Recent reviews by Bournestorm

Plays like a really solid Indiana Jones movie, and one I'd rank up there alongside Raider of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade.

Classic one liners and Indy antics, a very good globetrotting plot pulling the best elements together from the OG Indiana Jones films, incredible voice acting, intricate and varied maps, enjoyable gameplay with a good balance of exploring, sneaking, and brawling. and lots to do. Anyone who enjoys Indiana Jones is sure to have a great time with this game. Having 100%'ed it I think that it can shine well playing through just the main and some side missions but can also be approached with a "scour every nook and cranny" kind of completionist attitude as well.

It's Dead by Daylight but fun!

But actually, it's an excellent balance of completing tasks and searching the map, coordinating with teammates and distracting the villain at crucial moments. The game gives you the power to fight back against the villain and possibly beat them instead of the main objective of the time machine startup and the power of the group gives you a sense of purpose instead of just hiding helplessly 30% of the game. It's addictive and surprisingly great.

A unique and enjoyable take on a classic series.

Barricade, set trip wires, shoot through walls, send in drones to scout out a building, rappel and swing into a window, use strategy and teamwork, and have a blast while doing so.

This is everything a multiplayer game should be, and has potential to rival CS:GO and others in popularity provided the ranked system is handled properly.

Highly recommend this to anyone. I bought it and instantly regretted not having bought the gold edition. Just picked up the Season Pass and I see myself sinking hundreds of hours into this.

So far I'm loving this game. It feels nothing like what you would expect from a traditional 'early access' game, but instead runs wondefully and delivers compelling, tense, and hardcore gameplay. My longest life so far was 6 days, 4 hours, and 39 minutes. That life I explored more than ever, espcaped freezing to death multiple times, collected copious amounts of food which I put into emergency reserves at various locations, and even fought off a wolf at one point. Sadly, I wasn't careful enough during my second wolf encounter and as I scrambled to grab the flare I had dropped as it jumped me, it circled back around and shredded my neck. I loved it.

I will certainly be playing a lot of this game. So far I've only played roughly 4 hours of Sandbox and I absolutely love it. Highly recommend this if you want a truly difficult, hardcore survival game.

10/10 Would lick a hang glider again

Bourne's Review
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Overall: 7/10
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Plot: 6/10
Graphics: 8/10
Gameplay: 7/10
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Plot: Not terribly impressive. The plot to Crysis felt a lot like Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and wasn't particularly original, but while the plot wasn't great, it wasn't bad either - just felt predictable and unoriginal. There were parts in the story I loved, particularly -Mild Spoiler- inside the mountain, which was absolutely gorgeous and surreal, my favorite part of the entire game.
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Graphics: Surprisingly good! The game was made in 2007. 2 0 0 7. And even by today's standards 7 years later it still looks great. Nothing absolutely amazing about the graphics when compared to some of the latest and greatest, but still very nice, crisp, and colorful, and far ahead of it's time. There are a few graphical bugs (Besides the myriad of other bugs that plague the game) where a black square would appear on the screen, but altogether the graphics deserve credit for being that dang good that long ago.
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Gameplay: While the majority of the game is shooting, shooting, and more shooting, the gameplay offers a lot more then that, via the Crysis staple: The Nanosuit. The nanosuit takes what could easily be a generic fps and turns the game into something much more, allowing you to sneak in cloak mode, leap over tanks and high walls in strength, choke and use people as human shields, cover distances in the blink of an eye with accelerators, tank huge amounts of damage with max armor, and modify your weapon in the midst of battle all via the Nanosuit pop up menu, seamlessly integrated into your third mouse button so that combat doesn't need to even stop while choosing tactics and adjusting maneuvers. The plot, while disappointing, incorporated numerous large scale battles, tossing the player into enemy camp raids, tank battles, and putting them in the pilots seat of VTOL's. The AI was very well done, giving each variety of enemy their own tactical behavior, a very nice addition. Altogether gameplay in Crysis wasn't the best I've seen, but it was certainly enjoyable, and I loved the nanosuit.
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BUGS: WARNING: This is by far the buggiest game I've ever played, and part of the reason I'm scoring it so low. Besides some graphical bugs, there were many many bugs that almost broke the game for me, such as crashing to desktop at the end of a level over and over until the 20th retry, the missile launcher in one mission not locking on until I reloaded and played the ENTIRE level over again (Very long hard level at that) and an annoying-as-heck bug that crashes the game to desktop whenever a setting is changed. Very. Buggy. Very. Not unplayable, I managed to get through it all, but there was time wasted having to Google fixes and reload a thousand times.
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Bottom Line Recommendation: Crysis 1 was a more distinct fps than most, and felt like a mix of Far Cry, Battlefield: Bad Company, and Halo. It was a short game full of bugs and a predictable plot, but was a pleasure to play and I enjoyed much of the game. I would, I think, recommend this game.

