Recent reviews by Starshine

Reading some impressions around the internet, I don't understand why people expected this game to replace No Man's Sky/Elite Dangerous/Star Citizen; this just isn't it.
This is a true Bethesda RPG: huge open world, a sandbox-y experience, amazing modding potential and, surprisingly, not too many bugs.
It's not a perfect game, far from it... its got some issues (like the lack of local maps in certain locations) and things that could have been done better (like some animations or the grav jump transitions) but overall I'm finding my experience enjoyable. As I said, it’s a Bethesda game and they haven’t really changed their formula.
The only unforgivable thing is the performance, lots of people with high-end PCs are having trouble keeping even a stable 60FPS at max settings. I had to use a mix of Ultra/High settings and lock the game at 60, with FSR enabled at around 70% in order to have a stable experience. At launch there was no DLSS, which was unacceptable, but finally they decided to add it. Performance has improved slightly but should still be way better.


Todd Howard said that "the more you give [to Starfield], the more it’s gonna give back" and, so far, I gotta say he was right.

This is the first Wadjet Eye game, remastered with better graphics and sound.
A very short game, I thought playing as a Jewish Rabbi was kinda unique (not knowing much about Judaism) and I did enjoy how they added multiple endings.
Overall, it's just fine: a bit too short, a bit too simple but still an enjoyable ride.

It's probably the "worst" of the Wadjet Eye adventure games but, again, it's not too fair to compare it to their later works.
I recommend getting it on sale, mostly to experience their first game.

Small spoiler:also some cameos from the Blackwell series, not sure if they were added in the remastered version or were there from the beginning.

Ok, the Mass Effect trilogy is AMAZING and Mass Effect 2 is probably one of my favorite games.

So why the negative review?
I literally just spent the last 2 hours trying to make this game ACTUALLY LAUNCH because the EA App is a complete disaster.
It just wouldn't let me play, "Failed to launch game" errors for every single launch... but guess what? I managed to use Origin and suddenly the game works fine!

EA, if you have to FORCE us to use your broken app on Steam at least make sure it does the BASIC thing it's supposed to do: let you play the game you bought.

So far so good!

I'm so excited for a new Monkey Island and it warms my heart seeing so many people playing it!
If you are a Monkey Island fan I definitely recommend it; unless something completely ruins it, I doubt I'm going to change my recommendation.

The artstyle felt a bit weird when the game was announced but I kept an open mind and now that I'm playing it, does it still feel weird? At first, maybe. After a while, it does grow on you.

In conclusion, I really love this series and that's why I might be slightly biased... but pressing that play button just made feel like a kid again, starting my journey to become a mighty pirate!

And according to the scrapbook, ALL the Monkey Island games (not just Curse) are kinda canon! I was especially surprised to see MI4 become canon.


Update: wasn't a big fan of the ending tbh but overall it's still a pretty good game and a much needed return to the Monkey Island universe! Long time fans will definitely enjoy returning as Guybrush.
I'll give it a 8/10, could have been higher but the ending lowered the score a bit.
And since this chapter has been successful, perhaps we'll get some more games in the future?

This game could be great in its genre but the developers are putting greed first and fun (maybe) second.

They will sell you crates with a really small chance to get something good out of them for silver lions (the game's free currency), they will make the grind unbearable so they can sell you Premium time and/or Premium vehicles just to shorten it a bit, they will make events extremely annoying and grindy so you feel exhausted and more inclined into buying multiple skips that can skip the entire event, etc. etc.

This game is a good example of creating problems just so they can sell you the solution.
Every game mechanic feels like is there just so it can annoy you.
The higher you go in tiers, the worse it gets! First, a vehicle will cost more research and silver lions to the point that reaching modern vehicles will take ages. Second, once you reach Tier IV/V the matches will often mix WWII vehicles with Cold War ones, making the WWII vehicles experience terrible. Third, increasing repair costs which means if you lose too many vehicles or don't do well enough you're actually going to lose silver lions.
But guess what! If you buy Premium time and/or vehicles you're going to get more research and silver lions every match!
Oh, and in ground battles there's a serious issue with many of the maps' design/balance. I don't even know how many times one of the two teams ended up being spawn trapped while the game does nothing to prevent it. Only thing you can do is leave and hope the game doesn't lock your crew for 5 minutes or something.

So, is it not fun? That's the issue!
It will make you feel absolutely miserable but sometimes, just sometimes, you will actually have fun and it will give you that dopamine rush you just needed to keep playing... only to feel miserable again.


Should you try it? I mean, it's free.
I'm not going to say "avoid it" if you really want to try it. It has a lot of cool vehicles from different nations/eras and there aren't many games like it.

Just know that your experience will probably suck, a lot.

