44
Products
reviewed
261
Products
in account

Recent reviews by Xenos

< 1  2  3  4  5 >
Showing 1-10 of 44 entries
55 people found this review helpful
2
3
2
3
45.8 hrs on record (31.2 hrs at review time)
A Brief Introduction
It’s fairly common knowledge among long-time fans of the series that there just really aren’t that many good Warhammer 40k games. You got Dawn of War, Space Marine, Mechanicus….. and that’s about it. Maybe Darktide. Most of these games are over a decade old and aren’t the best thing to recommend to people anymore.

But what if we made a game that was intentionally designed to be old? Enter Warhammer 40k: Boltgun.

Riding the high of the 2020 resurgence of the “Boomer Shooter”, FPS games designed to be more reminiscent of the simple but effective formula of 90s FPS games. No regenerating health, no hiding behind cover. Just you, your guns, a whole lot of enemies, and your typical olympic track star speed to evade them.

I believe Boltgun is worth your time and money, especially considering how cheap it is. But it’s always best to make an informed purchase. That’s what I’m here to do!

In-Depth Analysis
Gameplay
As aforementioned, Boltgun is part of the “Boomer Shooter” genre of FPS, which are FPS games designed to appear and somewhat play like old 90s FPS staples such as Doom and Quake, but with modernized movement and controls. Boltgun definitely gets this idea; arenas are large and designed to run around full sprint while mowing down your enemies, and you have a total of 9 different weapons to unlock throughout the game as convenient spinning pickups.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3262136317
However, every good game has a core mechanic that sets it apart from the rest. In this case, much to the delight of myself and other fans of 40k, Boltgun excels at emulating an FPS experience that is extremely similar to the IRL tabletop gameplay. Every weapon you can wield has a “Strength” value, and every enemy has a “Toughness” value, both of which can be conveniently seen at all times on the UI. If your weapon’s Strength is greater than your enemy’s Toughness, you do more damage per shot! If it’s equal, you do okay damage. If it’s lower, you do noticeably less damage.

Every weapon in the game has a different gimmick that sets it apart and makes it useful compared to the rest. The weapon the game is named after, the Boltgun, has a Strength of 4 and a very deep ammo reserve. This makes it excellent for chewing through cannon fodder enemies, but struggles significantly against heavily armored enemies. Comparatively, the Plasma Gun and Meltagun have a Strength of 7, making them extremely effective against every enemy, but they possess either a low rate of fire or very low ammo reserves, meaning you can’t be wasting them on random mid-level enemies.

Just like all “Movement Shooters”, Boltgun demands you avoid damage through strafing and running rather than hiding behind cover. Every enemy attack that isn’t melee is a form of projectile that can be avoided with good enough reactions or speed. Some enemies track better than others, and so you must strafe rather than just try to outrun. Some just spew hundreds of rounds, forcing you to keep moving or else they’ll catch up with you.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3262132192
Another staple of the BS FPS formula are secrets and power-ups. Every map contains an array of power-ups that only last until the end of the level. One example of this is special ammo for the Boltgun that makes it fire faster, penetrate walls or add an AOE. Another is the Vortex Grenade, which when thrown creates a small black hole that rapidly damages and sucks in any enemies around it. But the most impactful power-up you can find is the Machine Spirit, which empowers whatever weapon you are holding when you pick it up. Some of the secrets are genuinely just impossible to find without a guide (Just like Doom), but there’s usually a few easy ones to make up for it. I can usually reliably find the Machine Spirit every level.

Overall, the gameplay is responsive, engaging, and multi-layered; the best kind of FPS gameplay you can get. Varying enemy toughness requiring you to switch weapons is great moment-to-moment engagement that keeps you on your toes, and the multiple different types of environments you venture through help keep the game fresh even when fighting the same enemies. Remember Doom: The Imp never changed from start to finish, but the places you fought it in did!

However, one critical flaw I must make known is that Boltgun lacks any form of map. While the environments are relatively straight forward, sometimes you loop around to the same “hub” room with a key for a new door and need to remember where that door actually is. It’s only a bit annoying and time consuming, but be prepared to actually pay attention to where you’re going so you don’t get lost.

Story
Another staple of the Boomer Shooter genre is an intentional lack of focus on the story. It’s still there, of course. It just barely matters. You play as Malum Caedo, a Space Marine of the Ultramarines chapter, tasked with purging the Chaos filth off a Forge World.

Don’t know 40k lore? Don’t know what any of that means? Doesn’t matter! Point and shoot at the bad guys. It’s as easy as that!

Visuals
Boltgun has a very good grasp of the world of Warhammer 40k and the “grimdark” feeling it pioneered. The combination of technology and religious zealotry is on full display through excessively large cathedral designs, overcomplicated iron techno-junk, and of course the chaos corruption and vandalism covering it all.

The low-poly nature of the environments help to emulate Quake, which is clearly the main inspiration for most of the gameplay (As it is so practically all FPS), but the enemies are a nice unique 2D claymation spin on the sprites you normally see in these kinds of games. It reminds me very heavily of Doom 64, which had far different and rather memorable redesigns of the classic Doom enemy ensemble.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3262175629
Weapon effects, enemy attacks, and particles are very distinct and prominent, though the sheer AMOUNT of effects can sometimes cause a bit of blindness by making it impossible to tell living enemies from the pure carnage going on around them. This is compounded by the speed of the game, which sometimes results in confusing scrambles where you just spray and pray and hope for the best.

Audio
I have no complaints, but also no compliments about the audio. The music is okay, but not even slightly memorable. The guns do sound satisfyingly chunky, but not quite enough to really resonate. It’s good and performs its job satisfactorily.

Technical
GeForce RTX 3050Ti 4GB | Intel i7 | 16GB | Windows 10
I typically don’t have any problems running Boltgun on my PC. However, on random occasions, the game will suffer a sort of stutter-freeze where every two or so seconds, the entire game will freeze for a split-second. This will happen repeatedly. I don’t really know what causes it, or how to solve it, but restarting a few times seems to fix it.

Conclusion
Boltgun is an excellent retro “Boomer Shooter” that perfectly emulates the lore and appeal of the Warhammer 40k universe while still being approachable enough that non-fans can enjoy it too. While it does have some momentary annoyances, like the complete lack of a map, it is a majority fun experience. It comes with a satisfying amount of content, an enjoyable weapon roster, and iconic enemies, all with a 40k coat of paint. I've replayed it three times and enjoyed it each time!

At only $20, any fan of classic FPS should pick this up!

