Recent reviews by CatHorns

Ganking & Artificial Difficulty Simulator.

As of Season 4, this game became a toxic wasteland filled with sweats and technical issues, it had something special during it's early days but now I highly recommend avoiding this, there's just too much stress involved the more you play it.

The Finals has a focus on team-based game modes, with 2 to 4 teams of 3 or 5 players, the game also has 3 class types (Light, Medium and Heavy) with each filling a different role (or at least that was the intention in prior Seasons), and lastly, the game has it's rather unique destruction elements, that plays a big part in shaping the playing field which can led to some really dynamic engagements with other players.

Ever since the Open Beta days, this game always had trouble with it's balancing and technical issues, with each subsequent update it only got worse (for the most part) in one aspect or both.

As of Season 4, the balancing between the classes mostly favors a selfish style of gameplay as opposed to a more team oriented, with plenty of ''cheap'' ways to get your enemies killed that just make it for a frustrating experience depending on the class you're playing against, I also want to brought up the ''Dev notes'' in the patch notes, which shows a sign of disconnect between the majority of the players and the developers, which is very disheartening.

With each new major update there's tons of bugs that seemly never get addressed (not being able to shoot your primary weapon, not being able to sprint, healing beam not working after a while, etc.) and performance issues that can randomly be applied to you with no solution to fix it (low frame rate while getting shot, stuttering when buildings are collapsing, not rendering the silhouette and playing the buzzing audio of invisible players, and many more).

Lastly, the matchmaking, it's one of the most frustrating aspects of this game, especially if you're solo 'queuing. There's always one or two teams annihilating throughout the entire match where the remaining one(s) just fill in the lobby as cannon fodder. When it comes to random teammates, sometimes you're given teammates that can't keep up, while other times you're the teammate who can't keep up. It is rather predictable how a match is gonna play out, which just leads to frustration and/or boredom.
I can't help but notice an increase in toxicity as well, now granted, it's impossible to have a PVP game nowadays without some toxic individuals but lately, this game has gotten so bad to the point where I had to just mute text chat and voice chat entirely, which is really detrimental in a team based game.

With tons of negative aspects about this game, I could go on and on writing about them but for the sake of this review i'm just gonna say that it's a shame that this game got to this state, it was truly refreshing when it came out but now it's just not the same game I thoroughly enjoyed playing in it's early days, it's like they (Embark) are trying to tailor this game to a completely different audience now. I just don't think it's worth playing this game anymore given the latest updates and player base behavior.

Since this a prologue, i'm just going to list my negatives that I have with the game rather than actually reviewing it, I also played for less than 2 hours, so this is technically a first-impression since I never played the early builds from Patreon.

These are some of the negatives that really makes it hard for me to enjoy this game currently:

• Poor Visibility
  
• Stiff Handling
  
• Delayed Transmission
  
• Bad AI balancing
  
• Convoluted menus
  
• Bad GPS
  
• Missing some controls customization
  
• No hood camera
  
• Not fully explaining some mechanics

What this game has to offer here is interesting with the potential to be something good in the future, but it needs some streamlining and improvements.

Also, as a nitpick and a request, just give us an option of automatic, manual and manual w/ clutch in the menu instead of buying a car that is either auto or manual, that just feels needless.

Really enjoyed the first Dead Space game, beginning through end. This one started really well too, but the more i progress, the more it started to get stale, making the final chapters really feel random at most. I don't even remember who is the main villain of this game, because it was all over the place in the end.

I must admit, i did enjoy that they gave Isaac ( The protagonist) a voice in this game, however, because there's always someone talking with Isaac for most of the time, that felling of dread and isolation from the first Dead Space is somewhat gone.

The lack of any ''real boss battle'' and map exploration also made somewhat disappointing gameplay experience for me, i miss those features from the first Dead Space, even though they weren't great, i don't think it was a good idea to remove them altogether, because of that, Dead Space 2 is a very linear game with not so many surprises.

