Recent reviews by Capt'n Crow

Helldivers II is a horde shooter live service game, best enjoyed in multiplayer with your friends. The community has really come together to progress the story of the game though the last few months.

It started off rough with issues logging into the servers, but that was resolved. Occasionally a new update will cause some kind of stability issues, however, I haven't had too many crashes recently so maybe we're past the worst of it.

I really do enjoy the game, it feels like you're fighting against overwhelming odds, doing all you can to survive. On higher difficulties you cannot hold your position for very long before the hordes of enemies gain an upper hand. It always feels like an uphill battle and that's pretty fun.

Unfortunately, this causes some of the weapons to just feel kind of weak. While i don't agree with the "No nerf, only buff" mentality, some guns are just next to useless as soon as anything heavier than the chaff comes at you.

The monetisation isn't egregious, you can find premium currency on the battlefield. It would be slow to only rely on it, but you could do that. I have gotten enough of the non-premium currencies to unlock almost everything and I'm only about level 60-70 out of the max of 150.

Recently, Sony had attempted to force PC players to link their steam accounts to a PSN account. They backed down after massive community backlash, but there's always a chance they try it again. I am not sure if the game is currently listed in countries where you can't create PSN accounts.

Summary: I recommend it, but not for $60(CAD)

The good:
The game is fun, swinging through New York feels great and Miles' animations really sell the personality of the character. The combat system is pretty much the same, and it still feels great to fight a group of guys without getting hit once. The new powers are fun to play around with and give this spider-man a unique feel over its predecessor. I enjoyed every minute playing it, I just wish there was more game.

The bad:
I kinda wish there were more stealth missions. Miles has camouflage powers but they're really never given a time to shine. I think one side mission needed me to use the camouflage to get closer to something and interact and that was it. Everything else wasn't mandatory if you were good at stealth. The Roxxon bases even add in lights that strip the camouflage off you, making it mostly useless during them after the fighting starts. I just think it would have been neat to be able to sneak through a few sections, maybe even allow bases to be completed without a fight if properly stealthed through.

At nearly full price ($60 CAD) it's not worth picking up. Ignoring the fact that it's a two year old game being sold at new release prices, It doesn't have the content of the first. There's less to do and the story is about half as long as the first game's, not including the previous entry's DLC. On the topic of DLC, there's none for this game.

So buying the original, you get a campaign that takes around 15 hours to finish the story. Plus another 3-4 hours of DLC story. But you could easily spend upwards of 40 hours doing all the side content.
I've 100% "Completed" Miles Morales in about 18 hours. I quoted completed because you can't unlock everything without doing New Game+ which just needlessly pads the game out.

Basically you're getting half the game at %85 of the price of the first game. I really enjoyed the game, I liked the characters, I liked the story. I would definitely recommend the game, especially if you enjoyed the first game and want more.

But maybe wait for the next sale.

It's monster hunter. Once you get used to the systems it's a fun game with a high skill ceiling. But golly are there a lot of little systems to figure out. Can be a grind-fest from time to time, but the fun comes from mastering each monster's fight.

Short version:
If you have a way to connect the Steam link directly to the router your pc is on, it will work it's best. Overall a good solution for a couch gaming experiance.

Long version:
I bought the steam link for myself after Christmas the year it came out. I was living in an apartment at the time and figured it would be a great way to get away from my desk for a little bit when playing games without lugging my desktop all the way to the living room. I got it home and plugged it in to my tv, and the router which was located on my tv stand. After some fairly simple setup and updates I was ready to go. I linked it to my Desktop (Which was using a wireless connection at the time, I knew it wasn't the ideal setup when I did)

It worked alright, I was able to play most of my games, though sometime there were some issues with lag. Nothing to make it unplayable, but enough to make me shy away from online gaming.

Some time later, I had a friend over and the conversation turned to Rocket Leauge. He had been playing it and had been enjoying it. He suggested we play after seeing the steam link. With it being one of the games my laptop had no issues running, I decided to try connecting my laptop to the steam link through the router.

What a change it made.

