Recent reviews by Maturin

I enjoyed my time with Clear Sky, but like every other review, definitely not as much as I enjoyed my time with Shadow of Chernobyl. Don't get me wrong, I see the idea with CS, the execution is just not there. SoC needed exactly one mod to be playable (to me) which just removed the headbob. I tried CS vanilla for about 4 hours and gave up. Sky Reclamation Project does a phenomenal job of fixing the game and not much more which is exactly what I wanted. The story is definitely more involved than SoC but it missed the mark in a few places. I think the devs wanted you to feel involved in Clear Sky as a faction, but it really feels like any other group in Stalker where you do some favors and that's about it. Speaking of factions, the game has a fantastic start with it's faction warfare system and it very quickly breaks down without mods. I did not do the other two later in the game after seeing just how buggy they can be, but the renegades vs clear sky works pretty well.

I had a decent amount of fun with Clear Sky. Any new location was pretty well done and it was neat to see what the world looked like just before our actions in SoC. However at the end of the day CS left a sour taste in my mouth. It was a good game, but I can only imagine what it could have been.

While waiting for Stalker 2 patches, I've decided to go play the original trilogy. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Shadow Of Chernobyl. I did one playthrough of the "bad" endings and one of the "true" ending and both were pretty fun. The beginning was the hardest part for me solely based on the early game weapons. The Makarov sucks and even once you get a decent rifle it's still not accurate. I realized afterwards though that accuracy is part of the progression. Sure your weapon can't hit the broad side of a barn but neither can your enemy's. I only realized this on my second playthrough where I grinded my way up to a great late-game rifle that you can buy pretty early on. Once I had that I was destroying everything in my path and the game became pretty easy until it caught up to me. This game did reveal some things to me that really resonated with my time in Stalker 2, such as the end game devolving into a long series of hallways with enemies who can put you down pretty fast, which is exactly what happens in Stalker 2 as well. I did not experience too many game breaking bugs, just little stuff like NPCs sitting in doorways, and the only mod I used was one to remove the nasueating headbob. I think everyone who is interested in Stalker should see where it all began. Good game :)

So far, so good. This has the bones of a great extraction shooter, and I cannot wait to see what it becomes. The UI and character movement are what I think needs the most attention, after they get the servers to function better and optimize the game. but other than that I've enjoyed what time I've spent with it and plan to continue doing so.

Oblivion is in a tricky position, being the awkward step child between Skyrim and Morrowind. I started with Skyrim and have played that plenty since it's release but I've only recently gone back and played Morrowind, which I immediately fell in love with once I understood the game and met it on it's level. Oblivion doesn't require as much to get comfortable with the systems, but maybe that's because I came to it from Morrowind.

I do recommend Oblivion, but I can't help but see the potential if Bethesda had improved on some of the systems from Morrowind instead of deleting them outright. Instead of being able to break the game over your knee with enchantments and artifacts, now even the most powerful of swords with the most powerful of enchantments is not that much better than the loot you find in the world. Trying to balance a single player game will never make sense to me.

Morrowind is absolutely spectacular. It's everything that Skyrim does, but a bit better. The learning curve is difficult, but once you figure out this game you can really break it over your knee and become incredibly powerful at whatever you want your character to do. I cannot recommend it enough

yeah

I choose to recommend this game, but it does come with a word of warning. I've got a feeling I'm about halfway done with the game and while the game play is amazing, the story kind of drags it down. The writing in this game feels like it was done by several different people and none of them checked where the others were at before writing their lines. Characters will go from angry to sad to in the middle in the span of 3 lines of dialogue. There's a character who looks to be a teen, but talks like she's 6. Every time I managed to break away from the story and go do some exploring on my own I get sucked right back in. You'll quickly learn that the dialogue is bad because no one in this game ever stops talking. Deacon could be in the process of sneaking up behind a zombie to take it out quietly and will decide to loudly talk about how it's always raining, or trying to infiltrate a ripper camp and start yelling out about how he's going to get every last one of them. It's a big disconnect between what the player is trying to do and what Deacon is saying/doing. The story is uninteresting, but I keep finding myself coming back and slogging through it just to get to more of the gameplay.

The bike is a wonder to ride, the guns are equally fun to shoot, and the zombies are well zombies. The human enemies aren't great as enemies but they get the job done. The only actual criticism I have of gameplay is that gun ammunition aren't interchangeable, meaning if you have an assault rifle, but it's different than the assault rifle the enemy has then you cannot pick up the bullets that an enemy drops when you kill them. I get that in real life they have different ammunition sizes, but the game doesn't specify this. When you pick up ammo in the world, it's just classified as "assault rifle/pistol/shotgun ammo" but the shotgun shells that fit in my sidearm won't fit in my primary and the AK rounds won't fit in the MRS. Slightly annoying but on the normal difficulty the game gives you enough materials that you'll rarely be fighting tooth and nail for some.

I did manage to get this game on sale, which would probably be the only time I'd purchase it.

Easily one of my favorite games of all time. Definitely not easy, but it is fair. I can count on one hand the number of attacks that are un-dodgeable. Plenty of content for the price. Gib SIlksong.

I thoroughly enjoyed Metro Exodus, but for obvious reasons once you get past the games opening levels, it feels the least like a Metro game. The gameplay mechanics have yet again improved, even though they were strong to begin with. Enemy AI is still a sore point, and it's not much better here. You have plenty of time before they react to you being there. The story is okay but I still have some problems with it, mostly that your crew is assembled of people who either didn't exist in the past games, or didn't serve any major purpose besides being the piece of cardboard you walked behind in some levels. Throughout the game I formed a connection with these crew members, but from the get-go they were acting as if I was their very best friend when I was having trouble telling who was who.

Though that seems a bit negative, I still enjoyed my time with the Aurora and it's crew, and don't regret playing through the game, in fact I recommend it if you enjoyed the other Metro games. It's a strong departure from the original and Last Light, but there are sections that will make you feel right back at home. The DLC is phenomenal, and if the whole game had been like The Two Colonels, I would have nothing negative to say at all. Sam's Story is passable, but it's more of the same rather than something new. If you wanted a bit more after finishing Exodus it's like a fine after dinner mint to give you that last taste of what Exodus has to offer.

I got this game on sale, but even despite the things I mentioned earlier, I would have paid full price for this.

I played through Last Light recently to refresh myself on the story so I could play Exodus, and it showed me the same problems I had with this game the first time I played it. Don't get me wrong, the gameplay is just a straight improvement from the first. I still had just as much fun romping through the tunnel system and ruins of Moscow, and things feel just a bit smoother here. I don't think there was a single point throughout the game where I had to look up what I was supposed to be doing.

My largest problem is with the story of the game, so spoilers ahead.

Metro 2033 had two endings, but it's more likely that players got the "bad" ending where Artyom blew up the home of the Dark Ones and killed almost all of their race. The game continues from that outcome, but then constantly blames you for everything that happened. Khan and the child dark one guilt you the entire time about you blowing up all of its family. Not only that, but to get the good ending you have to set a good example for the child dark one following you. Most of the game, revenge against Pavel is the driving force and if you want to get the good ending you completely have to disregard that and choose to save him from the fate he deserves. I cant understand the thought process behind this, yet it seems they continued this trend with Exodus where they continue the game from the bad ending. Here's hoping the next Metro game doesn't do the same.