Recent reviews by Synn

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 ended up being a very mixed bag, with a bit of a slog at the very end but the overall experience was definitely a net positive

Good
- Fantastic graphics bring the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe to life. Exploring run down villages, factories and creepy abandoned labs has never been more satisfying and immersive
- Story is pretty good, tying in a lot of experiences and characters from the previous games and offering a lot of different choices for multiple playthroughs
- Great selection of weapons each with different ammo types for different situations and plenty of different attachments to further customise them
- The huge open map is a double edged sword. I liked the variation in some of the zones. I especially liked the Red Forest area

Bad
- Bugs. OMG the bugs. Some real bad ones too. First off, if you have a newer intel CPU you might not even be able to launch the game in the first place without some fooling around. Some quests are completely bugged and can't be properly completed at all. Even one of the main quests had a bug where a key item disappears. One of the main major towns, Rostok, has major crashing issues if you stay too long on the inventory, vendor or storage menus. Sometimes walking into an anomaly would just cause me to be teleported out of the map into an endless grey expanse (No this is not the intended effect of the anomaly lol)
- Weird difficulty balancing. I played on Veteran and for the first 10 hours I thought the game was too hard and for the remaining 70 it was way too easy. A lot of people online also complain about the economy in this difficulty as well with all your coupons (money) just going into repairing your gear
- Game padding? This is hard to complain about because "no fast travel" is part of the immersive experience and while there IS fast travel between guides, the amount of time spent just walking from one point to another with either nothing at all happening or a group of enemies literally spawning out of thin air right next to you really doesn't enhance your experience tbh
- And a quick note to add to the enemies spawning out of thin air bit. Certain missions (especially late game ones) literally do have enemies spawning right in front of you (sometimes right on top of you). These parts felt SUPER rushed

I know that sounds like a lot of negatives and I WILL say even with the current patches this game still doesn't feel complete as of the date of this review but the fact that this is still a positive review just goes to show how good the positive parts are. They carried me through the bad and I have never felt so immersed in a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game before. I really hope they manage to iron out all of the kinks

I really loved Salt and Sanctuary. It was the perfect game for my Steam Deck. I remember getting it on the PS Vita back in the day. It was probably one of the first 2D souls likes I'd tried. I admittedly remember getting frustrated with the lack of a map which felt like an essential part of any metroidvania experience, especially one where you unlock abilities that open paths in previously visited areas. Being older and having more patience this time around I stuck to it and had a blast, start to finish. I found the bosses a little easy for a souls like beating 70% of them on my first try but they were all still enjoyable battles. The combat feels quite fluid though I did find some of the dodge windows on some bosses a little confusing at times. There's a lot of replayability with new game plus or rolling a new character with a different build. Plenty of spells and weapons to keep you trying new stuff for hours on end. I still think the lack of a map is ultimately a drawback (I feel like I probably definitely forgot about some areas I needed to revisit and missed some stuff) but if you can look past that, you're in for a great experience. Looking forward to eventually trying Salt and Sacrifice despite the currently mixed reviews on it

If you loved the original Blood you'll love this remaster. Fluid controls, great visuals and Cryptic Passage thrown in to boot. If you haven't played the original know that Blood is one of the greats when it comes to the boomer shooter genre and you won't leave disappointed. A very different kind of weapon set and some excellent level design along with an iconic hero (anti-hero, let's be real).
I recommend looking in the discussion pages to work out what difficulty to start with though. Many people leap into the hardest difficulty levels and this can end up being a poor experience with many enemies having insane hitscan weapons that will prefire you before you even come around a corner. My recommendation is the third difficulty personally

Starbound is a fantastic little open world survival game that takes you across multiple planets with diverse biomes and unique flora an fauna. Every planet has things to discover and find both on the surface and underground. While gameplay might get samey towards the end of the game, you'll still find a few new randomly generated things in subsequent playthroughs you haven't seen before and if you do get bored of the base content there is more than enough content on the workshop to dig your teeth into with an incredibly dedicated community that clearly loves the game

This was actually the first game I ever 100% complete on steam. I found it incredibly atmospheric and intriguing the whole way through. The art style is a bold choice but works really well and if you don't think you'll like it, good news, you can disable and just make it look like a normal game. I don't usually go in for horror games but for whatever reason this one really hooked me. Very much recommended

Anno 2070 was my first entry into the series and I genuinely loved it. It was pretty different to any other game I'd played at the time with a full focus on resources and economy and not balancing it with full on combat (although there is a little naval combat). I found the setting pretty fun and the factions, although a bit stereotypical, engaging enough. I also highly recommend the co-op mode. Working with a friend and splitting duties as the late game pressure hits is very satisfying. The only issue is the repetitive nature of the core gameplay loop which might get a bit tedious after awhile. Still fun to come back to every now and then though. Of course, as other reviews have mentioned you will have to deal with Ubisoft DRM. I was lucky enough not to have any major issues myself

I'm not sure if Mythology or AOE2 is my favourite but either way they're are both fantastic entries in the series. Although you get less civilizations to play with, they all play so differently from eachother it's a breath of fresh air compared to the previous 2 entries. The main story is a real treat start to finish and the little additions in the extended edition only add to the experience. All that said I do warn against buying the Tale of the Dragon expansion. It really just feels tacked on and really out of place, which is a shame because Chinese Mythology is quite interesting

While AOE 3 was never my favourite I did always like the way buildings would come apart as you blasted them with cannons. Also the different civilizations really felt and played differently compared to previous entries (not so much Mythology). I think the era in which it's set is also a big deciding factor, you're are either into it or not. All that said there's a huge amount of content on show here and with the expansions it'll keep you going for a while. Still a strong recommendation from me

A staple in the AOE series and usually the series favourite. A huge amount of content for singleplayer and multiplayer alike. Plenty of good stuff added in the remaster and the visual upgrade is a treat. A must for classic RTS fans

Cleaning up after horrible accidents never gets old. Well actually it does but you still feel the weird compulsion to keep going and keep coming back for more