Recent reviews by Gecinyuszi

--- Early Access quick Review ---
I have many-many hours in the DEMO version, instantly purchasing the Early Access today and i have to say this is the most fun auto-battler that i have played for a long time. It is highly addicting original idea which is already super polished and you can sink a lot of time trying different builds. The only tiny bit of downside is the RNG which can be unforgiving at times but i still think this is an absolute blast to play this and tinker or combine different items and match it again other player's backpacks. The art style is perfect the UI is responsive and the music just perfect.
I am wholeheartedly recommend this and buy it to support the development with the ambitious road-map, but hey, if you just want to see what this is about, download the super-feature rich Demo only and try it for yourself.
But now sorry, i have to pack for my next battle.

Greedfall is a great semi open world, party-based action-RPG that will definitely scratch that Mass Effect itch with an original story, an engaging combat and a multitude of choices that affect the world and events that play out. However, it is rough around the edges, re-uses much of the assets and things like character design, player character builds and item variety leave a lot to be desired. Pairing this with odd quest design but with surprisingly thoughtful quest narratives that even surpasses of The Witcher, Greedfall is a mixed bag that regardless of its shortcomings will keep you engaged throughout.

The story takes place on the island of Teer Fradee (aka “The New World”) where you play as De Sardet, a legate of the Congregation of Merchants (a state resembling late medieval Venice) and have to navigate diplomatic ties with 3 major and several minor factions all at odds with one another to control the island. The theme of the story touches on Colonialism and the effects stemming from it where you and your actions will shape the island future.

During conversations, you can steer the direction and the subsequent action to your will. However, this is very limited as you have only a few skill check options and there is no morality system but instead a loyalty system. This means that conversation are linear and have no room for role-playing outside of the boundaries. While you can resolve some situations with high enough Intuition or Wits usually, the standard Charisma option is dependent on pure luck factor. All of this means that this is more of a linear RPG experience where you tag along for the ride instead of driving compared to a game like Divinity or Pillars of Eternity.

Quest narrative is well written and delivered with an okay level of voice acting, in some cases a secondary quest is on paar with the narrative writing of The Witcher. In fact most of the political intrigue, the origins or the mystery of the island and the Natives you will only learn from secondary or loyalty quests. However, the quest design is problematic and you will see this coming up in countless reviews titled “running simulator” because most quests designed to run from one place to another and then back again in an arbitrary way not considering the player’s time or a narrative consistency.

This exacerbates the notion on how I can best describe the game is “inconsistent”. Some examples: In some quests, you do have the option at the end to conveniently travel back to an NPC without running back, and then in most quest, you are not. In most conversations your companions are bystanders and do not offer anything in the narrative, but then at some quests they do weight in with their own view. The lack of conversation options and the inconsistency of quest design leads to frustrating moments where you have to walk from one end of the map to another just to tell someone that the job is done or completely miss your attempt to romance a character because you answered one prompt wrong and there is no way to recuperate.

Combat is a mixed bag, but when it works its quite engaging and it reflects the developer’s previous work. Your class will determine your playstyle (3 classes, Tank, Rouge, Mage) but don’t expect too much customization as only a few active skills available after significant levelling. A fast spaced, almost Souls-like combat where you can use abilities and utilities to quickly dispatch enemies. However, multiple enemies will show the weakness of this system where sometimes even with the right timing you will get constantly knocked down and in a frustrating manner enemies can spam you to death. There are also major boss battles with a distinct boss attack patter that suffers from the same frustrating issue where the enemy pulls incredibly combos out of nowhere and knock you down in rapid succession.

When it comes to graphics, the environmental design generally is fine at times even beautiful, but sometimes it is hard to identify the right crafting ingredients from the scenery. Factions lack a wholly distinctive flavor other than the surface touches and moreover, character design and animations are generally lacking and for a game released in 2019 overall, it is outdated.

There are also numerous small problems, like the reused assets for interiors and city design, the huge amount of lookalike NPCs or the lackluster itemization. However, with all this Greedfall still manages to captivate with its original story, interesting quests and even though of the shortcomings of its action-RPG’s systems, they still work just enough to keep you engaged.

This game is a solid package, that is definitely rough around the edges but the foundation is there and will keep you engaged until the end where all your decisions will culminate in a final battle. There is no doubt that this game could have used a continuous support and quality of life enhancement over the years from the developer to make it better, but alas they have moved on to Steel Rising and eventually will GreedFall 2. We can only hope that the issues are learned from and rectified to make the sequel (actually, a story prequel) better in every way.

