Recent reviews by Veles

This twink has my brain in a choke hold.

(Very good game, probably better than the original Souls trilogy as a fan of ~10 years. Play it. It basically runs on a potato.)

I decided to revise my review of the game given the fact that, since then, I've put in another 115 hours and the game's finally out of EA - my opinion remains unchanged, however: this is a solid game and is 100% worth the price.

This game is, as members of the game's Discord have described it: "An ARPG, but without months of grinding". Runs last around an hour at most, and the progression is fast enough that if you make a mistake with an endgame build, you can very easily be back at that point with a revised build in under an hour.

The skill system is something else that I'm quite a fan of - skill triggers and class/race/god bonuses can have effects that aren't stated upfront, but exist if you read between the lines a bit (for instance: a skill that gives a debuff to enemies you deal fire damage to can interact with other skills in such a way that you can gain stacking retaliation damage upon hitting an enemy, you can make an HP-scaling one-shot that's triggered by inducing one class' prayer self-damage, and so forth).

Don't be turned off by the visuals(which, personally, I adore) - this game's worth a buy, and the Discord is more than open to answering your questions as a new player. The community's one of the best I've been in.

...still waiting on playable Brungles.

Now, most people might look at this game and write it off as a cheap Unity game like the myriad of others you see on this platform - they're a dime a dozen, poorly-made, buggy, and are usually a chore to play. Well, this game's 2 of those things and I'll let you take a guess as to which those are.

Graphics: They're... nothing to write home about, frankly. Just look at some screenshots and you'll see that the game's not aiming for graphical fidelity in the slightest; however, the level of detail in this game borders obsessive - packaging for items and cars, specifically. Normal store-bought items have incredibly detailed packaging which has readable text (well, if you speak Finnish, that is) and the cars have an attention to detail regarding vehicles rivals even AAA games at times (even outside of the realm of graphics. Name one other game where you have to pre-heat diesel engine glowplugs)

Sound: It's passable. Your project car sounds like a veritable rust bucket, the tractor certainly sounds like a tractor, the wildlife ambience is rather soothing to listen to (albeit repetitive), and the insect sounds are grating (as they should be)

Performance: On a Ryzen 1600X with 16GB DDR4 and a 1070, it ran fine with a few hiccups. I'd imagine it's a more CPU-intensive game than a GPU-intensive one due to the way the game handles vehicles which is probably the root of the frame dips and stutters.

Gameplay: Now we get into the meat of the game. It's incredibly polarizing, to say the least. Do you like monotonous grinding with lots of waiting? If so, then this game might just be for you. I'm not even sure if I like the moneymaking aspect of this game and I've spent 67 hours in it at the time of writing this review. However, this game might be one of the best project car simulators I've played (it might even be the only one.)

Money in My Summer Car has two functions along with being your main motivation for participating in the monotonous busywork of the job system - the first is obviously sustenance: maintaining your house's fusebox, paying bills, buying food at the store, etc.; and the second is sinking money into your project car, which starts the game completely disassembled in your driveway leaving you to painstakingly put it back together bolt-by-bolt and screw-by-screw.

Regarding the moneymaking aspect of this game, though, you'll be doing a lot of busywork and waiting for jobs in order to get money for both of these things; regardless, the novelty of this game still hasn't worn off after over 60 hours and the monotony can sometimes feel oddly comforting, if I'm being honest. Regarding the game's flaws, the physics engine is incredibly janky and sometimes sends important items flying away for no real reason, the game does a poor job at explaining anything and I would recommend anyone interested in playing this game to use this guide [my-summer-car.fandom.com] on the My Summer Car wiki as a companion piece, and finally the aforementioned gameplay loop which can feel exhausting at times.

Conclusion: I won't lie, it's a hard sell unless you want a very in-depth, down-to-Earth project car sim with survival elements, but if the concept appeals to you, buy it - it's almost definitely one-of-a-kind.

Well, this review's been a long time coming.

Presentation: Kind of generic. Nothing really stood out to me, but at least the UI isn't cluttered with unnecessary elements

Performance: On a Ryzen 1600X with a GTX 1070 and 16GB DDR4, it ran well on medium settings. Frame drops were fairly infrequent.

Sound: If I'm being brutally honest, it's generic. The voice acting is passable at best, cheesy at worst, and the music is forgettable for the most part save for a few boss themes.

