Recent reviews by Sometimes Lucky

As much as I hate to say it, for me this is the most disappointing game in the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy. There are many problems with this game, but the two most important are its story and its stale mechanics.

Lara being completely unlikable is perhaps the biggest reason why Shadow's story failed. Lara is no longer the desperate young woman stranded after a shipwreck who was so easy to empathize with in the original reboot. She is now a bloodthirsty killer with an unhealthy obsession towards destroying a generic evil organization. But I don't dislike Lara because she is now a killing machine, I dislike her because a killing machine is all she is. In order for a player to be invested in a story, they must be invested in its characters. The original Tomb Raider reboot made players feel sympathetic to Lara by making her a victim of violence and hardship. But as she grew in strength in each game, she has found nothing else to hook players with. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, she is not a victim anymore, instead, she is nothing. She has no character: she never cracks jokes, she talks in a monotonous voice, and her decisions are generic... She is a shadow (heh) of the older Lara that a generation of gamers fell in love with. As a result, every scene containing Lara in this game (a.k.a every scene in the game) feels dry. Combined with forgettable allies and villains, an insistence on unneccessarily dark themes, and a complete lack of levity, Shadow of the Tomb Raider's story could not engage or let alone interest me in any way.

Gameplay wise, the game is almost identical to 2015's Rise and 2013's original. Tomb Raider (2013)'s mechanics were fun and exciting when the game released, though it's combat system was relatively weak. Rise of the Tomb Raider lifted it's gameplay almost 1:1 from Tomb Raider (2013), but it's massively improved graphics helped add some novelty. Shadow of the Tomb Raider adds almost nothing to the table gameplay wise, but more importantly does nothing to fix the glaring problems with its existing mechanics. Combat is immensly frustrating: enemies are far too tanky and don't even flinch when shot, close quarters encounters (almost all combat scenarios) do not suit most of Lara's arsenal, the cover system is unreliable etc. Even the traversal mechanics are showing it's age: Lara's movements feel floaty and sometimes imprecise, difficult jumps are made even harder by bad geometry that stop Lara in midair... All of these are problems that were also present in the previous game, but I expected them to be fixed 3 years later considering there are no massive graphical leaps this time around.

By the end of this game, Lara's origin story is over and she is ready to embark on a fresh new journey with the skills of the true Tomb Raider. Hopefully by the next time we see her, she will also have the charm and character of the true Tomb Raider, and the gameplay behind her will be as excellent as a Tomb Raider game deserves to be.

Picked McLaren-Honda

ICE and MGU-H critical + Lost 5th gear due to gearbox wear by the second race.

10/10 GP2 Engine

Take 2 apparently thinks they are free to give the middle finger to modders, who are some of the most loyal and passionate fans of their game, just because they are successful. So here's my middle finger straight back at you Take 2.

With the final piece of DLC released, I feel like I am finally ready to write this review.

I was incredibly hyped for the launch of Mankind Divided. And when it did, I was not disappointed by the gameplay or technical aspects of the game. Playing through the Director's Cut version of Human Revolution and listening to every piece of Creator's Commentary, I understood just how much the creators of Human Revolution wanted to do, yet couldn't because of an incredibly limited game engine and relatively low budget (DX:HR was a suprise hit, and was not given an incredible budget to work with).

The success of Human Revolution meant that Mankind Divided had a much higher budget, and the developers created a new engine with that money. Both of these really showed. The game is beautiful both technically and artistically in a subtle way (hence many who have gotten used to the overabundance of lens flare and bokeh etc in the modern AAA market call this an ugly game). The environments are carefully crafted and overflowing with detail (even more than HR). And the gameplay is the logical step up from Human Revolution: exploration stealth with multiple ways to get to where you want no matter your character build or playstyle (so many modern AAA games promise this but fail to deliver, MD is the real deal.)

But it isn't enough to have top notch gameplay, environments, and graphics to be a good Deus Ex game. Deus Ex is known for its story: a huge world-wide adventure to uncover a global conspiracy while juggling alliances and allegiances. Following HR I wanted to see where and what Jensen will go through, how he will handle his relationships with characters like Megan Reed, Sarif, Pritchard, Malik etc...

Yet we have none of that. Or rather, we have a part of that: Mankind Divided is Act I of a Deus Ex story. An incident in the beginning of the game drops Jensen down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, but ends a quarter of the way down the hole. We started the game with 5 questions that needed answering, yet by the end the game has only answered 2 of them while giving us 10 more questions. The final boss is clearly just a pawn of a greater force, the mid-credits "twist" can be seen from 10 miles away if you are paying any attention as the game literally chucks hints in your face halfway through the game. It just feels... hollow. There aren't even good characters this time. MD abandones pretty much the entire cast of the previous game for a new one, yet does little to make the new cast as likable as the previous.

And all of this can be explained by Square Enix's corporate greed. Coming from reputable sources within SE, Mankind Divided was originally meant to be the full Deus Ex story, but Square Enix decided to cut that story in half and make two games out of it.

The Deus Ex franchise is in a terrible spot right now. Mankind Divided has failed to meet SE sales expectations, and information from inside sources has confirmed that the game that is being developed from the second half of the cut story has been canceled or at least put on hold. We may never get to see the end of Jensen's story, and that truly saddens me.

But as for Mankind Divided, all I can say is that it is a great game, but only half of a great Deus Ex game.

You can join all 4 factions and backstab everyone
10/10 Revolver Ocelot simulator 2015

Buy if you want to be hit by some nice MGS 3 nostalgia, don't buy expecting a good suit.

This sneaking suit is probably the worst outfit in the game gameplay wise. The suit doesn't actually muffle footstep sound like other sneaking suits (could be a bug and fixed later), and the suit has one of the worst camo indexes in the game among any terrain. (makes sense since its white) Guard vision pretty much doubles once you put it on and they detect you a lot faster.

Looks great. Would have been better if Geralt interacted with her for more than ~1 hour in a ~100 hour story, and she didn't dissapear from the world after you finish the game.