Recent reviews by Insatiable Wrath

I don't really have a whole lot to say about this game, really. It's a visual novel/dating sim. I don't have a lot of experience with the genre, but this just felt meh all over.

You're Heileen, the potentially most vapid and shallow woman you'll ever meet (then again her Lust and Pride values were high), as she tries to be useful aboard Captain Morgan's vessel while at the same time getting a date with just about any character that looks half-decent, because eye-candy. You don't get to pick your character, you're always Heileen, but she's bi, so there's your choice there.

There are many characters, both potential romantic interests or not, and each romance equals to a different ending. You're not obligated to smooching anyone up though, as this game also provides you with profession endings, given a high enough value in either a Virtue or a Sin, and the high enough skill level in the needed jobs to end the game that way (example would be you finishing as a captain, so you'd need high leadership and maxed out Pride).

Virtues and Sins are gained and lost depending on your responses in the many conversations this game has, which is 40% of the game, the other 60% are just you grinding your skills for the profession endings, which is pointless if you want a romance ending anyway. I am told the Virtue and Sins levels do affect her personality, so you can make her more of a wench in her general dialogue or not (which is pretty cringeworthy at times, but I knew what I was getting into). Thankfully the characters are different to one another, they will like you more depending on who and what you actually do so the same process doesn't work for everyone.

This being a trilogy, I suppose I can't fault this game for bringing in tons of references from the previous two games I believe, since the first part of the game is just you looking for your friends. This happens naturally though, you don't get to choose where you want to go so while there are many different endings, the game's as linear as it gets.

You're wondering why I'm putting in a recommendation for this game. Well, it's short. And I didn't hate it enough, I mean there's nothing inherently wrong with it. There's not a whole lot to it in the end, but it is what it is. And if you're into this type of game, you'll probably enjoy it more than I did. Was very cheap in a recent bundle so, yeah, give it a try.

DiRT 3 was okay. Really, it was okay. It's a fun racing game, but not one I'd go back to anytime soon unfortunately. I just see DiRT 2 as being the far superior game in my honest opinion, having better track variety, a better soundtrack, and a better flow in general. Plus DiRT 3 has a huge focus on Ken Block's Gymkhana Events, which is alright and refreshing, but wasn't really a huge fan of. Nothing wrong with 3 on that, just different taste. If you love them you'll definitely enjoy 3.

But I do prefer DiRT2's approach of pure racing through and through, plus getting to buddy up with all the huge stars and accepting their personal challenges was neat. DiRT 3 has none of that, you only get Block teaching you the basics of Gymkhana once, and then you have this team of about 3 or 4 people who're always talking to you, but they're horribly bland and I've forgotten all of their names already. Hitting people's cars and getting random commentary? None of that here in 3. It's those little things that just make me want to keep 2 as the superior game in pretty much every way.

All in all though, it wasn't bad. Plus DiRT 2's going to be abandoned since GFWL isn't going away there while 3's moving to Steamworks, so you really want to keep with this one in the future.

Chaos Rising is awesome. Everything that was good about the wonderful original Dawn of War 2 is still here, along with a few tweaks, and the addition of the Chaos race.

This game's campaign, though admittedly rather short, was an amazing and engaging ride through and through. The corruption mechanic allows high replayability as there are several ways the campaign itself can go, and thus, several endings, but also the missions are quite well crafted and varied. It ties in perfectly with the vanilla game's single player story as you guide the Blood Ravens into, or away from the allure of Chaos. And although Dawn of War II's campaign was interesting, it didn't wow me nearly as much as Chaos Rising's did, so much that I now strongly recommend playing both in order. Keeping your former squadmates is a nice touch, for continuity's sake.

It turned me into a fan of 40k. I want and crave more now. If you're into the unique squad based gameplay, please get Chaos Rising, it's frankly a must have expansion.

There aren't a lot of games like Red Faction: Guerrilla out there but I've got to say I loved it.

