Recent reviews by TheMysterD

O.G. POST = 04-03-2024.
I'm about an hour or so into The Callisto Protocol: it's awesome so far. Hopefully, it doesn't fall apart - but like Dead Space 3 with its DLC's, I've heard the base-game's ending sucks & also that the key DLC (The Final Transmission DLC, which is only like supposedly 3-4 hours) is even worse on the ending than the base-game. So, wouldn't surprise me if I get disappointed by the end namely b/c of the ending.

Anyways, combat's visceral (pun intended here) as can be. Graphics are awesome, even at 1080p 50-60fps at Medium with RT Off & some sort of upscaler on. This is UE-based game, so you got Temporal Upscaler or FSR for choices. No DLSS option here, sadly. Throwing on RT, this game runs awful on my 6gb VRAM RTX 3060m laptop (which also has R5 5600H, 16gb RAM, 1TB SSD & W11). Depending on your PC and/or preferences , you can select whatever you like: Temporal seems to look better, but FSR seems to run a bit better...so I think I'll stick with FSR. The game runs terrible with RT On here even with an Upscaler On, as it's a 20fps to 60fps roller-coaster ride of up, down, and around - so it's going to sadly be off, as it does look like it does really transform the game-world & its atmosphere even more so with RT on. Still looks great with RT off, though - yes, even at Medium overall in everything else for graphics settings (and there's a good deal of these to pick from) - but, it ain't the same & ain't worth the performance hits.

In many ways, this feels like Dead Space type of atmosphere (you're stuck on a prison complex set floating out in outer-space here instead of a space-ship) and a classic style survival-horror game. I say classic survival-horror b/c unlike Dead Space, you aren't starting off with guns here (well, the Plasma Cutter could either be used as melee in close or as a gun, in Dead Space 1). Early on, seems like this game's mostly melee-based, as I've gotten a shiv & then also a electrical-baton...and I'm already wondering if this game's going to mostly stay this way. When in combat: when you get near enemies, you can hit left or right on your KB/mouse or on the gamepad's left stick and you'll literally dodge the attack (this feels like a Quick-Time Event and cinematic dodge), so then right after you can chain more melee attacks. Combat's just brutal & violent - and feels like so far, another highlight of this game.

You can really hear & feel every brutal melee attack, so that part's awesome. Also, the gore & violence in this game's epic, feeling like this is right out of the super-violent Dead Space 1 type of formula of violence. Also worth nothing, when death scenes are happening: you can skip these death scenes...so you don't have to watch them 100,000 times, if you've seen the same ones 100,000 times.

There's also stealth here too, as you will have to (in some instances) or can optionally sneak by some enemies. You can sneak-up and attack too, so this is new here in a Glen Schofield Dead Space-like game, even though this kind of stealth stuff was also in Visceral's Battlefield: Hardline.

So, you get out of this prison as a big prison riot's happening & your guy that you play as (Jacob), he doesn't belong in this prison - but he got kidnapped and roped into this mess, as he was trying to catch a certain person (who is Wanted for doing some stuff) & make that person a prisoner to collect the huge bounty on her. Regardless, they (the Warden & those running the prison) process him in anyways and he is trying to get off this rock. Also, seems like the place is getting overrun by prisoners & also some monsters. Since there are monsters, I wonder if prisoners and/or experiments are happening on this rock, so we'll have to wait and see.

That's about it, so far. More to come, at some point.

ADDENDUM = 04-09-2024.
Finished it up. Took around 19.9 hours for my 1st playthrough according to Steam. So, the game is awesome overall...for the most part. The game is a survival-horror blast, mixing a lot of melee elements of older games of that sort (like older RE games) & also some of the newer survival-horror games (like Dead Space). You can, as you go along, also find schematics for weapons, upgrade them (extend clips, add ammo to some guns, get more bullet-types, improve your melee baton stick too, etc.), upgrade your telekinesis type of a skill (to toss and fling things around, like say Control does) & things of that sort too. The game's tough and the story's solid...for the most part.

This game has possibly close to the perfect ending in place for this game...and then like say Killing Eve (TV series) & some other products (games, movies, etc.), you can only scream, "Nooooooooooooo!" at the screen b/c it just keeps going for whatever reason. This game decides to keep going, likely for a DLC or a few (there is a Season Pass here, BTW) and/or a sequel. And...sadly, that ruins the experience a bit, despite the rest of the journey being awesome.

So...at some point, I'll have to check out The Final Transmission DLC or the Season Pass (that DLC's in the Pass), to see if things wrap-up properly or that it sets up for a sequel that we'll possibly and sadly never get.

Though, most of the journey's awesome - and yes, this game should definitely be played b/c of that. This is even more so especially true, if you're a fan of survival-horror games & action games (especially Resident Evil games & Dead Space), even if the base-game's ending just barely misses its mark b/c it feels like set-up for DLC and/or a sequel.

