Recent reviews by aidmo

I was hopeful Elden Ring would change my mind about soulslikes but it just didn't. I gave it a fair shot, but I think there are just some fundamental elements of the genre that I'll never be able to vibe with.

Hero Siege had so much potential but its developer has driven it into the ground and no longer cares ( see https://imgur.com/577qgWQ). Frankly, I havent't played in a while, but I still loved the game. Hero Siege went from a must-buy indie to an avoid-at-all-costs Diablo clone that nobody wanted, whether they're "salty noobs" or not.

Gwent?

the best cod since mw 2019.

who up rimming they world

The best way to describe this game is as a cake that nobody liked. Instead of making a new cake, they just added more layers to the outside. It looks better, and the outside icing might make it taste a little bit better, but the base underneath still sucks. I guess it's enough to fool some people, but even giving the game the benefit of the doubt after a few years of content updates kept me interested for no more than an hour or two. In fact, I actually just found myself frustrated by a genuinely unfair survival mode and horrible performance on high-end hardware.

Every other space exploration game on the market is way more accessible and way more fun. Elite Dangerous has been out just a little bit longer but is far more competent in nearly every aspect of gameplay. Star Citizen has been in development since the beginning of time and has its own issues, but even that is a better experience.

Get No Man's Sky if you're easily entertained and can overlook glaring issues that have persisted in core gameplay mechanics for the better part of a decade. Otherwise, avoid it.

It would be an understatement to say that the Halo franchise has been the single most important game franchise in my life. I was fortunate enough to start at the beginning with Halo: Combat Evolved on the OG Xbox almost twenty years ago, and I have been hooked ever since. As for many people, Halo was the reason I bought an Xbox. However, I found several years ago that I simply enjoyed the PC experience more. I somewhat reluctantly stopped paying for Xbox Live and finally made a complete switch just a couple years ago. You can probably imagine my surprise when my college roommate told me that Halo: The Master Chief Collection was coming to PC, and that it was actually going to be on Steam! It was an insta-wishlist and insta-purchase.

Okay, with the sentimental stuff now out of the way, let's talk about the PC port of the MCC. In general, 343 Industries has done an excellent job of porting every individual game into the collection. I haven't had any major problems with performance, and some of my other problems with each game are in the bug fix pipeline. PC-specific features like high refresh rate support are great, and the addition of input-based matchmaking is great for those of us who use keyboard and mouse and can't compete with broken controller aim assist.

What still boggles my mind about the MCC is that 343i is still updating it despite Halo 4's collection-completing release just a short while ago. For whatever reason, I still can't believe that they're adding new, never-before-seen content to ancient videogames. Halo CE and Halo 3 have new customization options primarily consisting of visor color customization, and CE has gotten weapon and vehicle skins that previously only existed in Gearbox's port's Custom Edition.

If you're like me and loved Halo on the Xbox, get it on PC. If you're not so much like me and played Halo Custom Edition or Halo 2 Vista (although I certainly hope you didn't have to experience that), get it on PC.

As a person that has built a couple PCs and loves doing it, PC Building Simulator makes it easy to build over-the-top builds with all the good things and none of the bad ones that come along with real-life PC construction. With a huge range of licensed parts, from cases to custom loop reservoirs, there is no other software that comes close to matching the level of authenticity and detail that PCBS reaches. With the sheer amount of parts available, you more than likely can build something similar to or exactly like your own personal PC. To keep things spicy, the developers have a mode that allows you to run a business fixing computers for clients. It's a really interesting idea, and there's a little bit of humor thrown in to boot.

I do take a little bit of issue with the paid DLC, since they added all sorts of parts from big names like Corsair, EVGA, MSI, etc, just to work with Razer and Asus ROG and charge for a couple custom workshops. However, I don't have to buy it to play the game or access new content, so it doesn't ruin the game for me.

Kerbal Space Program is easily one of the greatest games of the generation. No game before it has been so simple yet allowed so much freedom to the player. The game runs well even on low-end rigs, and it will keep you glued to your chair for hours on end. KSP is easily one of my favorite games of all time; it quickly ascended the ranks of my most-played games list on Steam shortly after I purchased it, surpassing all but Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It is capable of frustrating you, making you feel good about yourself, and making you throw your keyboard across the room all without breaking a sweat. When you feel down, KSP will surely help you cope with any and all kinds of stress.

