Recent reviews by Fadakar

This game is amazingly fun to play and get better at but somehow the most exciting thing so far has still been the fact that the prince's brother has the same first name as me.

Ladies and gentlemen, they got me.

From a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ cash grab to arguably being the definitive way to play most of these games. Outrageous value at full price, especially so on sale.

If you haven't played Halo: CE, it's a classic that transcends the genre. Plagued by poor design decisions of the time but is incredibly fun and gratifying despite that.

If you have played Halo: CE, or any of these, what are you waiting for?

Respawn has built the foundation for something truly great here.

Let start by saying there's nothing this game does exceptionally well on a technical level. It looks good "in person" but that loses its value when it requires an absolute beast of a rig to fully appreciate. When you compare it to Alyx it's even more painful. Sure, the lighting is actually dynamic in this and the level of texture detail is honestly kind of absurd, but some assets still feel flat and considering how little you can actually interact with just compounds this. Some other complaints I had:

• This isn't always the case but sometimes character's faces are either too animated or stiff ass as a board. When their eyes aren't bugging out the acting is usually very nicely done
  
• The scale of everything is a little off (everyone except the 16 year old is taller than me?)
  
• This game lacks that Half-Life style of organic storytelling so you're often "fading-to-black" to transition into the next area to get briefed and then "fading-to-black" back out
  
• Physics for objects that you can pick up are all kinds of messed up, never feels like you have much physical presence
  
• And of course, performance. I've got a 3080 and an overclocked 9900K and set my Index to 80hz and still found my rig chugging sometimes. I kept everything on high (default settings) and lowering AA to 2x MSAA often helped but it felt like a noticeable loss in fidelity so I dealt with the handful of slowdowns I got

But...

This game is FUN. I've tried all the mainstream VR shooters out as of now, with my share of complaints for each, but when you weigh all the pros and cons I'd put this high above the rest in terms of how things feel and control in this. This difficulty is demanding enough that you can't just ♥♥♥♥ around, but isn't so unforgiving that you can't flourish a little and still have fun with it. Besides the feel of things, Respawn also nailed:

• The cast. The actual voice acting is great but like I said in my first list, the animations can get kind of weird. No match for Alyx's acting, but still good for faces that have to be in your personal space
  
• The graphics are incredible. This one goes hand in hand with bad performance, but after experiencing this myself I finally understand the high requirements. I wish they chose to go the route that Alyx did and prebake as much lighting as they could but the end result still came out looking great. Like I said before, not worth the trade off in performance
  
• The simplicity of it all. While it stops a half-step before Alyx in just about every regard, it still comes out as a great shooter to get lost in and enjoy yourself with. Didn't find it tried too many gimmicks but at the same time didn't feel like it fleshed out the base mechanics beyond the shooting feeling really good

tl;dr

If you're itching to shoot some people in VR, get this. Worst case scenario, you don't like the single player shooting gallery style or it doesn't run well for you. Otherwise you get a fantastic game that does what it tried to do very well.

Incredible journey from start to finish, the very first "must play" title for VR. Doesn't immerse you in the same way Boneworks does where just about anything is possible if you can reach it with your physical body, but goes in the other direction of immersive story-telling and legitimately tense combat.

Mechanics are gracefully introduced to you before testing your mettle against some enemies using whatever you just learned, the world is rich with detail, and characters you know and love are fleshed out and humanized even further.

Not a long adventure by any stretch but a very healthy length for a VR title. I have a feeling we'll have nothing come close to this kind of quality for another few years. Do yourself this favor and play this game, if you're a Half-Life fan you absolutely owe it yourself.

This game has no fluff, it's focused on exploration and that's basically what you're doing from the moment the game begins to the second you're done. Absolute delight from start to finish. Here's why:

* Hyper-responsive controls that feel good and continue to get better as you progress

* Endearingly human exchanges between Claire and other hikers (weird to say in a game whose entire cast are anthropomorphized animals)

* I continued to find unseen locations on the island WELL into the game, that kind of organic level design is basically unheard of these days

* Music is soothing, on beat, and changes appropriately, it's so ingrained into the atmosphere of the game that I really didn't notice it until I was listening for it

* Short and sweet but leaves you wanting more

I could continue but really I wrote this review not to praise the game for everything it does right, but to plead that we need more games because of it. Every single gameplay mechanic could be parted and fleshed out into its own game, and with how short this game was I'd love to see more done in this style. I sincerely hope we're not done with this world.

The gist of it is, if you have a penchant for gluing yourself to Animal Crossing or have a weird nostalgia for Nintendo DS games, buy this. You won't regret it.

Downloaded the demo after just looking at screenshots, based on what I saw I assumed it was going to be some meme-themed walking simulator, not some A+ experience but I figured I'd try it out for the laughs. At the very least I thought the art style was great so I had nothing to lose. After just a few minutes I realized it was so much more than that. While it looks like some lo-fi, arthouse, 90s-themed fever dream, it's a fantastic first-person puzzle/platformer at its core.

The game is split between 5 worlds, the demo is the entire first world. The goal of the game starts off looking like you just need more "likes", think 90s-era collectathon games. As you play you begin to learn the story of the world, why it is what it is, what the people there are doing and who they even are. I truly didn't expect to get engrossed in a game about the vanity of social media, but it's fun enough where even if you don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about the story you can still have a great time.

Gameplay starts off incredibly slow, but it's an amazing, gradual build-up basically all the way up to the finale. You start off thinking "I wonder if you can lose" to "oh ♥♥♥♥ I actually died" to sitting there scratching your head thinking "if the last 17 attempts didn't work I think it's time to rework my plan." I never really noticed the difficulty start ramping up but by the end it's impossible not to notice. There's literally no combat (unless you count slashing ads,) all the reward is in the frenetic platforming and the handful of puzzles scattered about.

Honestly one of the most charming and fun games I've played in years, truly a gem (NO DANKNESS HERE I SWEAR) that I wish I learned about sooner. I think it's worth every cent even with the handful of bugs I ran into, but in case you're hesitant, just try the demo.

I honestly regret every second of this.

Whether you're kicking orcs into wells, blasting the floor with ice so people slip off cliffs, or shooting awnings to topple an avalanche of barrels over someone, you're going to have an amazing time.

Story is stale and the acting is garbage, but the world is engaging and immersive and the combat has aged beautifully. Highly recommended despite the ♥♥♥♥ narrative. This game is a treasure.

Anxiety-inducing suspense the whole way through. Definitely recommend it.