Even despite the final ending (of the base-game), this game rocks.

O.G. POST = 03-27-2025:
I've been playing SCARS Above from one of the recent Humble Bundles. It's a sci-fi & horror-based shooter/action-adventure/Souls-like hybrid of sorts.

You're a scientist & engineer named Kate and she's trying to find out why she's on this weird alien planet, as her ship w/ many of hew crew-mates got taken down. Genre-wise, there's a more emphasis on the shooter/action-adventure stuff, as you do lots of shooting & some easy puzzle-solving, not say stat, skill and number-crunching. You will learn skills & craft stuff, as you go along - but don't expect to sink lots of points into that stuff as this ain't a RPG; this still feels and plays like a third-person shooter, more so than anything.

For the Souls-like part: you do have these Big Obelisk-like things for Save points there & when you reach them (which are like Bonfires in a Dark Souls game), you heal & replenish everything and cure all diseases & issues (such as Toxicity from poison, Hypothermia from being too cold in freezing environments) - BUT it also respawns everything back (like a Souls-like does) for enemies & encounters, once you reach these Obeilisk-like things.

You also have environments that you need to use to your advantage (i.e. you have an electric-gun, so shoot this at water but don't stand in water - you'll do more extra damage on certain enemies). A lot of enemies have weakness points - so you need to use the right weapon to defeat them much easier & exploit that.

Game's running at 1080p maxed-out looks great & runs very well at max on my RTX 3060-based laptop, at often 50-60fps.

I'm having a blast with it (SCARS Above) so far, some 7 hours in.

ADDENDUM - 04-02-2024:
After about 20 hours or so (some handful or so of the 26 hours, I was either away or asleep - so it's probably more like 20 hours or so that I played this game), SCARS Above is now finished & in the books as Complete. I know, most players seem to finish it in the 8-15 hour ballpark - but I was certainly taking my time and let's be real: when it comes to hard games, I'm not always great at games that also have Souls-like and/or Rogue-like elements.

Overall, the game and its many levels & plot twists was very good. And there was even some awesome boss fights later on, which were tough - but eventually, I found my way through some of them and they certainly weren't easy. Some of them boss fights & mini-bosses felt like puzzles too, as you also had to figure out how to defeat them w/ the environment, situation, and weapons & items you've at you disposal too. The premise & story is always intriguing - but once the story reveals all of its hands & cards later on, after it slowly gets peeling back info like an onion, it certainly hits hard with some really good and bonkers type of awesome twists, turns & revelations.

In the grand scheme of things, SCARS Above is an awesome shooter/action-adventure/Souls-like sort of hybrid & is an easy recommendation. Even more so, if you caught it recently in the recent Humble Bundle that it was in and/or can catch it in a sale.

Awesome game.

INTRO - 02-14-2024.
So, guess what I luckily won in a contest? ;) Yeah, you guessed it: TR1-3 Remastered for Steam!!! Shout-out to CheapyD from CAG, for the giveaway. I'm so stoked - and glad I was stoked for this too. Yeah, it's a bit flawed, as I do have a few minor issues with it - but I'm still so far loving TR1 Remastered here, so far.

THE CONTENT REMAINS...WITH A WARNING.
About dev's and/or pub's deciding on whether content alterations on old titles or a warning with content uncharged b/c some content might be questionable in a modern era: I'd rather Crystal Dynamics put their little message in there, whine about it & state their own values than say the actual game actually be altered from its OG form. Disney did the same thing w/ their old-stuff w/ the new disclaimer on their re-releases on digital services of classic films - and IMHO, it's fine and whatever to me. It's not like their message lasts long on the screen anyways here - and I'm glad this classic stuff is being preserved, as it was from back in the day.

THOUGHTS SO FAR.
So, I'm tackling TR1 Remastered so far here. My biggest complaint here: trying to switch b/t old-school Tank Controls & Modern Controls. You have to go into Inventory, then Game's Options Menus, Control Menu, and then in there yo can switch b/t them - there's too much here to jump through here, IMHO...just to switch control styles. I'd really like to see them patch-in a switch on-the-fly while playing, as I feel I can easily line-up Lara better for precise-climbing and precision-like stuff w/ Tank Controls...even though doing long running & jumping and combat's way better & easier w/ the newer Modern Controls (think like CD's control-style since TR: Legend). Honestly, that's my only real complaint here, as a button to switch on-the-fly b/t the Two Control Styles would likely solve that problem of mine here.

Okay, here's another minor complaint - ugh, the camera can be so janky and move in bad spots, making it hard to aim, see, and/or do anything worthwhile that you need to at times. Always been a problem in old TR's - and well, it can be a problem here, too. Probably not something easy for them (those doing the Remaster) to fix, I'd guess...even with the Source Code.