While we are waiting on that next installment, get onto Greedfall with an open mind, sit back to absorb the story and I am sure you will have a great time on Teer Fradee.

6/10 Above Average

Quickfire review

Isonzo, the third installment in the WW1 series, combines everything great from Verdun and Tannenberg and creates a near perfect shooter experience. Nearly every aspect of the game, from graphics to progression is improved while adding new elements to perfect the recepie. Isonzo does not reinvent the wheel nor it is a grand upgrade from previous entries, but its more of a pinnacle of the series. The game offers a gritty, authentic and frantic WW1 mountain combat, thought this is not an easy game to get into. There are only minor bugs to dim the otherwise great experience.

If you are familiar with the series or games like Red Orchestra or Insurgency than this game will also be familiar, however if you are looking for the Call of Duty/Battlefield experience, than this will be a disappointing game for you.

For now, Isonzo is a very solid game and the best the series have to offer, with future updates (Germany will be added this November) it will be even better. See you on the Front lines soldier! >

8/10

Conqueror’s Blade is a unique medieval warfare experience that blends third person gameplay with light strategy elements in a surprisingly good MMOish mix, only plagued by technical issues that hinder the overall enjoyment.

The game is a unique mix that no other title explored, maybe the most similar comparison would be the Kingdom Under Fire series. It is a mix of a Third Person light RPG with a Total War-esque real time strategy where you control groups of Units in battle with a World of Tanks like business model. The essence of the game is in the massive 15v15 Siege Battles, where you enter with your main character who can wield several weapon classes from Longsword, Muskets and exotic ones, like the Nodachi. Third Person gameplay is reminiscent to old Chinese martial arts movies and MMO like semi-fantasy combat. It is engaging and you have several skills to utilize, however Stun skills are a necessity to stun lock enemy heroes – which can be a frustrating mechanic when it is done to you.

You can take several units with you into a battle but only control 1 at a time. Careful timing, using the right unit skills and positioning makes up for a frantic, chaotic, and most certainly engaging siege battle where Attackers trying to take the last control point from the desperate Defenders. Complimented by Siege Engines, Cannons and Trebuchets that light up the battlefield, medieval combat have never looked better.

It is a neat template and is supplemented with a World of Tanks like Unit tree and progression system where you have to accumulate unit XP and shared XP to level up and Honor points to purchase new units. As always with games like this, the progress is relatively slow and you need to invest a lot of time to buy new units, but you receive a lot of XP tokens and free Honor here and there to compliment.

On top of all this, there is a separate element to this game, being that is also an open-world MMO. You can leave your starting fief/city and gallop to other areas or towns, gather resources and fight roaming bandits. There is a huge map to compliment and is occupied by Houses aka. Guilds. Here is when I encourage you to join a guild, since Conqueror’s Blade best content is offered via Guild Wars/Territory Wars where competing Houses fight for these open world territories. Territory Wars time happens twice a week and is usually an exciting event that requires guild planning and strategy with many Sieges of major cities to smaller incursions.

However, Conquers Blade has an unfortunate dark side, that is the technical issues. To start off, although the game is available on Steam, it is hosted with the dreadful myGames launcher. When trying to play, you will experience several error messages randomly, from unable to authenticate with steam, network connection issues, security issues or some other random error that means nothing. Overall, it takes a lot of restarts and frustrating tries to get into the actual game every time you would like to play, if you can get in at all. But sometimes Conqueror’s Blade just lets you in without a hiccup.
The main rule of this game is, that you can only be able to play, whenever it wants to be played.

If that’s not enough, frequent disconnections throughout mid-game, ample number of bugs many years after release still, translation issues and lag will plaque the experience further.

It is really said that every 3 months or so a new season with new content is being actively developed, but it seems that ironing out these issues are not a priority. It is understandingly very frustrating and demoralizing when after a long day you must spend 20 minutes of restarting fiddle just to get this game working.

Conqueror’s Blade is not a perfect game, but when it works it is definitely a unique and enjoyable experience. You will see in some reviews accusing the game of being pay-to-win, I can tell you that is categorically false. While you can buy certain packs that give unit XP for example, 90% of packs are purely cosmetic and have literally no benefit in gameplay. Otherwise, the in-game currencies are perfectly attainable as a Free-To-Play player and only the Battle Pass serves any actual benefit. I have been a free to play player from day one and I have never felt that the game in any way is pay-to-win.

