Recent reviews by BarrelRider

Truth Is I used to really like this game, but ever since it got saturated with micro-transactions (loot crates you must pay to unlock) it dropped to an "eh" for me. Game is still fun but when most games turn to be a sort of "Long term Income service" for the devs/publishers - for me that just lessens the enjoyment of it. Maybe i'm just one of those people who doesn't like gambling (which you have to admit if not gambling its very close) and or just when I fork out my hard earned money I want to get specifically what I'm after and not be dictated by some algorithm that I should deserve to get what I paid for. (yes the algorithm doesn't necessarily aim to screw you over but again its pretty close).

so it's a Good game, but the business practices "eck".
(and yes that's their choice and that's fine, I am just not personally a fan of this practice)
(Too be fair I hate it everywhere else, e.g. the days you used to be able to buy a lifetime licence for a program, and now-a-days its all monthly/yearly subscriptions to ensure their flow of income and if we want/need it we have no choice.)

TLDR: (IMO)
+ Pretty Good & Fun Game
- Service practices (Lootcrates & Other Microtransactions like rocketpass)

Thanks for an Amazing Ride

Thank you Telltale and Skybound for creating and finishing this game just when all hope seemed lost. It was an amazing and emotional ride, it was worth every second.

Now I have to say the game did have its issues for me, like hitching, random crashes (only happened once in episode 4) episode 3 for me had horrible jittery movement. To my memory the audio was alright, but some say they have had issues. Thankfully the issues were very minimal on episode 4 to not ruin the flow and disrupt the impact of the last episode.

If there is a chance they can fix those issues then the game will be a smooth, uninterrupted and wonderful game for all seeking the conclusion to Clementine's story and the end of Telltales The Walking Dead. It has now become my 2nd favourite game of the four.
(Season 1 Being my favourite)

(Major spoiler; only stated because of the similarity).
A fitting end considering how the game was axed and then miraculously revived.

So once again, thank you Telltale, Skybound and everyone involved in making these games and who came to the aid of this amazing game in order to see it through.

We will all remember that.

I did not expect to like this game as much as I did.
This is a detective game that anyone can do. does not require heavy thinking
and even if you can't figure the clues or investigation out you can just click any clue until you get it.

However the detective work is pretty simple for even a guy like me who can fail to remember
all the details of a case and other gathered information that seemed irrelevant at the time. Thankfully I was pretty interested and invested so I remembered most of the details and clues. Also about 9 out of 10 times I got the clues and investigation pieces correct the first time flawlessly. So if you even like me you won't have a problem.

Now instead of rambling on I am just going to list some simple pros and cons for the game to save the impatient.

+ Great story (The idea of solving your own murder which expands into a bigger story)
+ Great characters (Something in the cons here too)
+ Smooth and easy to pickup gameplay.
+ The Last investigation in the museum is amazing, I can't say much because I do not want to
spoil it in any way but I believe no one will guess it. You may guess part of it but you will be
surprised.
+ Simple game, won't require too much head work unless you really aren't invested/immersed.
+ Satisfying ending with a real feel of Accomplishment when you finally get the answers.

- I am sure the possibly over simplistic gameplay will bore some people.
- I know other games are guilty of this too but there are plenty of repetitive sequences
(Mostly its the destroying of demons, there is really not a lot of variety here, distract and or sneak up on one). Hold R to begin and have a random QTE response with W,A,S,D + Left or Right mouse click which for me growing up on consoles didn't come as naturally but is doable.
- Characters: My issue isn't so much with characters (all be it nothing new) but rather my issue was with the shortage of them. Now that could be the "simple" thing they went for but I like guessing who the killer might be and the selection of characters we were given anything about was quite short. Ronin (you), Rex, Baxter, Joy, Joys mother, and Ronins departed wife. These are the only characters that to a greater or lesser extent get any kind of attention, now on one hand its to keep you wondering with little information and even more brilliantly the end with all questions answered. I must admit that with the slow progression of gathered information on characters made the overall development feel a bit slow (until the end).
So this may be a little nitpicky of me but I do kind of wish there were at least a couple more characters to create a bit more of a suspect list and so that way they can create more mystery and intrigue in the overall investigation.
- Lastly while this one was not as big of an issue for me, I did experience one bug that confused me a little. My objective did not update and I believed that I had to re-investigate the war room at the police station after joy went out the window. I simply walked outside and the story did progress, however I had to restart the game in order to fix the current objective from being stuck. also close to the end when you investigate an incident at the church I started getting odd artifacting whenever I discovered a clue it would appear in a crystal in the top right hand corner of the HUD and when it flashed a few lights and such, that is when the odd artifacting happened from the top left and right of the screen in a big blue sheet of light. after the flashing of the clue stops the artifacting goes away. This didnt happen all the time just seemed to only happen in that chapter of the game. Not game breaking just a bit annoying.

