Recent reviews by DocInCharge

♫ I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me ♫

An unique themed, worth playing game among many clones of survival genre.

I am a dwarf and I'm digging a hole. Diggy, diggy hole, diggy, diggy hole!

Sure, release state of Fallout 76 had a lot of meme potential and only thing good about it was "Country Roads, Take Me Home". A month ago I saw the game on discount, had nothing else to spent my money and decided to buy it with a sudden urge. A few reviews I've read and me being a fan of Fallout games helped too in this decision. At this point I am nearing 200 hours and I can honestly say that I am quiet happy with the game, money well-spent.

As far as Fallout games goes, game is quiet decent. It has enjoyable questlines and side quests, classic environmental storytelling of new Fallout games, lots of interesting locales, weapon modding and base building of Fallout 4, etc.. As far as multiplayer games goes it lacks at some points compared to others, but it is still an enjoyable experience and for a first attemp in the series, it is decent and it clearly has a lot of potential. There are season passes which can be completed at a reasonable pace, player vending, various events which appear frequently on the map, raid boss-like fights(3 currently) and more.

Two aspects of the game which can be though as an issue at first if you didn't try Fallout 76 before are grind and Atomic Shop. Game has grind, sure, but only if you want to have a perfect build. If you are familiar with game's mechanics, you can create a working build with semi-decent gear which can solo almost any content relatively quickly. Reading a guide or two can be helpful on this regard. Then if you still want to progress your build further aka perfect it, you can grind in any pace you want. Atomic Shop on the other hand is simply non-problematic. There are constant new content and previously sold items re-appear as limited time sales pretty regularly as far as I've seen. There isn't anything really p2w and you can amass a decent amount of free Atoms(Atomic Shop currency) over time with just playing, you don't need to spent a single cent unless you want to buy absolutely everthing.

A special thanks is needed for Fallout 76 community. Sure, there are occasional trolls and griefers like in any multiplayer game, but community is largely very helpful to the new players. Don't be surprised if lvl 200+ players randomly show up at your base and give you free stuff. For example legendary enemies drop legendary loot and when one shows up, people don't kill it immediately most of the time. They tell other players to come and wait, so they can tag the enemy and get loot too. There are many examples like this and Fallout 76 community is one of the best in any multiplayer game I've ever seen.

Lastly there are still some bugs which you can see from time to time, but it is clearly much better than its' rough start. None I've seen was anything gamebreaking either, so I personally don't mind, all Bethesda games are buggy anyway. If you like Fallout games (Fallout 4 especially), it can be said that Fallout 76 is a solid Fallout game. It just has multiplayer features on top of 3D Fallout formula. If you are a fan of the series, it is a quiet enjoyable experience which I can see myself continue playing in upcoming months/years. Don't listen haters or outdated 2 years old reviews, try it and make your decision yourself instead.

We are nearing to the end of 2020. If you are a RPG fan and still didn't play this 5 years old masterpiece, either play it already or don't call yourself a RPG fan. You are missing one of the best gaming experiences you may ever have.

If you are a Firefly fan, Outer Worlds is the closest unofficial Firefly game you will probably ever get. From the first two companions being obvious nods to the 2 of my favourite Firefly characters to the ship you call home, obvious western inspired towns, a totalitarian "government" with dirty secrets, shady businesses, etc. game is a big nod to Firefly in my opinion.

Now with that portion being out of the way, Outer Worlds is basically Fallout in space. Instead of V.A.T.S. you have T.T.D. which doesn't stop time buts slows it instead. Dialogues are well-written like in Fallout: NV and previous games and game gives you a good amount of choices on how to approach, solve and conclude every mission. Story is decent but nothing mind-blowing. You were a passanger on a colony ship, you get unfrozen from your stasis pod and you discover that you were sleeping for 70 years. Now you and the person who unfroze you must find a way to unfroze the rest of the passangers, but you sticking to the plan or not is up to you.