If the developers would focus on fixing the frustrating and potentially player alienating technical issues this would be an almost perfect game for the unique genera it is in. If you can overlook these problems and maybe you are lucky to not have technical issues at all, while accepting that some unit balance and frustrating stun mechanics exists, you will most definitely enjoy this game. Since it is a FREE game, there is no excuse not to try it out, join a good House and fight for territories.

I’ll see you on the battlefield hero!

8/10 Great!

I rarely review games that I have not finished as I believe it gives a false narrative and an incomplete view thus I apologize beforehand. In my defense, I can say that I simply cannot continue on with this game as I have lost all interest and will, so I have to give an honest look where I am today.

Most people focuses on Mass Effect Andromeda’s bad launch as the main source of criticism, that have been mostly rectified by a number of patches. I played this game now 4 years after it’s official release plus I installed around 20 mods to enhance the experience, ranging from various non-lore breaking improvements to looks, customization and combat tweaks.

But even with these, Andromeda unfortunately is a very shallow one-dimensional experience that comes nowhere close to it’s predecessor Mass Effect games. This is even more apparent due to the Mass Effect Legendary Edition release. So what exactly is wrong with Andromeda?

Into the Unknown

Bioware chose the easy way out with Andromeda, instead of continuing with the complex original story of Commander Shepard, we jump to a different galaxy lead by the Rider protagonist brothers, who are Pathfinders to new worlds. Right off the bat, this both sounds an opportunity to create an own sub-franchise of Mass Effect (like with Final Fantasy) and also for the new Bioware team to introduce fresh ideas. However, what came out of the barrel was an opportunity utterly wasted.

One of the biggest issues concerning Andromeda is its terrible writing – which keep it in mind is a critical aspect when designing a space epic action-RPG. Nearly every character was written without aligning with its race, culture or position in society. Krogan would talk like it was written for a human character and say phrases like “two birds with one stone” or use sophisticated explanations. Asari don’t act like they were Asari and every other character alien character is just seems off by large margin, which you have never felt in previous Mass Effect games where every race was distinct with their own cultural representation. It seems that the dialogues were written by some young intern who never seen the source material.

Early in the game you meet some indigenous friendly race who starts speaking in their own language, but then 10 seconds later they change to English without a hitch and explanation. When talking to random traders or bystanders of these aliens (who never speak on their own language ever more), you feel the same thing, as if the dialogue was written to random human archetypes and not a distant alien race that have never met humans.

This really destroys any immersion that the game would offer, combined with the poor story that is just borderline uninteresting and nonengaging. Speaking about uninteresting, let’s talk about the Riders.

Now, the Rider brothers (your main character) are not Commander Shepard, and that’s all right. But instead of some interesting personality, they wrote the most boring, generic teenager dialogues as possible. Role playing in this game is impossible as there are no more Renegade/Paragon options, instead you have these “mood” answers, but literally ALL OF THEM are he same with some slight variations, without any freedom of choice or meaningful decisions. This supposed be an “RPG” game keep it in mind.

Your party members also suffer from poor writing and misalignment with their race. You got a shy Turian huntress, your typical starter black dude guy, the strong soldier/biotic woman, the Krogan warlord, and an Asari scientist who by the way also is kinky/crazy/weird. If this seems familiar, that’s because you have seen similar lineup in Mass effect and even in Dragon Age. Probably Cora (your atypical strong female) is the only mildly interesting party member, but the rest are just fillers or borderline weird, suffering the same poor writing as said before.

So with all this said, at least how the open world feels?

On large planets you have a nice Open World setting where you can explore with your Nomad (your Mako), establish outposts, gather resources and solve side quests. On paper this sounds fun and the locations are sometimes breathtakingly beautiful, however it quickly becomes a chore. Half of the map cannot be accessed due to environmental hazard, outposts provide no actual meaning or things to do, resources are just too few to actually craft anything meaningful and side quests are just boring elimination or fetch quests. A vast open space without much substance.

Even checking Remnant ruins (mysterious alien civilization’s ruins with hostile automated robots) which undoubtedly look cool, but ultimately end up quite uninteresting and honestly pointless – other than restoring the hazards and fulfilling the main objective.

So how’s combat?

