Recent reviews by Cheshire Cat

X4 is re-imagining of one of the most complex space simulators. The bar has been held up high after X3: Terran Conflict and Albion Prelude. X: Rebirth did not go well with fans. What about X4?
It is more streamlined experience. X3 purists may not like it but I don't feel the game being casualized. More focus on trading and economic empire rather then warfare.
Pros:
- No game breaking bugs. At least for me. There are glitching animations and flying through solid objects but nothing that would make campaign unfinished
- Ship scale. It is amazing. Now ships actually feel like ships. Carriers are huge and if you walk on stations, even smallest ships feel big.
- Unification of ships and weapons. I liked it. Any ship can mount any faction turret if the size is compatible.
- Faction reputation is less grindy now. War and trade missions are generous.
- Ship boarding is more streamlined
- Mod support. Egosoft has always been mod-friendly devs. X4 is no exception.
- Devs are friendly and lurk Steam discussions and Egosoft forums. They help when you are stuck or suspect a bug
- Great soundtrack
Cons:
- AI. Still not optimal. Still tries flying through solid objects.
- Every ship must have a captain hired. No more computer flying. Good news is that crew can now be transferred seamlessly.
- Game is not optimized. Flying can be 60FPS because your'e looking into the black space. Going to more busy space can drop to 30s. In stations it can drop to 20s.
- Dynamically generated space means that stations can't be completely destroyed in the entire sector. This also means that you never know when a new needed station pops up. I wish the game removes a fog-of-war with all faction's sectors after a certain reputation is reached.
All-in-all, a game is a fair modern contender for the X series and space simulators in general

Game looks simple but some puzzles and bosses are quite challenging.

I've had a constant love-hate relationship with this game. It's a mix of classic Fallout and Metro series. This game is made by a tiny group of devs but still has nice quality. This review is for the base game and its Expedition DLC.
- Depending on your play style, you can hate this, but this game is MASSIVE. If you explore every nook and cranny of its huge map, you can sink over 150-200 hours
- Writing is great. Dialogues feel like dialogues and not just quest starters. Every major character has its own agenda, every major character has its own philosophy. There are no good or bad guys in Underrail. Everyone is defending their actions according to their moral compass and everyone is just trying to survive. It's just some take power and control as the survival too.
- Your choices matter. Depending on your answers or actions, quests can be locked-out, people die, major fights instigated or avoided. Constant and separate hard-saves are advised.
- This game has some great puzzles. Just some puzzles are really tough.
- Oddity XP system is amazing. You get experience not through fights and completing quests but through collecting items and completing quests. It rewards exploration and adds some nice little lore.
- Character building is very dynamic. You can master crossbows, throwing grenades, setting traps, using magic (here called PSI), using knives, spears, sledgehammers and your bare hands next to usual firearms and energy weapons. And all of them are useful for your enemies deaths.
- This game does not hold your hand. There are no quest markers, just your thoughts in the adventure journal. Pay attention to dialogues or you can get lost easily.
- DLC massively expands upon the game world. It's totally worth it. It is what previously had been considered as an expansion pack.
- If you love crafting, you'll love Underrail. Almost all best gear is acquired through crafting. I just wish all unique gear it had would've been a little better. It was almost always outclassed by craftable gear.