You can switch on-the-fly seamlessly while playing b/t Old Graphics and New Graphics - for the New Graphics here, this looks great here, IMHO; think like say an Xbox 1 era to X360 version of Lara TR1-3 Remastered game here. I did notice, the new graphics has better & more realistic type of lighting (and is much darker in tone too, mostly) - meanwhile the OG graphics look old, pixelated & much brighter. This could down to preference of what graphics styling you prefer - but I seem to love the new remastered look. Sure, the old pixelated graphics are cool and look fine, in their old-school retro form and you can switch b/t that and the new style - but, I'd liking the new graphics type of look. I really hope we get TR4, TR: Last Revelation, and especially TR: Angel of Darkness Remastered in THIS style, at some point; this needs to be done, IMHO; especially with the extra option for Modern Controls.

I love that there's an "Exclamation Mark" to identify what you can interact with. This helps a lot, especially if you just want to know what you can & can't pick-up or interact with (like levers, boxes to move, etc). You can turn this on & off in the Game Options menu, if you want it or don't want it; it's on you.

Also, this Steam-version DOES work w/out Steam running in the background, which is great! I likely won't have to rebuy it from GOG later, if not need be. Good job, Aspyr (they published this TR1-3 Remastered Collection). And let's hope they tackle TR4, TR: LR & TR: AoD with this type of Remaster. Loving TR1 RM so far....and I have a feeling, the same will probably go for TR2 RM & TR3 RM.

More to come later.

INTRO - 02-02-2024:
Given all the sad news of licenses expiring (probably of the licensed music in the game for songs from Alice in Chains & Jimi Hendrix, for starters) and this game (Spec Ops: The Line) being pulled from digital stores (Xbox Store, GOG, Steam, etc.), I'm going to do a retrospective & re-review (on a replay) of the outstanding military-style third-person shooter (TPS) by Yager, which certainly is one of the most memorable of these type of Gears of War-like cover shooters ever made.

CROSS(-ING) THE LINE.
In this game, you play Walker from the military, a soldier who has a squad that goes into Dubai for a recon mission. That doesn't say much and I'm not going to much further into that, as that's the set-up and you're likely better off not knowing much going in here. That is just the start of the game's descent into brutality & madness, in which this game eventually becomes something else entirely in so many ways, without going into spoiler turf here.

This is not an easy game for many people to stomach, given its commentary here & also the grisly and brutal of the content in this game & some of its scenes. This game's well known for some players not finishing the game at a certain common "quitting point" in the game, due to its nature - but for those that can see it through even after that point, that quitting point (QP) is not just the only brutal part of this game; it still gets brutal in other ways here after that QP, too. The game is both a physical and mental tour de force here, for both gamers & the characters in this game, without spoiling anything here.

Basically, Spec Ops: TL is gaming's Heart of Darkness & Apocalypse Now (for all you movie and book buffs here), without really heading into spoiler turf here, as it has so much to say about its subject matters - i.e. military, war, violence, morality, Gov't agencies, patriotism, and more.

GAMEPLAY.
The set pieces and shoot-outs here are outstanding, along w/ the licensed soundtrack & voice-acting. The combat's intense and really good, if you love those Gears of War type of TPS's, but instead it's more realistic than that. The script's a total cinematic & gaming masterpiece, all rolled into one here. If you like military games and Gears of War type of TPS cover-shooters, you're going to really like the combat & gameplay here, as it certainly does its thing & plays very well. Just, you know...don't expect to battle bugs and robots here, as this is not a sci-fi game; this is a military game aiming for realism.

On a replay here at 1080p and maxed-out on my 6gb VRAM RTX 3060 laptop here - in which that laptop's loaded with also R5 5600H, 16gb RAM, 1 TB SSD, W11 - this game has no problem running on modern systems here for me. Runs super-smooth and very rarely goes under 60fps, which is great. Amazingly, the game still looks great & that stuff still holds up to very well to this day, due to also the game's art direction and also the number of details in the game-world. I also shouldn't forget this game's own immersion factor here, with the way it depicts Dubai, war, and others things here - and not to forget the outstanding soundtrack of licensed music, too.

LICENSE TO REMOVE, FIX, OR SOMETHING.
This is the point where I state this about licenses in games: I wish" forever-licenses" existed for games so games can be sold w/ their original & proper vision w/ key songs intact (same could go for cars in racing games, too). But, this is how musicians and/or the music industry makes money, where companies need to re-license a track so it keeps getting sold.

So, as much as I hate to say this: I wish more games pulled a Hi-Fi Rush, having a back-up plan in place so streamers can stream the game without NDA strikes & without licensing music playing, instead using generic and/or music from the studio - which also seems like a great back-up for plan for the sad moment when key songs for the game sadly might need to get pulled b/c it's still being sold on a digital service & b/c said publisher don't want to pay for the license anymore.