Follow our curator page, OCG-Curations, if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.
Posted 6 June. Last edited 6 June.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
3 people found this review helpful
68.8 hrs on record (0.6 hrs at review time)
Early Access Review
My first ever game, I accidentally shut down power to the entire facility, fell to my death, and then got beaten to death by a teammate trying to smack a bug. We met our quota, killed a teammate with an eldritch monster, and then forgot to actually sell our loot so the company ejected us from the airlock for failing to meet the quota. Great experience.
Posted 21 November, 2023.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
168 people found this review helpful
4 people found this review funny
4
2
2
2
2
9
642.0 hrs on record (240.0 hrs at review time)
A Brief Introduction
Let’s get a few things straightened out here. You know what Elden Ring is. I don’t have to explain it.

I have fully beaten Elden Ring twice. I think it is, overall, a good game. But it is not a masterpiece like you may have heard. It has its amazing upsides, but significant downsides as well. I want you, the reader, to decide if this game is right for you.

In-Depth Analysis
Gameplay
Let’s get started with the basics. Elden Ring’s core gameplay loop is the Fromsoft Souls classic; you attack the enemy and roll to dodge through attacks. However, it is also sort of an amalgamation of all previous popular Fromsoft games. The stealth from Sekiro returns, as well as the jump button. The speed of combat returns from DS3 and Bloodborne, with enemies faster than ever before. And long forgotten mechanics from the underappreciated Dark Souls 2 return, like powerstancing, the ability to combine two weapons of the same class for a unique dual wield moveset.

Frankly, there are too many mechanics to cover in a review that has a character limit. But the CORE of the combat is still the same as before. If you like Dark Souls, Bloodborne, or Sekiro, you’ll most likely like this.

However, as you know, Elden Ring is open world, a first for Fromsoft. This means that enemies can come from anywhere, at any time. You have to be on alert constantly or else you can easily find yourself stuck in a massive ambush. On the plus side, this means a lot of player engagement and freedom. But, on the other hand, it means a LOT of content is missable or, frankly, not worth your time.

Any dungeon you encounter can either gift you with your new favorite weapon, a core spell for your arsenal, or even a fantastic new talisman. Or, that same dungeon could give you something completely irrelevant to your current build, like a katana for your strength pure, or a faith weapon on your sorcerer. This makes exploring and discovering a treat, but also somewhat tedious, and often kills replayability. What’s the point in going through an open world full of secrets when you know every secret, and know 90% of them aren’t important?

Where the game truly shines are in its legacy dungeons, giant sprawling fortresses and cities reminiscent of Sekiro or the levels of the Souls series. The perfectly paced enemies, dense layout, and unlockable shortcuts and checkpoints make them a joy to go through. But on the negative side, the rest of the dungeons range from alright to outright miserable. The vast majority of them follow the same cookie cutter design of cramped tomb tunnels or dug out caves, and they get old pretty fast.

That leads to a core criticism of the gameplay as a whole: while the core loop is quite enjoyable, you’ll soon realize a lot of assets get reused throughout the game. Many minibosses are simply late game common enemies with a health bar that give mediocre rewards on defeat. Some enemy types are continuously reskinned to suit the new area. As an example, the basic soldier enemy is reskinned to be a regional soldier for nearly every single area in the game, with little to no change in moveset, regardless of their army or colors. Some minibosses are re-used up to 10+ times, and it gets very tiresome to see the new flavor of the month reskin after reaching the end of another copy and paste dungeon.

But the biggest criticism I have for the game is the bosses. With Bloodborne, DS3, and Sekiro, Fromsoft showed they have the true talent for making a memorable and difficult, but balanced boss experience. Sadly, they dropped the ball somewhat for Elden Ring. Many bosses are rather “cheap” in nature, relying on insanely heavily delayed animations to bait and catch rolls, or on input reading, an AI tactic where the enemy reacts the same frame you press a button to give them the perfect response at your detriment and beyond any human’s possible reaction time.

Endgame bosses especially feel heavily overtuned, either crammed full of gimmicks, like spraying lingering bleed-inflicting flames on the ground, healing on every hit, and inflicting HP drain, or simply having gargantuan health bars and dealing 900+ damage on every hit, turning even a glancing blow into a sudden life or death situation.
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2849784823
I still think the gameplay and bosses as a whole lean more on the positive side. But they distinctly have their flaws, and players NEED to remember to use every tool at their disposal. Even though it plays like a Souls game, it is NOT balanced like one, and will severely punish you for assuming you can approach it like one.

Story
As for the story, it is quite excellent. Those familiar with Fromsoft lore can expect the usual vageueness & bits and pieces of scattered story to be found. Elden Ring definitely has a much denser history compared to the Souls series, but that makes it more satisfying to piece together.
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2849786113
And thankfully, Fromsoft provided us with a key NPC, Gideon the All-Knowing, to provide us key information about who we need to be killing and where they are. His addition is invaluable as a player resource.

Visuals
Simply put, the game looks absolutely phenomenal. I do have my distinct issue with the color palette; that it clearly needs to remember colors other than gray exist in some areas, ESPECIALLY in dungeons, but the special effects and enemy designs are 100% on point.

The open world especially looks reasonably believable and realistic, with every region having its distinct atmosphere that sets it apart from the others. You can load into the game anywhere and immediately know where you are just based on your surroundings.
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2849781456
The “Remembrance” bosses especially hold absolutely nothing back, with strikingly unique designs and insane levels of SFX and color variety. They alone help the game stand out.

Audio
Thankfully, no criticisms in this category. Weapons feel meaty, attacks have weight, and the music is still up to the historically excellent Fromsoft standard. Not much needs elaborating; look up the OST for Godskin Apostles or Mohg, Lord of Blood. You’ll be hooked in seconds.

Technical
GeForce RTX 3050Ti 4GB | Intel i7 | 16GB | Windows 10

Elden Ring is VERY demanding in the specs department, and to top it off, its capped at 60 FPS. Even with good specs like mine, I would still suffer frame drops in areas.

Most concerningly, the Elden Ring multiplayer servers at the moment are an absolute MESS. At pure random, you can suffer a “connection error” and completely disconnect from your host, whether you be invader or ally. This is thanks to the horrible implementation of Easy Anti-Cheat. I cannot physically count on all my digits how many times I was helping a host beat an endgame boss and got booted out of the session with ZERO warning either a mere minute after joining or significantly into the fight.

Solo play using spirit ashes or NPC summons is unaffected, but temper your expectations if you’re a career invader or sunbro.

Conclusion
A great game with some big flaws.
At the end of the day, I had a net positive experience with Elden Ring. The world was very enjoyable to explore, and most of the major story bosses that actually had some thought put into them are very memorable and exciting. However, if you decide to play, you NEED to be prepared for the rotten apples in the basket. Be willing to use every tool at your disposal to win; because Elden Ring certainly will.

