Recent reviews by MacDB

The art is beyond anything that I have experienced in any other game, every model and texture meticulously hand-crafted and put into an organic setting, no scene looks the same, no area feels alike. It truly felt like being stranded in a hell-world of eldrich horrors inspired by H.R. Giger, Zdzisław Beksiński, and, I suppose, a little bit by Wayne Barlowe's Inferno. The gore made me squeal and writhe, the vast vistas and constructs left me in awe, and somber notes accompanied me most of the time. Combat was a little unfair, a couple of ambushes that felt off, like being stun-locked by two particular enemies in one particular place, or having to fight in confined quarters, The final enemy's weapon is a tad broken. These are not game-breaking issues, just mild annoyances, and generally do not tend to ruin the game as a whole. Unfortunately the game is very short, and although I understand why, it also leaves craving for more, especially with a rather abrupt ending and a hefty price tag. I am starving for more content, games like these are one of a kind. Thank you so much for your blood, sweat and tears making it, it truly is a labour of love.

I have many conflicting emotions after finishing this game. These are caused by pros & cons which are visible throughout the gameplay. I'll start with cons, ending up with pros.

Cons:

- Price of the game :
This is a tough one because I know that the company has a right to evaluate their product according to what they think. However, since I'm a customer, I feel quite robbed, knowing that the same amount of money I paid for Borderlands 2 was spent better as the previous game provided the players with much more content.

- The game is much shorter than Borderlands 2.
I think it didn't take me more than two 10-hour-sittings to finish this game together with all DLCs and side quests. This is a considerable flaw because in the previous game, due to the amount of locations and characters, there was so much more to do.

- Smaller variety of locations.
The difference is vast. Borderlands 2 provided the player with dead sands, frozen wastes, highlands, volcanic areas, underground mines and that was only the main game. I'll skip the DLCs of BL2. In the Pre-Sequel, there's moon, moon, moon, moon, moon and Hyperion Space Station.

- Fewer quests.
I think that with big areas provided by developers there should be more quests connected with, I don't know, killing things like Shuggaraths or Rathyds, anything it's easy to come up with such side quests.

- Raid Bosses are almost non-existant when compared to Borderlands 2.
One Raidboss... Just why, this hurts me more than anything else. There are also three-in-one raid in the DLC but since it's one after another, I count it as one.

- Holodrome DLC.
Holodome DLC has nothing to offer apart from short dialogues and mindless shooting for crappy loot. The arena is big and it takes more time to find the monsters than killing them. The music there is mind-numbing.

- Other annoyances.
What I was pissed off by was the fact that there were no fast-travel stations at some locations. From what I see it was a trick to prolong the gameplay in the most boring way possible.
It drives me nuts to see that the Borderlands team did not learn the fact that the dialogues get interrupted by everything. I mean, for the love of God, is there one person who didn't have his or her dialogue cut in the middle by some useless inspire skill or random, nonsense character? I picked echo and was interrupted by Nurse Nina the second after, makes by blood boil.
Lesser variery of enemies to kill. Where are goliaths, one-handed scavs, or anything? I found myself fighting the lost legion and scavs for 85% of the game if not more.
Bugs, slowdown bug after leaving the vehicle bursted my veins wide open, lack of attention to model hitboxes was also discouraging and often ended in death or falling down some hole.

Pros:

- Main story:
Although it started rather slowly and ended abruptly, the story is great, the plot-twists, it makes you yearn fore more. I still wait for the thread connected with Angel and Jack's wife as it is significant to completion.

- Baroness, Jack and Claptrap DLC:
These DLCs are done with attention to detail. Sometimes you'll just want to check the way your character responds to the events. As for Claptrap DLC, it fills a gap for why the Claptrap production line suddenly disappeared.

- Characters speak:
I think it's a nice addition, to know what your character things of certain situations.

-Buttslams and gravity:
I loved the idea of sudden slam and watching the enemies fly out of the map, juicy, sweet. The flaw is that it deals low damage at later stages.

- Bosses:
A big step up, even though there are so few, they are so well done, the cinematics and the models, sounds, everything, lovely areas and graphics.

- Hyperion Station
I loved the idea of showing the Hyperion Station and its founders, it fills the informational gap. I also loved the R&D area, animal reserve area for its design, ideas of artificial lighting and fake environment are well perserved.

Overall :

I wouldn't recommend the game because of the current price. Sorry. I'm certain that the developers could have done more in terms of areas or enemies, bosses, quests.
I bought this game during Steam Summer Sale on -72% with Season Pass and for 23.23€ which felt like the right price.

A Story About My Uncle, pros & cons.

Pros :
- Amazing graphics!
- Great movement system, all aspects of grappling, boosting just work so well!
- A very peaceful game, something to relax.
- Amazing ebb & flow.

Cons :
- A very short game for 12€
- Rushed story
- Lack of interaction with village characters (I think it would add some spice to the game)
- A companion who spams you with "Hey! Hey! Over here!" until you reach her. ( HEY! LISTEN! )
- Game builds affection between main character and a companion in less than 2 hours.
- Some dialogues tend to be a bit dull.

The game looks great, movement features work wonders and there is no trouble in finding the correct path, good map planning. However, the game is simply too short, I feel like a lot of content could have been added. More topics should have been explained and developed. Game feels rushed when it comes to story : beginning of the story seems fine but its later execution went poorly.

The point is, it would be fantastic if the game was cheaper or longer (or both). Get it during cool sales so you can have a proper length to price scaling. Otherwise, a game worth playing.

This game is beyond everything I'd ever imagine from something that in fact uses only three textures and a bunch of particle effects. The incredible vastness, spaciousness of this game is breathtaking as it takes a lot of time to simply notice every single and simple detail added, not to mention that all of it or at least most of it is playable space. All colors used in this game, this sudden change from dim light to vivid, vibrant and dynamic. These sudden changes of the atmosphere and fog. All of it is incredibly well done. Soundtrack, while sometimes creepy, is also fitting, giving the whole new experience.

Of course there are some who love to complain about how there are lack of checkpoints, movement bugs or other irrelevant smaller bugs which, to be honest, I didn't even notice. Small amount of checkpoints didn't ruin it for me at all, it's not game's fault that you die stupidly by jumping down all the time.

Back to the point, I recommend this game to everyone who looks for some abstraction, difference from ton of shooters and pixelated indie games spam.