- Some lore can be expanded.
- This game is absolutely unfriendly to new players. It is very easy to make mistakes when building a character because there are many skills and special skills (here called Feats) to choose from. While all builds are viable, some builds are better then other, especially for new players. The problem is, you can be locked-out of the further progression 50 hours in the game just because you spread your skills too thin or took some unnecessary feats. This game actually expects you to read wiki, guides and other players build examples before starting playing it.
- World is huge and some areas are literal labyrinths, but a better in-game world map leaves to be desired. I had to draw my own world-map because I couldn't figure out where I am and what goes where in the wold-map. Devs should have just made a top-down map instead of 2.5D that exists now.
- Game needs a separate button to let me attack targets and do nothing else. Sprites can be small and instead of attacking the enemy, you click and walk next to it wasting Action/Movement Points.
- Game also needs a way to loot enemies are died on the top one another.
- This game is in general difficult and has issues with difficulty spikes. One wrong turn in the beginners area can make you reload the game. One missed first shot can make you reload the game. Players can save-scum through the game so why then those difficulty spikes are in the first place?
- If you look for a fair game, look elsewhere. There are no companions in Underrail except in a handful of missions. You will always be outgunned and outnumbered. Always. 1vs5 or even 1vs15 fights happen and basically all enemies throw debuffs at you. You need either to sneak and avoid overall fighting or prepare the battlefield with traps or deny area with grenades. Fights can become very long, tedious and annoying.
- "[Player] attacks [enemy] but misses"
- "[Player] attacks [enemy] but misses"
- "[Player] attacks [enemy] but misses"
- "[Player] attacks [enemy] but misses"
- Seriously, fights are based on hit chances. Sometimes it is "XCOM" ridiculous where enemy needs the last hit, you make a 92% hit chance attack and... miss. Then it hits you with a critical and it's reload time.
- While some areas crank difficulty up till 11, the end game cranks it all the way up till 13. If you are not ready, it can REALLY screw you over. Pro-tip for new players: Just before talking to Eidan in the Institute of Tchort stock-up on your best gear, medicine, food/buffs, ammo and repair kits. And I mean, REALLY stock up
- Ambushing enemy design in the late game becomes annoying. The coast looks clear? Too bad, something jumps on you. You killed it and walked 10 steps? Something jumps on you again. And again. Sneaking avoids this.
- Several enemies are probably the most B.S. enemies I've ever seen. If your skills are wrong, you can be seriously screwed. For example, if you do not have sneak and/or ranged attacks and out of throwables, and saved in the wrong place, a group of 2 sea wyrms can basically soft-lock your game. Or how about a stealthed enemy that can see through your stealth, strike you and run away, heal while hidden from you, heal each turn while fighting you, poison you and who's poison stuns you and prevents you from healing yourself?
- It has a general feel that developers tried to balance anything and everything. There are no fun or "my old faithful and helping in all situations" items. It becomes a crafting race. Craft an item, use it for a bit and then look for better quality parts and craft the same item with better stats again. I heard about when people used and shared an OP build that later got nerfed. Why nerf and balance a single player game?
- Carry weight and gear durability exits... Why????

