Recent reviews by Papa Sasquatch

Refunded. It's a shame as this game looked promising and I've been following its development for a while.

The part that made me refund: I couldn't see myself playing this game longer than a couple of hours. It felt unengaging, I feel like that's a deeper issue than the bad graphics and janky controls.


It isn't terrible
There are parts of Beyond Mankind which are unique and made the experience interesting; such as the character creation, the world-building and some of the survival mechanics. The bad graphics don't really bother me, I actually enjoyed the atmosphere of the levels. The characters are well voice-acted, the dialogue options are funny and relatable.

But this is where it goes down hill...
The issues start with the combat and controls. The overall state of the combat is incredibly bad and it's a major part of the game. Combat and AI isn't like graphics, it can't be ignored or nostalgic. It takes a lot of fun out of the game when the AI is this under-developed, to a point where it's 'stand in one place, shoot' or 'run in a line and attack'.

The story isn't great. It's very basic and the pacing is off. There isn't enough time to learn the characters in the introduction; you're thrown into a situation and they feel like generic NPCs. Fallout 3 came to mind in the sense that you see yourself grow up with the characters, it's a much softer introduction and you get familiar with their personalities. For Beyond Mankind, you can instantly tell the pacing is off, even when not comparing it to a AAA title.

Conclusion
The final straw is hiding somewhere in the game's design; it just feels unengaging. I'm coming to this conclusion from how I feel and asking myself 'Do I want to boot up Beyond Mankind?'. The answer is naturally no and I find another game to play. I really really wish I was engaged, I believe the devs have tried hard. It's just in a state which I can't enjoy. I hope the studio see the feedback and work on it, it has room to grow.

In 2018 Telltale games let go of over 200 employees and anounnced they were shutting down. As a result, most of their games have been revoked from sale; sadly including this one.

This means only prior owners can still play and review the game. Luckily there still seems to be another way of getting this via key sites (which work like any other Steam game and are redeemed via a code). So if you're interested give it a search and consider picking it up!

Poker Night is a great combo of casual poker and a childhood time machine. It's simply classic Texas Hold'em with the addition of some very nostalgic characters. Great AI, funny and plentiful dialogue filled with references. It honestly ages like wine as the characters get older and is totally worth picking up even in 2021.

Many people got this game for the TF2 items you can win, which was a really fun idea (and still works). Imagine how many kids can now play poker because of TF2 lol.

Overall though a great game. It's basically just poker with awesome characters. Plus Telltale done a good jorrrrb of adding Homestar Runner characters. Reccomend if you like poker or want to learn!

EDIT: Completed the campaign, was really fun. After the first few missions you actually start to swap different roles (soldier, tank, air force, special ops, etc) so you play a wide array of mechanics. It also has quite a few cool twists in there.

I'm a fan of retro games and I'm glad I could play this one. For a game which was originally released in 2001, the mechanics are impressive; of course, once you've got past the dated graphics (I've seen much worse). The missions are well made and lengthy with two difficulty presets available, normal (cadet) and hard (veteran). You can also tweak a load of settings in a more detailed difficulty menu (such as enabling tracers, crosshairs, etc). I personally enjoy default veteran as it allows for a slice of realism and requires you to read the map and listen to orders without guidance from floating markers.

As for the cons, I noticed two minor ones. One, if you decide not to read the mission brief correctly and YOLO it, then prepared to be softlocked. A heads up if you don't already know, games released back then didn't have many 'safety nets' when players failed to follow instructions, so expect to be locked out and forced to revert saves if you don't consider this. Two, at times you can feel restricted in favour of balancing reasons. The most annoying being the fact you cannot enter vehicles unless the narrative wants you to, even if NPCs can and nothing is logically stopping you (exact same model and everything, just no option to drive).

[✓] Impressive mechanics which still hold up for today.
[✓] Variety of roles (army, navy, air force) all of which you play in the main campaign.
[✓] Great settings allowing for customisation.
[✓] You can texture custom characters in the story creator, meaning you can go to war as Linus Tech Tips.

[☓] Don't get softlocked, listen to your commander!
[☓] Instructions can be vague, be prepared to invest more time in some missions.

Overall the game rounds up well and it's definitely comparable to the modern ArmA games feature-wise. It's simpler and more-quirky, as expected with age, yet tightly resembles the ArmA concept of a military sim. The cons are honestly not a big deal, just my personal outlook and may not even bother you. Recommend.

Absolute banger with friends. I would easily put it up as one of the best co-op games ever made, even for today.

The most important thing to know is to buy it on sale! . Valve still set the regular price to a considerable amount but it will commonly drop by 90% on sale. Don't feel too bad if you can't wait, any lower price is worth it for this game.

If you've considered getting L4D1 instead, then to make it clear, this comes included with both campaigns and there is very little point in buying the original. In recent updates they have even further remastered it, making it more accurate to the original atmosphere so you can expect an almost identical experience.

Aside from all this, one thing to address is the multiplayer community. As much as I love this game, online is probably the worst I've experienced on PC. Expect a lot of people getting mad and votekicking for not playing well. If you're a noob then avoid Versus until you've fully learnt the maps. Of course though, in any community, you find both types of people and there is definitely friendly people out there, some who I have added and still play with time to time.

The gameplay never gets old, I always find myself coming back to this ever since the Xbox 360 days. I do highly recommend to play with friends but it isn't required for a good time. Left 4 Dead's an essential, highly recommend.