Recent reviews by Caroline Middlebrook

I have always sucked at the GTA games and I never finished San Andreas when it came out as I kept getting stuck on the flying missions amongst others. In 2020 with the help of some mods and cheat codes I was finally able to finish it!

The game is a total classic and it still holds up now. The graphics are poor of course but that is more than made up by the sheer quality of the missions, the voice acting, the entire city - it's just an incredible game. Everyone should play it at least once, even if it does take you 16 years to finish it ;-)

I have never played either of the kotor games before so this was my first playthrough in 2020. Although I've watched all the Star Wars movies and enjoyed them, I wouldn't really consider myself a fan as such, so bear that in mind as you read my review :-)

I wanted to play this game as it's one of those games that's been at the top of many "all time best" type charts for RPGs, for storytelling, immersiveness and many other factors. I found that it does indeed live up to it's reputation; it's quite a deep game, with a lot of variation in how you approach it. The story is very good and it's told extremely well by the voice actors. Sadly, I guessed the main plot twist before it was revealed but it was thoroughly enjoyable anyway!

I have a couple of complaints - the graphics have not stood the test of time. Of course you can't expect a whole lot from a 17 year old game but even with graphic mods installed, I found it very dated. My second complaint was that it was simply too slow paced. It's probably because I've come to this game so late after having played far more modern and faster paced games. I found myself getting irritated with how slowly the character moved, with the slow pace of the combat and simply how long it took to play! I even turned the difficulty down to easy so I could just faceroll the combat after a while!

Overall it's a great game, but really in 2021 an beyond, I would only recommend it to true Star Wars fans. If you're just looking for a solid RPG, there are many other games that are way more up to date and would play better in this day and age.

This has to be one of the saddest games I've ever played! I played the first years ago but don't remember it, but it's taken me many years to get around to finally playing the sequel.

In 2020 obviously the game is dated but it holds up surprisingly well. It's short but extremely story rich and the way the cut scenes are done is very good - extremely stylish and top notch voice acting all the way through.

I did find that the gameplay itself was lacking in some places though. Some of the levels were very clever but others were rather generic with just seemingly endless corridors and doors. The action is non-stop and enemies are blasting away at you from all directions! At my age now I didn't have a hope of playing it normally (even on the easiest difficulty lol) so I used cheat codes to help me through it so I could simply enjoy the story.

All in all, a fabulous Rockstar production but I did feel very sad at the end! The story is extremely dark indeed. You might want to play something a bit more cheery afterwards!!

I really enjoyed this game but it was not without it's flaws. As you may have read on other guides, it's quite tough at first when you don't really understand how it works. Be prepared to go back to earlier saves often or even start over!

I found the challenge fun at first but after you reach a certain milestone point (crafting a cooking pot!) the game became remarkably easier and then at that point it became rather repetitive and tedious.

The mechanics are quite simple and it was surprising how engrossing it was at the beginning of the game. There's not much in the way of fancy graphics or sound but it's not missed at all. The game basically boils down to very careful management of your people and assets with a little luck thrown in.

The reason for my rather long play time is that I was trying to get all the achievements. I could have got a few more of them than I did but I would not have made 100% as there are several that condradict one another meaning that you will need several playthroughs to achieve them all. What I found frustrating is that it depends largely on luck as to what dialog events you get at the end of each evening. I was playing the game whilst watching TV but I gave up on 100% achievements in the end!

In summary, a quite unique game and I'd certainly recommend it if you get it bunlded or on sale, but don't waste your time on achievement hunting :-)

I was a big fan of point and click games back in the day but somehow missed this game back then. I found it quite charming! It took me a little while to figure out how the game worked but after that it was quite straight forward. I found it rather slow paced - the dude walks quite slowly around the game world but as it's such a short game anyway it didn't really matter much. I've not played another game quite like it; it is quite original! The voice acting is good and some of it quite hilarious. Definitely worth a go if you like those retro adventures :-)

I never played the original game so I can't comment on the "director's cut" but I simply found that this game wasn't my cup of tea. Frankly, I found it really boring! The pace of the game was extremely slow, both physically (the characters walk across the screens at an excruciatingly slow pace), and in terms of the puzzles.

