Recent reviews by Admiral Shit

Dead Space 2023 is overall great - partly even an excellent game but there are some downsides and technical flaws I have to mention as we go along. Let's get the good stuff out of the way first.

I'll start by giving A+ for the sound design. It's excellent and really sets the mood. Old spaceship humming, footsteps clanking against metal floors, electrical devices beeping and booping, distant screams echoing in the corridors.. Very atmospheric.

The use of lightning in this game is unparalleled. Visually speaking Dead Space 2023 is one of it's kind. Visceral, moody, dark and bloody. This is pretty much a video game equivalent to Event Horizon. Body horror made properly.

The story is as engaging as it was in 2008 even though it's premise is a cliché by now. You play as Isaac Clarke, a ship systems engineer and a member of search and rescue team from USG Kellion. You and your team are sent to a spaceship called USG Ishimura to find out why it's gone radio silent. Soon after boarding Ishimura your team is attacked by weird undead creatures and you are separated from rest of the crew. Not too far in the game your mission changes from search and rescue to survive and evacuate.
As a ship systems engineer you basically act as a space janitor (when you're not fighting) trying to get Ishimura's systems back online and working so you can get the F outta there.
The game has a lot of environmental storytelling in addition to audio/text logs. The more you pay attention to your surroundings the more you find out about the lore and what actually went down on Ishimura.
There are subtle changes in the story compared to the classic version but nothing worth mentioning without spoiling some parts of the plot. It's all good stuff.

Let's move on.

I played Dead Space 2023 on mouse & keyboard and it worked quite fine. Field of view could have been adjustable. In my taste it's tad bit too low.
For some reason loading a save from the main menu takes less time than loading last checkpoint/autosave after death. Loading times are not an issue, this is just something that caught my attention.
The game looks good. Everything is very detailed and animations are well done. It's hard to find any flaws in Dead Space 2023's graphics. If I'd have to point something out I'd say the game is little too dark from time to time.

This remake is pretty much 1:1 compared to the 2008 version so I was equally annoyed by certain aspects in Dead Space 2023 as well.

I'll start by saying that the gameplay loop is somewhat repetitive and foreseeable.
Oh a power node, better take it with me because I bet it will be needed soon. Oh, loud noises. Better prepare for a lockdown fight. Oh, a button! Better to get ready for a fight after pressing it. Oh, lights went out. Better to get ready for a fight.
It's not bad per say but this could've been handled more subtly in the remake. The atmosphere is great, so why not build it up more slowly and release the tension not until it's peaking? There are way too few moments where you can just explore and find out what lead to Ishimura's predicament without being constantly attacked by something.

Now arriving technical issues station.

Dead Space 2023 tends to run on high and steady framerate BUT it is a stutterfest. There are traversal stutters, weapon switch stutters, random stutters, stutter stutters and so on. Never ever have I seen so much stuttering in one game. This is hands down the biggest issue this game has.

I encountered few bugs too. Nothing game breaking but annoying nevertheless.

Once the videofeed window stayed open in front of Isaac playing nothing but white noise after the playback ended. I had to reload a save to fix this. The game autosaves pretty often so this wasn't a big deal.

Sometimes keyboard inputs in the menus are not registered. It's not rare to have to press ESC 3-4 times before the game acknowledges it.

Sometimes enemy corpses can randomly take off and fly to skybox/ceiling like rockets and then disappear. This is kinda funny the first time you see it.

There's also situations where you can get stuck in pain state loop and die. Not exactly "a bug" but frustrating as ♥♥♥♥.

And sometimes the game crashes when you quit and exit to Windows.

TL;DR: Dead Space 2023 is great and good looking game which suffers from severe stuttering and somewhat bad pacing.

A video game substitute for Stephen King's Misery.

Worthy sequel for Metro series. Bigger, longer and more open ended compared to first two games.
4/5.

For whatever reason I never played the original back in the day. Same thing with System Shock 2 - which later became one of my favorite games. So, there's no reference point or nostalgia messing with my view on System Shock Remake. Now that's out of the way, System Shock Remake is flawed but overall pretty well done and enjoyable game.

System Shock Remake's premise is quite simple. You play as the hacker who at the beginning of the game gets caught while trying to access files of the Citadel space station owned by TriOptimum corporation. You are captured and brought before Edward Diego, TriOptimum executive who offers to drop all charges and promises you a military grade neural implant if you in change hack SHODAN, the artificial intelligence of the Citadel Station.
Diego wants you to remove SHODAN's ethical constraints and once you apply, you are taken to neural implant operation and put in a coma. After six months you wake up in the Citadel Station where everything has gone wrong. You pretty soon find out that there are hostile robots, cyborgs, mutants and other SHODAN's abominations lurking in the corridors and halls of the Citadel. This is where the actual game begins.