Bourne's Review
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Overall: 9/10
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Plot: 7/10
Graphics: 10/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Setting: 10/10
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Plot: Rather disappointing. The plot felt somewhat weak and while it tried to build on the last game, Metro 2033, it didn't do it justice at all. The game could have taken many different directions with that idea, but instead it was extremely predictable and didn't feel very original. And don't get me started on the ending (Utter crap). In total the poor plot was very sad for me, as I'm a huge fan of Metro 2033, and while the rest of the game was amazing, it's plot was very sub-par.
I should mention that there is an alternate ending optainable by not killing anyone throughout the game, and I have not seen it yet.
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Graphics: Stunning. S t u n n i n g. S T U N N I N G.
But actually, the graphics in Metro: Last Light were incredible, it brought the incredible environment to vibrant life. Details such as cracking and condensation forming on the edges of your mask, blood dripping down from a wall, greenish oozing swamps, flickering gas lamps, the terrified faces of an enemy soldier as you knife them - everything in the game is just incredibly detailed and rich. And best of all, the developers purposefully made sure that the game's graphics wouldn't become obsolete quickly, even the best graphics cards on the market cannot run Last Light at truely max settings, the settings go beyond what consumer available equipment can run, meaning this game is going to look fantastic for some years to come.
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Setting: The year is 2034, a year after the last game's ending. In that time, the perpetual harsh winter of post-apocalyptic Russia has begun lifting, and the landscape reflects that. In contrast to 2033, where the majority of your time is spent in the metro system or occasionally running through a broken city on the surface, much of your time in Last Light is spent on the surface. The environment and landscape on the surface is quite different then in 2033, offering actual thawed swamps, grass, trees, and a more overgrown 'Portal 2' feel to it - something I absolutely loved. As expected, there's the usual wide range of mutant creatures to be on the lookout for, and you never really feel safe in Metro: Last Light. The setting and environment in Last Light was fantastic.
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Gameplay: Gameplay in Metro games is always fun, and leaves a lot of choice up to the player as to how to approach a situation. My personal MO is to use stealth, but some like to go in guns blazing - luckily Last Light has plenty of options for both! From silent spear guns, silencers, throwing knives, ball bearing launchers, and melee knifing, to fire grenades, sniper rifles, auto shotguns, and makeshift smg's, combat in Last Light is consistantly fun. Hardest part is choosing which three weapons to carry on you, and how to spend your precious currency at the few and spread out trading posts. Guns in Metro Last Light are very detailed, and were actually created by engineers on the developers team because the developers wanted the weapons to be pheasible - in other words the weapons in Last Light could actually work, which lends to the realism of the games. Ammo can be scarce so gunfights feel intense and fast paced, firing in controlled bursts and moving from cover to cover to try and shake your pursuers.
There are also many different difficulty levels in Last Light, the highest being near impossible, even the lowest grade ammo can become incredibly valuable on some Ranger difficulties. There are many types of enemies in Last Light, from various human targets, to a variety of mutants, and each have their own weak spots and strengths; choosing your methods of attack is crucial, and is cause for consideration before running into a gunfight.
Overall the gameplay in Last Light is exceptional and intense.
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Replayable? - Yes, there is an alternate ending as well as the pull of trying out different playstyles that certainly invite the player to play through again, not to mention raising the difficulty can provide extreme challanges.
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Bottom Line Recommendation: Metro: Last Light is a fantastic game and while the plot felt a little weak, delivered incredible graphics, fantastic gameplay, and a gorgeous broken setting. I would highly recommend this game.

