Recent reviews by JojoMaru

** Initial Review**

Very well-made game. Optimised, runs really well, and tight mechanics. Level design and visual presentation is awesome. I don't play Souls-like games because I'm not into the fantasy setting but the atmosphere and vibes of this game captivated me. If you really liked the more steampunk aesthetic of the Dishonoured games there's a high chance you're going to appreciate Lies of P. I knew from last year's demo that this game was gonna be a hit and it's going great so far.

I did enjoy Halo Infinite's campaign when it released in Dec 2021. It may not be on the same level as Halo Reach or Combat Evolved but it's a respectable effort considering 343 Industries had to crunch big time for 1.5 years and parachute Joseph Staten in to avoid the disaster they were headed for.

The core gameplay and mechanics of multiplayer at launch felt fun and had heaps of potential but there were enough technical issues to turn the userbase off. Halo Infinite's multiplayer as it stands now is very enjoyable and for the most part captures the satisfying aspects and essence of Halo 1 to Reach with a modern twist, genuinely a lot of great fun compared to the garbage that's out there at the moment.

This is the closest we'll get to a Zone of the Enders 3. Rejoice!

If you enjoyed any of the PS1 Armoured Core games, the Ace Combat series, and the Zone of the Enders series then there's a high chance you'll enjoy this.

Great technical performance and visual presentation, responsive controls, and some interesting environments/level design. I never thought I'd consider playing stealth in a mech game but it's somehow viable in Armoured Core 6. The audio and the music is fantastic. From Software did a solid job embracing the sci-fi setting after making more fantasy-oriented design for a while.

WOW. What a game. Start on Hard II this is the definitive way to play for sure.

I briefly tried Days Gone last year and was surprised by how solid it was; having spent more time recently I now understand why this game is so well-regarded here on Steam. I honestly didn't expect the experience to keep getting better and better the more I played. Definitely a masterpiece that will age well (like Arkham Knight, Metro Exodus, and Halo Reach) for many years to come.

Can't emphasise enough how amazing this game looks and plays while having toaster hardware requirements, 6700k/RX 580 drives this easily at 1080p and there are plenty of options in the Settings. The people involved with this PC version really cared about what they were doing.

Days Gone actually plays more closely to Syphon Filter and Red Dead Redemption despite being heavily-marketed as a zombie horde game. The shooting and combat is very well-made and the locations and map design is fantastic. Everything looks and feels authentically American without being cringey or too gratuitous.

I could really go on and on about all the numerous things this game does very well but you really have to play it for yourself.

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Initial Impressions
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Flying Wild Hog is definitely on to something with the combat, art style, and environment design of this game. Runs very well with high frame rates, playing Evil West on a 144hz monitor is exhilarating.

Only a few hours in but I'm buying into the combat and locations so far. Very interested to see these built upon in their next games.

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Update
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Yep. Pure, solid, and responsive gameplay and combat. This game is a lot of fun and works really well with keyboard + mouse surprisingly. FOV slider was patched in and that augmented my experience even more.

I'm hoping that Flying Wild Hog expands on what they've achieved here onto their next game, whether that be an Evil West sequel or something else; larger maps and more intricate puzzles would be nice.

I know many have an issue with the pricing of this game and my take is: if it ensures that everyone who worked on the game are paid properly and it encourages developers to pursue fun, interesting ideas and do so under little to no crunch then $50 USD is immaterial.

For comparison, Evil West (at the time of writing) runs much better and has a better rating here on Steam than The Callisto Protocol. Imagine that 🤷

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A remarkable sequel marred by disappointing technical performance
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WARNING
If you do not possess an RTX 2070 or higher then skip this game until Asobo does further work. Hell, adding FSR 2 would be a decent first step so that non-RTX owners aren't shafted but I have no hope for that since this game is sponsored by Team Green 🤡

Innocence looked (and still looks) stunning in 2019 and an RX 580/6700k pairing was able to drive that no problems at High settings/1080p; while it's reasonable to assume that Requiem would have higher hardware requirements the fact that an RTX 2080/5600x barely gets by with DLSS Balanced enabled is preposterous and this sort of practice should be called out and reprimanded.

My frame rates don't even plummet when the rat horde appears but rather at innane ♥♥♥♥ like looking at pottery and furniture at a market like wtf that makes zero sense. It's as if this game is hardcoded with absurd amounts of supersampling, assets and their geometry are rendered in the most computationally-expensive way possible, and the render scale is turned all the way up for no good reason.

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With that said the core game itself is great and turned out a well-scoped project considering Asobo managed to release this in 3 years with a lot of that work being done during pandemic restrictions. It builds upon the mechanics of Innocence and adds the right amount of new features that don't overwhelm you while placing you in stunning locations and larger maps. Requiem does a solid job of introducing these mechanics and situations to the player at points when you feel that things are starting to get stale.

