Recent reviews by Pizzarugi

If there's any dev team more deserving of a supporter pack, it's those who made Deep Rock Galactic. It is fun, the community is the most wholesome I've seen in any other PvE co-op, and the monetization is the most ethical I've seen of any modern games. The DLCs are all cosmetic, the season pass is completely free, and there's no risk of FOMO as the rewards will enter the core game once it ends.

I purchased this supporter pack, because they deserve the $15. Rock and Stone forever!

I beat the game and unlocked all achievements in about 14 hours. It's short and sweet, but once you clear the three boss waves, it gets a lot less stressful.

It's worth the $3 price.

I recently moved to Special Edition of Skyrim, so the following is coming from a purely vanilla perspective, much as I miss the mods I had from classic.

From my experience playing Anniversary Edition:

- Farming is OP

- Gallows Hall is great, if nothing else than for the Revenant Altar that lets you convert greater/grand soul gems into black soul gems, the Bone Forge that lets you create a follower that doesn't take up a follower slot, and the Staff of Worms which is a more accessible version of the Dead Thrall spell

- The backpacks are an awesome addition, 75 free carry weight plus smaller bonuses depending on which one you use.

- Farming is OP

- The person who made The Cause put a LOT of work into it. Creating the ayleid ruin tileset by hand must've taken a long time, plus they gave modders something new to work with. I much prefer the Daedric Horse summon over Arvak too.

- Fishing feels pretty meh? Sure you can get a fishing pole and start fishing at the edge of a body of water, but the same fish you catch can also be found swimming in the water which means you can just dive in and grab them all by hand which is so much faster.

- Some of the new houses are pretty strong, some of which require little to no effort on your part to obtain and is fully furnished. Myrwatch comes to mind. Just unlock the door and boom, free house that's got tons of goodies inside plus a staff enchanter. Kind of makes the vanilla houses, including the Hearthfire homes, pointless in my opinion. After all, why spend tens of thousands of coin building a customizable house and decorating it when you can get a handful of cheap or free houses that all offer the same benefits minus the customization?

- Farming is OP

I'm a simple man. When Bungie kills sunsetting, I buy the DLC. I may not be able to use my old god-rolled weapons since I got them around the time they announced sunsetting around Season of the Undying, but I'm willing to work towards new ones with the knowledge they're not going to be dumpstered again. RIP Spare Rations, Eystein-D, and Halfdan-D.

Still wish they'd bring back the rest of the content they vaulted, though.

First Attempt:
Spawn in Joppa. First guy I see is a farmer and the first step I take, a streak of blue hits him, freezing him in place as some big dude surges forward to assault the helpless victim. I try to help the poor farmer, but as soon as I lay a hand on the assailant, he turns his attention to me. One hit, dead.

Second Attempt:
Same town. This time, the farmer wasn't being bullied by the blue guy. Cool. Pick up a job from him to north into a rock to kill rats. First step out of town, I get swarmed by hyena men.

Fifth Attempt:
I manage to survive long enough to reach Red Rock. Get to the bottommost floor of this dungeon and happen upon a robed figure carrying a "strange artifact". He was average to me in strength so I approach. I died in an explosion, turns out he had a high explosive grenade.

Sixth Attempt:
Went exploring the marshes to get stronger before going to Red Rock, happen across a lair of a legendary person. Once inside, I notice colorful particles in the blackened part of my screen so curiosity compelled me to explore that direction. As I get within sight of what turned out to be some portal, a ninja teleports right on top of me and knocks out almost all of my life in one hit. I tried to run, but I couldn't escape, he kept teleporting on top of me.

Eleventh Attempt:
Completed Red Rock delving, stumbled into a historic site. The relic at its depths wasn't much, but the place was loaded with books! Went to a town in a desert and turned them in, immediately shot up to level 25 from all of the experience. Start rampaging through the world, killing mid-level mobs for their gear and getting stronger. Finally, I felt like I was going places! Went to some ruins and made my way underground. All was going well until I came across a weird blue spider. It was average in strength to me so I moved in to attack. Next thing I knew, it teleported me into a square room filled with bones with itself nearby. That's fine, I thought, until it started taking massive damage out of me each hit. Couldn't escape, died again.

This game is random, merciless. And I love it!

Also, for you Sseth fans: Did you know there's an economy far more powerful than lava if you know how to harness it?

The developers no longer respect player's time.

They're implementing sunsetting, where your weapons and armor will have hard light level caps. What this means is if you managed to find yourself a god-roll Spare Rations several seasons ago, sooner or later it won't be able to compete with other fresh weapons in terms of light level, because it can't physically get any higher.

They're also going hard into FOMO by vaulting older content. Planets are being removed from the game and so are several raids that are tied to them. This would also include quests and rewards that drop exclusively from them.

Did you grind a lot of gun parts and trade them in for that amazing Eystein-D or Halfdan-D?
Ran a lot of raids to the point of pulling your hair out to get that god-roll gun you wanted?
Did you manage to unlock the Ace of Spades?
How about the Bad Juju?