It's sad to see Michael Jackson tunes removed from classic GTA's and all of the great tunes from Mafia 1 (original) have to get pulled; and/or sad to see games like Specs Ops: The Line & Alpha Protocol disappear from purchasing b/c of this madness. At least w/ Mafia 1 (on Steam and GOG), that game is still being sold, even if it's sadly without its OG licensed tunes. I'll be sad for the day all the great licensed tunes from Vampire: Bloodlines need to get pulled, too.

OUTRO, FOR NOW.
It's a shame to see such a great TPS game with tons to say & still very relevant - and it probably always will be, TBH - get pulled from digital stores. Though I do see Xbox 360 & PS3 copies from retail on EBay now going for over $70-150. So, yeah - "Wow! Just wow!" It's not a long single-player campaign, which can go for around 8 hours or so - but with multiple difficulties here & it's an extremely well-executed and also feels right & perfect in length, it rocks. It never lets go of the player in so many ways & is definitely being thought-provoking from start to finish.

For those that can stomach it, this really should not be missed; this descent into its theme of War is that place below us here is just gripping, brutal, and loaded with tons to say.

Spec Ops: The Line is a crazy roller coaster ride of a TPS cover-shooter game that is unforgettable.

This is an unforgettable masterpiece of a game.

ORIGINAL POST - 01-02-2024:
Took me about 5.2 hours, but I recently finished Tokyo Dark.

It's a point-and-click adventure/visual novel hybrid here with choices that likely really matter here. Supposedly, there's like 11 different endings/permutations - so I do wonder how different some or all of these might turn out. So it does sounds like some of your decisions matter here in this Indie adventure/VN mash-up.

Loved the anime-style & hard-drawn style of graphics here for its artistry, for character models, VN scenes with written-dialogue and environments. Loved the story and writing too, which I thought was extremely good. There's a lot of writing here, since it goes down the VN path here - though, not a ton of voice-acting. It's not like the game needed voice-overs though, TBH; the writing's good.

I also should note this: there's also a New Game + mode here, which I ain't tackled yet - but I might actually have to, at some point in time down the road. Yes, that does state how much I like this game, as I don't replay games very often.

You play as Detective Ito, in which she is investigating a certain murder that is personal to her & she totally untangles an entire web here of conspiracies, murders, and other madness - yes, including your own madness (Sanity) as a cop.

And also, she has some stats here & stuff to be aware of, such as your ratings for the SPIN acronym of points and system here (including Sanity, which I just mentioned, for starters...and some other stuff like Investigation points) - so the better you do (or worse in other aspects), probably will decide what you can decide to do, can't decide to do and are blocked from doing, and any other paths on this journey & its final outcome(s).

Regardless, loved it and I'm probably going to have to give it another run-through, at some point - especially since like Shadow of Destiny (another adventure game w/ lots of choices and endings), stuff can probably turn out much differently.

ORIGINAL POST & REVIEW - 01-05-2024:
Picked-up recently Twin Mirror (for Steam) from January 2024 Humble Choice by Dontnod...and also just finished my 1st playthrough of it. After 8.2 hours or so, this one's in the books and delivers a really good murder-mystery cinematic-adventure game here in the Choose Your Own Adventure style, which is no surprise given Dontnod's pedigree (i.e. see the original Life Is Strange).

You play as Sam, who is an investigative reporter, who returns to this small-town of Basswood, in which many in the town aren't happy with him for something he did way in the past. Also, the small-town is financially hitting hard times, given what's been going on there, without heading too far into Spoiler Turf.

Sam's brother recently died, which leads to him investigating that, as a lot of pieces here don't even add up. Not only that, his ex-girlfriend lives here and Sam often has conversations with another more Social and out-going version of himself - and I'll leave a lot of the story there at that & even gameplay stuff about that out, so I don't head into Spoiler Turf, since the story and chooses should be experienced for yourself; it's a good one.

Sam often has this place called The Mind Palace, where he can take care of interesting matters. He can relive old memories, plan out strategies on how to manipulate situations and events ahead of time like it's a game of chess, and even re-create scenes from piecing evidence together. Besides the decisions-making, these are mostly the puzzles & real interesting stuff in the game, which are always real cool, interesting, and/or trippy.

While I do wish there was more of these Mind Palace memories, puzzles and/or decisions, but what's there is always great and interesting - it's one of the best aspects of this game, to go along with the story & CYOA stuff (Choose Your Own Adventure) stuff. I should note that none of these puzzles are difficult, so...if you're looking for something like Myst or Riven type of hard, this isn't that type of adventure game.

The story, character development, voice-acting, and anything pertaining to that stuff is definitely on point & really good. While the graphics technically isn't going to win awards here, everything is absolutely fine in that regard and executed solidly. I also even on my 3060m-based laptop (with also R5 5600H, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, W11) did not have any performance issues here, easily at a stable locked-45fps on my side. This isn't an action 60fps type of game and didn't need it, IMHO - so I was lazy and didn't change any of those framerate-locking stuff over in MSI Afterburner. Didn't have any stutters, performance issues, or anything here at 1080p at 45fps - and yes, this was maxed-out in its settings; this was butter smooth here.

