Recent reviews by gi99les

Okay so, after writing the review I left below, I sort of felt like a wuss for backing down, especially since I tend to think I never like to back down for a challenge. So after a restful night after writing said review, I loaded up Pyre again and continued on. I don't know what the hell happened, but during the next rite, everything clicked. The cumbersome controls suddenly all resonated with each finger press, and I was able to actually outsmart the A.I by doing certain maneuvers, even on hard mode (the biggest reason for my negative review below.)

"Wow gi99les, it took you 4-5 hours to get used to the controls?"

Yes. Yes it did. Isometric RPG's (Supergiant's Forte) are not a genre I play very often. Pyre originally frustrated me because I felt that I was being left in the dust because I could not get used to the controls well enough to combat the A.I.

So basically, my point is: to anyone with my past predicament, PLEASE continue on. You WILL get used to the controls, and you will then FULLY appreciate the enjoyment that is to be gotten out of Pyre.

Pyre is probably not my favorite Supergiant game (It's REALLY hard to beat Transistor in my eyes,) but It is surely one of the most unique games I have EVER played. This being a Supergiant game, I already knew the music and storytelling aspects would be top notch, and I was right on the money. The story is incredibly well written, having different scenarios written for the different choices you make, making you feel the weight of your decisions. The Rites take a little while to get used to, but once you do, you'll feel unstoppable, even with 12 Titan Stars enabled (This games version of the difficulty modifiers that Supergiant are known for putting in their games.)

Basically, don't be a fool like I was, and possibly miss one of Supergiants most ambitious projects to date. They have released another masterpiece to their portfolio and I will ambitiously await their next game with wallets at the ready.

ORIGINAL REVIEW BELOW (For reference)
____________________________________

I WANT TO REITERATE THAT MY REVIEW IS BASED ON THE EXPECTATION OF THE HARD MODE DIFFICULTY FOR NEW PLAYERS. IF YOU PLAY PYRE ON NORMAL OR EASY, YOU ARE PROBABLY NOT GOING TO EXPERIENCE THE SAME GRIEVANCES I DETAIL BELOW.

I. Love. Supergiant. I have 23/24 of the achievements from Bastion, and all the achievements from Transistor. It is clear from the start that Supergiant put a lot of love and care into the creation of Pyre, and the storytelling and artwork are on a whole nother level of engagement and beauty, but what ruins Pyre for me is the Rites (The main gameplay aspect of Pyre.)

I want to clarify that I usually play games on the hardest difficulty possible whenever I get the opportunity, so I set it to Hard. It just seems as I progress through the story that the A.I gets cheaper and more strategic while the player struggles to keep up with everything going onscreen. The story progresses whether you win or lose, but if you hate losing, I feel that Pyre will frustrate you to levels you didn't even know you were capable of. I understand you're really not supposed to win them all, but the difficulty curve RAMPS UP TOO QUICKLY from rite to rite. The Rite with Udmildhe nearly made me shatter my desk in half, and that's only 10~% of the game! If this early on I'm getting schooled by the AI, then I honestly do not want to progress through the rest of it.

You can argue that the hard mode is for when you beat the game on the easier difficulty and "master" the game so to speak, but If so, then why didn't Supergiant implement the NG+ mechanic from Bastion and Transistor? Why allow us to play on the hardest difficulty if the AI is just going to abuse the sensory overload players get from trying to keep track? I love Pyre's world, but as a game, I cannot recommend it.

Go ♥♥♥♥ yourself Take-Two.

Dumb, stupid fun.

I play for the USB's.

why is everyone laughing

Thank god I got the Wolfpack on sale for .99 cents.

A visual delight, plagued by some very questionable level design and clunky controls (at least on a 360 controller.)

On it's own, The game is not bad. It has some pretty colorful visuals, and the soundtrack (while not my favorite Sonic soundtrack) is top notch. However, as a long time Sonic fan, I gotta say that there was little motivation for me to complete it's extremely short campaign. The story was meant for kids, I get that, but the jokes aren't funny, and the characters always feel the need to "chime in" during levels, meaning that if you get stuck on a certain part with a voice over, you'll hear the same line every single time you restart (And trust me, there are moments where you WILL get stuck repeating the section over and over.) The level design, while definitely unique, leads to severe frustration due to it's nature to add something new the farther you progress, such as Sonic rolling into a snowball, grind-only levels, and a floating level. I realize the developers wanted to keep the game engaging and "mix it up", but I feel they didn't have enough faith in it's main parkour-like system and subsequently developed these often frustrating side-levels to distract us. A shame, because given a little bit of fleshing out, the parkour system could have been so much more.

Are you a fan of inventive platformers and feeling down that Nintendo won't port Super Mario Galaxy to the PC? Then I don't feel you'd regret picking this up, as it's worth a buy just for it's visual fidelity and soundtrack alone. If you're a Sonic fan or looking to scratch that Sonic itch, I'd recommend picking up Sonic Generations or Sonic Adventure 2 before you go for this one. And even then, I'd wait for a sale, cause there just isn't enough content to warrant the 30 dollar price tag, unless you're a platforming completionist.

At this point, you already know if you want to buy this game based on the convoluted controversy surrounding it. Realize one thing however, in order for a game to get this much attention (negative/positive), there had be something good at it's core, no?

My opinion? Payday 2 is a great game. OVK has made mistakes, sure, but it's only due to the autism the community for this game has produced. "Wahhh, the game isn't hard enough, wahhh, the game is too easy, wahhhh, I'm being rustled by OPTIONAL microtransactions." It's enough where even a company like CD Projekt Red or *insert loved developer here" wouldn't be able to salvage ideas from this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. It's coming to the point where it's becoming a meme to say how bad Payday 2 is just because "lol microtransactions XDDDD" jesus christ.

Payday 2, at it's core gamestate, is fun. Playing with friends is fun, dealing with the community is not. Honestly, I welcome all the autists leaving the game. Hopefully soon I can join a random lobby where people know what they're doing and aren't retarded hypocrites.

Take this however you like, but know that I'm biased. I have over 800 hours and have every achievement (so far). This game can turn anyone into a perfectionist, and because it's so hated right now, you're bound to get ridiculed because you still enjoy it. If you're fine with that, welcome to Payday 2. It's not all bad.

My god I have mixed feelings about this. On the first hand, the port was terrible on release with people with GTX 780's getting horrible framerate. It was really frustrating. I couldn't touch it for the first 2 weeks or so because of how bad the port was. Then a driver update from Nvidia came and I was able to get a pretty good framerate. So I have no idea how to feel about the port. It's stable enough that I was able to beat the game and all 4 untold stories however and I believe I only crashed twice.

The main game is awesome, story's a bit short though. People recommended that If I've played every Dead rising game, that I should play nightmare mode because it's the closest you get to the DR experience. I'm not so sure, as the other games, while strict time limits, they still allowed you to be able to do side missions and explore. In this mode, the time limit is 4 times faster then the normal game, so you might have some time to do some side missions at first, but later on, you'll have to ignore them in order to finish the game on time. I cut it real close, I had 0 hours left when I reached the end (Not counting overtime mode) so yeah, If you're a completionist, don't do nightmare mode unless you have a friend with you at ALL times.

Anyway, do your research. The port is nowhere near perfect and was bringing Titans and 780's to their knees on release day. But if you're a Deadrising fan, I'd suggest giving it a go, and bringing a friend with you.

It's fun.

It's free.

It's a 20-30MB.

It can run on a toaster.

You have no excuse not to play this, guy.

Oh god, what have I bought.