Recent reviews by Evochio

I really liked the previous God of war game a lot and spent a lot of time with it.
The story is well told and the characters well written, this sequel certainly followed in those footsteps. I quite enjoyed seeing where things would go.

What was initially a little disappointing, was that the game felt too linear compared to the more open map exploration and treasure hunt of its predecessor.
But as the game story progresses, some of that exploration returns, but it still felt a little fraught with loading screens and constant jumping through portals.

As ever the fighting is very tight and precise in this game and there's some nice endgame challenges to tackle that I really enjoyed the difficulty of.

Great game, I recommend it.

Promising!

Found myself extremely immersed into this game!
There's just something really 'chilling' about the ambience and lonliness as you struggle from place to place, eeking out your meagre resources to survive. But it's also strangely comfortable once you get into the rythm of things.
There's dangers and there's places to find and explore in the variety of maps/scenarios available.

I'll miss the sound of that wind through trees in cold forest as the howl of wolf nearby makes me quicken my steps through the crunching snow.

For a combat oriented game, I didn't fight the combat clicking that well with me.
Getting into the rythm of things took a while and I found myself switching back and forth between Gamepad and keyboard and mouse, but never quite satisfied. Especially for the many quicktime challenges.
Might have been a skill issue.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with the game and it's certainly well-designed in the visual department.
I enjoyed the bossfights quite a lot.

Music wise, eh... I didn't realize how bland the songs had felt until a certain hype prodigy song started playing. Would have liked more music with that kind of energy.

Ofcourse its a thumbs up!

I'm one of the few who did not like Divinty 2. So I was worried they'd carry over some of the aspects I didn't enjoy from there to this game.
Now, my only regret is that there wont be new adventures and content. This game is ripe for expansion packs.

But I can respect Larian wishing to have more creative freedom and moving on.

I don't want to call this game bad, but I am thumbing it down.

Its fun, for a little while, learning the ropes and exploring around. But then the repetition quickly starts. Fly there, scan that, shoot this, fly back.
It's just a lot of busywork and I started to feel like I was wasting the hours of my life. Another completionist checklist simulator like most games are these days.

The story feels utterly unmemorable. I decided to write this review as I was uninstalling after not having touched the game for a few months. I can't really recall anything.

I played a lot of Freelancer. There's a taste of it here, a small one. It's lacking the same kind of ambience and feeling like the world is alive.

It's decent, especially if you play and level up along with friends.

But once you hit level cap on a character, there's really nothing that keeps you playing. The increased difficulty and whatnot are not fun enough to justify running the SAME stuff you've already seen before over and over again.

But at least you've played the game for enough hours up till then to make the purchase feel worth it.

When I first played this game back around early 2000, I think it cooked my young brain in some way.

It was just set my expectations to what all games should be like. Strategy, flashy space battles, story, atmosphere. I remember marveling at it and being excited to what kind of games could be made in the future.

25 years later, it still holds up and no strategy game has surpassed it yet.

This game has changed a lot since it first released, with ups and downs.
Overall though, each time i dip back into it, I tend to have a vibing good time.

The best thing about Paradox strategy games, are the personal narratives you can create for each of your star empires. With their trials and tribulations.
You don't need every expansion and DLC for this, but when you get hooked, they're a great way to broaden the width of the game.

While waiting for my friends to be available so we could progress together, I dug and paved some roads through long stretches of forest and hills between outposts and biomes. I spent hours and hours doing this.

Made little roadside cabins for travelers, a lighthouse, fought off a sudden horde of a hundred skeletons, hid some easter-egg funny signs...

There's just some kind of atmophere in this game that puts you at ease and immerses you. You can just zen out to some task. Even if no one ever noticed your efforts.