Outer Worlds is a good game which could be a lot better in my opinion which was a bit of a disappointment. Now, I don't know the reason of this. Maybe budget was tighter, maybe time was constrained, maybe Obsidian wanted to do a smaller title instead of a bigger rpg like Pillars of Eternity, etc.. I don't know. Do I regret buying and playing the game? No, absolutely not. I enjoyed it a lot and I think any rpg fan will enjoy it too. Actually game is a pretty good rpg in the sense of you are able to do whatever you want whenever you want. It has no faults at there. Instead of continuing my review as a wall of text, I want to write positives and corresponding negatives below, so what I mean with "could be a lot better" can be understood more clearly.

Positives:
+ Good story. Nothing fancy, but gripping nonetheless.
+ Beautifully crafted environments with different, interesting locations.
+ Different, likeable and well-written companions who interact with you at every part of your journey.
+ Good attribute and skill system with impactful choices which allows a variety of builds.
+ Developing flaws over time is an interesting idea.
+ Good looking armors and weapons. Being able to customize them.
+ Science weapons are quiet unique and fun to use.
+ Both ranged and melee combat is fun enough for a FPS RPG which leans more to the RPG side. TTD is a lot better than VATS.

Negatives:
- Story could be longer. If you don't do sidequests, story is a bit on the short side for an rpg actually.
- Sometimes locations are nothing but filled with junk etc.. Exploration is rewarding in terms of finding different ways to solve quests, but it isn't exciting equipment-wise.
- Companions backgrounds, thoughts, desires, etc. could be investigated deeper.
- Boring perk system. They are impactful, but nothing exciting.
- Rewards you get for deciding to acquire flaws is more perks which as said, are boring.
- Not enough armor and weapon variety and customization options are limited.
- Unique weapons and armor are one of the most unexciting ones I've seen in any rpg. And science weapons are too few.
- Not enough enemy and active skill variety.

Other than these game is mostly all positives. NPCs, dialogues and story are well-written, graphics are pretty, voice acting and music is good, combat is a lot better than Fallouts, quests are interesting, worldbuilding is fresh and character builds are fun to tinker around. Outer Worlds is a good rpg with a non-ignorable amount of wasted potential, but if you are an rpg or Obsidian fan it worths your time nonetheless. 8/10.

Prey is a masterpiece that anyone who are a fan of other titles such as Bioshock, Dishonored or Deus Ex should definitely get and try. Detailed and expertly crafted level and world design, many solutions to solve any single problem, an interesting and gripping story and a fun to play around character progression. It has some minor problems here and there like game's story slowing a bit down after midgame or loading screens you have to get past to get to a longer destination, but despite them I can easily say that Prey is one of the best gaming experiences I had in this decade.

Take everything good you heard about this game(deep character creation and variety of builds, long and engrossing story, detailed RPG mechanics, etc.) and combine it with 2 years of non-stop bugfixing (saw 3-4 bugs in my 200+ hours long completionist playthrough and none were anything gamebreaking) and newly added turn-based mode; you get Pathfinder: Kingmaker which is a gem that I can easily suggest to anyone who enjoys classic isometric RPGs like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Planescape: Torment, etc.. In my heart it is a solid RPG which earned its' place right next to them.

P.S.: Don't get this game if you aren't at least familiar with the rules of D&D or Pathfinder or willing to learn them (because game doesn't hold your hand and it is as heavy as the actual tabletop game). Don't get this game if you can't get attached to a game for too long too, because it is seriously a long game.

When you start to realize that you care about the well-being of Niko more than some of the actual, real people around you who you maybe see and share same spaces everyday, you will understand the true brilliance of OneShot.

If you like it, also try To the Moon and Finding Paradise. They are also indie gems like OneShot, awesome but relatively short stories which are emotional rollercoasters with far more character than most of the AAA titles out there.

+ Great artistic graphics
+ Great soundtrack
+ Fun gameplay
+ Narrator is so good

- It is too short, it isn't enough

10/10 Buy it, play it, you won't regret it.