Recent reviews by Ed Vincent

#FixTF2

CS2 should have been separate game, not overwriting CSGO and breaking workshop.

Just imagine Jeremy Clarkson saying: “I mended it!”.

Not exactly a game but really fun tool what could be useful for generating environment ideas.
I do wish that there would be more sets and options. For example: modifying grid, ramps to connect different levels and different building types.

Do not buy for multiplayer as game is unplayable due DoS attacks toward servers. EA and Respawn seems to have no intention to deal with this issue.

Light puzzle game with progressive difficulty and new mechanics.
Very well executed visual style. Splendid colors. Good job!

Gun marathon with nicely done old-school look. This quality on visuals likely is the single unarguable thing on this game. Rest might be up to taste. Yet it is very solid on what it is.

After meditating some on this issue, there is no point to swing fists after the fight is over. Game is closed – Ghost is gone. Was it due ignorance, incompetence or malignant behaviour of any involved party remains veiled. It never rose to its full potential but even with all it issues was hell of a lot of fun. For a small crowd of people it will remains one of a kind benchmark.

Thanks to developers and fellow players.

Rest in Peace
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - First Assault Online
December 14, 2015 – December 6, 2017

Even though I found some good things in this game, I just cannot recommend it.

The fun here was too little and occasionally it was downright frustrating.

The handling is horrible, it is like balancing an upright pencil on the tip of your finger. Yes, driving has similarities with previous games but not quite (played little oldies to verify). Given the car mass and acceleration such handling might be expected but Carmageddon is not the kind of game where I anticipate realistic simulation. Eventually after hours of practice you can master the fat cows on ice but it is not the entertainment to go back for occasional relaxing wrecking and mayhem. Where is the fun in not being able to hit anything you want, rather constantly spinning out of countrol. And it is not only handling what has suffered through too much realism but also overall game balance. Often the opponents are very aggressive and with weaker vehicle you are constantly wasted or your wheels are missing. Timed power-ups last not enough to do anything.

This game introduced some new game modes, those might be good for multiplayer but in single-player it felt like filling the lack of content. Original Carmageddon had no missions or challenges, the second game had one for every three ‘classic’ levels, but current one has one to three ratio favouring challenges. Again, not fun.

Lots of reviews are pointing to technical issues. I tried it while it was Early Access and then it was real slide-show. Currently it ran smooth, loading times were bit long but some moving level physics like crusher plate threw everything skipping, also playback mode was unusably slow. There were other small issues but nothing annoying: level disappearing at certain camera angle, overlapping geometry, prop placements, etc. Some achievements are declared broken and cause multiplayer is pretty much dead, no way to get those achievements either.

I think lot of people who spent hours or days in previous Carmageddons hoped to get something more. With no players there probably will be no viable modding community and custom content creation either.

No offence but this game is bad: ludicrous story, un-natural animations, very basic AI, uneven level quality, repetitive combat, no progression, clumsy interaction and just plain senseless slaughtering. Though it does offers couple visually interesting vistas and listenable ambient soundtrack but it is clearly not enough to make it float. Especially when all those environments are 'wasted' containing no motive for player to stop but run through.

Maybe in someone's head it all made sense but currently the back-story, plot, characters and events are just senseless mess, too many ideas thrown together and not even trying to explain some phenomena. Protagonist, a psychiatrist (!), just gains insight, draws rather simple conclusions (A=B therefore B=A) and delivers it in a childish monologue.

While looking still images the game might look nice, after all, occasionally the lighting, geometry and texturing is well executed but this is undone with poor animation: NPCs walk like monkeys, painfully terrible facial weighting and lip-syncing, non-existent combat positioning, and unresponsive player's weapon wielding. The game uses Unreal engine and it is almost amusing how dumb the AI is, capable only to spawn and sprint toward you, sometimes they are coming in row following navigation grids making odd turns, just for to be taken down in line one by one, or then they get collision-stuck to some corner. Combat is just stupid clicking and few times frustrating because some specific (unknown) action is needed.

There are lot of questionable gameplay solutions starting from weird controls, dropping melee weapon while using guns, constantly striping player from gear, pointless cut-scenes with button pressing, bullet dodging immortal enemies, over-taking control and grinding achievements. It lists as a horror game but fails to deliver anything expect scary looking dumb monsters. There is not much exploration as player is unable to climb even over the small heap of rubble, never mind jumping. No item rewards and actually very little interaction with world altogether. There is variety of melee weapons everywhere but not much difference between them. Couple of very-very basic puzzles but they contribute nothing. Levels are linear and lifeless, connected with long scan animations in airlocks.

Don't know whether it had development difficulties but even this updated extended version has still quality issues from animation, AI, script writing and storytelling; really, how this game got released?

DLC is even worse, it contains two arenas with six encounters each having five waves plus three bosses. No progress saved through encounters, making it rather frustrating because there were game breaking bugs. Still no AI or sense. Just sit in the corner next to ammo vending machine and click.