All in all, this game is hard, this game is unfair and sometime tedious, and you can get confused by a variety of character building options. I know that some players can retort: "it was not hard for me". Well maybe for you who played it several times and already know all bells and whistles. It was for me and it had a lot of B.S. moments. But story and writing, world and exploration and a great satisfaction after coming out victorious out of truly difficult fights (when once in a blue moon RNGeezus smiles upon you), seeing your enemies lying before you, makes my love for this game also come before hate.

Amazing soundtrack, great story, world and characters but with mixed graphical settings. Had to use mods to keep it 60FPS. World textures had popup and sometimes ended up blurry.

Unfair games are not my style and HM is a very, VERY unfair game. Inconsistent AI and gameplay "features", such as enemies ghosting to your attacks makes it die and repeat the same level over and over. I see this is kinda the point of this game but it's not for me. I'd rather "git gud" at some other game.

Don't let the cheerful main intro music fool you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnb6eQ5cCko

Doom takes players to the good old days of FPS. Plethora of guns, each more deadly than other. Feel free to unleash them all, no reload needed. Out of ammo? Just slice enemies with the chainsaw in the goriest death possible. Rip and tear your way through countless poor hell spawns that got in your way. A key to survival is movement as HP and shields do not regenerate so no point in covering. The hell has no chance.
Pros:
+ Great variety of guns, almost each has a second mode;
+ Good enemy variety and models, they look like classic pixelated Doom models
+ Game runs well, seems optimized, although I rarely noticed some texture popups (Ehm *megatextures* Ehm)
+ You can replay missions and get all objectives/secrets/upgrades/challenges. They are not lost after quitting or reloading.
+ Has plenty of secrets
+ Is great fun overall
So so:
~ Some may find levels too linear, I think that now it is unavoidable
~ The story is... Well, read J. Carmack's opinion about stories in videogames
~ Music is great most of the time, although it has too much of dubsted of some sort
~ Fully upgrading Doomguy takes time as you need to find almost every secret. Upgrades are another take on modern gaming. Luckily, you can replay any mission anytime.
~ Runes and upgrades may seem make the game easier for somebody. For me they felt fine.
Cons:
- Game is too much raving on the glory kills. At first they are fine, but get tired quite soon. Later they become a must for your survival as glorykilled enemies die sooner and drop ammo/HP/armor.
- Challengies and masteries take away the way you'd like play the game. As their completion is neccessary for upgrades and harder weapons, you must play in a way the creators designed, not how you'd like. And A LOT of challenges involve glory kills. Better not to kill those enemies right away or you'll miss your challenge.
- Multiplayer feels tacked on. Of course it has loadouts, levels and skins (which modern MP game doesn't...). You can't even have all guns on the deathmatch. And now after 1,5 years it is quite deserted, only deathmatch/team deathmatch has some people still playing it. Other people claim it has plenty of cheaters, however I did not face any.
I have not tried Snapmap yet, but it looks like a custom map editor where you can beat maps alone or in coop. I would love to play entire Doom with a buddy.
All in all, Doom 2016 is a worthy successor to Doom series. The game is a lot of fun and compromises those those who missed old school shooters and those who want a modern entry.

Probably the best mod for HL1 now completely standalone and free. Relive your nostalgia with a bunch of people in coop. Tons of custom maps, player skins, custom servers and ability to play other popular mods in coop.

Since Steam reviews do not have the middle option between Recommend/Not Recommend, I'll stick with the positive side.
HOWEVER, first of all, I in no way endorse nor support publishers shenanigans. Single-player microtransactions, terrible season pass and save-locked items (seriously Squeenix?) as a parctice should be killed, no matter how legal they are or how "non-intrusive" they look. They should be dead and extinct.
Now onto the game itself. It's not a bad game but it surely has where to step up.
- Dialog and face animations. They look like there are 3 animations overall, lipsync is non-existant and that "Jensen looks aside while nodding head" is going to stay in front of my eyes for a long time.
- NPC's are suffering from the extreme sameface. It was funny seeing Tars the merchant and a Palisad security guard as the same. Maybe Tars has a part-time job?
- Overall optimization. The largest issue in community. I have i7-4790k, 970GTX and 16GB RAM, but left my settings at high. There is no need to set to ultra, because there is no improvement at all. I cannot tell where all resources go as the world does not look THAT amazing.
- Main story is based much less on conspiracy theories, that are the corner stone of DE series and more on today's realities. It does not have such a punch like ones in DE or DEHR had. Faulty writing or publisher's interference made that the game has ended without answering many questions, baiting into the next sequel.
- Some small glitches here and there, like raining inside, mismatched radio calls.

* I did not like revamped stealth. It obstructs your actions by not where you want to go but where the game offers you to go. It makes delays that can end up in blown cover when you could not act fast enough.
* I missed some exotic heavy weapons that have been present in DEHR. No plasma rifles, no laser rifles, no rocket launchers.
* Breach mode. It's ok to break from the game, but I much more preferred a longer main game.

+ Side missions are amazing. Good variety and tells a lot about the world.
+ Detailed map has much more where to go, what to explore and many more route options.
+ Where weapons are lacking, augs are awesome and supports your stealth/full frontal assault lethal/non-lethal gameplay.
+ Gun customization is nice and crafting helps a lot.
+ Music is also nice, Michael McCann is still in his style.
+ Adequate atmosphere and nice architecture. You can see people suffering and trying their best to survive in Prague. Prague looks great, it is exactly how would I imagine looking in 2029.

To summarize, the game itself is fine, 7.5/10. DLCs/publisher's practices are terrible, stay away. If you have a semi-decent PC and are a fan of Deus Ex, get the base version. If not, wait for a sale or complete edition. Squeenix games get cheap pretty fast.

Shhh, no tears. Only Brouzouf.