It's possible I'll give this another run-through, as I didn't really get probably the "best" sort of ending with how everything turned out in the end, even though this game probably has multiple endings, especially given how there feels like a few key decisions can be made very close to the end and at the end - but all of the pieces fit well & were executed very well with lots of impact and emotion, by the end of my playthrough.

Regardless, after 8.2 hours on my 1st playthrough - yes, this is another really good murder-mystery/cinematic-adventure game with decision-making here from Dontnod. If a murder-mystery & cinematic=style CYO adventure sounds up your alley, you'll like this; I know I did. This is an easy recommendation, especially since it's in the $12 bundle and/or if you can catch this on sale. It was pretty good, to say the least - and I really enjoyed this one.

INTRO = 08-06-2023.
So, I've got some thoughts here on WWE 2K23, since it's been on Free Weekend on Steam (for PC). Granted, I somehow didn't wind-up buying WWE 2K22, despite being a big-time wrestling fan. WWE 2K20 was the last one that I did play - and even if that (2K20) was a mess in many ways technically, I still liked it. So, I'm not sure what changed from say 2K20 to 2K22 - so, this is my experience going from 2K20 to 2K23.

MYRISE: LOCKED-DOWN.
I've been messing around with MyRise mostly, which is this year's MyCareer Mode. There's two starting paths you can pick: A Relative Of Legend...or The Lock. I picked The Lock, in which you play a Star from outside of WWE that joins the WWE Roster & goes right to the Main Roster. I have not progressed to the point of which you can change much & customize the heck out of your version of The Lock. You can change & upgrade a few things (moves, entrance, music for the entrance, etc.), but that's it - some stuff's set early here & they want to to take a certain path, early on, to get you The Lock's Special WWE Debut & other stuff.

Between matches, you wind up in WWE's Backstage Areas and can interact w/ other wrestlers & WWE personalities in the locker room. You can check your social media feeds, too - which can tell stories & set that up, do character development, and even set-up matches. So, you have side-quests (which lead to side-matches) and feuds, but these are actually often solid too. You get voiced dialogue often from the real WWE Superstars and the storylines for these decent & are entertaining. Plus, you get Rewards for doing these side stuff too...so they seem worth doing. Main matches & stuff related to the main story is, of course, well presented & well done too. Of course, for wrestling fans, especially WWE fans, there's plenty of WWE references & Easter Eggs, which fans will love.

GAMEPLAY & GRAPHICS.
Using my trusty USB-based Xbox for PC Controller (S-controller), everything plays fine. It feels more action-y than older WWE games, even though it still feels sim-y; it's just less sim-y than before. I'm certainly fine with this, as matches feel better and faster. And when you hit big-time moves, especially Signatures and Finisher, it feels like you get a White-Flash on-screen quickly before and after hitting the move & move thud in the sound effects, making them feel extra special.

By default, mini-games here feels more like button-mashing here (such as for trying to exit a Cage Match over the top of the cage & for either trying to make someone submit in a submission hold or you're trying to get out of the submission hold) or timing-based like when you're being pinned (so that you have a moving meter and a moving bar, and you have to hit the button when they're overlapping), which will be a lot easier for gamers to get used to; easier to learn than other schemes they've had before. Controls are similar to older WWE 2K games since 2K15, but some things have been moved around & changed since even 2K20 & it took a bit of getting used to - but I eventually caught on; didn't take long.

Graphics look fine and the game runs well, not even really eating tons VRAM here. I'm running it and aimed at 1080p60fps all maxed-out, yet it was eating 3gb VRAM. Not the best looking game technically - but graphics aren't everything. The game runs well, plays fine, and is absolutely fine - and so far, that's what matters most in these types of games. I haven't run into any crazy freezes, crashes, weird bugs yet, and other stuff of that sort - so that's good & a major improvement over WWE 2K20...well, as long as this stays this way, of course.

OUTRO...FOR NOW.
Regardless, I've been enjoying WWE 2K23 & its Free Weekend on Steam. Unfortunately, that'll end soon & at some point, I'll have to buy this game. I'm 5.2 hours into this, according to Steam - and so far, I've been liking this and having fun with it.

ADDENDUM = 11-15-2023:
So, I bought the recent Humble Bundle for Nov. 2023, which of course had WWE 2K23 (Standard Edition) in there. Picked-up from where I left off in MyRise, as The Lock - and just finished it. So, with now 31.4 hours into WWE 2K23 - with a good deal of that spent on mostly MyRise: The Lock's Story - yeah, I even finished that up. I have not touched The Legacy storyline, but will do so at some point. Regardless, The Lock's Story was pretty good, especially once the ball really got rolling with it.