The game's emphasis is basically centered around blowing stuff. And carnage. And blowing some more stuff up. I lost count of how many times I just went on rampages throughout the various sectors, trying to destroy key strategic places while having the EDF on my ass trying to stop me. The fully destructible environments and buildings just give you such an amazing sense of freedom and endless shortcut potential. Combine that with the possibility of driving overpowered mechs and tanks, and you've got a really fun game to just mess about.

It is also open world, so there's plenty of side missions here and there, and unmarked collectibles, but this made me recall the first Assassin's Creed, and not in a good way. See, while there are several types of side missions, every time you visit a new sector, you just end up getting the same side missions anyway. You really just end up feeling like you're doing the same thing over and over again even when you're in a new zone, just like Assassin's Creed. There's a few dynamic ones that pop up when you might just be wandering around, but again, not a lot of variety.

I absolutely love Colonial Mars. You don't see it depicted often, and it is that sweet blend of early colonization + open expanses of wilderness. The sectors themselves, of which there are quite a few, do have their own personality and flavor. The whole vibe it gave off really reminded me of driving the Mako in Mass Effect.

The plot itself is pretty standard really, usual insurgent rebels fighting evil empire with superior forces. There were a few plot twists here and there but I found most of it, including the story missions, rather underwhelming. Personally though, the freedom fighter premise is something that never really gets old for me, so I did enjoy it nevertheless.

All in all though, totally recommend this one. While it may not be thought provoking long after you've beaten it, you will remember the slaughter you've inflicted as your carefully planted bombs collapse that huge apartment block in one go, causing its floors to crash on the enemies' unsuspecting heads as you break a hole in a wall to cut a shortcut and make your escape. Fun stuff.

Free to Play was a neat movie. Following the paths of three different top tier Dota 2 players through the very first International tournament, with a first place price of 1,000,000 US dollars, something which was unprecendented at the time.

It goes on length to show their tribulations, the problems having to juggle both their personal lives and their progaming careers in a fragile balance, often ending up having to sacrifice much in order to be at the top of their game. (pun intended.)

And that's really the message of Free to Play: it takes something which anyone can relate to - (Is it worth taking that chance and perhaps winning it all, or should we just play it safe?) into an environment which still has that social stigma of uncertainty and distrust with it (e-sports) which the movie shows quite well. It's brilliant, and makes the movie more relatable and less alien to those unfamiliar with this new trend. And like everything in life, sometimes when you take that shot, either you triumph and it was totally worth it, and other times, you fail and come crashing down.

Obviously intended to advertise Dota 2, it is nevertheless a look into the growing e-sports industry and how it's quickly advancing in scale. For people who've never played a match of Dota 2 in their lives, though you will not understand the slang surrounding the game itself, the movie does try at times to carefully explain the more popular terms to those who are not as familiar. In fact, the documentary focuses more on the human aspect of pro players and e-sports in general, not just Dota 2, which serves more as a canvas for the documentary itself, rather than the actual focus. I am a Dota enthusiast myself, so it's possible I had extra enjoyment out of the movie, but again, I think most people could watch it.

The movie itself is in awesome quality, and it features commentary tracks from both Fear or Dendi, and it has a couple of bonuses with it that you can spend 5 minutes watching. It's not too long so it doesn't overstay its welcome, then again, it's something you'd only really watch once, I don't think you'd replay it for the commentary tracks alone.

Hell, it's free. To play. Go watch it already.

Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War II was pretty good. Unlike its predecessor, Dawn of War 1, the base building concept is thrown out the window with this one. Instead it's squad-based, like Company of Heroes for example, which happens to be a Relic game as well.

It ends up playing more like an Action RPG really, with you using the specific skills of each of your unique squadmates, each with their own personality and class, collecting new armor, weapons, to change up your playstyle as needed, and last but not least, leveling up and boosting your characters. Hell, even the boss fights keep you on your toes, with their own abilities having you to keep moving around in order to take as little damage as possible. I enjoyed that, and I also enjoyed Relic's streamlined approach to ye olde RTS.

And no, streamline does not an easier game make. It very much punished me for getting my priorities wrong when it came to focus fire on the wrong unit. Wasn't a complete cakewalk on Normal difficulty and I'm thankful for that. Though perhaps that could have been because I largely ignored the cover mechanic, which is strongly stressed in these games, yet seldomly did I feel the need to jump into cover.

