Recent reviews by Lolokio

Solid survival crafting game that runs great on Mac and PC.

My kids and I really enjoyed it. Fun combat and base building loops that manage to stay fresh.

Don't let my limited hours in Steam fool you, I've played The Old Republic since day 1.

I first heard about this game in 2007 and created my SWTOR account in October 2009, shortly after account creation became possible.

I pre-ordered the Collector's Edition and got into early access, a week before launch, in December 2011.

I fell into this game, HARD and played several hours per day for the next two years. I was raid officer for my guild and made a lot of great friends. Despite its many flaws, I appreciated the story and world that Bioware created. It would never have lived up to the hype that a mega fan could put into it, waiting for its release for YEARS.

I moved on from the game, checking in every so often and playing for a few days after each big expansion release.

I was very worried when I heard the game was being taken over by Broadsword, but honestly? The core experience is very much in-tact.

The Good:
-Game runs very smooth these days, between iterative improvements to the client, moving to 64-bit, cloud hosted servers, and hardware advances, it's very easy to play at a locked 120fps and experience little to no latency.

-The Free Player value is 100% here, but I would recommend subscribing for at LEAST one month to get preferred status + adding a security token which will net you cartel coins every month. These can be used to purchase inventory expansion, account wide legacy perks, and specific character perks like vehicle speed boosts and experience boosts to certain categories.

-The original 8 class stories and 1-50 experience can keep a casual player busy for months, and there's some real gems there.

-I appreciate that it's very easy for me to come back and enjoy the game as I want without subscribing. FFXIV has a meme-worthy free trial, but once you subscribe, you must remain subscribed to keep playing.

-PvP in this game has always felt unique, while it's completely instanced and locked to either 8x8 or 4x4 matches -- it's a lot of fun and rewards every role. My main for years was a Smuggler healer and the amount of tricks I could pull to stay alive and hinder the enemy squad is fantastic.

-Many Quality of Life changes have been implemented which helps speed up a lot of the back tracking and more tedious parts of the leveling grind.

-I have not personally messed with the newer combat stances system, but it seems awesome that you can play through a story using an alternate combat style so you're not locked into playing something you don't enjoy just to finish up the class story.

-The expansion content, especially the solo-player focused stuff with Knights of the Fallen Empire + Eternal Throne is definitely a blast to play through. It's been said over and over, but if you just wanted KOTOR3, you could load up as either a Jedi Knight or Sith Warrior, play through your class story and the expansion content completely as a solo player and not be disappointed. (although personally, I found the Agent, Inquisitor, and Trooper story lines to be the best -- YMMV)

-Strongholds, Guild Capital Ships, and the Conquest system are all AMAZING additions that offer a TON of flair which makes the game feel a lot more like an MMO.

The Meh:
-The game has been plagued since launch with its Engine. There's loading screens a plenty and visual glitches all over the place. You may enjoy the long coats, capes, and Twi'lek Lekku tails, but the clipping animations in cutscenes sure don't. I haven't seen any game breaking things in years, but there's definitely some immersion breaking to an otherwise cinematic experience.

-The graphics got a bit of polish last year, but it's really hard to tell. While I've always appreciated the stylized look, sort of Clone Wars meets WoW -- the style isn't the issue, it's everything around it. There's loads of pop-in, stuttered shadows, blurry textures, character detail issues, etc etc. I'm playing at the absolute max settings with a PC that can easily crunch this without breaking a sweat, but the visuals take a dive all the time. One thing's changed since launch though, the annoying hitching and frame skips seem to have gone away entirely.

-Those coming from WoW addons will be very frustrated with the lack of customization to the interface and lack of tools for the game. I'm sure there's some unofficial DPS counters and reshade out there -- but nothing is endorsed / supported by Broadsword.

-Starfighter is really the epitome of meh. Some people love it, but I was disappointed with its implementation.

The Ugly:
-Depending on which server you choose, there's definite lulls where queue times for PvP or Dungeons just crawl. They've adjusted things so members of any faction (and from what I understand, almost any role) can cross-play for DF content, which almost certainly was needed, but gone are the Halcyon days of instant pop queues.

-The end game economy is in late stage capitalism. I haven't played in years, have millions in my bank, and I'm very, very poor. Luckily I'm a dad now and only hop on casually to get some PvP and Heroics in once in a blue now, but if I were someone who was interested in Endgame Raiding / Crafting, I would imagine it would take some time to build your funds and would definitely require a subscription + cartel coin purchases. . which leads to:

-There's no direct power on sale, per se -- but like many games in this category (sub turned F2P with far lower population since launch) -- the fastest way to earn in-game credits to accumulate power is by selling cosmetics purchased with real world money. It's in every game these days, and everything you expect to see is here, daily login rewards, season pass loot, purchasable packs with random cosmetics, etc etc.

All in all, if you're a fan of Star Wars and enjoy WoW's style of tab target combat, this is a great game to pick up and put some time into. It's never going to be the best MMO, but for what it is, it's a ton of fun and you can't beat the price.

Sequence is a very different kind of experience. Essentially an RPG where you fight using a rhythm game. The voice acting is pretty good, funny writing / dialogue, decent crafting system using XP for fuel -tacks on some extra grinding, but I don't mind- all makes for a great buy at under five dollars ;)

It definitely launched with a shaky start on the PC, tons of little glitches and in-game settings just not working. The game has been patched quickly though, with the game pretty stable now and more fixes on the way. Tech stuff aside, it's Borderlands with Zombies and aiming for photorealism rather then cel-shading, what's not to love? The combat and controls are very well polished, the setting is immaculate and really draws you in. Back to Banoi.

My only criticism, it's too short. Seriously, this game opened my eyes to sandbox gaming. Apparently it borrows a ton from minecraft, which I've never played, so if you enjoy that and grew up with 2D sprite side scrollers, you're set! There's good music, graphics, and tons of possibilities for customization with the Indie developers constantly releasing new content. Also, make sure to bring a friend or 254, this game really shines with cooperative collaboration.

Magicka has a suprisingly low learning curve in a single player setting. However in multiplayer you have two paths, learn how to control your awesome powers and progress through the story. Or turn your buddies into shark chum, over and over. All in all, great fun ;)