It's mostly dialogue based rather than puzzle based; you spend the vast majority of the time chatting to the various characters rather than "doing stuff". It's obvious that a lot of effort has been put into the writing and the voice acting of the dialogue but I found much of it to be tedious, and again, slow paced. I kept finding myself clicking through it because I was reading it much faster than it was being spoken. I also found the main character George to be somewhat annoying! I guess that is part of the 'charm'? But just not for me I guess.

If you enjoy lots of dialogue, and a rich story about old mysteries and conspiracies then it might be just what you are looking for, but be prepared to spend a lot of time with it. I put in around 11 hours, and only got about 70% of the way through. I couldn't bring myself to finish it!

I already played and enjoyed the first two games and I enjoyed this instalment as well. If you have played either of the previous games you'll be familiar with the mechanics but it also stands alone just fine if you haven't.

These games are "no fail" in that you can't ever fail anything - for example, you can't lose a fight against a monster and die. Everything you do in the game, whether it is fighting something, gathering something, creating something and so on, has a requirement and you either meet the requirement or you don't.

You'll need to collect resources, develop a few skills and create some items. In the later stages of the game you'll find yourself spending a lot of time gathering and "grinding" in order to progress which can get repetitive, but it's a very short game anyway so it didn't bother me that much.

For the achievement hunters among you, it's extremely easy to get 100% completion and the vast majority should be done by the time you finish playing the story line.

The Hero of the Kingdom games are very simple and that also makes them rather relaxing. A great way to pass a little time when you need an easy game to play :-)

This isn't really a game as such - it's an interactive educational piece for very young children. The narrator explains the changing of the seasons and prompts the player to click to move the animation forward. It's only a few minutes long but it's nicely done.

Dev Guy barely even qualifies as a game. It's just wandering around a series of rooms completing a few pointless mini games. I found the music and sound effects so annoying that I played it on mute. There's a load of swearing and teenage boy humour so it may appeal to that kind of demographic I suppose. The only plus side for me is that it was over so quickly!

I've tagged Fallout 3 as one of my top games in my Steam account. I've actually put way more hours into it than my Steam account shows (see note below), and it's one of my favourite games of all time.

I love the post apocalyptic setting - this game really pulls it off. But unlike some of the other Bethesda games such as Skyrim (which I also love!) this one has a really engaging landscape. There is stuff to check out everywhere! I get so sidetracked when doing quests because there's always something that catches my eye and I think "oooh what's that?" and I go check it out. There's so much to do!

In the most part the quests are really good, but I admit I was getting a little bit annoyed near the beginning of the main quest with the constant "looking for Dad".

One thing that is great about FO3 is the very satisfying weapons. Some shooters can be a little weak, and RPGs are usually weaker still with the FPS elements but I found FO3 to be very solid. Yeah the AI is not brilliant but the weapons themselves feel very good. I particularly love taking somebody's head off from half a mile away with a sniper rifle :-)

Also, you can't really talk about a Bethesda game without discussing mods! I'm a big modding fan and I never play these games vanilla for very long. I used FWE, MMM & EVE along with several mods that added new perks and a mod that allowed you to level up more slowly but get several perks per level which I really liked.

Overall, it's a fantastic game and I'm really looking forward to playing New Vegas and then Fallout 4! (Yep, I'm seriously behind on my gaming!)

Windows 7 Users Please Note:
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When I first started playing the game it was around 2011 and I ran it on an Alienware Windows XP machine and it ran very well. Then I stopped playing for a few years and came back to the game later after I had moved into a Windows 7 machine.

It crashed constantly, and when I saw constantly, I really mean it! After literally weeks of trying to get it to play properly on my 64 bit Win7 machine, trying every fix out there I gave up. However, I managed to get a pirated version of the game to work (doh!)

So whilst I absolutely recommend the game to anyone who loves shooters, RPGs or post apocalyptic games, if you have a Windows 7 machine, don't get the Steam version. Try and find an old disc based copy instead.