I used some mods to enhance combat, better jump and tweaking damage, but still it felt rather un-engaging. There is a lot of verticality and movement, for sure, but it does not provide depth rather than just “looking cool”. There is really not much tactics that go into each engagement and it is always the same. You can switch on different Profiles (basically class) and use certain skills but I never felt the real need to do so as every combat engagement (regardless of the enemy types) are the same. There are no hard counters or enemies that are immune to certain damage, or need to use some tactical pattern to defeat its armor. Brute force always works. Thus, Its too easy, you just gun down everyone, while your retarded party members (even with Party mod installed) stand and occasionally do some minor stuff.

The big baddie enemies are also just there, chilling in their bases, to be a punching bag and never really offer any meaningful resistance or plot explanation. (Maybe later in the game, who knows)

Andromeda’s only redeeming quality is its location design and generally graphics look great, the engine serves its purpose well. Galaxy map and space travel is nicely done. But honestly, that’s about it. Numerous other issues from the console design, like bad inventory management, a tagged-on Multiplayer that no one plays, weird load-out and party management and many others plaque the experience.

With all this in mind, Andromeda seems like it was made by somebody who have seen Mass Effect from a poster or some screenshots and was like “I can do something like that”. It’s a shallow imitation of the Mass Effect universe with atrocious writing and a chore gameplay.

I can understand some respect for the game, from someone who have never played Mass Effect before, but if you did, then Andromeda has nothing to offer you. It is not a terrible game but it’s one where for many-many aspects you just want something better, and in a fact we had something better, it’s called Mass Effect Trilogy. If this is what the future of Mass Effect looks like, than thanks, I’ll just go back and replay again ME: Legendary Edition where you have everything that Andromeda does not.

3/10 Disappointing

"Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong ...”

When it comes to original stories, detailed worlds and colorful characters to fell in love with, only a handful of franchises comes into mind. Whether it is something like Lord of The Rings, Star Wars or Final Fantasy it all brings out sweet memories, powerful emotions and a desire to re-visit those worlds just one more time. But there is one franchise that is the most sweetest of all. That carries all of these traits, memories and even more. That is Mass Effect, one of video gaming’s more original, emotional and rich story telling trilogy ever created, now in remastered.

If you have never played this game before, than it has never been a better time like now to go for it. I would advise you to jump straight in if you fancy grandiose stories of saving the world and detailed characters. And if you have already played before, then the remastered version will surely please your long-time Mass Effect itch to re-visit this world.

There is so much we could talk about. Undoubtedly Mass Effect is one of the cornerstones of cinematic storytelling and to some extent it is a very decent action-adventure saga with RPG elements. If you are interested in greater detail on what each game in the series entails, then look at some individual reviews of those. However, I will focus more on the Legendary Edition, the trilogy’s connection, and evolution as well as the overall improvements.

Mass Effect

The original Mass Effect is now 14 years old and it shows. It was Bioware’s first attempt on something completely new and many mechanics were trialed that got refined in the later games of the series (inventory, medi-gel, exploration etc.). Nevertheless, it is something I highly recommend playing, and the Legendary Edition fixed a lot of the issues (especially with combat) that was rough in the vanilla release. Mass Effect features a good rooster of characters, a proper lore background of setting up the franchise and a solid story foundation. It is a must to play, to understand the grand scheme and the Legendary Edition did a great job of upgrading graphically and gameplay wise.

Mass Effect 2

Most people grand favorite in the franchise is Mass Effect 2, and I am no different. ME2 changes a lot of mechanics and introduces more engaging and fluent combat, the largest set of colorful companions and one of the most iconic missions (suicide mission) to remember. However, as an RPG enthusiast I must note, Mass Effect is NOT an RPG in its core and ME2 further simplifies and takes the franchise to an action-adventure game rather than an old school RPG based cinematic piece, like the Dragon Age Origins or The Witcher. This is an evolution of the series that will aggregate with ME3 and it distances itself from the original idea of the franchise. However, this should not dampen the otherwise superb presentation of Mass Effect 2 that is now even better enhanced, mainly graphically with the Legendary Edition along with some bugfixes.