Follow our curator page, OCG-Curations, if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.
Posted 16 August, 2022. Last edited 24 November, 2022.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
624 people found this review helpful
11 people found this review funny
47
8
5
17
3
3
10
5
4
2
7
4
2
3
3
2
69
104.2 hrs on record
A Brief Introduction
The year is 2001. The anticipated sequel to the smash hit, Metal Gear Solid, has just been released. Immediately, outrage is sparked and the game becomes the bastard child of the franchise, for one primary reason:

The fans hated Raiden.

It’s been 21 years since then (Insane, right?), and where’s all the hate gone? People actually LIKE Raiden now? Why’s that?
This game is why, and here's why you should definitely get it.

In-Depth Analysis
Gameplay
Platinum Games, famously the creators of Bayonetta and Nier: Automata, are no strangers to fast-paced hack and slash games. In fact, they’re probably the best developers in the genre. When Kojima asked them to make a hack and slash game based in the Metal Gear universe with Raiden as the lead, they delivered in spades.

Gameplay is actually very simple. Unlike Bayonetta and Devil May Cry, where the player is buried in weapon types to switch in and out, MGR gives you a single sword and says “Go nuts kid.” You have light attacks, heavy attacks, and all the combos that gives you. Very easy to pick up, very easy to get into.

What makes the Metal Gear Rising stand out from the pack is its emphasis on parrying enemy attacks and using your high-frequency blade to cut through anything in your way, enemies included. A properly directed light attack in the direction of the enemy deflects their hit, preventing the player from taking what could potentially be crippling damage on higher difficulties. Considering there is no block button, and dodges are slow and unreliable, parrying is the only decent way to avoid taking damage. MGR did it before Sekiro made it cool, although it's not nearly as demanding in the timing as Sekiro was.

Equally, healing items are incredibly scarce, requiring players to utilize MGR's unique combat mechanic of “Zandatsu”. By either stunning or damaging an enemy enough, players can slice them open with blade mode and rip out their fuel cells, refilling his health to full. Knowing the proper time to slice n’ dice and having good precision in your moves is the key to success, and on Revengeance difficulty, it's often the only way to stay alive under the onslaught of enemies thrown at you.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2705921360

To further emphasize how beginner-friendly this game is, unlike some hack and slash games that give you no warning and expect you to memorize all enemy attack patterns to dodge, Metal Gear Rising gives you a fair chance to react to what’s coming, leaving it up to the player to respond. Parryable enemy attacks are indicated by a red flash in their eyes, while unblockable attacks (Usually grabs) are indicated by a yellow glow.

The gameplay is fast, engaging, and easy to get the hang of. The bosses also take full advantage of this system to deliver memorable battles that I still hold in high regard to this day.

The only iffy part of the gameplay loop is that, probably due to being a Metal Gear game, Platinum Games included an incredibly minimalist and half-baked stealth system. While Raiden can see enemies through walls, and can “backstab” them, he has no sneaking mechanics, or really any way to hide. At best, it's a way to take out a few enemies before you inevitably get spotted and the massive brawl breaks out. At least there’s not really a penalty for getting spotted, unlike in MGS; you can just chop them in half.

The game also has a high level of replayability. Although the story and setpieces don't change, the rating system pushes players to improve their performance throughout, and every new difficulty level can change the enemies one encounters in each area. On normal, the first fight of the game is just against a handful of soldiers. On Revengeance difficulty, you're immediately thrown against a Gekko mech, along with several dogs.

Story
This is a Metal Gear game. Those that have played the Metal Gear Solid series know what this means. To those that have not: This entire game is both a serious political commentary, and an absolute joke at the same time. The topics can often be very serious, such as terrorism fueling the war economy, creating jobs, and being unpleasantly good for a nation. This is true; World War 2 actually pulled the American economy out of the Great Depression.

But then the next minute, you have a cyborg ninja debating philosophy with a sentient robot dog, Raiden wearing a mariachi band outfit, and most famously, a terrorist declaring that “Memes are the DNA of the soul.”

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2705922823

On the surface, the combination of dead-realism and complete absurdity seems incompatible, but the game owns it by being acutely aware of how crazy it’s being, embracing it, and running wild with it. It’s the same writing logic that propelled Metal Gear Solid into being rated one of the best series of all time.

In the end, it creates an incredibly fun way of discussing genuinely serious topics, though sometimes the absurdity overshadows the horror of what’s happening in the moment.

However, this IS a canon part of the Metal Gear universe, meaning it makes numerous references to the events of the other games. If you haven’t played the other games, you won’t understand what people are saying every now and then, but thankfully the majority of the dialogue is self-contained within Rising, preventing too much confusion. If you’re one of those people that really loves their lore or needs context, I would heavily encourage you to play or watch the Metal Gear Solid series, as they are equally excellent games.

Visuals
The game looks great, plain and simple. The game is somewhat dated by today’s standards, having come out in 2013, so you don’t have to look hard to find some rough edges, unrefined models, and simplistic architecture. It makes up for this with good art and character design making them visually memorable and interesting. MGR especially loves its particle effects, so expect lots of those.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2705920211

Audio
Even the biggest detractors of Metal Gear Rising never deny one thing: The music in Rising is AWESOME. The intense electric metal perfectly suits the cybernetic themes of the game, and the boss themes are incredible, both lyrically and musically. “Rules of Nature” was the go-to edgy meme song before “Bury the Light” from DMC5 took its place 6 years later. In fact, you’ve probably heard Rules of Nature at some point if you haven’t been living under a rock since 2013. I still listen to the boss themes when working at my PC.

Technical
GeForce RTX 3050Ti 4GB | Intel i7 | 16GB | Windows 10
Obviously a game from 2013 better run on my specs, but it’s important to note it also ran perfectly fine on my old PC from 2013, which only had a GeForce 840m 2GB and 8 GB of RAM. Unless you’re still using your 2005 Windows XP PC held together with duct tape, you should be able to run this game on good settings with good frames.

A controller is HEAVILY recommended due to the precise omni-directional nature of the game. Keyboard and mouse parrying is so difficult in comparison that MGR was the sole reason I bought my first PC-compatible controller.

Conclusion
Very Highly Recommended
Metal Gear Rising isn’t necessarily a one-of-a-kind experience; you can get the same story from Metal Gear Solid, and the same general gameplay from any hack and slash. However, the combination of the two styles, great sense of visual design, amazing soundtrack, and ease of accessibility make it a worthwhile purchase for any gamer. It can drop down to less than $7 on sale, but it’s worth the full price.

Get it when you can!

Follow our curator page, OCG-Curations, if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.
Posted 2 January, 2022. Last edited 2 January, 2022.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
76 people found this review helpful
2 people found this review funny
2
2
5
794.0 hrs on record (395.3 hrs at review time)
A Brief Introduction
Monster Hunter: World is a game about hunting monsters. What a shocker.
But! It’s actually so much more than the premise would suggest. The title is true to itself: This isn’t just about fighting big monsters. This is about experiencing a world filled with monsters. Here’s what that means, and why I think you, the reader, may enjoy this game more than you thought.