So, while the ball does roll well at the start, story-wise - well, you can't really do much Editing of your character's move-set, entrance, outfits, etc. until you get to a certain point in the actual main story. Sure, you can do it early on & it'll just remain there - but that stuff won't take full effect on everything until a certain point in the storyline & certain events occur, which I won't spoil. While the game is teaching you stuff early on & it really wants to get you into the combat & gameplay - and also get you to learn the combat & gameplay, too - it does make sense story-wise why you can't edit much (they actually build a story & reason around that), without giving too much away here - I still wish you could edit your character in full early & override that stuff so it does take effect.

As a WWE fan & also wrestling fan that watches a lot of wrestling (AEW, MLW, WWE, Impact/TNA, NJPW, Women of Wrestling, etc.) and the game also having returning characters from previous WWE2K MyCareer modes - I really did enjoy a lot of the storylines here, the references, the Easter Eggs, the game centered around certain faction & stars, and more. Simply put: MyRise as The Lock was a blast & it ended really well. And it's nice that you can actually now can export your MyRise Character into other game modes, so you can use them outside of MyRise, which is great. Going to likely look forward to using My version of The Lock in MyUniverse, Play Mode & other modes.

Regardless, really enjoyed WWE 2K23's MyRise Mode for The Lock, will look forward to tackling The Legacy Story for MyRise at some point, and will look forward to checking out other game-modes like 2K23's version of Universe Mode, at some point.

ADDENDUM #2: MYRISE'S LEGACY STORYLINE & CAMPAIGN - 11-19-2023:
After now some almost 52 hours in total w/ WWE 2K23 now, I just finished-up also MyRise Mode for "The Legacy" Storyline, which also was pretty good. While The Lock was focused on a Male Superstar, Legacy focuses on a Female Superstar and Storyline.

Your aunt is a famous star from the past...and you're trying to live up & surpass her Legacy and navigate your way through WWE. Many Stars aren't happy you're here & others might relate to you - and in MyRise fashion, you'll be making decisions along the way, doing objective in matches, side quests, leveling-up your wrestler & whatnot on your way to hopefully becoming a WWE Champion.

With some good twists & turns in the storyline, fun match-ups, quite a bit of comedy, Easter Eggs & references to real WWE stuff, and more - yup, it's another really good & fun MyRise game mode. From the jump, you can edit your superstar's move list, entrances, and everything - and it takes effect right away, which is great for those wanting to take their CAW (Create-A-Wrestler) and get the ball rolling there. Just like The Lock from MyRise, you can also export your character from "The Legacy" story of MyRise right into other Game Modes, which is awesome.

Simply put: I had a blast here with "The Legacy" mode here. Another WWE 2K23 Game Mode where with MyRise that I really enjoyed...and I can easily recommend both MyRise Campaigns.

ADDENDUM #3 - 11-23-2023:
I feel like for now, I'm probably done with WWE2K23. Maybe at some point, I'll check out Universe Mode - which usually is the the WWE Game Mode where you can set-up Rosters, Shows, Championships, PPV's/PLE's, and other stuff like an endless Season Mode of WWE Shows & Action; try again to tackle Showcase Mode to Beat John Cena; & maybe also the MyGM Mode.

INTRO:
Recently played through & finished House of Ashes from the Dark Anthology Pictures Anthology (Steam for PC).

I don't think this one's going to re-write the book & formula on making and playing these cinematic-adventure games, as it's similar in style to the Telltale ones (Telltale's Batman games, Telltale's The Walking Dead games, etc). You will make decisions that shape the journey and its story, as you have different survivors that you'll be trying to have survive by the end of the game and hope that you can also get them a good ending, if possible - but regardless, this is still a good one worth playing & well-executed.

Besides lots of decisions-making there are of course the usual assortment of finding things (like Lore) in the game-world & collectibles, QTE's, and sequences where you can do shooter-game type stuff, but there isn't much of the latter - and I wish there was at least a bit more, given this game's focus on the military.

THIS CINEMATIC GAME.
Though, it's still quite good. While I did play The Quarry first and this might've made a bigger impact b/c I did play that one (The Quarry) first and b/c of its 80's and 90's Summer Camp/Friday The 13th & Jason vibes. I enjoyed House of Ashes, despite noticing SuperMassive having a formula w/ there cinematic-adventure/horror games having a bunch of survivors, a narrator (the curator here, for this DPA game...and probably the rest of them), and whatnot - but, it didn't hit me like The Quarry did.

The writing, voice-acting, and story was still good & is very 80's horror here, often feeling purposely hammy & campy with its direction & writing. It's feeling like it pays homage & also has their takes on films like The Predator, monster movies, and some of the war films over the years. In this cinematic-game, once you get past the openings Tutorial/Prologue which is interesting (don't want to give too much away there), you will guide a bunch of survivors who are with their respective militaries, both U.S. and Iraqi. You will make decisions on what to do w/ each other in situations, other situations at hand, backgrounds & info on their stories, relationships with each other, and whatnot - as the US Soldiers are looking for WMD's during the war in Iraq in the 2000's to early 2010's....and get a lot more than they bargained for, searching for WMD's over in a certain old location and finding actually something else. I don't want to spoil it, but...that "something else" - yeah, I enjoyed what the something else is and turned out to be.