Mass Effect 3

Mass Effect 3 is the culmination and finale of the franchise, with all choices and galactic turmoil coming to full fruition. ME3 further simplifies the mechanics and almost entirely takes out exploration however combat is further improved to reflect a cover-based shooter. Storytelling is still strong, and the Legendary Edition includes the Extended Cut, fixing somewhat the ending of the game. ME3 features the BEST DLC’s in the franchise and although ME2’s Arrival and Shadow Broker was strong, it dwarfs comparing to the Citadel DLC. As a side note, I will never forgive Bioware/EA to DLC lock squad mate/companion Javik as a launch day DLC. He is almost the only great addition to the otherwise poor rooster of original/new characters featured in ME3. Multiplayer is taken out in ME3:LE however the war assets required for the galactic readiness is refined so 7000 points is easily attainable throughout the campaign.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition

With updated graphics, bug fixes and all DLC’s included the Legendary Editions undoubtedly the best way to experience Mass Effect. If you however already own all games + DLC’s on Origin, than this edition will only enhance the portions which some community mod upscaling projects already did. I would still recommend this complete trilogy edition, maybe on sale. It will certainly save hours of modding, tweaking and headaches especially with ME1.

Legendary Edition is a great package of a truly Legendary franchise. One would even say, that Mass Effect is a one-off, a shining beacon in the sea of video gaming that came together just right with some Bioware magic. It is a unique experience and is the greatest story piece ever written for a video game.

It’s not perfect though. Sometimes its clunky, a bit frustrating maybe and it’s evolutionary choices will not please everyone. But it does not have to. It’s just Mass Effect. And my god, it is Legendary.

10/10 Legendary

“Tell me another story about the Shepard.”
“It’s getting late but okay…one more story.”

“They were all dead. The final gunshot was an exclamation mark on everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the trigger, and it was over.”

//// Mods and tweaks used to make it work on Windows 10 is at the bottom ///

Revisiting Max Payne the Third-person shooter masterpiece after 20 years, was an immersive, emotional, and exciting experience just like the very first time back when it hit the shelves.

One of the game’s core strength lies in its simplicity. It is a strait forward revenge story, told with one of the best writing/scrips I have ever seen, complemented with a kick-ass action gameplay and awesome soundtrack.

Max goes on a revenge rampage in a neo-noir setting of New York against the mafia gangs and the corporation entangled with the underworld to avenge the death of his family. This all told in fully voice acted comic book sequences instead of cutscenes, delivered by a stellar, almost poetic writing. The game engine is very dated, but crisp, clean and the world is surprisingly built with attention to detail.

Apart from this what made Max Payne an iconic title is the action gameplay infused by the Matrix-like Bullet Time™ feature that slows down time for better reaction to high intensity moments. Gameplay still hold very strong even today, and fly jumping in Bullet Time to deal with multiple enemies around the corner, never feels old. There are multiple weapons to use (some can be dual wielded) and grenades to get the job done.

The music, the atmospheric sounds are superb. Nightmare segments are genuinely terrifying thriller segments complimented with the great music choice and sound design.

As mentioned before however Max Payne is a strait forward experience. There are no consumables, wearables, items, side quests, collectables, turret segments or branching pathways. No bonus missions or DLC either. It is a simple, linear revenge action-story told in around 8-9 hours, and such as, none of the mentioned additions are needed. This exactly what makes this game perfect, that it does not try to be more than what it is. And what it does, is with great care and perfection.

The Good

• Superb story told in fashionable way of voice acted comic-book sequences,
  
• Explosive gameplay and enjoyable TPS gunplay,
  
• Various weapons,
  
• Some notable side-characters,
  
• Great variety of locations,
  
• Memorable soundtrack and sound design.

The Bad

• Engine is very dated, problems on modern platforms,
  
• Supporting characters never really expanded or developed,
  
• Enemy AI is cheesy, often pre-fire or deliver pixel perfect shots.

Even after 20 years Max Payne is still holding strong as one of the best action games of all time with a memorable story line. The gripping atmosphere, intriguing story and action-packed gameplay will hold your undivided attention throughout this journey. The subsequent sequel improved the gameplay aspect and continued the story however the original Max Payne is a must for any fans of the genera.

Masterpiece 9/10

/// Fixes /// We could only wish for a Payne trilogy remake; however, it does work on Windows 10 usually without issues. See below the mods/tweaks I used.

• Max Payne Remastered 1.3 is a must have AI Enhanced upscaling mod of models/textures. (includes widescreen fixes and startup fix)
  
• Installing Remastered will consume more RAM (bigger textures – more RAM needed to load). The problem is that old games cannot allocate more system RAM to the engine, so you need to make the game Large Address Aware[www.techpowerup.com]. Simply download, run and select the Max Payne executable then save. You can now run Max Payne with every option set to HIGH/MAX. Solution can be used for any high-res modded old game – I used also for Dragon Age. Otherwise, you will have frequent crashes and texture flickering.
  