Bourne's Review
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Overall: 10/10
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Plot: 10/10
Graphics: 10/10
Gameplay: 8.5/10
Setting: 9.5/10
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Plot: Incredible. Pure genius. A deep plot is - for me - the key to what makes a game great, and I can say with confidence NO other game I have played has come close to this. The plot drives the game in a fluid manner and the story draws you in. It does a superb job of creating characters you truely care about, something that games seem to often lack. The ending to the plot was...unbelievable, my jaw dropped and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. Fantastic.
Sidenote: I would recommend playing Bioshock 1 before Infinite. It's not absolutely necessary, but trust me you'll enjoy it more (Not to mention Bioshock 1 is a fantastic game as well)
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Setting: The setting of Bioshock Infinite - The floating city of Columbia, is outstanding, and similar to Bioshock 1, extremely unique. In contrast to Bioshock 1's broken and crumbling underwater city of Rapture, Columbia is alive with people and while at times the npc's wandering around feel scripted, they add atmosphere, interesting tidbits through overhearing a conversation, and a feeling of life.
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Graphics: Bioshock Infinite boasts some great graphics, and not without reason. The game has very nice lighting, the graphics are crisp, and just a pleasure to look at. The graphics in Bioshock Infinite feel more like a distinct stylistic approach then an attempt to recreate reality, which was refreshing and makes Infinite stand out from the crowd of other high-graphic games, defining itself as more of a particular style then anything else. The setting of Bioshock Infinite needed fantastic graphics and they certainly delivered.
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Gameplay: The overall general gameplay in Bioshock Infinite is where the game stumbles ever so slightly. Bioshock 1 delivered fast paced, tight spaced, intense and suspensful combat, but Infinite didn't do a particularly good job of adapting that combat system to the open areas of Columbia. Now, I'm not saying the combat in Bioshock Infinite wasn't good, it certainly was - at times I found myself leaping from railcar tracks onto enemies, dodging bullets from a mechanical George Washington, and chaining together spectacular kills with vigors, and it was awesome! But overall it felt just a little too easy. Rarely did I find myself scrambling around taking cover, heart beating frantically while I reloaded. However, while the combat system left some aspects wanting, it was still very nice. You have a regenerating shield and non-regenerating health, you can hold onto two different weapons at all times, (I have mixed feelings about this, on one hand you have to make hard choices about weapons, on the other you don't have the massive arsenal like in Bioshock 1 which allowed you to set elaborate traps and plan attacks) weapons are upgradeable via little vendor machines, and of course the staple of Bioshock games: Vigors (Refered to as plasmids in Bioshock 1) These lil beauts let you do a range of stuff from shoot lighting out of your hands to drop fireballs, or - my personal favorite - create a bullet absorbing shield and then toss the hail of bullets built up back at your enemies, plus lots more! With the combo of weapons, vigors, and environmental objects to use, combat can be, at times mind you, fast paced, intense, and fun. The game balances a good amount of leisurely wandering to combat and in general gameplay is fairly well done, with some aspects here and there being too easy.
At times I found myself leaping from railcar tracks onto enemies, dodging bullets from a mechanical George Washington, and chaining together spectacular kills with vigors.
Elizabeth is easily the best follower you will find in a game. She doesn't clumsily bump into things or get in the way of gun fights, but insteads is perfectly fine on her own, and will even help you along the way - from tossing you ammo, salts (mana for vigor spells) and health packs during combat, to finding money for you, picking locks, and pointing out valuable items. She keeps up, interacts with her environment (sitting, leaning against a wall, searching a desk) and quite frankly is the most likeable video game character I've ever encountered.
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Replayable? - Yes, the game has many hidden easter eggs buried in it to find, and there is also the infamous "1999 Mode" which is unlocked after beating the game. The 1999 Mode offers an insane challange, with less respawn points, MUCH less ammo and weapons, and if you don't have at least $100 on you when you die, you go straight back to the main menu.
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Number of Completed Playthroughs: 1, including Burial at Sea Ep. 1 DLC
Number of Hours Played: 28+
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Bottom Line Recommendation: Bioshock Infinite will always be in my top 5 games. It is beyond incredible. If you're considering buying it, stop considering. Go. Get. It.