Maybe you've always wanted to be a rocket scientist (I know I do), and you want to do rocket science in the comfort of your home. That's where KSP comes in. Kerbal Space Program, currently one of the highest-rated games on the market, is your solution. You can choose from three different modes (sandbox, career, and science) which allow you to play the game any way you see fit. Sandbox allows you to do whatever you want, with all parts available from the beginning. Career is more difficult, as you must balance resources to stay in business. Science, my personal favorite, removes the resource management aspect and simply lets you perform experiments in various location and situations as you see fit. Both Career and Science mode start you with technology that would have been available to NASA as early as the 1960s. Yeah, it's outdated, but it just makes it more fun. You earn science points that allow you to research new ship parts, such as wings, engines, fuel tanks, antennae, or even more science-earning parts.

KSP has struck a perfect balance between fun and difficulty. The feeling of pure joy that cascades over you when you finally exit the atmosphere of Kerbin is indescribable, but the dark feeling that washes back over you when you realize you can't land safely or establish an orbit around the planet is equally awe-inspiring. The Kerbals, your astronauts, spew out of the astronaut complex like bullets from a belt-fed machine gun. They are endless, and always exploding with enthusiasm, ready to help you learn the secrets of the Kerbol solar system, with no regard to their own safety.

Kerbal Space Program is easily one of the most-loved games of all time, both by the developers and by the community. The devs have obviously poured their souls into the creation of this game, and they've been well-rewarded. In turn, their community has cranked out thousands of mods to accomplish what the devs could never have imagined possible. KSP, an already endless game of building and testing and building and testing, has become even endlesser (which is not a word, I know, but that doesn't matter).

• Incredible, highly-polished gameplay experience that will draw you back every day of every month of the year.
  
• Endless combinations of parts and ways to use them that let your imagination run wild.
  
• Highly realistic physics that are so accurate you can calculate them if you know what you're doing.
  
• Adorable, expendable astronauts, including the legendary Jeb.
  
• Endless extension of the game through modding, including additional parts and new functions and game mechanics.
  
• An very challenging experience!

• Often very difficult.
  
• The physics, while incredible, are just as unforgiving as real physics.
  
• If you have no concept of time in the first place, this game might turn into a time sponge. (But that's not always bad!)

In conclusion, I am not afraid to say that Kerbal Space Program is the greatest game ever made. It's a groundbreaking simulation game that truly captures the essence of exploring the final frontier, all in a slim, fun, and challenging package. If you haven't bought this game, you're likely living under a rock. :)

Rating:

Viscera Cleanup Detail (VCD) is a first-person janitorial simulation. Yes, that's right, you heard me, a cleaning simulator. You're not just some janitor in a boring old building in some random city, though. Your job is to clean up areas that look like a scene after the player character sweeps through in games like Doom. There are gibbed body parts everywhere, blood spots in hard-to-reach places, and other random sci-fi gore and trash spread around the vicinity.


Viscera Cleanup Detail is one of the more unique games on Steam, due to the fact that you're not causing destruction and instead the one cleaning it up. It's actually surprisingly fun, with quite a challenge. Your cleaning performance is actually graded when you clock out, so you can sort of figure out how good you are at cleaning. I personally love the required level of cleaning for maps: you have to dispose of all body parts, blood, and any other sort of gross thing like that, and also throw away trash. You ALSO have to use this weird laser/plasma gun to fix up things like bulletholes or lightsaber-like cuts in the walls. Some maps also require creative use of TNT and other things you wouldn't have expected to use for cleaning purpose. I overall enjoyed it, but when it was suddenly the next morning during the course of one map, I had to stop.

Pros
• Wonderful graphics provided by the Unreal Engine.
  
• Splitscreen and Online co-op play.
  
• Lots of interesting maps to *try* to clean.
  
  
  Cons
• Can take hours, especially alone, per map.
  
• The cleaning performance grading system is pretty meticulous and will find an error somewhere.
  
• The little elevator that you are provided CAN and WILL kill you. You've been warned.

Final Thoughts:
VCD is an interesting game that you should consider grabbing if you're not strapped for cash. It's packed with dozens of hours of playtime, and the replayability of the game is great, especially for speed-runs and even more fun.

Rating: 8.5/10

This review was written for and is published on the Lit Reviews [LR] curator page.