Regardless, after around the 10-15 hours so or more hours it took me, I enjoyed it. The graphics are fantastic and so is the lighting, if you throw Ray-Tracing on. It certainly performed a lot better than The Quarry did on my PC (R5 5600H, 16GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, 6gb RTX 3060m, Windows 11 x64) and the character models themselves looked really good - but, not as great as The Quarry. Regardless, if you played The Quarry - and likely any of the other SuperMassive's games - you'll probably at the very least like this. Whether you love it, that might depend on what was your first SuperMassive game, the setting (does it appeal to you?), and if their formula is running tiresome for you yet & might need a bit of tweaking.

OUTRO:
Regardless, if you like this "stuff" - you'll probably like it, at least. It's still worth playing for sure and quite good, if you're a fan of this kind of "stuff". What kind of "stuff" here do I mean? Well, this is what I mean for "stuff": SuperMassive's game, military movies (and its take on the military), Monster Movies, and/or cinematic games of this sort. If all of that sounds good to you, definitely check it out.

And also with this one (House of Ashes) being in the October Humble Choice here for $12 along w/ The Quarry (and even other titles), can't really go wrong here; no better time than now, TBH here...especially in October, which is the month in which where Halloween falls in & on.

INTRO.
Took about 15 hours and all, but I finished up The Quarry, which is in current $12 Humble Choice for this October. Really enjoyed it.

If you're not a fan of cinematic-style adventure games like anything from David Cage and Quantic Dream (Fahrenheit, Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, Detroit: Become Human, etc), Telltale's games (Telltale's The Walking Dead games, Telltale's Batman games, The Wolf Among Us, etc.) and likely anything else from SuperMassive (Dark Pictures Anthology of games & Until Dawn) - I don't think this is going to convert anyone over to this genre of adventure games.

If you like and want a very-well voice-acted & very well-written B-movie inspired horror-movie type of cinematic-game - which I think is obviously purposely hammy, campy & funny b/c this is a game with an 80's to 90's Jason film (i.e. the Friday The 13th movies) - you will probably like this. The story is down-right bonkers, loaded with twists, turns, revelations, and whatnot in the story - and if you care about story & character development more anything, this is going to be for you. If you like movies and/or TV shows - absolutely, this is for you, as most of the time you'll be chilling and watching the story unfold...after you've likely interacted to make decisions & shape the story.

GAMEPLAY.
For gameplay - yes, when it happens - most of this game you'll be doing certain things here, like you'd normally do in this type of game. You will be interacting w/ the game-world & finding things like in most adventure games (or taking items like Lore, Tarot Cards, objects, etc.). You will be taking on QTE's (Quick-Time Events) where you need to slam certain buttons, keys, directions, or whatever on your game-pad or keyboard-mouse during intense cut-scenes & action sequences. I should note here, that I mostly played with a PC gamepad here - either my USB-based and wired Logitech F310 or Xbox 360 Gamepad. More so than anything here, you'll be making decisions that'll be shaping this entire journey of this 10-15 hour story here and its final permutations.

STORY.
So, what's the story here? A bunch of people are at a Summer Camp (Jason/Friday The 13th vibes here!) and all kinds of stuff is hitting the fan basically. This isn't even the half of it here, as there's a Family that has a history to this place & land, monster movie type of stuff here, and more. You, the player, will be bouncing between numerous characters in this big ensemble piece of a story, as you'll be trying to hopefully save as many important characters in this story, so that they'll be alive by the end. You have police man, a fortune teller/tarot card reader, some camp counselors, and more here - whose fates are all intertwined here in, in this horror flick of a video game. I don't want to give too much away here, as there's a ton of stuff going on here. And likely, most players won't be having the same outcome & could be replaying this game a crazy amount of times, as even IGN has said there's around at least 180+ variations here! And also when you talk with other players, there's going to be a good chance your playthrough is going to differ from the next person's playthrough.

GRAPHICS & PERFORMANCE.
The character models and their animations look fantastic. In terms of voice-actors here - likely motion-captured, I'd bet - to look this much like their real-life selves in game, is absolutely uncanny. Absolutely outstanding on this stuff. These are some of the best-looking character models that I've ever seen in a game, for them to look like their real-life counterparts. Ariel Winter, Lance Henrikson, Brenda Song, and Halston Sage look so much like their real-selves here...and it's astonishing how good this game got them down.