Now Relic knows how to make good RTSes. Not only that, they also know how to give the amazing Warhammer 40k universe the epicness it rightfully deserves. Now I'm not too familiar with the 40k lore at all, but this game got me curious to want to learn more about it, because it just reeks of awesome. The voice acting's awesome, the music fits right into the mood, and the ambience and atmosphere is spot on.

The campaign mode isn't Starcraft 2's levels of inventiveness and non linearity, but it's not slouch either. You get all kinds of optional missions to do, special persistent buildings that you can capture that maintain passive bonuses for you throughout the game, that you have to keep defending every now and then against invaders. Though honestly, the missions do get a bit repetitive eventually, and by the end I just wanted to go to the ending and get it over with. Again, it's not because I found this a bad game, I liked it a lot, but I played the Campaign mode only, and RTS single player campaigns are hard to get right. While the old school RTSes didn't care at all about their level design, (build base, kill other guy's base, repeat) Dawn of War II at least gets points in effort for trying to mix it up.

As for the story itself, it was admittedly clichéd but again, the epicness of the Warhammer 40k universe is so compelling by itself that I actually want to get Chaos Rising and Retribution eventually just to see how it all unfolds. Dawn of War II was a nice ride, but not one I'd keep coming back to for more over and over again.

Short and simple, and available for the price of free. It's certainly an experience, not a game, and it's thought provoking, despite its simplicity. And it's really short, 5 minutes tops, so talking about it would just spoil it for you, and again, since it's short and free, meaning that at the worst case scenario, you'll have wasted 5 minutes, how can I not recommend this to everyone?

Try it out, you'll either say "meh" and move on, or perhaps you'll be intrigued.

Not much to say about this one really. It's a mediocre co-op squad-based shooter with GFWL in it that has Taji insurgents. And chinese. And that's about it. Expect your usual fist-pumping 'MURICA dialog with this one, especially with your staff sgt., who will NEVER shut up about his 10 rules, which are basic common sense, and whose voice i recognize from Sazh in FF XIII. The fact that dude was swearing... like Sergeant Hartmann off Full Metal Jacket made me think the Taji insurgents ate his baby chocobo.

It has a lot of squad commands but it's not like you'll need them anyway, the game can be beaten easily with you going lone wolf sniping everyone despite the game itself telling you that if you do that, you'll end up easily dead. Nope. Just go scout and grab the better sniper rifles around the higher levels, game's a breeze then.

Don't waste your money, and play games that do what this game does but better.

Fallout 3. This is a game that will, most of the time, suck you in with its amazing atmosphere and environments. I say most of the time because, just like the Steam notice says there, it's not optimized for Windows 7. Now I have Windows 7, and I fully played through all the content in this game, and what I believe they're trying to say with that is that this game has a bunch of performance issues. Fallout 3 loves to crash. A lot. As in, it made me press the quicksave button all the time so I'd make sure I wouldn't lose as much progressas I potentially could. However, I did play through everything, and I loved it. In fact, this is the second time that I've played through everything in Fallout 3. I just love the game so much that even the regular crash couldn't stop me.

The very first part of the game is so well done, very immersive and eases you into the game proper nicely. Don't expect amazing shooting mechanics, while it does have FPS mechanics (you'll never used third person camera because of how bad it is for combat) you don't play it for the shooting. You play it instead for the RPG elements, the storytelling, and the impeccable atmosphere the Wasteland offers you. It's grim, it's gory, it's gritty, it is a complete hellhole on a destroyed post-apocalyptic Washington D.C. Many of the landmarks that characterize D.C in the real world are very well replicated here in its ruined and wrecked glory.

The Fallout universe itself is a joy to be in, with its 50's/futuristic quirks, power armors, aliens, big guns that really go BOOM, and freaky mutations. The game did give me quite a few jumpscares when I was caught unawares by some of the wildlife. The V.A.T.S system is awesome as you pick your favorite body part and shoot, complete with guts and gore flying everywhere as your enemies die. Good stuff.