Bourne's Review
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Overall: 7/10
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Plot: 5/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics: 8/10
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Plot: Very weak. This is (To my knowledge) the first Hitman game where they really attempted to give more depth to the protagonist, 47's, character. And it..... left much to be desired. The overall plot within the game wasn't absolutely terrible, but very predictable after awhile and the ending was extremely anti climatic and quite frankly, stupid. This is mainly where the game falls flat on it's face for me, had the plot actually had some interesting points to it I might have really really enjoyed this game more, but it didn't. The characters were very colorful, but I never felt connected with them. That being said, I did very much enjoy the game overall, mainly because of the gameplay itself, where Hitman games really shine.
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Gameplay: The gameplay in both Hitman games I've played (Blood Money and obviously Absolution) have been exceptional (At least in my opinion) delivering exceptionally open ended levels with set targets or objectives, and plenty of optional objectives and challanges. To condense it, a typical mission has at least a solid dozen ways to kill your target, ranging from a wide variety of methods. From poisoning, sniping, dropping objects on, pushing off cliffs, blowing up, planting explosives, shooting with a giant whale harpoon, disguising as a decorative samurai and stabbing as they walk by, spiking cocaine, dropping a car on them, embedding an axe in their skull, to electrocuting them, or setting up a gas explosion; the options are virtually limiteless. There are multiple ways to approach a target as well, from taking a maintenance uniform as disguise, to running in guns blazing, sneaking along back alleys, blending with a crowd, or disguising as a scarecrow and creeping through a cornfield. And of course, general killing and mayhem is super fun as well, tossing guys out windows, strangling, throwing a knife into their head, and then silently disposing of their body in a leaf mulcher - this Hitman game makes it just plain fun to kill people. And since that was, of course, the objective of the game, to kill targets, it nailed it. Combat and gameplay in Absolution is superb.
There is a very nice point system built into Absolution as well - the game automatically tracks your poitns (Based on how silent you are, headshots, signature kills, if you were spotted, etc.) and uploads those scores at the end of each level to their leaderboards. Then, if any of your Steam friends play that level themselves, they'll see your highscore displayed at the top when they begin, giving them a little incentive to try and beat your score, and vice versa. Some people do not like the points system but I thought it was a good way to encourage stealth and I found myself specifically reloading levels to try and beat my friends score.
It is also worth noting that Absolution can be a VERY, VERY hard game, if you want it to be. There are 6 difficulty settings in the game - the highest difficulty offers you no assistance from outside intel, much more enemies per level, much harder objectives, and overall increases the difficulty to near impossible, presenting even the most hardcore Hitman fans with crazy challanges.
Sidenote: If you have played Absolution and liked it, or are at all interested in Hitman games, I would recommend also checking out Hitman: Blood Money
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Graphics: The graphics in Absolution are very very nice, and in many ways unique. The developers use of glare, bloom, and FOV make the game a bit harder to run for some, but pay off in very deep graphics. I did notice that the FOV and everything else combined, didn't present the most crisp graphics, but it did provide a very atmospheric feel to it, and certainly felt as if it fit the game. The colors were especially rich and vibrant. The settings in the game varied greatly, some missions were in noisey crowds in Chinatown, others in nightclubs, some in hospitals or secret facilities, and others in the dusty streets of small towns. These varieties in settings provided a constant changing backdrop to your murders and always presents new ways to kill.
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Replayable? - Yes, the game has so many options of how to kill, as well as extremely hard challanges such as finishing everything silently, or 'Suit Only' (Meaning you complete everything without taking a single disguise) and offers enticing options for replaying missions.
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Bottom Line Recommendation: Hitman Absolution delivers very fun gameplay and a great challange on most missions, and while the plot felt weak, I would recommend the game.