Then say goodbye to them, because they will become garbage sooner or later and you'll either have to grind for them again or they're just outright unobtainable.

I do not recommend this game, not anymore.

Four words: Don't mess with Blizzard.

This is a great and fun game, with a good story and humorous dialogue. PvP is like a first-person shooter MOBA which I really enjoyed.

If Gearbox delayed the game's release for a while longer after the Overwatch hype died down, this might still be a great and popular one to play. I can only hope this doesn't discourage them from trying another one like this in the future.

I'm gonna recommend this game, only because the singleplayer story was enjoyable. The multiplayer is kinda dead, PvE and PvP wise.

What can I say about Undertale? Quite a lot, actually, and most of it regarding this game with praise. This JRPG is a wonderful mix of humor and seriousness that is absolutely oozing with story. All of the characters in this game are so loveable, you'll have a hard time even hating the bad guys. The story and lore is a welcome for both the casual and hardcore players alike, each new playthrough having you learn new things each time. Combat on this isn't all that bad either, making a fun combination of bullet-hells and turn-based fighting.

Pros:
+ Various colorful characters that are well written and have their own personality
+ A story that unravels the more you play it and discover new things
+ It has choice and consequences that actually matter, where the endings have major differences depending on how you chose to play
+ You can kill everything if you want to, but you could alternatively win the day by being nice to everything you come across
+ Plenty of hidden mechanics and features that could affect the story in smaller scales
+ Turn-based combat that is still engaging and keeps you on your toes
+ Absolutely amazing soundtrack

Cons:
- Some jokes can be dragged out for too long
- One or two battles seem needlessly tacked on for padding

I will try my best not to reveal any major spoilers, but be prepared in case something slips.

The game opens with an intro cinematic of still images, describing an ancient time when humans and monsters lived together. For unknown reasons, a war breaks between the two races. The monsters are easily defeated by the humans, who prove to be far stronger, and are sealed away in a vast underground cave underneath a mountain. Later, after an unknown lapse of time, a child of ambiguous gender literally stumbles onto the entry. From that point on, you're given the option to choose a name and begin your adventure to find a way out.

The first monster you come across is deceitfully friendly and teaches you the basics of combat and survival. After the brief meeting, you find the second monster who guides you on how to solve some of the puzzles you will come across throughout the game as well as suggesting ways to deal with other monsters without using violence. The guide abandons you afterwards, leaving you to explore your new environment on your own. This whole zone is just a tutorial that teaches you how the game works and lets you explore ways to fight monsters. And despite the brief time you get to spend with the guide, you will feel the most emotional impact from them near the end of it.

And that's what you'll be experiencing with every other major character you come across on your adventure. Each of them have their own traits and personality that makes them stand out from one another, and all of them is sure to make you attached to them in some degree. Even the monsters who are supposed to be your enemy have personalities that make it hard for you to hate them without wanting to know them better, first. And all of these characters can be murdered if you so desire, but remember that their blood is on your hands if you've befriended them in an older playthrough.

And it's here that the game throws its most interesting feature at you: Characters remark that you look familiar, by recollecting events from previous saves. If you murder someone then reload, you might look like you've seen a ghost. If a character murders you, you might be able to tell them they've killed you. And they'll slightly remember you even if you reset the game and start from scratch!

This game focuses on choice and consequences which mostly impacts how the game will end. Will you be a kind and merciful child, becoming a beacon of hope and prove to the monsters that not all humans are bad, or will you be a heartless killer, destroying hopes and lives of all things that cross your path? You can also be both, simply wishing to get yourself back to the surface. For good or bad, the game will remember what you did and will choose what your ending will be.

Prepare to go on a feels trip, because you're going to experience a lot of tear-wrenching plot and character development.

If you're someone who loved the story and want to know more about the important monsters, the first playthrough is going to be nowhere near satisfactory enough for you. A big thing the developers have done was leave a lot of questions unanswered, whether by accident or on purpose to encourage the players to intepret them on their own. For instance, I started the game with a desire to simply escape the underground and go back to my life on the surface. After roughly two to three playthroughs on merciful runs, I'm now writing a hypothesis on who the player character really is. Yes, this game leaves a lot of loose ends for you to tie!

Combat was creatively done. Instead of the typical JRPG turn-based combat of hitting each other until one of you dies, it's instead a mix of timing and bullet-hell dodging. If you're aiming to kill, you're given a colorful bar where you have to try and get 1+ tick(s) to hit the center for maximum damage. Different weapons have different effects on top of that, such as a pair of gloves that let you punch several times at once by mashing the key to cause even more damage. Even if you're not trying to hurt anyone, there's still the bullets and obstacles the enemies throw at you in retaliation which you have to dodge.

Finally, the music was very well done. After playing a game a few times, I typically start to turn the music off, because of how repetitive it's getting. In the case of Undertale, not only can I not turn the music off even if I wanted to, I find myself trying to replay a few of the really good tracks in my head when I'm not playing it!

So the ultimate question remains: Is this game worth $10? Factoring out the cons I listed near the beginning, the story and hidden lore will leave you coming back time and again searching for answers to questions you came up with while playing. You will get more than your money's worth.