Overall the game is pretty good. I can't recommend it at full price but I've seen it come on sale quite frequently and I got it for about $4.49 AUD. So provided your even somewhat interested, at that price or maybe no more than $14 I would say "Yes go for it!". Also you do not need a beast of a PC or anything I have Mid/High end parts (i7 and gtx 1070) and run the game with such incredible ease (considering its age and requirements, not surprising).

Total score: 7.5/10

For me this game struck the perfect balance of a little old fashioned gaming,
and some modern day improvements and mechanics thrown in.

The story for me is incredibly memorable, and the atmosphere... just fantastic!
This is the only game in my adult years that actually gave me such a feeling of
nostalgia and excitement beyond almost anything else in recent years.

I cannot recommend this game highly enough and it comes on sale fairly frequently too.
often -75%!! making just 1 of the 2 current Metro titles (2033 & Last Light) $4.99USD ea!!!
In my opinion that is a fantastic deal and you should definetly get this game!
especially if you like FPS games

9.5/10 Overall!!!
(points deducted because the redux version of Last Light is practically the same as the original)

Had the odd crash here and there but ran very well on my system. (win7, i7 3770 & GTX 970)
Some levels are particularly tedious but thankfully there is not many of them.

Now again it's not as good as the first and it was obvious that the game was not as "complete" as it could have been, and the ending was not very satisfying. However i still recommend this game for RPG fans or star wars fans... (or both :P).

A few tips i found that seem to help the game run better without crashing was to force v-sync in your Nvidia control panel or the AMD equivalent. Thankfully i had much less issues running this game than the first (which crashed a lot!).

7.8/10 - Very good!
[penalties: v-sync issue, a few tedious missions, mission tracking is still (most of the time) unhelpful, oh and not making navigating new cities easier... for a while now people use these things called "signs" to help direct people to certain places, i know crazy right?]

oh and before i forget, SAVE YOUR GAME FREQUENTLY!

Well it ran well, never under 60fps (specs in profile) except sometimes coming out of your phone for a brief moment. Expansion Pass DLC was short and was pretty much the same stuff. The expansion pass is not worth the full price but i got the whole bundle (game + expansion pass) for a very good price so no complaints about that.

A nice combination of the Far Cry and Crysis elements, for example the open world of far cry (but smaller sized) and claiming outposts etc. and the weapon modification system from crysis mixes things up a bit but your selection was short and attachments had restrictions (who's idea was it that i can't put a silencer on the marksman rifle?). Anyway the Story was pretty plain, but it wasn't too bad.

A few odd glitchs i had:

1) Opened a weapon stash vent and when i got past the little hideout/outpost unlocked video i was on the other side of the vent and after moving around fell through the map.
(but it did kill me so you won't fall forever :P)
2) The hospital you need to get the 8 med packages (4 of which need to be shot down). I destroyed a box holding one of them, but the package got blocked by a light post and it got stuck up there. (-_-')
3) NPCs can be pretty bad, been standing in a queue and the NPC in front of me doesn't move and blocks your progression. Also the goliath couldn't follow for sh!t, so just let the goliath miraculously appear as you move on.

[Fortunetly a 'Reload Last Checkpoint' fixed most of the issues except the goliath :P]

Recommend?: Full price is still a bit too high (especially with the bundle pack)
WAIT FOR A SALE (25% AT LEAST)

Base Game Score: 7/10
Expansion Pass Score: 5/10 (and that's just for 'Beyond the Wall')

Ok, i'm gonna be be short and sweet with this one.

Campaign: 6/10
Multiplayer: 4/10
Zombies: N/A (because i always crashed at the intro)

Now im being rather generous with that score because simply...
this was the most boring call of duty i have ever played.
I respect Infinity Ward for trying something different with the whole space thing, but honestly it just didn't do enough to save this turd of a game.

If you are one of the minority who enjoys this game than good for you, you spend that much money you should get an enjoyable experience, which brings us to Modern Warfare Remastered...

Modern Warfare Remastered

So i kinda guessed that if they combined a great old remastered game with a new one, it was either a great deal or tricking people into buying a turd for an old classic remastered into a shiny new turd with hints of nostalgia.

The game has very little people playing it,
they added their money vacumm "Supply drops" into the game because...
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. as well as other ways to get a bit more chedder, like this:

It was recently announced that a DLC pack that you could purchase for the original version would be released for the remastered version and will be more expensive than the original pack... Lovely

2016 was the year i am convinced that activison doesnt want to make a decent game and just wants all the chedder. So if you still enjoy the recent entries in the series than that's fine. However for me, if they keep this up with the following games and keep doing these insanely obvious cash grab moves than i am done with the franchise. I don't care what they combine with 2017's entry.

Do I Recommend it?
Hell No
Will that stop you?
Probably not, but that's your choice

A Fix included if you experience this issue

I played this game a long time ago back on PS3 or Xbox 360...
i cant remember which as i had both.

Anyway, The game itself plays fine (at least as far as i got) however i got screwed over by some stupid save profile glitch. I must have played an hour or so (not far past the T-Rex) went and saved and then closed the game. (as any other working game)

I come back later and the "profile" doesn't recognise my save and makes me start the game over, of course after some research the solution i found was ... make 2 profiles and for some reason that did allow you to return to a save but i lost my progress in the research and testing and have to start from the beginning.