The new necromorphs are neat for the most part, but enhanced necromorphs are still the same bullet sponges compared to the first Dead Space and the new necromorph called ''puker'', does get annoying towards the end of the game. There's also a lot of ''cheap'' jump scares with the necromorphs in this game too, that just outright damage you if you're not paying enough attention, which is really annoying.

Gunplay i feel it is improved here, but feels like you're facing an army of necromorphs every chapter or so, making most encounters quite tedious towards the end, and since i wasn't really spending that much credits into buying new weapons ( I mostly stick with Plasma Cutter, Pulse Rifle and Contact Beam), i had plenty of credits to spend on ammo, removing that ''Oh crap'' felling when out of ammo that i had many times with the first Dead Space, granted though, i was playing in normal difficulty, but i can't even bother playing this game again.

Nicole was annoying in this one, like damn, can you be quiet for 5 min.

Dead Space 2 is just okay at best. If i were to recommend this game, would only really be because of the Stalker enemy, they were really good and a blast in every encounter that i had with them.


*Side note: You can't play the multiplayer if you buy the Steam version and you will also get some DLCs at the start of the game that can kill the progression for a first playthrough if you choose to use them.

I really want to enjoy this game, but whenever i get to play it, i always come out frustrated. I'am aware that this is a relatively small indie team, but this game has so many problems in terms of it's overall design and technicality, problems that i would consider basic on the basis of online co-op games, problems that i think it could have been fixed/solved at the early stages of development if only they payed more attention to the dos and don'ts of the genre itself and online co-op games.

Most of the design of Risk Of Rain 2 suffers from poor choices. The balancing is obviously made for a co-op experience, so if you are going in alone, you probably gonna have a hard time because there are some difficulty spikes for some stages and enemies in this game, making it for a inconsistent experience while playing in single player. The exploration can get quite tedious, it feels like more of a chore than something rewarding. As for the end game, most of it heavily rely on the items that the player has, rather than the player's level and skills itself, it makes for a really frustrating experience, and when you do have a considerable amount of good items after you literally just looted everything that you saw without even bothering to stopping and knowing what that item does (because this game does such a terrible job to remind the player what the item does), the end game really only revolves around you just occasionally dodging some enemy's attacks here and there and letting the items/companions do most of the work, and that's it. For me, this type of gameplay gets dull really fast and makes it for a lazy experience in the end game, but if so happens that your definition of fun is letting the game do most of the work for you, then hey, more power to you.

As for the RNG, i understand that it is a predominant aspect in roguelike shooters, the problem however, is that Risk Of Rain 2 does such a terrible job with it. To simply put, this is one of the most frustrating games that i ever experienced with RNG systems, it never feels right when most of the time i have to rely on and hope that the ''RNG gods'' are on my side during a run. Who ever thought it was a good idea to tie characters/items unlocks that can only be found in specific stages, and those stages are mostly selected randomly, man please, stop joking with me. I often wonder if they ever consider that, a player trying to get a specific character/item unlock, therefore, probably getting frustrated because of the RNG involved, could not enjoy the character/item that they earned in the end; just take a moment to realize how bad that is because of the time that player spent trying to get it, it makes the overall progression outside of the main gameplay loop of roguelike shooters feel unsatisfying and/or unjust.

The online co-op component of this game is, serviceable, however, one thing that i keep asking myself whenever i get to play this is: Why this game doesn't have join in mid-game? Why do i need to join/host a modded server to be able to allow join in via commands in the in-game chat?
This is something that i feel is the basic stuff when it comes to online co-op games, how and why they didn't bother to do this is beyond me. I genuinely hope the reasoning for this is due to a technical limitation but let's not forget, that this game, had over 4 million copies sold on Steam alone, so what's stopping them to hire some staff and implement this along with some quality of life features? Is it due to the design of the game? I really hope not because if so, then i can't help but consider it pretty bad and inconvenient overall.