In-Depth Analysis
Gameplay
To quote the YouTuber Punk Duck: “This isn’t Monster Hunter. It’s Menu Hunter.”

Monster Hunter: World is just as much about browsing through menus and managing your equipment as it is actually fighting that fire-breathing T-Rex. From start to finish, your character never gains any innate statistical improvements. You don’t get more health, more stamina, more damage, nothing. What changes is two things: your equipment, and your experience.

Armor management is vital to success. The only thing standing between you and a “Quest Failed” screen is your armor rating and your abilities. As monsters get stronger, you need better armor to take less damage. As they get faster and tougher, you need abilities like Focus, or Critical Eye to charge up your weapons faster or increase their critical hit rates. Monster Hunter is a series about meticulous preparation, and while such min/maxing can turn many away, it also gives a greater payout when you succeed. These monsters aren’t just simple enemies, every one of them is a raid boss in and of itself; a lengthy and brutal foe to be overcome with endurance and meticulous preparation, not a Leeroy Jenkins-esque rush.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2703168606

But what makes World stand out so much, even amongst its own Monster Hunter peers, is its dedication to actually being a WORLD. Older titles had herbivores and smaller monsters that roamed around, but never at a scale like this. MHW has hundreds of non-megaboss creatures flying, crawling, and roaming around every corner of every area, and ALL of them can be collected and displayed. Crickets? Fish? Spiders? Bats? Birds? Frogs? Cactuar from Final Fantasy VI? If you can think of it, it’s probably in the game somewhere. You can observe them, capture them, even keep them as pets. This is the kind of experience you usually only get with games like Subnautica or No Man’s Sky: the wonder of exploring an alien and unknown place, to see what lives there and interact with it. And you get gigantic boss fights on top of that too!

Just to add even further to the ecosystem focus of MHW, the large monsters themselves also interact heavily with the environment. Poisonous Pukei-Pukei can be spotted eating nuts from vines to refill their poison sacs. Carnivorous monsters can be observed stalking, killing and eating prey when hungry. All monsters, large and small, will go grab a drink from a stream every now and then. Territorial monsters will fight other large monsters mid-battle to defend their territory. In fact, some monsters aren’t even aggressive towards you unless you attack them first! Everything in World is treated as a living, breathing, REAL creature that could actually exist. Many players other than myself concur that some of the most enjoyable moments in the game can be had by just watching things unfold around you.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2703141971

There’s so much detail in every environment that it’s honestly a shame many people write the game off as just “fighting big dinosaurs” or worse, claiming that only the gameplay matters. The environments found in Monster Hunter: World are the best in the gaming business, and I wish more people were aware of it.

Story
MHW has a story, but it doesn’t take itself particularly seriously. Normally, that would be bad. But in this case, it’s actually quite nice. The player is part of an expedition force to explore “The New World”, a continent and land separate from previous Monster Hunter areas. This means everything you experience isn’t just new to you, as a player, it's new to the characters as well. You get to deepen your knowledge of this world around you as the game guides you to new areas and new monsters to fight.

It guides you, but doesn’t railroad you. You’re free to straight up IGNORE the main plot for as long as you want, fighting the monsters you want, when you want. One of the best moments in the game for me was when my friend and I spent a full day attempting to bring down an Anjanath before the story quest to hunt it was ever brought up. It took us several attempts, but eventually we brought the beast down with help from a gargantuan monster we had never seen before, a Rathalos, that picked Anjanath up in its claws and slammed it down onto the forest floor with such force it made our damage numbers look puny in comparison.

It was a phenomenal experience, and more importantly, it was 100% organic. We chose to do that, not the game. MHW gives you the freedom of choice and experience in ways few other games do, especially other boss-rush styled games.

Visuals
Monster Hunter: World looks incredible. The environments are rich and detailed, with life seeping from every cave and treetop. The monsters are visually distinct and have memorable designs that make them stand out among other games and even each other. Each and every nook and cranny of this game’s design had so much clear love and effort put into it that it’s easily my favorite game of all time in the visuals department, even over games like Hades and Subnautica.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2703116953

Monsters move fluidly and with intent, as animated in their actions as they are in their visuals. Lighting arcs off the back of a Tobi-Kadachi as it glides between the trees. The throat of an Anjanath glows crimson as it becomes enraged, and the sheer level of intensity in the particles and lighting of Elder Dragon attacks defies words. Every second of a fight is desktop wallpaper material.

Audio
Once again, Monster Hunter: World excels in another category. Monster roars are primal, powerful, and give off the true feeling of a colossal beast pushed over the edge. What other game series has video compilations of just enemy roars all over the internet?
The sound of intense wind ripping by, fireballs exploding, ice shattering, all of it sounds incredible in the midst of the action. Every moment is an experience, visually and audibly, that other games wish they could have even a third as much.

Not to mention a soundtrack equal to the titans of gaming music like Halo and Dark Souls.

Technical
GeForce RTX 3050Ti 4GB | Intel i7 | 16GB | Windows 10

The game runs great on my hardware, but I also have excellent specs. A fair warning; all that visual spectacle comes at a cost, and the game is fairly demanding to run on high settings. Don’t attempt this with a potato PC.

Also of special mention is the Iceborne DLC. This isn’t a traditional DLC that adds one or two new things into the game; Iceborne is an entire Master Rank expansion into the base game that itself is nearly TRIPLE the size of the vanilla experience. Double digit monster additions, an entire second story campaign, two new areas, expanded weapon movesets, more hunter tools, the whole shebang. If you love MHW, Iceborne is a must-have.

Conclusion
An Experience Like No Other
Monster Hunter: World is a masterpiece through and through. It has its faults at times, and a very harsh learning curve (Use google, seriously), but the payoff is immense and deeply satisfying. If you see it on sale, get it.

Follow our curator page, OCG-Curations, if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.
Posted 31 December, 2021. Last edited 31 December, 2021.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
17 people found this review helpful
2 people found this review funny
18.4 hrs on record
A Brief Introduction
HuniePop 2 is, obviously, the sequel to the famous HuniePop, which made significant waves on its release for being one of the most prominent “porn games” on Steam when Valve decided to relax their limitations for games to be sold on Steam. Now, as you can see, I have decided to NOT recommend getting HuniePop 2. I should be clear right off the bat that I recommend getting HuniePop 1, but not the sequel, because I believe it’s simply a worse game overall. Let me elaborate why.