We spent hours playing rocket leauge online with barely any frame loss or connection issues. It was a blast playing on the tv with it.

A year later I moved into a house. The setup unfortantually meant my router got moved to my desk, out of my living room. I was able to connect my PC to the router now, but hadn't run a ethernet cable between the rooms.

I tried connecting the steam link wirelessly to the router. It worked alright again. Ocasional frame loss, some connectivity issues. I gave up on it a little until someone suggested using a Linksys powerline kit. I happned to know someone who had one they wern't using and convinced them to let me try it.

It worked!... At first.

The connection was perfect, no lag or frame skipping but only for the first hour of gameplay. After that it would start to drop frames until it just stopped. I tried to troubleshoot the system. Nothing I tried seemed to replicate the problem. It might have just been something to do with the steam link, I still haven't figured it out.

I again let it sit for a bit.

Then I finally was able to run an ethernet cable to it from the router through my attic. SInce then it's worked perfectly. 60fps on average, 1080p. Sometimes still had a few skips or stutters.
I've since upgraded my desktop. With that all the little skips and stutters vanished. It's been a perfect little device to use to play games on the tv

It also happens to have the added benifit that I can now use my pc as a media center for my tv. If steam is minimzed I can easily navagate my desktop across both of my desktop's displays seamlessly.

I did notice that the Xbox one wireless adapter for PC doesn't work on the link. (This is a shortcoming of Microsoft, not the steam link). The controller does work using a usb cable.

I've also had no issues using a wireless mouse and keyboard with the steam link.

Overall, it's worth getting if you enjoy sitting comfortably on your couch playing games. It does work best with games that don't need a high level of accuracy. Side scrollers, 3rd person action games, and RPG's all work wonderfully. While things like First person shooters and RTS games are a little harder to weild without some sort of lap based keyboard and mouse tray.

This game had so much promise. I loved the idea. I loved the gameplay (at first), I loved the flavor, and I loved playing as a super buff Viking. Sadly the game went downhill. First the disconnections. I had no troubles during the beta period with dropped matches. During regular gameplay however it would happen about 25% of the time. Ubisoft sounded like they were trying to fix it, but it just became worse and worse. It reached a point where I was unable to finish a 4v4 match at all.

They seemed to ignore the cries of their player base. Though their method of connections would have "worked" in theory. The requirements were basically that all 8 players had to have the perfect internet connection and open NAT.

The balance was always slightly off while I played, I don't know if they made any improvements. A couple of characters had spammy almost-chains that were far too easy to execute and way hard to dodge if you were new to the game. This made it harder for new players to get into the game.

That is how games die.

As I am writing this, less than 1700 players are playing (Granted it's a weekday and something like 2 pm Central time)

I've found the majorty of the remaining players are rude, employ cheap tactics, have taken advantage of the stats on their gear, or are just generally skilled. Further making it harder for a new player.

If a player who is skilled cannot be someone who is equally or lesser skilled just because of the gear they have, there's a fundamental design flaw. Keep in mind that I'm not saying the better player should win 100% of the time. I'm saying that the better player shouldn't lose 100% of the time.

Aside:
Another separate gripe that I have with the games industry in general, is that I paid like $90CAD for the game. Why the ever-loving-♥♥♥♥ are there micro-transactions? Was getting just some of my money not good enough for you Ubisoft? Did you want all of it?

Fun and easy to get into, 4 player CO-OP, 8 characters to play as, lots of unlocks to earn, 4 diffrent classes. Need I say more? Oh wait, maybe that it's free! There is no reason not to play this game.

From the technological evolutions of pressing the left key. to the gameplay evolutions of experience points and leveling, this brief walkthrough of the history of adventure-gaming will be sure to entertain you for a few hours. Inspired by games such as The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy and Diablo; Evoland brings up feeings of nostalgia, and reminds what it was like to be a gamer back in the day. I would definitely recommend Evoland to anyone who grew up playing adventure games.

Emotionaly involving, a good story, believable characters and a small heaping of suspense. All of the ingredents to a engaging game. I would recommend this game to fans and non-fans of the series alike.