Now I wasn't expecting something like Black & White which I thought were amazing games, but I was expecting something better than this from Molyneux when it comes to god games. This is an appalling clickfest and terraforming game more than it is a god game.

What do you get when you cross-breed Final Fantasy VII's materia system with Diablo 2? You get Path of Exile, a game which demands a great deal of theorycrafting and immense build diversity the likes of which you will never see in many ARPGs.

Pros:
+ Free to play
+ No pay-to-win, all microtransactions are aesthetic.
+ Vast build diversity
+ All skills are available to use by any class
+ Helpful, active community
+ New take on currency and how it affects trading
+ Massive, comprehensive skill tree.
+ (Personal interest) Competant summoning and minion features

Cons:
- Always online
- Trade chat is poorly implemented
- Game has terrible problems with desync
- Standard league economy is horribly inflated
- Not for casual gaming, requires a great deal of time and effort to get to the real fun parts of the game

Pros explained:
The first thing that attracted me to this game the most was the summoning system. Diablo 2 had spoiled me rotten with the necromancer, nothing was more fun for me than running around with a large army of skeletons at my back, ready to charge forward to engage the enemy. Not many ARPGs can pull off a good summoning mechanic, but when they do, its always amazing. Path of Exile not only lets you raise hordes of zombies that fight until they die, but also allows you to summon skeletons that offer support and come in larger numbers. The best part of summoning, however, comes in the form of raising spectres. Imagine fighting a monster that is very proficient at wiping out your minions, and then turning that monster into your own minion to fight for you! And there's more, from summoning flaming skulls that bypass enemies and small obstacles to animating weapons to animating a full-blown suit of armor!

The next big feature I loved about this game is how they handle currency. Most games just give you basic currency like gold which you use to buy or sell things. Not in this game! Currency comes in the form of special orbs which also provide useful functions. One orb can be used to give you respecs to your passive tree for example, another can be used to turn a mundane (white) item into a rare quality item. There's lots of orbs and each orb is valued differently between each other based on rarity on usefulness. If you can find the 'mirror of kalandra', you've officially become a rich player, but good luck finding it!

There are no direct skills to speak of when leveling up, but they are passive improvements. When it comes to Path of Exile, it doesn't give you a skill tree, it gives you a passive skill jungle! Those who have played Final Fantasy X will know what I'm talking about. The passive skill tree is what allows for such an amazing build diversity. Its very complicating for new players, but thankfully the forum has many build guides you can use to teach you how to build yourself. I highly recommend you try and make your own build first to understand the passive skill tree before reading a build guide.

Ah, but the greatest feature of all about this game lies in the actual skills themselves. This game offers a myriad of abilities that are accessible to every player, so long as they can meet the stat requirements for them. Want to throw a fireball? Sure. How about raining fire on the enemy? Why not! Want to throw a spectral copy of your weapon at an enemy and watch it fly back to you? You can get it. The fun doesn't stop there, no. You can also augment your abilities with support gems to make them more powerful! Want to shoot more fireballs at once, or to make them split on impact? There's support gems for that! Want your arrows to bounce between multiple enemies or pierce right through them? That's possible. Want your melee attacks to attack multiple times in one cast, or to make your melee do AoE damage? You can do that. There's infinite possibilities when using skills, you just need to know what works best!

Cons explained:
However, this game does have some downsides you will have to deal with. The first and perhaps biggest issue this game suffers from is desync. For those who don't know what desync is, the simplest way to describe it is that the client isn't in sync with the server. For instance, you're trying to escape from some enemies in a hall and while you think you have escaped, you're still taking damage and when you die, you wind up back where the enemies were. Rubberbanding is the best way to describe desync and you will be experiencing this a lot. If you play on the hardcore leagues, its IMPORTANT that you play carefully and utilize the '/oos' command in chat to resync.

This game is also not friendly to the more casual of gamers. Between build diversity, a complicated skill tree and a heavily inflated economy in the parent standard and hardcore leagues, this game demands a great deal of time and effort be invest before the game gets any fun. If you're not prepared to really sink your teeth into this game and hang on for dear life, you might want to consider playing something else.

But hey, this game is free. Free, and without pay-to-win microtransactions. There are microtransactions in this game, but they are all cosmetic and designed purely to make your character stand out from the rest. There are also pets you can buy as a microtransaction, but they are also purely for visual appeal and will not give you an advantage to combat. You will never have to worry about other players buying their way to greatness, everyone is on even ground here!

I really suggest you give this game a try, especially if you were a fan of Diablo 2!

Helpful resources:

http://poe.trade
This site is great if you're looking to find an item in the game that you need. The site pulls information from the trade forum and their trading stash tabs and if it finds a match, it will list all the items that meet your criteria. Clicking the item's name will take you straight to the player's trade thread on the forum!

http://www.pathofexile.gamepedia.com
This is the wiki for Path of Exile. Everything you will ever need to know about the game can be found here. This site is very active and updates immediately when new content is released. If you ever need to know what certain skills do or what uniques do, this is the place to go.