The game performed best on my desktop loaded with a 10700KF, 16gb RAM, multiple SSD's & HDD's, and 8gb RTX 3070, with most stuff cranked-up on High settings w/ a few tweaks and changes to the setting to customize it for myself. On my laptop with R5 5600H, 16gb RAM, 1 TB SSD, and 6gb RTX 3060 - well, I had it at mostly Medium settings with some other stuff customized a bit up to suit me. I aim for 1080p60fps, but it wasn't always at 60fps. Sometimes, got performance hits and drops - more so on the laptop than desktop. Regardless, I did have area transition stutters here & there - yes, more so on laptop than desktop. Regardless, the game looked great to me and also so did the environments & lighting here, which so fit the monster movie vibe & Summer Camp vibe here - but the characters models here, more so than anything, took the cake here with their graphics quality on the technical side of things.

OUTRO.
Regardless, I finished-up The Quarry and as a fan of 1980's and 90's horror movies especially & actually these type of cinematic-adventure games (like Quantic Dream's games & Telltale's games), I can add SuperMassive to this list of games of this type that I'll have to play. This game was a blast and given how replay-able this game is, with it's well known that this game has numerous different journeys and conclusions/permutations, I know I'm going to have to give this one another run-through. After my 15 hours or so with this, I can say: this "game" was a total blast and I really enjoyed this one. Yes, I enjoyed it A LOT.

07-25-2023 = ORIGINAL POST.
Picked this (Gotham Knights) up recently for $12 from GamesPlanet yesterday - and I'm a little over an hour in, so far. And it's quite good, so far. And PC version is now running really well since they fixed it up, provided you have decent hardware to boot. Runs fine on my RTX 3070 8gb VRAM desktop, at 1080p 50-60fps with most stuff on High with DLSS on Balanced.

You know, maybe, I dunno...don't release the game yet, if it's broken, developers & publishers. [shrug of my shoulders] People would've probably been having a blast with this, even if it possibly might not live up to other Batman games, if the game launched in THIS technical state.

The investigation stuff is interesting and good too; hope there's more of these too - where you have to figure out specific items in a scene, what they mean, and how they can be used to solve a small puzzle & link them together to get to solve the puzzle.

More to come on Gotham Knights, at some point.

ADDENDUM - 07-28-2023:
Some 10 hours in, so far on Gotham Knights. I'm surprised so far; it's actually good.

It's basically so far more Batman Arkham type of gameplay - i.e. open-world action-adventure/brawler, but with some additional looter-ARPG elements (namely for plenty of resources to pick up, you can craft items, there's tiered gear, leveling up, skill-learning, etc.).

And even if there's a bit of a grind here (i.e. ARPG elements at work here) & some side missions there which often are go to an area and defeat lots of enemies without much story pay-off - well, the main quests seems like the levels are much better designed, have story stuff tied to them, and are pretty good.

You go out every night & can do some main and/or side quests, which are on the board. You can pick b/t the 4 main players of the Batman Family here, who each play differently in some ways and also have different skills & styles of gameplay and combat - i.e. Robin; Nightwing; Red Hood; and Batgirl are here.

Story's pretty good so far too, with them trying to figure out who tried to kill Batman & why; do investigations on this all; find out who else was involved; and if there's more than meet's the eye to this all as some bigger story & plot. And I do like Elias Tourfexis (Adam Jensen from Deus Ex: HR and MD) here as Cobblepot (Penguin), I should mention.

If that all sounds fun to you - yeah, you'll probably like it.

More to come soon on this.

ADDENDUM #2 - 08-18-2023:
Finished up Gotham Knights, yesterday after around some 45.7 hours with it according to Steam. Overall, while the main story stuff and some particular side quests based around certain villains (without giving much away) were pretty good, this game does have too much UbiSoft type of side stuff & grind. Also, in the main quest, sometimes you have to fulfill requirements by doing some side stuff & often grind-y stuff to get leveled-up enough to get to a really good main mission. Feels like there's padding here.

There's also repetition quite a bit here - yes, even in the main story - as it feels like there's a few mini-boss type of fights in a row with the same enemy type in the back portion of the main story. It doesn't even feel spaced-out enough itself to give it any room to try to avoid any sort of repetition for fights of this length & style, which means it probably might be a good idea in the back section to do other Ubisoft type of meaningless quests or other Villain side-quests even to just grind a bit, all just you don't do these same mini-boss fights, more or less, 5 times in a row or so.

Regardless, the main story does pretty much keep getting better as it goes along w/ some more twists, turns, and whatnot - but the core gameplay loop with its combat and most of the main missions & the Villain-based side missions are all good. Unfortunately, so much grind, repetition, padding & lack of variety for mission types keeps this game from actually being great. Sure, it's still good and all, even with its issues - but this one actually could've been great.

Still, for $12 - yep, it was certainly good & worth playing, in the long run. If you want more Batman: Arkham type of combat, even if Batman isn't here & you're a fan of the Batman Family of characters - you'll probably like this, even despite its issues. While this one could've been great - yes, even despite itself and its issues - it's still good & solid; especially if you catch it in a sale.