Recent reviews by Darth_MV

Great storytelling, balanced progression, some challenging fights. Took me 82 hours to finish all quests and beat all the hordes. Totally worth buying and playing.

I played the original, patiently waited for this and in the end, I did enjoy a spin-off story (there are actually two stories/primary quests you are solving) to the original. It is about a half as long. The ground/dry travel is slow. There is abundance of fragments, making gathering of blueprints easier than in original. It is always hard to surpass something that puts players into unknown. Honestly, I think it would make bigger sense for new players to play Below zero first and then play the original. I give it a yes.

70+ hours played and finished one full playthrough achieving all milestones and all mission goals. Yeah, this game is great, it makes you think about resources, colonists' needs and think about scaling. There are few breaking points (like when you have to switch from micro to macro management once you have multple domes throughout the map). The game keeps on being challenging to the very last phase. The end itself could bring up a couple of few final challenges (last steps were really about letting time pass). You can adjust so many difficulty paramenters (frequency of disasters etc).

Finished the game in (almost exactly) 100 hours. It is super surrealistic. There are multiple stories in parallel that are interconnected. Most of the stuff is explained in (very) long ending. If you don't go after fan wiki etc. (I really suggest not to do it) you will be just like wtf for most of the game. Yes, majority of the game is delivery, The fight scenes are quite easy. The first location/region is just to get you used to the game mechanics. I got to say, when most of the stuff was explained, I was like....wow. I totally enjoyed the game. However, it is sometimes like watching movie or reading a book rather than playing a game.

Gameplay is similarly "action packed" like Doom Eternal. However, you are not a walking tank/demi-god, so it is far easier to kill you. I played both core story as well as the freedom chronicles. The core game is interestingly split into few phases where you need to adjust your playstyle (e.g. you start with max 50 HP but 200 Armor). However, you can play most of the game as you wish (stealth vs Rambo). The Chronicles mostly require a certain playstyle, which makes it challenging (maybe) for some. It is definietly worth it to try to play on one of the higher difficulties. I have over 60 hours, but I think it can be reduced considerably (I roamed a lot). There are side missions, extras etc...I enjoyed the most of them. It really extends and builds on the New Order. The diesel punk setting is something to admire :)

As a big Lovecraft fan, I could not resist playing this game. You are a private detective sent to an island on a quest to reveal mistery of arson-murder. Things get strange right upon arrival and soon you are knee deep in trouble.... The atmosphere, voiceover and story is what I would highlight. Some parts of the game are really surreal (one would expect that from Lovecraftian stuff). Throughout the game, you make choices that affect availability of various endings. However, at least to me, it wasn't that clear which choices lead to which options even after reading about it after finishing the game. I give you advise - play naturaly, act as you would and after getting to the end, only then, take a look at other endings. BTW, none of them are "absolutely good", so don't torture yourself. There are some RPG elements (you develop few skills - you really can't master most of them in one play), but I could not see how much they affect the experience. Maybe if I played again differently, but this is a narrative, replaying it would breakt the spirit for me.

This game is more a narrative. It tells a story of young lady/teenager, daughter of a nobleman, that is thrown into chaos related to Plague, on the run from Inquisition, trying to find a cure for her ill younger brother. It has quite linear gameplay, single ending. However, it can be enriched (and I think it is worth it) by doing some exploiration. 12-16 solid hours of gameplay. Various environments, developing enemy types and puzzles. I liked the music, the graphics, the story. To put in some critics, sometimes, the controls make the game harder than intended. You can not just climb on obstacles, you need to wait for icon to appear. Some things just tell you the game was designed more for consoles/controllers. That is probably the only thing I would put as a negative. For me, it is between dark fantasy and horror, rather than pure horror. Regarding some events when you are taking decisions....spoiler follows: at certain point, you start thinking - should I kill so many people? Because you can avoid killing many times. Sometimes you can not avoid it. But - it is really about your decision. In the end, it has no effect - so, play according to your preferred playstyle (I am not that much into stealth :) - well, there is that one or two achievements for being merciful...)

As a Vampire theme fan, I could not resist playing this. If you like games like early Assassin's Creeds or Shadow of Mordor, or Homefront (map split into sectors you unlock, story and smaller side quests, a bit of crafting a bit of RPG a bit of grind, multiple-enemies engagement at once) - well that is basically it. BUT, the story is really well made, the twist including some of the mythology (without spoilers), the referrences to real-world historical events - nice! RPG elements are a bit simple, but everyone can find and choose his/her playstyle (passive/active skills, melee/ranged, offensive/defensive). I liked the idea of walking around the districts and curing people of their diseases. One thing stands above all - Music. If you like string instruments, you will be in heaven. Just to avoid overselling this game - the controls/especially during combat are a bit flawed. The sync between camera, you and game's perception of what is forward/back is not always ideal, which got me killed quite a few times. However, I got it worked out throughout the gameplay. Game has multiple ending and I strongly encourage you NOT to lookup guides. I can just say there are multiple good and multiple bad endings. Hmmm, I was not 100% accurate with analogy to AC and other games. Vampyr is way more story driven than any of those (well, Homefront and Shadow of Mordor have almost no story at all) - If you want full experience here, you will need to engage with many characters in dialoges, usually multiple times throughout gameplay. So, this is not just "Action game" and despite some of the conversations being really lengthy, they underlined that atmosphere.

I played this game with all the DLCs, finished all standard (non-endless mode) scenarios under 50 hours. Every scenario offers different challenges and you won't survive with same style. You need to adjust. The game is reasonably challenging, you are always "missing" something, having to adjust production, exploration, balance scarce resources or workforce. Despite me being mainly FPS and RPG player, I must say I enjoyed every single bit of the game.

Well, at the time of writing this, I have almost 300 hrs on record. Had few playthroughs already. I am not even sure if writing reviews for this piece is necessary anymore. This is jewel. I played Morrowing, Oblivion, too. Skyrim really offers replayability and lots of specific quests and questlines for specific playstyles. The world is really big, there are so many quests and options and DLCs (which I understand are now part of the edition you can buy) expand it to a crazy level :) I truly recommend this game. BTW I bought this in retail on the day of release - 11/11/11 This game still got it. Not to mention many useful mods like better GUI/HUD, graphics, quests, characters...I used just a few (mainly the hud/GUI ones). As a usually generalist player it took me two playthroughts to try to specialiise and it makes things easier than trying to equally build all perks.