Recent reviews by Tuah Hawk

Hate writing this review but this is unacceptable at this point. DOOM Eternal, the base game, is one of the best games I've ever played. A genuine 10/10. This is in large part due to the amazing, well thought out design of the game's combat. The Ancient Gods - Part One spits in the face of that design.

Enemy spam is the one thing that comes to mind. There will be many instances where the enemy amount is so large, that they legitimately surround you in a tight circle and kill you in seconds, with no real means of escape available.

The new enemy type that "empowers" other demons by removing their weak spots, speeding them up and turning them into bullet sponges might be the single worst enemy design I've seen all year. They can also only be killed for a limited time, and with only one (1) weapon MOD in the game. Terrible.

The combat encounters are way too long. Remember the epic rooftop showdown on the last mission of the base game? Right before the final boss? The one draining encounter where all of your skills get put to the test, and you have to sweat your ass off just to make it out alive? Well, most fights in this game are around that length, only significantly harder. You'll be surviving waves upon waves of armored Mancubi, Revenants, empowered Arachnotrons, just to get a chance at facing 3 Archviles & a Doom Hunter all at the same time. No checkpoints in between, of course. Sounds like fun? No? WhAt ArE yOu, CaSuAl?

Also the new music is really, really boring, I personally can't remember a single really cool moment from the new tracks, as opposed to the god-tier music from the base game.

I'm not sure why the reviews of this DLC have been so positive thus far. I really wanted to like it, but it just plain sucks. It's annoying and frustrating. It's not fun. Maybe most of the community are playing on Hurt Me Plenty, where the problems are much less noticeable. In any case, I probably won't be finishing this, though I still really hope Part Two will be better. They would have to change A LOT of stuff for that to happen though.

It's been 11 years since the last proper entry in the DMC series, but somehow, against all odds, Devil May Cry 5 nails the comeback. And, much like the protagonists of this legendary hack-and-slash series that started the entire genre, DMC5 styles on its competition.

The DMC combo system, in which you link together all sorts of different moves and actions to create your own custom and stylish combo, has never felt more refined than it does here. DMC5 Dante might be the greatest action game character I've ever played, with 4 different styles, firearms and melee weapons you can (and should) switch between mid-combo. Might seem overwhelming at first, but luckily you can practice in the game's training mode (the Void) as much as you like.

As if that wasn't enough, you also get to play as Nero from DMC4, who has a new mechanic in his robotic devil breaker arms, each of which has different movesets and are very fun to toy around with.

On top of all that, there's also V, the new guy in DMC town, who can only finish off enemies that his pet demons damage for him. V's playstyle felt very unusual at first, but after a while I've grown to really enjoy controlling the pets, charging up different moves with each one.

So the gameplay loop was what made me buy the game, but what kept me coming back? The amazing soundtrack, witty dialogue, fantastically directed scenes, great voice acting, lack of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ (quick time events, enemies jumping at you out of cutscenes, etc.), and a bunch of post-game content.

9/10, and a strong contender for my game of the year.

Finally, a proper fighting game based on a popular IP. Developer Arc System Works took their years of experience with the Guilty Gear franchise, and their newest effort mixes elements of their previous works, tag team mechanics borrowed from other classic tag fighters such as Marvel vs Capcom, along with stuff exclusive to this game and the Dragon Ball series (the summoning of Shenron by collecting all 7 Dragon Balls, for instance).

The game is a true love letter to fans of Dragon Ball, with animations, quotes, voices and super moves straight from the anime. ArcSys obviously knows how hard most fighting games are to learn, and made DBFZ really easy to pick up and play for basically anyone. The hardest motion in the entire game is the quarter-circle-forward (236), AKA the first motion learned for most other FG players. The combo system is very forgiving, and even if you don't want to learn your own combos you can always use the auto-combos that every character has. The roster, while not enormous by any means, is very well balanced, if you want to play your favorite character, go right ahead, it's much more important to build a good team around him.

The game isn't perfect though; the story mode is way too easy and extremely boring, the roster is dominated my male characters (only 2 females at the time this review is posted IIRC), last enemies in the arcade mode straight up cheat by dealing like 5x damage to you, and most importantly there are less than 2k daily active players, so the few online matches you do find might be against much more experienced opponents who will absolutely crush those just trying to learn the game.

Nevertheless, I still really enjoy this game, and the beautiful graphics, the gameplay that manages to be fun and easy while having a high skill ceiling, the great soundtrack, and the sheer fun of combo challenge mode keeps me coming back. I recommend buying on sale/free weekend/big update, as the lack of a large playerbase will hurt your experience otherwise. My GOTY

The first entry in the now super popular Witcher trilogy is a hidden masterpiece, sadly overshadowed by the two newer games, particularly the third one. As far as I know, there are two main things that scare people away from this game: the outdated graphics, and the unusual combat system. Personally, I don't see any of these two aspects as "cons" necessarily; sure the graphics are far from the industry standard today, but I'm sure most people have played worse looking games. As for the combat, it's really much more simple than it looks: it's all about timing your clicks with the changes of your sword shaped mouse cursor. ONLY click when it's on fire, and you're good. By levelling your three witcher combat styles: Strong, Quick and Group, you can not only do more damage, but also automatically start using new slick animations in combat, which just makes simple levelling that much more rewarding.

I haven't even started talking about what makes this game so great, that would probably require a review of about 4000 words, so I'll keep it short. Great soundtrack, unique and memorable characters and quests (both main and sidequests), amazing enemy design, best story of any Witcher game, humour is actually funny, as well as a couple extra things that you should experience for yourself.

9/10, my 3rd favorite RPG for very good reasons, and a must play for any RPG fan.