The inevitable question when it comes to this game is: "Is it better than New Vegas or is it the other way around?" I would say that even though I slightly prefer New Vegas, both are worth playing anyway because it shows both Bethesda and Obsidian's strong (and weak) points. And both are good games in their own right.

Bethesda made Fallout 3. And what makes Bethesda great are both its sidequests (which are always more interesting than the main story itself) and its attention to detail in its environments. They love to litter the landscape with information, each containing a small story or information explaining why that skeleton's standing in that bathroom, for example. And sometimes it doesn't, all it shows you, all it needs, is the scenery itself that tells the story for you. This makes exploration really engaging and fun because things rarely feel they're copypasted (except the subway tunnels but there's only so much you can do to make a ruined subway tunnel stand out, though some do stand out anyway).

The quests themselves have multiple solutions and most of the time offer choice, like a good RPG should, and trust me, you can do some extreme stuff in these which will literally change the landscape, but then again, these choices and this engaging writing are severely lacking in the main quest itself, which is clichéd and ultimately really linear.

I prefer Obsidian's writing overall, so New Vegas wins out on Fallout 3 for me there. Fallout 3 though, like any good sandbox RPG should do, which New Vegas does not, is allow you to keep playing after the actual ending. In NV's defense though, there are so many endings that it would be hell to program into, but still, it's something worth keeping an eye out for.

Fallout 3's the oldest game of the two, so it will, gameplay-wise, lack a few features NV adds in later on.

Like any modern Bethesda RPG, Fallout 3 adds much needed mod support which makes the PC version by far the best, allowing you to fix many of its faults, and become an even better experience than it already is. Though I'd recommend just sticking to performance mods the first time around, as some of these mods can change the game dramatically.

The DLC for the game itself is a bit hit and miss in my opinion. DLCs like Broken Steel which let you keep playing the game after its conclusion, or Point Lookout and The Pitt, which add areas of their own with stuff to do are great, but Anchorage and Zeta, though unique, don't add to the game all that much, and you wouldn't feel like something's missing if these never came out.

All in all, I totally recommend this game, lots of RPG goodness and with mod support, can have you keep coming for more.

Dark Souls will be one for the ages to me. This is the kind of game that is completely brutal but rewarding at the same time. I raged, and raged hard at some encounters, because this game holds nothing back, but it forces you to also think on your tactics as you progress through the game. It will give you all the tools you need to get through it, you just need to think and plan accordingly. And they are completely right, the feeling of accomplishment you get upon beating a particularly hard section or encounter is unlike any most games out there can give you. I especially enjoy how big monsters actually FEEL like big monsters, as in, they can easily crush you if you're not careful. It was a thrilling and challenging ride, but I loved it and it is now easily one of my favorite games of all time. Highly replayable as well, there are tons of secrets to find here.

Elaborating why I liked this game though, hell, even discussing the minimal detail on this game would actually derail and spoil you the experience, in my honest opinion. This is one of those games you're supposed to pick up and play, while going in completely blind. You'll be shafted many times, count on that, and you'll probably seethe with frustration, but you'll adapt, improve as a player, and maybe even overcome the challenges ahead. This is definitely not a game for everyone though, the difficulty is up there.

The port wasn't the best, but I did just fine using an Xbox 360 gamepad and DSFix, an unofficial fix that fixes many of the problems it has - http://blog.metaclassofnil.com/?tag=dsfix. I was able to go through the game quite well, barring one single crash, and some minor framerate issues here and there. That's better than what any Bethesda RPG can really claim in terms of performance, and I love the hell out of those games too.

Bottom line, if you have this game on Steam and didn't play it yet, I URGE you to finish this review, and go install it and play it right now. You may end up loving it or hating it, but either way, you won't come out indifferent to it. Even better, now that Steamworks has finally been implemented, you have no excuse. Go die lots of times, go curse that one boss who keeps kicking your ass, it'll all be worth it once you finally manage to beat him down, I promise.

Praise the Sun!