Recent reviews by Maxi

Not much needs to be said that hasn't already been said. It's addictive, smart and engaging. Bite the price bullet and play it.

Mmmmmm

A solid time.

There's nothing too glaringly negative to say about the game, other than wishing it was longer with more varied locales and mission types/construction.

I've completed all three endings, and they were each interesting with their own fun final boss fights. Though the story can be predictable, it is still engaging and kept me entertained throughout -- mostly due to the fun cast of characters

The customisation is quite great, though it can be appealing to just equip a handful of superior weapons for the three main threats of the game, MT's, ACs and Boss fights, and stick with them for most of the game. Don't play like me and rush through the campaign. I haven't really touched the decal system and personalized my AC, nor have I deviated too much from kinetic and melee weaponry. Therefore, you should take your time and change things up for the fun of it.

The music is also great, and the voice acting while somewhat cheesy, was pretty engaging all throughout. My heart goes out to you, Michigan.

Three playthroughs with a few missions S-ranked and PVP untouched racked in about 31 hours of playtime, which is more than I've gotten in other full price releases, however significantly less than you'd get from the recent Fromsoft games.

I recommend getting the game on sale, unless you think you'll engage heavily with the personalization and costumization aspect of your AC and PVP, you won't be getting a tremendous amount of game time out of Armored Core 6.

Though, a short and consistently fun game is better than a bloated boring one.

I don't really like the game, but it doesn't mean that it's bad

This central game mode is a series of arenas wherein you fight progressively harder combinations of enemies that get equipped with better gear. You earn gold to upgrade your own amour, buy potions, shields, weapons and the like.

This in itself isn't bad. I actually like that there's a progression system of sorts, unlike Blade & Sorcery's (shortened to B&S from hereon) purely sandbox method. However, the physics interactions were pretty lacklustre for me. It's only after playing this B&S and Boneworks that I realize how important sophisticated physics are for me when it comes to VR.

There are canned animations for enemies dying and reacting to being hit, the weapon handling feels strange and restrictive, and interacting with your inventory is clunky. You can pick enemies up and have some neat interactions with them (i.e. ripping off heads), however this game's lesser focus on player physicality and freedom means you can't necessarily do things you'd think you can such as manipulating enemy corpses or dropped weapons.

Some parts that are actually superior to B&S would be enemy movement and the general faster pace of combat. Enemies dodge roll, and rapidly fire arrows at you while maintaining their distance. It makes for equally or sometimes more hectic fights than in B&S. Also it goes without saying that the gore system is visually pretty nice, though the physicality isn't quite there -- heads explode but they feel more like balloons popping than a skull being crushed.

There is quite a bit of strategy involved in the combat itself, as dealing with enemy armour and skeletons vs zombies makes certain weapons more effective than others. However, the clunky controls and lacking physics make the combat generally less enjoyable for me.

I assume, however, that the lesser physics are a result of optimization efforts as the game handles multiple enemies on screen much better than B&S does, whereas that game constantly runs at 40 fps when fighting 5 enemies with simplistic physics turned on. Graphics wise, both games are on par, with B&S having more diverse locales and Hellsplit having a more defined artstyle.

Overall, this game does succeed in what it sets out to do, which is create a replayable arena game with a lot of weapon variety and flashy visuals/sword fighting. Though personally, I enjoy the physicality and emphasis on freedom of movement seen in B&S.

Incredible Game.

There is so much painstaking detail in every facet of this game that it's almost unbelievable. I believe that Prey is a prime example as for why massive game worlds aren't necessary for open ended games, or to extend play times. Talos I is such an interesting and rewarding place to explore, where every corner is hiding something new or interesting.

The amount of love and care that went into constructing this game is astonishing, and I had a wonderful time.

Easily the most controversial Souls game resulting from the game's high difficulty, anti-player level design, lacking graphical fidelity and clunky movement.

However, Dark Souls 2 is easily my most played Souls game, and is very likely my favourite. I personally have found something to like in every part of most people unanimously agree is wrong or bad in the game.

The game's tendency to have enormous groups of enemies in claustrophobic spaces or supplement difficult enemies with arches is something that I came to appreciate. The most blaring example is The Lost Bastille, Shrine of Amana and the Iron Keep. Each of these areas are brutal in their own way, and incorporate pretty objectively unfair design. But, I personally really like all three of these areas because they've forced me to switch up my tactics like no other Souls game has. Dark Souls 2 encourages respecing your stats by having the barrier for entry to this function be extremely low -- the stat respec area is the starting area of the game. More so, bonfire ascetics make every consumable item repeatably obtainable and balances its usefulness by transforming the game area into New Game + levels with each ascetic.

Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring all failed to effectively encourage me to experiment with weapons. Any time I upgraded a pitchfork to +10 in DS3 was out of my own volition to make funny builds and play PVP. However, every game can effectively be completed with the use of one weapon the entire game.