• Cool Weapon Sounds is optional, I think it does bring better sounds to the game.
  
• ReShade[sfx.thelazy.net] – this is generally problematic because of the old engine limitation you need a d3d8 dll[github.com] file and I was not able to make SweetFX 2.0 work however ReShade default files do load. Make sure that ReShade reads in the default preset you downloaded (any 3) and also the d3d8 dll[github.com] is in. You will probably not be able to use the overlay though (hardlocks the cursor), but at least it will work with the preset. I used the PayneFX 2.0 preset.[sfx.thelazy.net]
  
• Use this Steam Guide for any further issues/tips.

This is by far the most controversial title of recent memory. No other game generated this much of hype, hate, love, disdain, and other emotions from a wide range of people, outlets, and journalists where it spawned numerous opinions that barely reflect the reality anymore.

So where to start? It is safe to say that the single, biggest issue with Cyberpunk is that it was marketed and hyped up to biblical heights, comparable only to vaporware like Half Life 3. Living up to these unrealistic expectations were literally impossible and further fueled by false marketing promises on game features and content that never seen the light of day.

Cyberpunk undoubtedly arrived in an unfinished and broken state with hundreds of bugs, glitches and glaring performance issues that are not in-line with the min/recommended specs. The game is virtually unplayable on last-gen consoles and low tier PCs even though it was marketed as such.

This is where most reviews will stop and mention that “but, but but… Skyrim, Wither 3, No Mans Sky etc. was a buggy mess and I’m sure CDPR will fix the bugs in no time” and yes, that is probably true. CD Project RED is a 100% committed to fix the bugs and provide steady updates. I truly believe that over time this might be a new No Mans Sky scenario which is now widely accepted as gaming’s ultimate redeem act.

However, there are glaring game design decisions, not bugs that will probably never be fixed especially after launch. It is financially unfeasible to redesign the game and implement what was originally the vision and marketed for years. Putting also in context the shacky 8 years of development with multiple redesigns and scope creep.

Wake up Samurai, we got a linear storyline to burn

The developers of this game had no clue what type of game they wanted to create. They liked the open world idea from the Witcher but wanted a linear story driven experience also, packed into a style of a first-person shooter. What ultimately resulted in Cyberpunk is now more of a story driven linear Looter-Shooter with RPG elements rather than a Next-gen RPG experience they originally advertised, falling short in every genera aspect, never able to fully deliver in any of it.

The RPG aspect of the game is very limited, cut-back and ultimately unfulfilling for fans of the genera. You have very limited decisions with an on-rail storyline and most of your customizations you can do barely affect the outcome. Lifepath choices, a big advertisement point, is an ultimately disappointing feature that does not drive narrative or provide anything of value other than an additional voice line. Branching dialogue options are basic, strait forward and does not allow for any roleplaying whatsoever.

It’s a city of false dreams…

Driving or walking through Night City gives the impression of a breathtaking, alive place which have never been seen before in video games. Pedestrians shopping at kiosks, cars passing by, managers arguing over the phone, police investigating a crime scene, local gang members taking a break etc. A beautiful, non-choreographed and immersive place to be in.

But than you stop.

You realize that NPC’s are lifeless, don’t do much at all, have no daily schedule like it was promised and unable to properly react to any player action. Night City is just a pretty, artificial bio-scenery that has no depth beyond its surface.

AI pathfinding and car driving is abysmal. Nearly any action that sets of an NPC from their predetermined path will cause the AI to freeze up, freak out or to do some other weird immersion breaking action.

Complete lack of Police AI wanted system, and chase mechanic with an unrealistic enemy spawn mechanic that lets police pop up in your field of vision. It is confirmed that there is no Police Ai pathfinding/driving mechanic developed so they left out the whole feature at launch resulting in the most ridiculous and utterly broken Police response. Even 2001 GTA3 had way better police and chasing system in this regard. This function is utterly broken and clearly taken out before launch as in 2019 they expressed in detail to the press of the complex mechanics of police response and even sort of bounty hunters (Max Tac) going after the player.

…and I am a big dreamer.