In-Depth Analysis
Gameplay
HuniePop is a twist on the classic Match-3 game formula popularized by Bejeweled. The goal is to match specific tokens on the board to max out the affection meter and successfully complete the date. Progress is multiplied by the passion multiplier, every girl has a favorite and least favorite token, and date gifts can be given using sentiment to various effects. While it might sound a bit strange, ultimately, if you like Match-3, you’ll like the core gameplay of HuniePop.

However, I have a core issue with the game. It’s far, far too random.

“But Xenos!” you say. “It’s Match-3! It’s practically designed to be random!”
“Yes!” I reply to your protest. “But it’s not the Match-3 that’s causing the randomness!”

Unlike some more intense Match-3 games, like Bejewled, you can’t get screwed by a drop-down broken heart (The generator prevents it from happening), and you can’t lose the game by having no matches left, again thanks to the generator preventing it. The problem is that everything else outside of the core gameplay has become too bloated and convoluted.

The most prominent new inclusion to the series is a gameplay feature called “baggage”, of which every girl has three total. These baggage addons add certain effects to each date, in an attempt to make the gameplay more varied. The problem is that many of these effects aren’t fun at all, and a few are just outright hostile to the player. Many of them ban certain types of date gifts, the worst one being Brooke’s “Expensive Tastes” effect, which bans all plushie gifts unless she’s exhausted, which are the ONLY date gifts that can remove broken heart tokens from the board, and intentionally exhausting one of your dates can irreversibly screw you half the time. Others are basically a shot in the foot, such as Zoe’s “Tinnitus”, which prevents ANY joy tokens from spawning while the focus is on her. Since juggling focus between the two girls is absolutely mandatory, this means you’re effectively getting 50% less move token spawns for the entire date, which can and WILL screw you.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2687205111

Overall, really, there’s just too much micromanagement for me to find enjoyment from the experience. There’s a stamina meter added to this game as well, and if both girls run out of stamina, the date fails. Sometimes the girls aren’t hungry, so you can’t feed them food for benefits before the date. Date gifts are tied to a specific girl, so you can’t use a consistent strategy and have to change how you play every date. Some baggage combos make the date nearly IMPOSSIBLE, such as Zoe’s “Tinnitus” paired with Sarah’s “Stinky Vag” for 50% less move tokens and 20% less passion tokens. This is far too much effort and paranoia for what is supposed to be a lighthearted dating game.

And yes, while there is no penalty for failing a date, it still isn’t fun staring at a “Failure” screen for over half of my playthrough, knowing I got hard-walled by bad RNG.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2687207788
Story
Unlike HuniePop 1, Hunie 2 has an actual story goal. You, the protagonist of the first game, have been called back in to stop the Nymphojinn, celestial hoes of immense power about to have a period of world-ending proportions. You need to once again get your dating game up and score some threesomes to prepare yourself to take on the challenge. The usual HuniePop stuff.
The story is fine. It’s not serious, and not meant to be taken seriously. What I have a problem with is the girls and dating themselves.

This time around, there’s more girls than before, a total of 12, which outperforms the original’s girl count even with hidden characters. The thing is, more isn’t always a good thing, and the formula introduced by the original suffers as a result. For starters, investment into each girl is significantly reduced. You don’t spend any time getting to know them as characters, and talking to them is almost a waste of time since it doesn’t give particularly useful rewards outside of +1 moves. Talking to them consumes the same stamina bar they use during the date, so if anything, it’s an actual detriment to your success, and unlike Huniepop 1, they can only eat an absolute max of two pieces of food, or even none, if they aren’t hungry for some reason.
Plus, to add to the lack of investment, you feel like an outright third wheel to some of these double dates. The girls talk to and flirt with each other far more than they do to you, with some post-coitus CGs having them not even looking at you, semen filter be damned. Why would I play a dating game where I don’t feel like I’m the one dating?

To top it off, some of the characters are just unappealing. This changes with taste, obviously, but doing every possible threesome is required to reach the ending, meaning I have to interact with the character I hate the most out of any game I’ve ever played: Sarah.

Sarah is the most annoying presentation of a weeaboo I have ever seen in the media. She’s constantly yelling broken Japanese phrases, all her baggage is her actively being either insufferable or legitimately repulsive, such as the aforementioned “Smelly Vag” caused by her NOT SHOWERING. She dressed like a nutjob wearing sixteen pounds of ganguro makeup, won’t shut up about hentai, and is overall just the WORST THING I have ever been forced to deal with in a game. And yes, I say forced, because I am REQUIRED to date her multiple times to reach the ending of the game. I paid money to play this, and being subjected to torture like this is NOT what I wanted from a HuniePop sequel.

Visuals
The visuals are fine, but I’d say the design of the girls has taken a slight dip. This is probably personal preference, but I don’t like how much eye shadow and makeup they added to a lot of the girls this time around. The post-coitus CG is also usually very simplistic.

Audio
Overall, nothing to write home about. I want to give a shout out to the nightclub theme; it was better than I was expecting.

However, I do have to give mention to the voice acting to the final boss. It’s bad. It sounded like it was recorded in a bedroom with a budget gaming headset and then had a half-baked filter applied over it by an ametuer VA. It definitely helped solidify the final boss as a sub-par experience horribly marred by RNG.

Technical
GeForce RTX 3050Ti 4GB | Intel i7 | 16GB | Windows 10
It runs fine in 1080p. With an engine this simple, if it didn’t run smoothly, that would be condemning by itself.

Conclusion
Not Nearly As Good As the First One
In the end, while HuniePop 2 may appeal to some, I feel like it deviated far too hard from the parts that made the original good. HuniePop already had pleasant gameplay, but what appealed to me was getting to know the actual characters and getting invested in their stories. HuniePop 2 doubled down on adding so many gameplay factors it ignored everything else, and suffered for it by both having a less interesting story and too much micromanagement in the gameplay.

You could consider getting it on sale, but I didn’t have a net positive experience even having only paid $20 for it.

Follow our curator page, OCG-Curations, if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.
Posted 19 December, 2021. Last edited 19 December, 2021.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
14 people found this review helpful
2 people found this review funny
41.3 hrs on record (28.8 hrs at review time)
A Brief Introduction
Resident Evil 2: Remake is a complete and full, true remake of the original Resident Evil 2 that dropped seemingly out of nowhere in early 2019. It has since received numerous accolades from players and solidified Mr. X as a recognizable household villain, infamous for punching streamers on Twitch that have no spatial awareness. Is RE2 worth the hype? Let’s find out.

In-Depth Analysis
Gameplay
Resident Evil 2: Remake is a proper modernization of the core Resident Evil mechanics that have become dragged down by age and clunkiness. Ammo isn’t a hot commodity, healing and resources are limited, and inventory space is very small. What RE2 does right is properly add to these outdated restrictions with a modern touch that heavily rewards backtracking and thorough exploration.