Gameplay: Where to begin? This game has the worst combat system I've experienced in any video game. King's Field for the PSX has a more enjoyable combat system and I know I'll be lynched for having this opinion. If, after forcing myself to play a game for 500 hours waiting for the combat system to finally click and it still feels like hot garbage, maybe it's not a good combat system.. The only weapons that felt decent in my hands were the Hunting Horn and Hammer while the rest felt weightless and made me question whether or not I'd actually kill the monster in a timely manner.

There are many more things I'd love to discuss in detail in this review, but I'll keep it short and to the point: Don't buy it.

Presentation: Upon starting the game you can immediately tell love and care was put into this project. The menus have a sleek minimalist aesthetic that I myself am a fan of. Others may not like it for straying too far from the original Half-Life, but I took a liking to it pretty quickly. The HUD also feels like a modern re-imagining of the original's (and I even prefer it over Half Life 2's HUD). The graphics speak for themselves, although some of the weapon models look like they belong in another game, particularly the SPAS-12, and Xen's visual design strays from the original concept a bit too much for my liking.

Gameplay: It's Half-Life 1 for the most part; although, some levels have their enemy counts multiplied tenfold compared to the original or were stretched out with new additions. Inversely, other levels have been streamlined and their puzzles simplified. I'd argue that the original Half Life had better pacing in this regard, but that's purely subjective and some may even prefer these changes.

Sound: Phenomenal in most areas. While the voice acting can be hit or miss, the ambient sounds are on point and help sell the atmosphere. One minor gripe I have, however, is that the music sometimes doesn't fit the gameplay: an instance of this would be a stealth section early on wherein the soundtrack is an intense guitar piece - the dissonance was so jarring it actually took me out of the experience for a moment.

Performance: Running the game on a GTX 1070 with a Ryzen 1600X and 16GB of DDR4 RAM, the performance was somewhat inconsistent. Most of the time I got a stable 60 FPS, but on a few occasions the frames dropped into the single digits for seemingly no reason. Minor framedrops into the mid-high 40s and low 50s were semi-frequent, but those hardly hampered the experience.

Conclusion: Don't go in expecting a faithfully recreated Half-Life 1, instead treat it more like a re-imagining of the game and you'll have a good time if you can bear with the performance hiccups. If you're on the fence choosing between this or the original Half-Life as your first entry into the series, go with the original.

It's very easy to tell when love and care was put into a game, and Brigador shows that love and care in droves.

But there's one thing that needs to be set straight: this isn't a fast-paced twin stick shooter. It's more methodical, and the controls will not do you any favours starting out, as you WILL be fighting with them to some extent, and you will end up overwhelmed if you rush in without a plan. If you pay attention, then you'll realize that this is a sign that you need to slow down and take inventory, starting with what your vehicle can do.

Each vehicle has its own quirks. Some can mount heavier armaments at the expense of other attributes, some can shoot over buildings, some can hide behind buildings, some have offset hardpoints or limited gun rotation that you have to account for while operating them, and some even come with auto-firing weapons to do some of the work for you.

Weapons typically fall into a few archetypes, and are stratified by a weight class. Vehicles can only mount weapons that specifically fit their hardpoints' weight classes, and each weapon has list of parameters detailing what it's specialized against. Certain weapons might work better against shielded enemies, some might work better against unshielded armour, and some might strictly be for punching holes through cover. It's a solid system, and part of the fun in this game comes from experimenting to find what works for you.

On top of that the game looks gorgeous despite being capable of running on a potato. I'll always commend great visual design over bean-counting polygons and resource-heavy ray tracing. The game has a sort of retro vibe to it that doesn't feel cheap or played as a basic aesthetic, and the chunkiness lends itself to the chunky vehicle designs that feel just as intertwined with the art style as they are the lore.

Which there is in spades. While the main story is light on exposition, you can purchase information with the money accrued from missions to learn just *what* the history of this active war zone is. Arguably, I can't speak much on the deeper aspects of the lore, as most of my time spent with the game has been with the gameplay, but there's plenty to sink your teeth into for those inquisitive enough.

In conclusion, It all comes together to feel like a simulation of sorts - a setting with fleshed-out and predefined rules that you, the player, have to put time into in order to understand. The lore is tied with design which is tied to gameplay which is tied to the player experience, and the more you put in, the more you get out.

I'd wholeheartedly recommend this game even off-sale. As a bonus, it works flawlessly out the box on Linux.

Performance: Optimized and tuned for PC surprisingly well compared to Fromsoft’s earlier attempts (DS1 PTDE and DS2 vanilla). I get a consistent 60FPS at 1080p at high/ultra settings on my system consisting of a GTX 1070, 16GB DDR4, and a Ryzen 1600X, but I’ve heard of people getting 60FPS at 1440p with weaker systems than mine.