Edit: I mean, this entire "economy rework" fiasco kinda proves my point that the developers don't have fun as a priority...
They'll try to find every single way to make the grind (even more) unbearable so that you either give up and pay to make it better or just leave. I prefer the latter.
Luckily, it seems this time they overdid it and the majority said "no thanks".

If you're new, at this point I'll just say "avoid it" for it is not worth your time and sanity. If you really want to play just do it casually and definitely do not support this greediness.

Although I know Lovecraft and some of his work, I never really read any of it since I can find it difficult to focus when reading.
This was a really nice, immersive experience that kept me intrigued and can also work as an introduction to the Lovecraftian world and its author.
Other than some slightly wonky mouse movement in a later section of the game, I had no issues at all. Or actually, one issue... when it was over I wanted more!

Definitely recommend to try Dagon and I kinda hope we'll get more of Lovecraft's works adapted like this.
I'd love to see a faithful reproduction of the "Cthulhu Mythos" instead of the classic "inspired by".

Remember Transport Tycoon Deluxe? This is just that, improved and expanded. Heavily customizable, open-source and supported by the community with many different modifications, it's almost an endless amount of fun.
A remastered classic that you can play by yourself, against AI or even with other players!

And for the price of FREE, well... you can't really get a better deal. If you have played the original game, you know what to expect. If you have no idea, just try it and see if it's your cup of tea!
But beware, you might get addicted. ;P

At first I wanted to give this game a more neutral, but hopeful, "Recommended" but after thinking about it I just can't.
The game can be fun but, sadly, it's another example of an unfinished product that has huge, wasted potential.

I'll give you my opinion on the three modes: All-Out Warfare, Portal and Hazard Zone.


This mode includes Conquest and Breakthrough, I mostly played the former.

I personally don't think the specialists are an "evolution of classes", quite the opposite. Instead of having well-defined classes you just pick the specialist you prefer (no matter the faction) and use any weapon/gadget you like.
You can almost be a jack-of-all-trades without requiring too much help from your allies and it also makes it harder to understand who's picking a certain gadget or what to expect from an enemy.
Remember when you needed ammo and needed a Support? Or when you were in a tank, saw an Assault (or Engineer) and knew they were a threat? Well, say goodbye to that cause here comes Maria Falck n.21 and she's packing rockets.
Most people will pick armor plates and rocket launchers instead of more support-oriented gadgets.
At the end of the match you get some highlights and the most revives are, what, 10? And that's with double the players. Granted that the revive is a bit clunky and bugged, teamplay just doesn't feel as strong as it used to be.

For the weapons, I would have preferred something more similar to Battlefield 4 with some being class-locked and other universal.
Why don't I like universal weapons? First, you can't associate a class with a certain range anymore. Second, it strips even more uniqueness to the "classes". And third, I kinda enjoyed class weapons cause they forced me to try something different.
But they were never going to do class weapons anyway cause there's just 22 of them, probably the smallest selection in any recent Battlefield. And of those 22 weapons, only 2 LMGs... which means a Support would have to choose between LMG1 and LMG2.
But hey, we have all the attachments so maybe we can create completely different weapons à la Gunsmith, right? Not really.
A lot of the attachments have identical stats and, for some reason, you get to unlock the same thing (with different looks) over and over again.
And you're definitely going to enjoy unlocking the special camos since the the first one unlocks at 30 kills and the second one at 1200. Why?
But we do have Portal gun so if we combine those we get a pretty good amount, right?
Well, not really but I'll explain later why.

What else to say? Well, the maps are okay I guess. I personally enjoy the bigger scale but I do have to admit they feel a bit empty and it gets tiring when you can't find a vehicle.
The new Insertion Flow (cough Modern Warfare cough) doesn't help either. While it sounded cool, it just gets annoying after a while. The game forces you to spawn when the match starts (even if you're changing your loadout) and, if you can't get a vehicle, you have to run a marathon before getting anywhere in certain maps.

Destruction is still here but nowhere close to Bad Company 2 levels or, to be honest, even previous Battlefield games. It's kinda underwhelming, especially when you see this huge tornado doing practically zero damage to the map.
And not to mention all the missing features from previous games: no server browser, no classic scoreboard, no ALL chat, no more crouch sprinting, you don't get a damage score when you hit a vehicle, can't throw back grenades, can't dive underwater, can't lean, can't get an indicator for nearby medics, etc.
Why is it always like this with DICE? It feels like they forget about the previous games and start from scratch every single time.