The key additions to the survival horror formula are gunpowder and hip pouches. These items can be found scattered around the world, of course in limited quantities. Gunpowder varieties can be combined in different ways to provide different kinds of ammunition, with rarer gunpowder types providing better resulting ammo. This allows the player to temporarily and selectively circumvent normal ammo restrictions to obtain more of it. Hip pouches are even rarer, and always hidden behind locks and safes, but when obtained boost the inventory space by two, making them very motivating to seek out. Now players are not irritated by heavily squeezed inventory space, but still need to overcome adversity to achieve this. It is not handed to them easily.

As for gameplay, RE2 features unrestricted over-the-shoulder third person shooter action, a sharp departure from the fixed camera angles the original game is known for. This is nothing but a boon to the experience, as being able to appreciate how many enemies are trying to box you in is easier with the freed camera, and a player must be able to actually aim to fight off zombies.

However, the undead don’t really need working bodies to keep trooping along, so the gamer instinct to aim for the head won’t always yield results. Zombies don’t need a fully functioning brain, headshots only work if you can take the whole head off. Instead, shooting off limbs to disable zombies or at least temporarily stagger them long enough to sprint past are the core elements of this game. While you can just fire willy nilly into a crowd and hope for the best, more punishing enemies like Lickers or the infamous Mr. X will not oblige your reckless play and will quickly (and involuntarily) make you join the undead horde. You need to play smart, not aggressive.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2509878828
The famous Mr. X only plays a prominent role in the first area of the game, the Police Station, but he is an omnipresent nuisance to your plans that forces you to consider your actions ahead of time, lest he corner you with a Licker or more zombies than you can handle before he pummels you to death. His constant thudding footsteps and the sounds of doors being kicked open will hound both Leon and Claire as they try to get out of town.

RE2 features puzzles, just like all Resident Evil games, but thankfully these puzzles are all fun brain teasers that don’t require extensive mind-wracking to figure out, unlike the original trilogy of RE games. Still, many of them seem to be the player solving a problem that really just shouldn’t exist in the first place, like a sewer door locked by six circuit breakers sealed by a riddle and chess pieces. The concept is so outlandish it breaks even the suspension of disbelief, but thankfully not by much.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2509882465
Story
The player steps into the shoes of either Leon Kennedy or Claire Redfield as they are attacked by undead, and try to get to the bottom of the situation. You can choose from two distinct campaigns to play through the game with, and while both share the same major areas, the way they progress through them is changed, each character has areas unique to only their campaign, and a few enemy or item placements are changed up.

This is welcome replay value, further enhanced by the Second Run feature, which lets you replay the two routes with completely different item and enemy placements, the progression of rooms in the Police Department is dramatically changed, and Mr. X shows up far earlier in the game to start causing problems.

From start to finish, the story is engaging and motivating, dealing with the grasp Umbrella Corporation truly has on the city, the T-Virus, and the mysterious G-Virus that makes the T-Virus look like child’s play. There’s never a dull moment.

Visuals
RE2 looks amazing. Environments are extensively detailed, decorations and architecture are beautiful, the models of enemy and ally alike are impressive, and the game constantly delivers. The attention to animation detail is also noteworthy, as RE2 captures the twitchy, spastic nature of the undead, and the bloody splitting of limbs. Mr. X lumbers around, persistently power walking towards you on sight. Bosses especially have just as much visual spectacle as gameplay, their attacks damaging the environment around them, their aggressive presence…. the whole experience is simply difficult to explain. It’s the same quality of visual action I’d expect from a stellar sci-fi movie, not a game.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2509883255
Audio
The musical score is the other half of the presentation of the game, pairing with the visuals to create nervous tension in dark hallways, a calm sense of safety in saferooms, or a grand sense of urgency and awe when facing down Mr. X or William Birkin in one of their various iterations. The bellowing brass, chorus choir, hard beats, the roars of the enemy, explosions all around; these give an unparalleled sense of “This is it. This is a FIGHT.” that you rarely get these days from non-heavy action games like Dark Souls. Even if fights like the Super Tyrant weren't mechanically impressive, they will stay in my mind for a long time for sheer memorability and spectacle alone.

Technical
GeForce RTX 2060 6GB | AMD Ryzen 9 | 16GB | Windows 10
I could easily get over 120 frames on mostly maximum settings. The graphical settings are a bit strange, displaying the VRAM and giving you the option to dedicate way more memory than you need to just textures. But if you don’t try to overkill your own game, it should run fine on most hardware.

Conclusion
An Essential Experience
Resident Evil 2: Remake is a phenomenal game that provides both tenseness and intensity at the same time, through its excellent mechanics, gunplay, rewarding exploration, and sense of excitement that is difficult to find in a single game. The high replayability with two campaigns, both featuring modified second playthroughs, is just icing on the cake for content to give more bang for your buck.

The free DLC even includes four more challenge run / campaign hybrids for people that find themselves hooked like I did.
Unless you sadly can’t run it, there’s no reason you shouldn’t grab yourself a copy of Resident Evil 2: Remake during the next sale, or even potentially at full price.

Follow our curator page, OCG-Curations, if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.
Posted 6 June, 2021. Last edited 6 June, 2021.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
11 people found this review helpful
10 people found this review funny
3
2
5.2 hrs on record
A Brief Introduction
Resident Evil is the prized show dog of the survival horror industry. Every time somebody brings up the word “horror”, somebody also brings up Resident Evil. It’s an iconic titan of the industry. But does that mean it’s worth getting and experiencing in modern times? No. No it does not.

In-Depth Analysis
Gameplay
Resident Evil Remake has a management style that can best be described as a maliciously neglectful parent. It does not “Hold your hand”, in the sense that it explains quite literally nothing about itself, including basic, necessary information such as how to shake off zombies, what the controls even are, or what your objective is at any point in time. RE1 will let its kid stick a fork in the outlet under the philosophy that their excruciatingly painful death will teach them not to do that again.

Resident Evil punishes. It punishes you for picking up items with a brutally restrictive inventory of eight spaces, which is shared across ALL items, including guns, ammo, keys, mandatory progress items, and everything else. Picking up something you don’t immediately need punishes you by making it impossible to pick up something later. Yet, there is no way to know what you need in advance because of the comical, James Bond villain style of puzzles around the house. Yet still, the game also punishes you for NOT bringing the right item, even if you didn’t know you needed it. There are numerous points in the game where lacking a specific item will result in your death.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2504208174

And guess what? Resident Evil punishes saving. You can only save at specific times, in specific places, and with a limited amount of saves at that. This breeds paranoia as to when to save. Go too long without saving and die? Tough crap, replay it all again.