Story and dialogue is strong and compelling, really exposes the general state of video games today when a 12-year old boy like Lucas has more depth and maturity than the cringe garbage of larger, more-popular studios and publishers.

A memorable experience for sure that left me pondering long after the game ended. Sadly the general performance is disappointing at the moment so I can only give this a hard Positive in the absence of a neutral rating. If you don't have an RTX 2070 or above then don't bother.

Metro Exodus is a modern masterpiece and a well-scoped project considering it was almost bound for
development hell in its first few years.

I strongly urge players to opt for the Enhanced Edition if they have an RTX 2060 at minimum. 4A Games has done stellar work on this separate build and the primary focus on ray tracing resulted in a more performant game than the 2019 version.

What really resonated with me about this game is the interesting dialogue and the more low-key storytelling whether it be amongst the characters, the notes you find, the environment and levels, or the scenarios you find yourself in.

I'd say overall this is Eidos Montreal's finest work. Didn't think a studio that worked on 2 Deus Ex games had it in them to produce something like this but with how grim and bleak Mankind Divided was I'd imagine working on Guardians of the Galaxy would've been therapeutic for them and honestly that care and love extended to my own experience as well. Highly recommend.

The game itself is very performant and I was able to run it at max settings with ray-tracing and DLSS Balanced enabled, no stutters or drastic framerate dips even on the wildest scenes.

With the remarkable map design and gameplay features I witnessed here I'm very much looking forward to Eidos Montreal's next project.

*Update*

Going through Interloper now and wow, this game surpassed my expectations even more.

The beginning of Xen can feel like unfun slog but as you approach Gonarch's Lair it starts to get interesting, Gonarch's Lair itself is exhilarating, and Interloper is just 👏

Really looking forward to what Crowbar Collective can pull off with Unreal Engine on their next game.

Bravo.

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This game is amazing! Crowbar Collective has done a professional job on this, on par with the Resident Evil 2 remake and the Yakuza Kiwami games; runs and performs extremely well even on budget hardware.

I remember little from Half-Life 1 so I played this with a newcomer mindset and soon realised that Black Mesa isn't just a 1998 game with better graphics. The devs made changes and additions that top the original without disrespecting the source material. If we were in a universe where the Half-Life franchise didn't exist and this game dropped today it would still clean up awards for being such an experience and respecting the player's curiosity.

Honestly they might as well produce Episode Three and Half-Life 3 at this point.

*UPDATE*
After spending more time with this on the latest patches I decided to uninstall instead of further wasting my time.

The AI is still hilariously bad and once you have some upgraded slabs and better-tier weapons you can just mow down enemies with little to no consequence. Any meaningful challenge in Deathloop is contingent on you being invaded by human Juliana players of which there are barely anyone left and the AI Julianas are just hopeless.

What finally got me was going through the game thinking there's another way to break the Loop (other than merking all the Visionaries) only to have Deathloop slap me in the face with a 12-inch dildo and telling me that isn't going to happen.

I honestly can't fault Arkane Lyon for trying new and wacky things and these sort of attempts should be respected in the video game industry. The story and dialogue is interesting, the lore intrigued me, and the music is top-notch.

However, I can't shake the feeling that they tried reaching too hard for a wider userbase with some of these game mechanics and design choices so you end up experiencing a game that's meant to have a lot of depth but then starts pulling some of this walking simulator babysitting stuff on you; it's convoluted in that sense almost akin to dumbing down a Rubiks cube really.

With that said, I genuinely hope Arkane Lyon takes the lessons and learnings from Deathloop and produce a more-refined and consistent experience for their next project.
*END UPDATE*

Initial review:

The biggest issue - AI isn't the greatest

From my experience Dishonored 2 had decent AI scripting that became smarter and had much better vision on higher difficulties which led to some interesting moments; Dishonored 1 probably had better AI at higher difficulties compared to the default AI and difficulty that's forced on all Deathloop players and this is the game's biggest letdown. An initial fix could be to introduce difficulty levels that pose smarter enemies to players. This could ratchet the tension up nicely and enhance the gameplay so much while tying in even more with the human Julianna invasions.

Next - audio glitches
Sometimes gunshots, music, and/or other parts of the audio would be out of sync with the current scene or just doesn't play at all. Doesn't occur all the time but enough to warrant mentioning.


Performance - could be better
FSR Ultra Quality implementation is solid and nets me around 13-20 more fps. Most of my Visual settings are on High with Shadow Detail set to Medium, resolution at native 1080p, Vsync off, and Low Latency + Nvidia Reflex enabled. Framerates still tank at certain scenes but overall the game runs better for me than Dishonored 2 did at around mid-2017 with Denuvo suppressed.

Still compelling
Players that cheesed their way through the Dishonoured series using stealth, nonlethal, save scumming playstyles may find Deathloop compelling as it tries to force you out of those habits. The invasion mechanic is a game-changer in my view and really you should be leaving this on Online mode.