Now while 1 hour is not to bad to have to recover, but i was only interested in playing this game once then uninstalling it. Now i just don't care, the game gave me a crummy glitch and im not bothering to start over again.

You might think this is a dumb review but i'm just being honest. So...

The 1 Hour i got to play and from what i remember of it was a good game. Don't get me wrong, the game is good and i don't like giving it a negative review, If i didnt have this bug and or maybe was more keen to play this enough to start again, i would give it a positive.

Again i'm just being honest, it P!ssed me off that i lost all that progress and found a fix too late. Maybe i'm in the unlucky group of people who had this happen to them... but it happened. So if you purchase this game and are reading this review for some insight or a heads up.
(Fix found on the steam forums)

1. Create a new profile and exit the game
2. Go to C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\Eidos\Tomb Raider - Anniversary
3. Copy the content from the old profile to the new profile
4. Start a new game with your new profile
5. Once in-game, open up the options menu and you should see your savegames.
6. Load your latest savegame and - just in case - save again, using a new savegame.

The crashes i got in this game were so frequent i could not be bothered to finish it. When the game works it works well, stable fps, smooth controls and enjoyable, but for me it seems the game will crash in random enounters with enemies. I have tried running in DX9, changed TextureStreamingMemoryLimit to 2048 & others, running in admin mode, enable disable V-sync and other in game settings. Although this did buy more time... NOTHING has stopped these random encounter crashes. Others have reported loosing saves, Crashes in the loading screens when you press the SPACE bar. I didn't encounter any of those, just the ludicrous amounts of in game crashing. No warnings or anyithing it just freezes for a moment then closed and im back at the desktop with "Bioshock 2.exe has stopped working".

I like this game but these crashes are so much worse for me than the first bioshock remaster, in that game i probably had like 4-5 crashes throughout the whole game. This one, i'm at the last station and already lost count of the amount of crashes (probably 18 or more if i was to guess).

So as much as i like this game i cannot recommend it and i am discusted by the state it's in. If you want to play Bioshock 2 then get/play the original because i didn't have to tinker with that game at all and it worked fine (so better chances).

I really did not want to complain as i received this game for free but it just crashes to frequently for me to endorse this version of the game. If your on the fence then i recommend taking your money else where. and btw the last patch we recieved for these games was in October (a month ago from now) so they may have given up on fixing these titles.

Thanks for Reading, Any advice to help run the game better is welcome.

(P.S. Running Win7 with a GTX 970 & 16GB)

A Couple of fixes provided

Firstly, aside from issues with crashing and so on. the game is fantastic. I'm so glad that 2K gave a free copy of the Remastered editions for everyone who owned the original titles. The game is just as fun and immersive as i remember.

So, now the problems...

My absolute biggest issue was the constant crashing, if you play this i strongly urge you to hit the quick save button like every 5 minutes or so. Now there are some fixes out there people have suggested and i will place them below this segment. But please note that i had finished the game before i found these fixes online and never got to try them out so i cannot vouch for them. But if they help then great.

1) Platform Update for Windows 7 (General Crash Fix)

Now if you have a legit version of Windows 7 and keep relatively up to date with windows updates, then more than likely you have this update installed already. (but check by going into Windows update > View update history > See installed updates and type in the search bar at the top right "KB2670838")
if it appears then you have it installed, if not then install it now.

If you do not have the update installed then download it here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36805

2) Run as... (Small Crash Fix)

ok, this i hate to recommend but people have said that it works.

Locate your Bioshock.exe file in which ever drive you have the game installed.
typically: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\BioshockRemastered\Builds\Final\Bioshock.exe

Once you see the .exe file right click it and go "Properties" then "Compatibility" and tick:
"Run in 640x480 screen resolution" and
"Run this program as an administrator"

This will not set the in-games resolution to 480p but your desktop resolution.

Lastly be sure to launch from the .exe file from now on and NOT from steam.
For quick access to the .exe, hold CTRL + SHIFT and drag the file to the desktop to create a shortcut the file.

So basically that's all i am here to say. Yes these problems should not exsist and should be corrected. but i specifically cannot complain as i recieved the 2 games for free.

No

If you have never played the original and have a decent medium to high end PC then i say yes , it's a risk but at the discounted price it's not a huge loss. however the choice is still yours.

unless it is fixed from its current state, buy the original to ensure a higher chance of a proper working game

Ultimately this is your choice, i cannot tell you what to do and i cannot tell you how to spend your money. However i can tell you my experiences and some quick fix info that i found to help you get it running better however i can (should you choose to purcahse the game).

Thanks for reading, anyone who has some tips and fixes to help get the game running better is welcome to leave a response in this thread.

btw i only gave this game a thumbs up as it skewed ever so slightly that way for me personally, if there was a mixed option or of that equivalent, i would have chosen that one.