Resident Evil even punishes you for daring to attack enemies. Any zombie you kill that wasn’t put down with a headshot or being lit on fire is guaranteed to come back later as a stronger and faster Crimson Head zombie. A new player can easily softlock their own game by having so many Crimson Head zombies pile up they can’t kill them all before they get mauled to death trying to get past them.

The enemies that aren’t zombies also heavily abuse the outdated and clunky shooting system, dashing into you and slashing you before you can fire another bullet. The best option is to try and run past them all, which doesn’t even reliably work, and also isn’t remotely fun.

Resident Evil 1 isn’t scary. The zombies are laughable in nature, shuffling around like they are doing the conga with comical moans. I can clearly tell the zombie lying down on the floor is not dead, I’m not a child. It doesn’t scare me when it tries to stand up. Hunters equally shuffle around making weird noises and their only “scare factor” is it instantly killing you, which is no different than any other game.

Resident Evil is tedious. As people have pointed out, when you actually know where to go and what to do, you can beat the entire game in under an hour and a half. The gameplay consists exclusively of backtracking around a labyrinthian mansion and solving nonsensical puzzles while dodging, not killing zombies. Remember, killing zombies is punished. RE1 is a zombie themed puzzle game, not survival horror. A poor, outdated zombie puzzle game at that.

Oh, and don’t forget there’s a mandatory, unskippable seven second cutscene every single time you open any door in the game. I do mean ANY door.

Story
You, either Jill Valentine or Chris Redfield, have been stranded in a mysterious mansion after being chased there by zombie dogs while investigating cannibalistic murders in the nearby area. After that, there’s basically no story. A few, scarce character interactions occur, along with some lore and world building, and while it is interesting stuff, spending hours backtracking around a mansion to get it is hardly an ideal way to spend an afternoon.

Visuals
Finally, an area that isn’t all bad news. Resident Evil does look quite excellent, thanks to its unique combination of pre-rendered backgrounds that allowed for high detail. This was much more impressive back in 2002 when the GameCube and its 43MB of memory couldn’t handle all that much. These days, the same thing can be achieved with normal processing power. It does have an old time charm to it, which I did enjoy.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2504207827

However, the cost of this is the most infamously horrible game mechanic in all of history: Fixed. Camera. Angles. These can happen at any time, anywhere. Simply crossing a single room may involve four to five different camera angle changes. If you’re using the classic tank controls, this doesn’t affect you so much, except for the fact you’re using the objectively worst movement method in gaming, tank controls. If you are using the new controls provided by the remake, the instant the camera changes, if you change your walking angle in the slightest, you immediately re-orient to the new camera, often causing you to walk in between the same camera angle several times just trying to readjust.

This camera is also used to intentionally obscure upcoming zombies and other enemies to provide sources of cheap scares or cheap damage. Imagine if Lakitu in Super Mario 64 refused to show enemies on the camera until they smacked into you and killed you. That’s the Resident Evil experience.

Audio
The audio is mediocre at best and bad at worst. Zombies, as previously mentioned, sound comical, like they recorded somebody snoring instead of anything meaningful. Everything else sounds like stock footage. The music is generic and unimpressive, if you even get music.

Even with the Remake voice acting, it still sounds flat and completely lacking in motivation. The corniness and amusingly bad campiness of the original lines are actually more fun because of how ridiculous they are.

Technical
GeForce RTX 2060 6GB | AMD Ryzen 9 | 16GB | Windows 10

It runs fine. The keyboard keybinds are awful though, so its best played on a controller.

Conclusion
The Very Definition of the Word “Outdated”
Resident Evil 1 was once the pinnacle of survival horror. However, that time and that title has long, long, long passed away. It is punishing, lacks any decent reward for success, doesn’t look that good, sound that good, and has some of the most clunky, outdated gameplay I have ever witnessed. Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a better horror game. Dead Space is a better survival horror game. It has been surpassed twenty times over by history, and there's no reason for a new player to pick it up in the modern era with vastly superior alternatives available.

It reminds me of the old Sierra point and click adventure games. You touch anything, you die, for the crime of not being clairvoyant and not knowing that would kill you ahead of time. There’s no survival, there’s no horror. It’s a puzzle game with zombies placed around it to annoy you and waste your time.

It is the relic of a time long gone, held alive by the nostalgia goggled fanbase that had no better alternatives back in the 90s and have been playing it for so long they are blind to its blatant flaws.

Don’t believe the hype. Watch a playthrough on YouTube, it will be less painful and you’ll miss none of the experience. Some games just don’t age well. Resident Evil is a prime example of this lesson.

Follow our curator page, OCG-Curations, if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.
Posted 31 May, 2021. Last edited 1 June, 2021.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
32 people found this review helpful
39.7 hrs on record
A Brief Introduction
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is the direct sequel to the 2011 megahit, Deus Ex: Human Revolution. You continue the story of Adam Jensen directly following the events and ending of Human Revolution, making it an absolute necessity to have played the previous game. Story events will simply not make sense without the context, and Deus Ex is a franchise fully defined by its detailed and convoluted story.

Human Revolution has caused a lot of split opinions since its release, with some saying it's just as worthy of the Deus Ex title as any other, while other people claim its a bastardization of the franchise. So, should you get it? I think it’s worth your time, but you be the judge.

In-Depth Analysis
Gameplay
Gameplay is near-identical to Human Revolution, which is to say, it is VERY good. Mankind Divided is a cover-based shooter and stealth game, where the player can always choose between guns blazing and Metal Gear Solid levels of stealth action. This is the mantra of Deus Ex, the player always chooses the best way to approach a situation. You can talk your way out of a problem, or shoot your way out. However, similar to real life, if you make an enemy out of everyone, you won’t be able to kill them all. So pick your fights wisely.

Human Revolution had some sub-par non-lethal options, either in that they were just bad and didn’t do their job, or slammed them into a wall and killed them anyways. In DE:MD, the stun gun and tranquilizer rifle are actually EXCELLENT at their job of taking people out silently and non-lethally, to the point where it's almost easier than killing them. Being stealthy and not having multiple robots trying to kill you can often yield better loot and easier routes, at the cost of more effort.

Another key feature of the Deus Ex series are augmentations, cybernetic enhancements built into Adam’s body to enhance various aspects of his performance, ranging from more lethality, to more stealth, and even one solely focused on talking to other people. Managing your augmentations and deciding which upgrade path you want to take heavily affects what possibilities you have when attempting a mission. For example, if you didn’t invest into strength enhancers, you can’t move extremely heavy objects blocking a vent cover. But, since you invested into remote hacking, you can disable the laser grid without coming out from cover. It’s specialization like this that makes FPS RPGs so fun to play and add a ton of replay value. There’s at least twenty different ways to approach any challenge.