There are hundreds of minor or significant quality of life issues, balance problems and missing features or cut content.

Other than the main story or the side quest there is very little offered to enrich the experience and immersion. There are no minigames or side activities and you cannot really bond with your hard-earned NPC’s and love interest or do stuff together. There is 1 type of racing and 1 type of brawling and nothing else.

Apartments are useless, with very limited things you can do in it. No decoration, customization or functionality that would want you to visit said apartment often. You also cannot purchase more desired flats, though you earn some basic ones throughout the story. Cars cannot be collected and displayed in a garage nor they cannot be customized, even though on the street you see several variants of different models.
Entire parts of the city are blocked from the player and the metro/subway system (featured in the marketing demo) is completely cut.

“Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle”

With all this said on what Cyberpunk Is not let me tell you what Cyberpunk really Is.

Night City is an incredibly immersive, well-crafted place where spending time is simply fun . The atmosphere completely sucks you in, wanting to spend just a bit more time with each session. The gigs and side quest are wonderfully hand-crafted and often charmingly bizarre. Characters are interesting, lovable and voice acted to perfection, Jackie, Judy, Panam, Jhonny, River and many more are memorable and well developed.

It’s exceptional art design, graphics and mesmerizing scenery will make you awe and gaze in wonder at every step. The music is superb with a banger soundtrack that will crank up the mood of every situation.

Gunplay and weapon design are well done and enjoyable. Even though the combat is very bullet spongy, easy to exploit with lackluster weapon customization, the guns are still relatively fun to use and do the job.

The game undoubtedly is a buggy, unfinished mess with so much more that could have been added to enrich the experience, but still, I want to go back. I want to spend just 5 minutes more in this uniquely weird and bizarre world. Finish one more gig, explore the shoreline of Pacifica or walk in Kabuki market one last time.

Unfortunately for the features that were promised, the lackluster character building, RPG options, lifeless NPCs and broken police, there really is no immediate and obvious fix and it is hard to see how CDPR would even have the means to address any of them.

There is great value to be found here. An immersive world with a great story and memorable characters. However, the only way that you can enjoy it if you accept it’s shortcomings and limitations. If you have ceiling high expectations or think that this game is anything like GTA, Skyrim or The Witcher, then you will be disappointed. Cyberpunk is Cyberpunk, and it plays by its rules. I am not saying I don’t want this game to be different, to be more, but you have to understand that it just simply isn’t. And accept, hell, love it for that fact.

The glitches and bugs in the current state will often break the immersion and pull you out of this magnificent world, which is truly a shame. I would recommend waiting a few months, as stated before CD Project already expressed that they aim to fix everything and provide content DLC from Q1 2021.

It is uncertain by great margin how all of this will affect the multiplayer portion. Until then, however there is another gig waiting for me in Night City.

10/7 Good

Dragon Age Inquisition redeemed a once respected franchise that was plunged into hell with its infamous second entry. It presents a wide and beautiful, semi-open world with somewhat deviating from the serious tone and look of the legendary first game. But on the way of trying to outdo its predecessors and the sister-franchise mass effect it failed to galvanize a solid story or notable characters, riddled with technical issues on launch.

Inquisition opens with a dramatic story of reassembling the pieces of Thedas to fight the antagonist Corypheus, a sentient Darkspawn entering from the fade to claim the world. The protagonist job is to reinstate the Inquisiton order and assemble an army to fight this menace. And although this story seems promising enough, it falls a bit short and nothing unexpected would be unfolded during the main line. The main story also falls short in length and generally is struggling to captivate the player while side-events sometimes offer more color when they don’t feel like unnecessary busy work just to extend time.

Another issue is the companion rooster. Even though some of them are well polished, most of them are uninteresting and not memorable. Cassandra and Varric who are the most interesting were actually from DA2 so they would not really count as new, but at least they are well written. Solas and Vivienne are bland and one-dimensional, Cole is weird while some like Sera are borderline insane (in a bad way), the type of person you would never want in your party. While Dragon Age never really offered a diverse alignment character set where the lowest ever was maybe a chaotic natural, it would have been a nice change to see a more diverse and interesting rooster. Probably Iron Bull is the only truly interesting edition. Your advisors are great though and they do offer different mentality, perspective and mostly well developed. Of course, this is subject to everyone’s own opinion, but this also emphasizes a theme, that your choices eventually do not matter .