If you have ever played any immersive sims before, then everything should feel familiar. At the start you get instructions what to do to progress. There are multiple decks on the station but not all are accessible at the beginning until you get some objectives done and acquire particular gear, like rocket boots to jump higher and hazmat suit for hazardous environments. By exploration, backtracking and solving puzzles you get new objectives and slowly open up the station. You'll find audio logs and messages all over the station. These reveal important information like access codes to locked doors, how to reach objective goals and what went down while you were in coma.

I found steam notes to be a useful tool for writing important things down. Some might argue that this type of a game design is archaic and a relic of a long gone era but I found it quite engaging. Hand holding, objective markers, waypoints and all that "modern ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥" is not present here. Meanwhile others may sing praises how genius SS:R is and they seem to think it's really intelligent and requires some serious puzzle solving skills but it couldn't be further from the truth. It does tell you what you need to do but it doesn't necessarily tell you how. This is up to you to figure out. In a nutshell it goes like this: Go here, find X, then use it in/on Y to gain access to Z and so on. But to get all this information you have to pay attention, explore, listen to audio logs and read messages. And then getting it done is another story, which usually involves a good amount of backtracking, dealing with new enemies, navigation, surprises, inventory and resource management, all that good stuff.

And now that being said, navigation seems to be a real problem especially for generation z in these games. So if you're the type that need waypoints even to a bathroom, you probably want to avoid this game. Yes, funny but still though. I heard that System Shock Remake's level design is 99% in line with the original but I can't confirm this. First decks are seemingly more maze-like than rest of them (except Engineering) but they're still nothing compared to Rise of the Triad's or Wolfenstein 3D's levels. At first SS:R's level design may seem to be confusing and obscure but it doesn't take too long to get familiar with the places. Each deck has it's own recognizable style and atmosphere, which is pleasing. The level design is going to divide people in two. There is no middle ground. Either you love it or you hate it.

Each deck is also complimented by a dedicated track from SS:R's awesome OST. Most of these are pretty moody and they fit in the games's setting perfectly. I happened to like most of them. By the way, every elevator in the world should play SS:R's elevator theme. It's that good and you can't get it out of your head afterwards.
And I gotta say, Terri Brosius is bloody great as SHODAN.

Gameplaywise everything is like you'd expected it to be. It's a first person looter shooter with some power ups and gear, no more no less. You'll start the game with just a simple melee weapon but as you progress you'll get quite a mighty arsenal of different weaponry and power ups. There's three different pistols, sub-machine gun, shotgun, assault rifle, rail gun, two plasma guns, grenade launcher, laser rapier, three types of grenades and five types of power ups. You can also find inventory size upgrades, which are super useful.
At the end game I had to think what to bring with me and what to leave behind because I had so many guns, but I am a hoarder after all. The game does not drown you in bullets though but you can buy more from vending machines. You can also buy weapon upgrades and power ups from these things.
Gunplay is pretty basic and generic, so no surprises there.

This is the part where I have to point out the most frustrating thing about System Shock Remake. Vaporizing and recycling stuff. Yes, you can collect every useless item in the game world and then vaporize it to turn it into "scrap". You can then recycle this scrap to turn it into coins at many recyclers found throughout the game. These coins you can then spend in vending machines.
Prey (2017) did this well. You could recycle every junk item in a blink just by pressing a hotkey but not in SS:R. Every single item that doesn't fit in the recycler has to be vaporized first. Some items produce more scrap than others. And for some reason some items are worth more scrap straight recycled instead of first vaporized. And you can only fit couple of items in the recycler at the same time, which is just stupid. For every 10 scraps you get 1 coin from the recycler and scrap will only stack up to 100. Every new stack of scrap will occupy new inventory slot. I found this whole process so tedious that I gave up "scrapping" after mid game. This was by far the most frustrating thing for me in System Shock Remake. I really hope that vaporizing/recycling junk items will become easier in upcoming patch.

At launch System Shock Remake was somewhat buggy. I clipped through platforms especially in the Storage deck, got stuck here and there, sometimes enemies ragdolled like they were in zero G's and so on but all that got fixed in the first patch. Some people claim to suffer from stuttering and overall bad performance but I can't confirm this.