For example, when I was tasked with breaking into a bank, rather than try and sneak past some of the most expensive security systems in the city, I broke my way through a wall into the security booth and turned ALL of the turrets and robots against the staff, effectively taking control of the entire building. The guards didn’t even shoot me because they had no idea I caused all their robots to go crazy. The freedom of choice is an enticing prospect for any game, and Mankind Divided does it very well.

Story
Deus Ex is always dripping from every facet with story, and Mankind Divided is no different.
With Adam Jensen now aware of the Illuminati’s influence, he’s joined Interpol’s Anti-Terrorism division in an attempt to root them out, with the assistance of a hacking group called the Juggernaut Collective. Things take a turn for the worst as Růžička Station in Prague is violently destroyed by planted bombs, sending Interpol into a panic and increasing tensions between augmented civilians and the downright racist police force of the city caused by the Incident at the end of Human Revolution. Jensen makes it his personal mission to find out who is responsible for the attacks, while also attempting to stop a building Illuminati plot to retake control of society after Hugh Darrow sent the entire world spiraling into hell years ago.

The main themes of the story heavily revolve around a not so subtle metaphor for racism, with augmented humans facing heavy discrimination for the events of the Incident. I personally don’t like this attempt at a metaphor, because it works better on its own merits. People that came under attack from crazed mechanized humans would have good reason to fear them, but the people that went crazy were being controlled by somebody else. Nobody, and yet everybody is to blame.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2491570716

The biggest problem with the story is that it doesn’t really go anywhere. The start of the game sets up Adam to try and take the fight to the Illuminati, but then he gets so sidetracked with the bombing that barely any progress is made. While finding and confronting the bomber is satisfying, the overall plot has not gone anywhere relevant. The Illuminati are undaunted, and some major plot points are not addressed, leading to an ending that is both somehow satisfying and annoying at the same time.

Visuals
Mankind Divided is a tale of two stories. One is the world, and the other is that ugly, copy and pasted NPC face I’ve seen five times now. The majority of the game looks gorgeous, a perfect blend of normal and cyberpunk aesthetics that put 2077 to shame.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2491570186

The problem is that clearly zero effort went into the NPC designs. They are ugly, low poly, a fair amount of them are copy and pasted, and it's extremely annoying when major characters like Adam, his supervisor, and others are VERY detailed and look extremely good. Thankfully, most NPCs don’t matter at all, and can be somewhat ignored.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2491571167

Audio
Mankind Divided has an incredible digital punk soundtrack that matches the theming perfectly. While all of it honestly sounds the same, that sound is extremely enjoyable. It also rises in intensity depending on the situation. If bullets start flying around, the soundtrack will definitely pick up to match.

Voice acting is well done and believable, which was a sticking point to some in Human Revolution. However, background NPCs habitually repeat lines of dialogue, even when it's entirely different people, which can ruin the immersion.

I gotta give a shout out to the Sniper Rifle, which has such a satisfying mechanical chunkiness to its shots that I killed quite a few people that probably didn’t deserve it just to hear it again.
Technical
GeForce RTX 2060 6GB | AMD Ryzen 9 | 16GB | Windows 10

Bad news here, Mankind Divided is both very demanding and very unoptimized. I got better FPS with higher settings on Doom Eternal, the king of VRAM hogging, compared to DE:MD. MD was averaging at best about 65 - 70 FPS on high settings. I also found myself having to restart the game several times because my FPS had dropped down to 25 and simply wouldn’t go back up.

There’s also an infamous problem with the MSAA that will absolutely CRIPPLE your performance, permanently smacking you down to sub-20 FPS even on god-tier PCs. Disable it if you have problems.
Conclusion
A very enjoyable game with some issues.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided took some steps in the right direction from Human Revolution, and some in the wrong direction. While the gameplay is objectively superior to its predecessor, the story, dialogue and characters took some hits. The scenery looks better, but the background characters don’t. There also aren’t really any interesting characters outside of Adam Jensen himself. Still, the open-ended story choices and gameplay give it a high amount of replay value.

Ultimately, if you liked Human Revolution, you’ll probably really like DE:MD too, albeit with some different ups and downs.

Follow our curator page, OCG-Curations, if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.
Posted 29 May, 2021.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
18 people found this review helpful
2.4 hrs on record
A Brief Introduction
Even though it is listed on Steam, Incredibox is actually available online, for free, but with limited themes. If this product interests you, you can give it a shot there. It’s not exactly an orthodox game, so this might be a good idea.

In-Depth Analysis
Gameplay
Incredibox isn’t a game, it’s more like a groove creator. Users can choose one of eight styles of music, and then mix and match up to seven beatbox-esque beats to harmonize as one song. It’s very hard to describe for somebody not as musically literate as me, but hey, there’s always the online one to try out.

It’s more of a tool than a game, with really no gameplay to speak of. You can, however, record your mixes and dynamically change them as it goes. After that, you can release your mix if you want. That's basically what the entire experience boils down to. This is clearly a tool for music lovers, and not really a "game" for the average Steam user.

Story
It’s a musical tool. It doesn’t have a story, aside from very vague cutscenes unlockable by meeting certain beat requirements. They look and sound cool, but amount to basically nothing.

Visuals
It’s got a nice visual style, mostly focused around stylized animations and interesting character designs. It’s not a big focus for Incredibox, and that’s honestly fine. What you see on the store page is what you get.

Audio
This is what Incredibox was all about. Messing around with the different possible beatboxers is genuinely fun, and you can create some really unique combinations. Each music style has its own distinct vibe, not overlapping with the others. I can’t really put music in a Steam review, so if you’re interested, look up some videos or mixes from this game.

Ultimately, this is more of a background beat creator than a song creator. While some possibilities have lyrics, they loop and don’t mean much by themselves. Good stuff to put on in the background, but not a tool to make actual full-on music.

Technical
GeForce RTX 2060 6GB | AMD Ryzen 9 | 16GB | Windows 10

If you can’t run this, you need to go back to 1981 with your IBM PC, gramps.

Conclusion
It’s interesting, but only for the musically interested
At the end of the day, I had a fun few hours messing around in Incredibox. It’s enjoyable, very easy to learn, and you can make some pretty good beats. I’m sure somebody much more passionate about music would be able to do a LOT with this. If you aren’t so musically inclined, and don’t pester people about your Soundcloud mixtapes at every possible opportunity, you won’t get much from this.

I would highly advise you check out the website version first. If you’re interested, you can support the creators here. If you aren’t, you’ll have your fun over there. Everybody is a winner.

Follow our curator page, OCG-Curations, if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.
Posted 29 May, 2021. Last edited 29 May, 2021.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny Award
< 1  2  3  4  5 >
Showing 1-10 of 44 entries