Weapons you can fairly easily beat the game with:
Demon's Souls: Mirdan hammer
Dark Souls 1: Black Knight halberd
Dark Souls 3: Astora Greatsword
Elden Ring: Golden Halberd
Bloodborne: Ludwig's holy blade

In Dark Souls 2, you can use rapiers to get a significant way into the game, but the utter bs of some areas forced me to upgrade a short bow to +10 and plink away at enemies, or respec into a strength build and abuse poise on certain enemies along with the stone ring. There is so much variety that DS2 encourages with its extremely easy levelling requirements and massive weapon roster -- not to mention the easily acquired upgrading materials and ease of grinding if need be.

Despite the game's undoubtedly anti-player design in its enemy placement, DS2 still manages to be the most re-playable and satisfying Souls game to master. Not to mention, despite this game's reputation, it is surprisingly forgiving in many aspects. Enemies after being killed enough times stop respawning, there is a plethora of healing consumables, playing cooperatively is painless to set up, magic and faith are both very effective and can easily be interwoven into non-magic or faith classes, and the option to upgrade your amour alongside the aforementioned ease of levelling both make grinding less tedious and hurdles easier to overcome.

Not to mention, graphically, Majula is the best hub area, and there are more standout locations than there are ugly ones (salamander cave is quite drab with its lighting). The movement is a definite upgrade to DS1's lack of omni-directional rolling while locked on, and general improvements to weapon handling wherein DS1 felt exceptionally sluggish. The level design is equally as intricate as other Souls games and does not drop in quality like DS1 does.

This game is by no means perfect, adaptability and ring durability exists, but it is absolutely not a bad game by any stretch.

Good.

Updates continually make it more unplayable on my machine, but when it works, it's a fun time.

Really fun.

Just about everything in this game is intuitive for a newcomer to VR except for the thumb stick controls for dropping magazines/changing fire modes, but I got it eventually. Aside from that, and certain game modes performing very poorly (Meat Fortress, and Return of The Rotwieners), the game is pretty incredible.

It easily has the most accessible movement options I've seen in a VR game, which I found essential as I get motion sickness rather easily.

Take and Hold is pretty much the definitive game mode here, and it is good. The physics interactions and general game play make for a very repayable experience where I have to force myself to stop playing before my eyes burn out. Another bonus is that this is one of the few games where I genuinely feel myself continually improving as I play, which is very fun in of itself.

This game is a great value for its price, outclassing many other VR games I've seen on steam. I highly recommend it.

A great overall experience.

I had fun playing The Evil Within, and found it very pleasing that they continued with some of the narrative themes in the second game. The largest improvement between this game and the first would likely be the pacing, if not just the length of the game. It does sound strange that I enjoyed that this game was shorter than the first, but it felt more concise and engaging throughout its runtime.

More so than the first game, there isn't really anything 'scary,' but the general atmosphere is still strong and creepy. I personally enjoyed the higher emphasis on exploration, and I felt encouraged to scrounge for every bit of material I could find. The enemies are also more engaging than the first, despite their lesser variety (I never really enjoyed the gun wielding enemies from the first game). The AI on higher difficulties felt more intimidating, but equally more satisfying to overcome.

One thing of note however is how small this game feels. Compared to The Evil Within, there are very few locations to travel through and a lower emphasis on cut-scenes, instead relying on in-game auto generated lip syncing for dialogue sequences, which feels a bit cheap.

I beat the game once on normal (survival), and then on hard (nightmare). I highly encourage everyone to play on nightmare difficulty, as it provided the most engaging experience all through until the end of the game. Throughout the entire game I was compelled to complete as much as I could, and I genuinely had to stop myself from playing a third time in a row because it would have been a waste of time, although a very fun one.

Performance on Steam Deck is rather poor, with near-minimum settings and fxaa consistently performing around 36-40 fps, with drops below 30 during intensive scenes. However with gyro controls and in spite of the inconsistent frame rate, it was still incredibly enjoyable and graphically impressive.

It's a genuine shame we may not see a DLC or sequel for this game, but as it stands, this was a very high note for the series to end off on.

Pretty darn good.

The game isn't really *scary* in any way, as the most fear you'll feel will be diluted by the many one-shot kill enemies and having to redo many sections repeatedly. However, every other part of the game is well made and exceptionally fun. However, I did feel like the game went on a bit longer than I had wanted it to as I started feeling a tad worn out by the end.

Of the two games, this one felt more ambitious. It is much larger scale, you physically cover more ground, there are more cut-scenes, a more interesting story, and it overall felt more 'triple-A' than The Evil Within 2. However, the game meanders a bit in its length and stops introducing interesting elements towards the end. Despite that, The Evil Within is certainly worth the money on sale, along with its DLCs.

The gun-play was satisfying and the enemy design was quite diverse. There were quite a few boss fights that ironically gave some moments of respite and excitement between stretches of linear exploration and combat sequences. The upgrade system is great and although less concise than The Evil Within 2's system, it felt just as satisfying to use.

Graphically, the game still looks quite good, however it does not properly support 16:10 and as such, Deck users will still have to suffer with a bit of letter-boxing. There are also many more physics interactions compared to The Evil Within 2, which lacked the joy I felt when coming across a cabinet with empty bottles I could smash Sebastian's hand into.

Also, it performs well on the Steam Deck with only minor hitches when things get a little too crazy. This game makes the fans scream in pain, however. 98% of the time locked 40fps on 40hz with default settings