Even on day one the game performed well on my rigs. No stutters, load times were non existent, steady 170 fps @ 1440p, ultra settings and 200% resolution scaling without DLSS. This was on i7 13700K, 3070 RTX Ti, 32GB DDR5, M.2 SSD and Windows 11. For funsies I tested SS:R on my ancient rig as well. On i5 3570K, 1060GTX 6GB, 8GB DDR3, Sata SSD and Windows 10 it ran steady 60 fps @ 1080p, high settings and 100% resolution scaling. Not bad. And SS:R is really small in size as well. In the time where modern games can take up more than 100 GB's of storage space, System Shock Remake was a positive surprise by only using about 10 GB's. So this game is playable even on a toaster, which is always a good thing.

Graphically speaking SS:R is weird. it's a combination of a pixelated retro look with modern lighting and effects, which was kinda disturbing at first but after a while it grew on me. At least it's unique and not like every other modern game out there. I liked System Shock Remake's art style but I see why this can divide opinions as well.

My first playthrough took about 22 hours, which is great value for the price.

If you lived through the golden years of gaming and did not play the original then System Shock Remake might rock your boat. This is a unique experience for sure for being such a weird mixture of old and new. It really shows how much love and care this game got from NDS.

Nightdive Studios, you did well. Thank you.

Stray is a weird post apocalyptic cyberpunk cat simulator adventure. There is not too much to do and it is pretty linear but what it does, it does it well in my opinion. Not every game needs an open world, crafting and endless replayability. Stray tells it's story and when it's over there's no need to go back for another walkthrough unless you want to unlock every possible achievement etc.

Stray may be lacking in content but it makes it up in it's unique setting and atmosphere.
I'd say it's a fine game for what it goes for.

Humorous homage to Metal Gear-games. UnMetal is definitely worth playing but some areas and puzzles rely too much on trial and error, which can be annoying at times.

-Mike

A Plague Tale: Requiem is like a Hollywood blockbuster movie. Not only it is insanely well produced and looks amazing but it actually tells a pretty cool story as well.
If you liked the first Plague Tale, you're gonna love this. It is all around better.

For ideal experience you should play it on QHD or 4K monitor but be warned: 8 GB's of VRAM and 30xx-series card is an absolute minimum for 1440p/high settings and it's no joke.

Got Voodoo 2 in -98. Had 60 fps in Quake 2.
Got 3070 Ti in -23. Had 60 fps in Quake 2 RTX.

But all jokes aside, this is a gorgeous looking game at times with RT on. I had such a blast beating it again and all just because of this graphical face lift. I mean, it's just RT but damn it brings so much life into Quake 2's environments and really sets the mood. I wish they would do this to Quake 1 as well.

Spiritual successor to System Shock 2.

For some reason I never played System Shock 2 when it came out despite it's positive reviews and hype.
Now 22+ years later I finally bought it and gave it a go. What a positive experience this was!

Storywise I won't spill the beans any more than System Shock 2 happens in a spaceship, something has gone wrong and there is a rogue AI. Not the most original premise - I know, but it works here so I'm not complaining. That's all you need to know about the story.

What comes to gameplay, I'd describe this as an old school cyperpunk rpg fps with no hand holding or other modern ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. System Shock 2 has some classic survival horror elements in it as well like limited or rather rare resources, inventory management, backtracking and creepy atmosphere.

My first playthrough took about 12-15hrs and I died hundreds of times before I slowly learned how to avoid getting killed constantly. The learning curve is really steep. And I gotta say, System Shock 2 (referred just as "SS2" from now on) was ahead of it's time in many areas. I'm pretty sure this game is partly responsible for audio logs being so common storytelling instrument in gaming. Even now, in 2022 it doesn't feel old if you're able to get immersed and look past the outdated but charming low poly graphics.

Audio design in SS2 excels and really compliments it's horror aspect. All kinds of environmental noise, enemies's recognisable audio ques and ghostly flashbacks of departed crew members just moments before their demise. SS2's Soundtrack is not bad but I toned it down quite a bit to make the game world even more haunting.

Few things I didn't like about this game were sometimes awkward enemy respawning and the fact that you can ♥♥♥♥ up your character build so bad you basically soft lock the game. Especially when playing on the hardest or second hardest difficulty setting.
It sucks to restart and play multiple hours again because of bad choices. But this is part of SS2's charm and before mentioned learning curve. It really isn't for generation z adhd players.

Everybody interested in old scifi/cyperpunk/rpg/fps should try this. But be warned: This is not an easy game and it will be frustrating at times until you start getting the hang of it.