard or like me you completed the game before you gave it a try.

Sailing is amazing fun, it's probably the best part of the game (especially with friends!), but even then the random encounters on the sea are limited to just 2 events, beyond that sailing is just used to transport metal goods. There is no way to add shields to your longboat for added health/defence and you'll find you only do it when you have to.

One of the biggest upsets for me is that no matter how much you progress your character never really grows, his base strength,health,stamina will remain the same no matter how long you've played how much weight you've lifted or how much you've accomplished, and while you may level your item skills like swords/bows etc those levels will drop like crazy over the cost of your stamina-aided-deaths. This can leave you feeling like no matter how much you put in you don't really grow or ever catch up to the difficulty curve of the game, this also leaves players in a position where they are unable to flex their own power and while I personally didn't - i saw many friends turn to friends of there's to give them higher end-game loot to help them power through current areas. In short the way the game really ploughs difficulty and burdens on the players shoulders it encourages them to seek out a cheap-cheaty way to overcome these obstacles as the only legitimate way to progress is the mega-grind!

This also makes going back for your body at later parts of the game much more tricky (deathsquito's can easily pick off a naked player running for their old corpse which has been really upsetting for friends), as even if you eat up well before leaving if you don't leave ample food at your spawn point or even gear to help you recover gear you can effectively lose the ability to get your loot back for a very very long time.

Your inventory will never grow in capacity, all it will ever do is shrink, at some point you can get a belt that lets you carry a greater carry weight, but that belt takes up a slot and you can only use one item of that sort with your char at one time, eg: you have belt of strength or the wishbone active. This is also very frustrating as most games of this nature allow you to get a backpack for example.

The building in this game is great and we've made some truly amazing forts/castles though flattening land can be tricky in places as you can only reduce the land height so much compared to the original height of that land block. so some places you will never be able to get flat to the same height as the rest of the ground you are working on. This can be problematic when building a large base with friends.

It appears the only way the devs know how to make new areas is to make them harder to exist in, rather than fun to explore, especially with Mistlands the terrain was an utter bore to travel back and forth over, I feel previous biomes have been greatly over-looked and much more work could be put into making each biome more special/interesting-varied in means of how they generate content. With more materials and monsters/events/buildings in each of them, so they are less plain and hum-drum to explore.

Overall the game is incredible value for it's money but I personally would rather pay more for a game that is less of a grind and more of an exciting adventure.

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some other notes I felt worth making are:

Metal ore/ingots can't pass through portals but you can walk through portals in an entire metal outfit, something that always vexxed me greatly.

For whatever reason people are very happy to spoil what comes next in the game, even joining a friends game can unlock a load of equipment you were unaware of.

Through the game people are used to getting their items and gear to lvl4 but this game ends with items only able to reach lvl2.

There are no steam achievements for this game and ultimately as you play it you kind of get the impression the dev's don't like the players much due to the lack of quality of life improvements in the game and the hardships you are forced to endure.

It's always raining or foggy.

no one likes the raven it'd be great to be able to turn him off.

One handed spears are used like stabby knives with a massive handle, give us a thrust animation over a stab one please.

I think for example in the black forest instead of always swarming the players with grey dwarfs the game could create other experiences for the players, like trees that come to life or just a quiet break from being attacked all the time. Or a giant snake the size of a blue whale slithers through.

I think the game offers a great adventure and it's only down to the lack of content for each released biome that it's not more of an amazing red dead 2 online experience. More focus on old areas would greatly improve the experience over generating harder new ones. And generally the game could just do with more of everything, hopefully one day it gets there and it becomes a truly amazing experience.

Overpriced and it seemed the main aim of the company behind this DLC was to impliment more of a grind to the game.

Owning this DLC floods all your maps with beastmen, they don't quite fit in with the game very well, they can spawn right behind you and stab you in the back straight away, or you can clear an area only to have them flood out of every nook and cranny around you, as much as beastmen are ambushers in the lore i feel this is too extreme. It certainly makes me miss vanilla Vermintide 2.

Drop rates lowered, it seems everything I get out of chests is now whites, greens and blues, and I have a similar issue now with crafting, where as before this DLC my drop rates were rather good!

The new game mode is great for people who ''live'' on vermintide, but even with the hundreds of hours i do put in it is too much of a grind.

The new faction weapons are OK, but as I said earlier, if you spend your resources and only craft whites,blues and greens crafting a legendary one is more expensive than upgrading one to legendary.

The new minotaur is fun to fight, but the rest of the beastmen are too clonelike and not as detailed as the original Nurgle soldiers.

All in all, with more mobs in every map to slow your journey to the end, to only receive bad items from the chest after 30+ mins gameplay, the game has become a tedious grind that I don't see me enjoying as much as the original.

Please don't get this DLC it is truly a curse.

one of the best games you will ever buy, chill and challenging, really nice atmosphere in a world that sucks you in from the very beginning and keeps you gripped from start to finish!

A big step down from the series's previouse games. In short the campaign is not as good, the multiplayer is not as good, and the army painter is not as good, This is a £40 game! and it has so little content!

Game essence: the prev dow2 had awesome orchestral music that piped up as combat happened and then subsided once the battle was over, that is now gone, hurray for blandy! >:(

But let me expand on that, The campaign is singleplayer, you can't co-op it like in the past, and at the same time, you can't choose who's campaign you do, you do all 3 races. 3 races? that's less than the previous games isn't it? yeah 3 races on launch, and no doubt ther'll be a £30 expansion for 1 more race in the pipeworks.

There are numerous times where orders arn't processed, you click on units and it selects the units below the ones you click on. This can be the death of your whole army easily. Tabbing between units seems to not work very well, and can sometimes cause problems, again this can also lead to the death of your whole army - if you can't get all your squads to throw their grenades in time for example.

no retreat, no surrender, litterally! it's no joy having to micro everything to go back to base, when the prev games had a retreat button that took the monotony out of this. In multiplayer there is the option of a call back order you can issue once every 5 mins, from your HQ, but units locked in combat stay in combat and this option is not available in the singleplayer.

no ''the last stand'' mode, it would've been nice to see the game launch with the dow3 version of that as something fans could entertain themselves with while they sorted the rest of the junk out.

Multiplayer:

Balance in multiplayers is very hard with the hero units added to the game,

If your space marines, no matter what chapter you are Gabriel Angelos is your force commander ><

Oh how i miss the old cover system! dow2's cover system gave me something to anchor my units too, but now it's got the starcraft 2 cover system(which is the odd smokey vent you can hide in), i just don't see much point in where to position my guys, they don't get behind rocks and shoot over looking cool, they just stand there in the open and melt like grass under a nuclear blast.


The army painter:

loads more paint colours to choose from, but a lot less choice for space marines on how you have your units painted, no criss cross or split square patterns, your marines are now all 1 colour for the majority of their armor apart from the trim and accessories. yay for boring.

awesome game! it's passing minecraft in what can be done in sandbox, the big patches they do seasonally are really good to see since release, and the redstone patch should put the game past minecraft, an awesome co-op and pvp experience, and a very scary game to solo! zombies are a real challenge and the crafting system is huuuuuuuge!!

One of the coolest games i've ever played :D they've added a ton more since i first baught it, the content in the game is awesome and just keeps getting better! definately worth a buy.

Very close to the ''portal 2 experience'' this short but amazing game is well worth exploring, and defy the narrator!