This game is a prime example how the Steam rating system can be terrible. This is NOT a ''Overwhelmingly Positive'' game at all, and when you stop to notice that most of the positive reviews of the game barely elaborate why the game is good, and it is just some sort of funny review, it only solidifies my point. This game is really just okay and that's about it, i don't feel that the price they're asking for it is justify, so if you still want to get this game for some reason, i can only recommend getting it in a deep sale.

Fallout 4, it's something i guess. It's not terrible nor perfect, it doesn't offer the freedom of it's predecessor entries in this franchise but it does add a bunch of new systems that many people, including myself, considered to be divisive.

The story it's nothing to brag about, it's more less the same premise of Fallout 3, just played out differently. My main gripe with it, it's the way that is it told. Fallout 4 have limited dialogue options and it is way more comedic compared to it's predecessors, and it is clear that for some people this can be off putting, because some of the dialogues options just lead to a disconnect in conversations with the NPCs, almost as if our character is bipolar or something.

The gameplay, although improved compared to Fallout 3 and New Vegas, lacks challenge. To simply put, you become way overpowered, way to fast. The survival mode that the game offer feels like an after thought and the new perk system is very open, making it lack a proper balancing. The new perk system can also led to a lot of progression roadblocks, what i mean by that is, if you want to craft/make a good loot/settlement, you will need to grind the required perks first, this can lead to a lack of synergy between the combat gameplay from the crafting/settlement gameplay, where you gonna spend/waste your time gathering loot, only to find out that you don't have the necessary perks to make the aforementioned items.

The settlements, is quite a huge feature of this game, but many people dislike it and for good reason. It's a hassle to work through sometimes and it lacks refinement but, if you're someone who enjoys a building aspect and managing NPCs in survival esque games, you will probably gonna spend a good chunk of your time with it, because it can be quite fun even with the negative aspects mentioned. However, a lot of the features that make this settlement experience better are from DLCs, meaning that, if you want to get the most out of this, you will need to buy the DLCs.

Overall, Fallout 4 it's a good game even with it's flaws. It's not the best Fallout game out there mainly because it can't quite decide what it wants to be. Is it a survival esque game? Is it a story-driven game? Is it some sort of city simulator? I'll let you answer those questions by yourself.

Regarded by many as the best DLC for Fallout 4, i gotta be honest, just like the story telling of Fallout 4's main and side quests, it's mediocre. The main quest of this DLC did start quite strong, but the more you play it, the more apparent it's problems start to appear, although to be fair, it is quite an ''open'' quest, so if you like that ''Fallout freedom'' that you get from Fallout New Vegas, or at least something similar to that, this DLC might be for you. This DLC also does offer a complete new location with some couple of new enemies and settlements scattered throughout it and also some new loot as well, but nothing too crazy or worth it if i'm being honest.

Highly recommend it if, and only if, you like having a companion following you in Fallout 4. This DLC pretty much adds customizable robot companions into the game and a relatively small quest involving certain someone that is behind the new modified robot enemies scattered throughout the Common Wealth. Although i still preferred named companions over these new ones (mainly due to their personalities), this DLC does offer a lot when it comes to making your own companion from scratch, and as an added bonus, if you own Nuka World DLC, you'll get even more parts to customize you robot companion.

The premise of the main quest and new settlement features are really interesting, but i feel the execution is just sloppy. To put it simply, If you want to explore this DLC, you have to ''become'' a raider, which is not something i'm sure everyone is willing to do it. The new features to the settlements are good but very limited and barely even worth it if you don't mind the new loot/settlement objects and the new location, although fun exploring the first time, can be quite a hassle to walk by.

Just like Wasteland Workshop DLC and Contraptions Workshop DLC, this DLC heavily favors those players who like the settlement gameplay aspect of Fallout 4. I don't personally think that this DLC is a must own, especially if you dislike the settlement gameplay, but it does add some nice features, like having your own vault and a small, albeit quite entertaining, quest involving vault dwellers.