One final thing: what is up with tone of this game?
They presented this game as a real serious setting, a world that is being completely destroyed by climate change, failed nations, people without a country that have to stick together to survive, a possible war that could just end it all.
Even the soundtrack sounds pretty dark, almost corrupted.
But hey, at least the specialists are having a blast! Whenever a match ends you get this "highlights" section with cringy quips such as "Well well well, that was fun!", "I am not overconfindent, I'm just better than everyone else", "Oy, you know? I think I've pulled something back there".
Or even, "That was something, right?!" said Angel with a big smile on his face. It's ok to have a little bit of humour, but this is too much.
You have this super dark world but the people you play as are just.. having fun shooting at people. What a time to be alive indeed.


Alright, this is probably the mode with the greatest potential but it's still held back by questionable choices.
If you wanted to play Conquest with no specialists and every weapon in the game, you can't. The logic editor isn't available for Conquest therefore you can only use the weapons from the era you chose.
You can still create and play some pretty fun modes, from more "tweaked" experiences to complete wacky games.
Problem is, people already started abusing it by creating too many "XP Farm" servers with 1HP bots (to skip the grind) and DICE temporarily reduced the experience you get from custom modes.
And, of course, Portal is still running on 2042 with all its technical problems but I can see it becoming pretty good if DICE keeps supporting it.
When you do play the 1942/BC2/3 modes, they're fun. But it's just two maps per mode so you might as well go and play the original games.

My biggest worry is for Portal to become an excuse for questionable choices and lack of content. They could just drip-feed content in the main mode (or make another TTK2.0) and say that you can use Portal to create new experiences.
Let me be clear, Portal should never be used as an excuse for lack of content in the main mode, especially when you had up to 4 studios working on the entire game.


It's... ok, I guess, but gets old fast. It's similar to Tarkov or Hunt but stripped down to the basics. Your first matches will be miserable cause you're stuck with the default weapon while everyone is running around with marksman rifles and outgunning you from range.
You get credits so you can buy better weapons/kits and get more credits, that's it. Very barebones with almost no point to it. Probably the worst mode of the three.


Well, as usual there are quite a lot of bugs.
There's something weird with the mouse aiming, it doesn't feel quite right to me and apparently I'm not the only one.
For some reason they decided to bring back random bullet spread/bloom so, after a certain range, engagements get annoying (the weird hitboxes don't help).
The audio design doesn't feel as good as previous games.
The UI has problems, from the settings/menu to the actual in-game HUD.
Performance is terrible. On a 3080Ti and a 5900X the game is running at an average of ~100FPS on Ultra 1440p, no Raytracing. The game just isn't optimized for PC and, coming from DICE, it feels really really strange.
I crashed around three/four times which isn't great but isn't as bad as some previous launches.


I did have some fun but it feels like the game is unfinished and going in the wrong direction.
If you combine all of this with the lies/misdirections like "we're ahead of schedule" or "the game is in a great place, it only needs one more month to get it just right", well... I'm tired of released games that aren't finished and require months to get back in shape through "live service".
It's just sad cause I love the Battlefield franchise and I know DICE can do better than this.
So yeah, I don't recommend it. Wait for a sale if you're feeling on the edge and definitely avoid the Ultimate edition or even Gold if you don't care for the skins/extras.
Perhaps a year from now it's going to be much better but for the time being I'm disappointed.

If you've played Crush Crush, it's like that but with boys. In fact I might even say it's a more polished version of Crush Crush but with boys.

If you haven't played Crush Crush and are interested:

Well... it's a clicker/idle "dating" game. You have to manage your time slots between jobs, hobbies and dates. Whenever you complete a "stage" with one of the boys you gain some bonus multipliers that apply whenever you prestige, making everything faster (but starting you back from the beginning, unless you use gems)
The artwork is mostly nice, the boys are cute and the stories are enjoyable (and somewhat cheesy!).

So far the game is kept updated with new events, new phone flings, characters and DLCs. Hopefully it will continue like that.

The microtransactions are fair, you can pay real money and speed everything up immediately or slowly get there with a bit of patience. You earn free gems during the events and whenever you complete one of the boys' stages (that's a one-time-only reward though). You can also get free timeslots from the events and whenever you complete 5 achievements.
There are some additional characters and features that are locked behind a paywall but, if you get to the point you need/want them, the price isn't too demanding.
There's also a voice bundle that adds fully voiced audio to the original 12 boys. It was free in Crush Crush but costs 2$ here: a bit controversial for some but I do believe the audio quality is higher than the one in their first game.


So yeah, that wraps it up. If you're interested, give it a try! It's free and worst case scenario it just won't be your thing.

In my opinion some of the artwork is great, most is good while a few require some adjustments. For these, it feels like the "added parts" are not blending in with the rest of the body as well as other characters (with Felix's last photo probably being the worst offender).

Overall you get what you pay for. If you're interested in unlocking the NSFW content and/or simply supporting the game and the devs, I recommend this DLC.