During the story sections you will frequently faced with some though looking choices. However, the outcome of these decisions never really affect the gameplay and are only solely cosmetic. Side with the Templars or the Mages? All you will get is a different cosmetic tower built at Skyhold (your home base) and some of the faction representatives running around. Will you let Morrigan (who is not a Companion but an NPC) drink from the Well of Sorrows or you do it yourself? You will get a different dialogue at the War table. Give the Grey Wardens another chance or doom them for their involvement? Eh, nobody going to remember that decision 5 minutes later…

And while I am not being fair as some decisions do have gameplay and overall impact, most feels only cosmetic and does not provide direct benefit or hindrance.

It is understandable, that in an age where failing and making sometimes bad decisions portrayed as weak, instead that is a natural human thing, games do fear punishing the player for any meaningful decision or sidestep. While many games show that this notion is untrue, in Inquisition it is fully there and every conversation or decision point is very much the same. In any conversation you always have a Good option where basically that the devs intended to drive a conversation forward, a neutral option of “I want to know more” and a “skip/get to the point” option. A malevolent option is never presented to the player. Roleplaying a character outside of these strict boundaries is impossible therefore the cosmetics of decisions. A game which advertises “be whoever want you to be” and “create your own character and story”, but then forces you down a path where you cannot deviate is highly contradictory…

The tone of the game got seriously downgraded, there is very little blood anymore or the talk of blood magic (a serious concern and social political issue in DA:O) is almost absent. The mage player for whatever reason also cannot roll for a Blood Mage specialization which is in line with the previous topic. Good guys cannot be blood mages I guess so it must be taken out. DA:O was a dark, mature, and serious story that involved a lot of deaths of key characters and blood. Lots of blood. Inquisition however is much closer to a casual fantasy story rated PG13.

Visually the game is great, the Frostbite engine delivers prime experience and it aged well though it is unclear how well it will hold in the generations to come. Although the design choices moved away from DA:O it still looks pleasing but mainly the environments that are just stunning at places. Sound design and voice acting is also very decent.

Combat became more action oriented but fortunately retained much of the original and ditched the atrocity that was DA2. You can pause mid combat and issue orders, there is even a tactical camera available for those who prefer. A weird and controversial decision that Inquisition has no classic magic healing. You have a limited number of potions available (4,8 and max 16) and that’s it for healing. It is a wide controversial subject that would be very long to discuss, personally I am also not pleased (it breaks the lore as well) but it does make engagements a bit more tactical meaning that you have to use Guard and magic Barrier abilities to shield your companions from damage. However, this also means that (once again) your decision of building a party and selecting abilities is very limited.

Itemization is generally okay, a bit more unique, legendary items or the existence of sets would have made the experience better. However, there is a great crafting system available. It is quite simple, but still useful and compensates for the somewhat lacking items. Some armor and item designs are a bit weird or impractical, so transmogrification would have been a great addition, but unfortunately, it’s not there. You can tint your armor/weapons though. Afterall, looking badass is a key component to RPGs.

There is so much to still talk about Inquisition, and the problems Bioware had faced during development, but we must draw the line, so to break down:

The Good

• Great Visuals and Sound
  
• Large and mostly interesting world
  
• An okay storyline with a large mix of side quests and micro-stories (e.g. companion quests)
  
• Combat is relatively engaging and fluent
  
• Some characters you get very fond of and remember after (while most others you do not)
  
• Overall good items and great crafting

The Bad

• Dumbed down tone and maturity
  
• Relatively unfulfilling endgame and ending
  
• The illusion of choice
  
• Some areas have uneven level differences – Deep Roads DLC has a notable jump in difficulty even being on the same level as the player
  
• Most characters are unpolished and/or unmemorable
  
• No minigames or side activities to enrich the overall game experience
  
• Tedious gathering and some busywork side quest
  
• Unstable at launch, some bugs still apparent

Dragon Age Inquisition had a very hard job to redeem a franchise from the damage it suffered after the flop of DA2, and in some respects it did do just that. It is an enjoyable game, where many hours can be spent. And while it is never going to be as good as DA:O which also was an imperfect game, it still holds well on its own. Comparing however to similar games in the era like the Witcher 3 or Divinity Original Sin, one can clearly see that Inquisition is all but a first step in a process to reach, once again the pinnacle of the RPG lineup. We just have to wait and see if Dragon Age 4 would be able to reach that height. Until then, see you in the Fade.

10/7 Good