Recent reviews by chris_idk

I went into Dead Space (mostly) blind and I was hooked from the start. Fantastic gameplay, fascinating story, mysteries upon mysteries, and so many unexpected twists. I must have built up some immunity to the scares by the end as my aim got so much better, but even up to the final levels, the game still knows how to maintain tension and keep you on your toes.

Add this to your library and make us whole.

For five minutes, Halo Infinite let me believe I was playing a real Halo game. The set piece of the compromised ~~Pillar of Autumn~~ Infinity, swarming with ~~Covenant~~ Banished, racing to escape the swarms with ~~Cortana~~ a Pelican pilot - it all brought me back.

Then the rest of the game happened.

When my PC decided it only wanted to render the game sometimes and create its own day/night cycle by flickering the lighting, I shook it off and carried on - perhaps the Xbros were right and I just needed to stop being poor and git gud. And for a while, I was pretty "got gud," and I even managed to storm a Banished camp! And then another! And then another. And then another ...

The promise of Halo Infinite is a nearly infinite open world filled with Banished to shoot and marines to rescue and lore to ignore. Compared to the beginning set piece - if not the set pieces of every single other Halo game - the high wears off pretty quickly. Every Banished base on the map blurs together into an indistnguishable ramshackle of points to run into, shoot, and walk out of. A developer once said the landscape was inspired by the beauty of Washington State's landscapes - but the care put into crafting this map makes me think they hate every single square mile of it.

I distinctly recall every mission, if not moment, of Halo Reach because everything had a proper place and time and context. As the planet of Reach collapsed, the story and setting and pacing changed with it. As the playerbase of Infinite collapses, 343 does a panicked rebrand and tries to patch this thing like 343 Guilty Spark reassembling Installation 04 with duct tape and WD-40.

Skip this one, and keep an eye out for ~~HALO STUDIOS~~ 343's next big announcement - that way you'll know what to expect when they promise infinity and give you zero.

I play on Ubuntu and require Proton to run a lot of games, like LOTR. Proton GE was necessary to get this game to run correctly, so please do some additional research if you plan to play this game on a Linux system. Once that was solved, it was just as fun as I remembered - great levels, a nice range of characters, and a joy to run around LEGO Middle Earth doing whatever you want.

The disco phial makes it all worthwhile.

Given that Sony has backed down over account requirements (for now), I can, in good conscience, express how much I love this game.

I'm not the type to buy the hype of a game on launch, but when Helldivers 2 started becoming popular, I had to try - and wow, it is so much fun. The fast-paced action, cooperative dynamic, and challenging nature have convinced me to sink whatever free hours I can afford into this game. It is thoroughly enjoyable and runs nicely in Ubuntu Linux, which is absolutely a positive.

My only remaining complaint with the Sony fiasco aside is that the presence of kernel-level anticheat is disappointing, and especially an anticheat like nProtect GameGuard. I would strongly recommend you look up how anticheat works before you buy this game, so as to be aware of the risks. It is frustrating and disappointing that Helldivers 2 feels like this invasive and abusive software is necessary to run the game, and while it doesn't affect performance on my machine, I do feel somewhat dirty every time I open the game and am reminded that something which can be exploited for root access is currently running.

All that side, I strongly recommend Helldivers - especially with our recent victory over Sony. Mark my words, though: if this kind of abusive tomfoolery ever happens again, I have my old review below and I will readily reinstate it. Go kiss a bile titan, Sony, and let us just enjoy our game in peace.

Helldivers 2 is a bitter disappointment.

What started off as a fun and refreshing alternative to all of the consumerist corporate content in AAA gaming has finally become a part of the sludge. Fans used to praise the game for fun mechanics, dedicated devs, unintrusive microtransactions, and an upbeat community spirit of cooperation, but now Sony has played its hand and the feature creep of greedy, tone-deaf, incompetent executives is well underway. The first red flag was the ominous kernel-level anticheat (a gross practice that needs to be removed from games altogether), but now the red flags are becoming more and more glaring.

No, I will not be linking my Playstation account to play Helldivers. In fact, since I do not have a PSN account, I will not be making one. I will not be playing Helldivers again, not until PSN requirements are dropped. I will not be buying any DLC, and I will strongly recommend to my friends that they avoid this game.

Additional information harvesting, privacy compromise, and security risks are not the prices I am willing to pay to simply play a game. Goodbye Helldivers, it was fun while it lasted.

My friends and I randomly stumbled upon this game on Steam and I instantly bought it and the DLC. The next hour and a half was spent watching plastic ducks float around in pure blissful peace, as we tried to explain the deep lore of the Placid Plastic Duck Simulator Universe (PPDSU).

No doubt this is the best possible experience Steam has to offer, and if it does not lift your soul to a higher plane of existence, check to see if you even have a pulse.

On average, therapy costs $60 to $120 per hour and you have to talk about your feelings.

DOOM costs $20 and you get to kill demons.

You get to kill demons. Enough said.