Gameplay/Presentation: It’s certainly different from Souls and you need to play by its rules: deflecting instead of dodging, focusing on breaking posture, and using prosthetic tools. The combat is polished and the boss fights are some of the most challenging in any modern Fromsoftware title while also being the most enjoyable. On the presentation side of things, the game looks gorgeous despite the slight visual downgrade the game received after the E3 2018 trailers; the soundtrack mostly fits the setting and some of the ambient tracks capture the atmosphere of the areas wherein they play; and most of the normal sounds are satisfying and crisp.

Flaws: The game lacks variety for most players after first few playthrough. Most of the prosthetics and combat arts aren’t really balanced leading to a homogeneity of playstyles: an example being Ichimonji’s dominance before one of the later patches. Some sounds are too loud and feel out of place such as the deathblow sound. Some mechanics feel thrown in for little reason and rarely utilized, such as the consecutive wall jump and Anti-Air Deathblow, the latter of which most players won’t even know how to use until its usage becomes moot.

Conclusion: Sekiro is an enjoyable, but somewhat formulaic iteration on the modern Fromsoftware action-adventure genre. The game is short, but multiple endings make up for that shortcoming. The lack of playstyle variety and replayability, however, leads me to suggest buying the game on sale.

I'll keep this review short and succinct for those interested: the game is well worth the asking price. The DLC isn't pay-to-win and the gameplay loop is very much enjoyable. If you're a fan of roguelikes, it's a must-buy.

Dying light is Techland’s 2015 spiritual successor to their previously-developed series Dead Island. Although the game shares many similarities with Dead Island such as levelled loot, level-ups, skill trees, co-op, and character progression, it’s still worth purchasing this game for its many new features and the innovative, but sometimes clunky, parkour mechanics. In 2016 Techland released one expansion titled “The Following” as well as the free DLC “Parkour Fever” and another paid DLC titled “The Bozak Horde” beforehand.The game, as of the time of this review, is still getting new content made by Techland themselves. So let’s see how this game holds up 2 years after release and if the mixed reception at launch is still true

In Dying Light, you play as Kyle Crane, a man hired by the fictional GRE to track down sensitive files stolen by one of their own operatives in the city of Harran, based off of modern-day Istanbul, Turkey. Without spoiling much, let’s just say that things quickly turn sour and you end up as an errand boy at one of the remaining strongholds in the area to gain their trust and track down the aforementioned rogue operative.

The setting of Harran itself is a great contrast from most modern zombie games which take place wealthy countries with plenty of firearms to go around and sturdy housing to holdout in. Instead, much of Dying Light’s first act takes place in the slums with poorly-paved roads, poorly-built housing with wooden awnings that you could potentially fall through with one wrong jump, and plenty of clustered buildings to jump between. The game’s second act, one that I won’t spoil much of, is a city with more modern-looking buildings with cables linking from one building to the next and ziplines hanging from towers and other tall buildings which contrasts nicely with the first act’s shanties and cramped alleyways.

Dying Light’s gameplay is very similar to the previous Dead Island titles but with more polish and the addition of parkour and a true open world as well as a day and night cycle that affects gameplay dramatically. During the night, zombies become stronger and a new zombie, the Volatile is added to mix but you are given an incentive to play during the night by the doubled XP gains.. The Volatiles provide a great early game threat as inexperienced players will rush to safe areas dotted about the two areas in the game during the evening hours to avoid unnecessary confrontation with these enemies whilst more experienced ones will use this time to level up faster. In addition to the standard zombie and Volatile, Dying Light also has 5 other zombie types which I’ll keep a secret as to not spoil the experience.

Let’s now address the feature that was advertised the most in Dying Light aside from the nighttime mechanics - the parkour. While the game’s parkour feels spotty at times with the player character sometimes launching himself off of walls with one wrong button press, the system does work most of the time and ends up being one of the most satisfying movement systems I’ve personally experienced in gaming, even more than other games with parkour mechanics such as Mirror’s Edge and, to an extent, Assassin’s Creed. As the player progresses through the game and levels up, he can unlock more parkour moves such as a slide, the ability to roll before hitting the ground to negate fall damage, and a brief wall-climbing ability as well as much more.

The combat system, on the other hand, has only seen polish and new features since Dead Island. Dying Light’s combat system allows you to break a zombie’s bones, cut them into pieces with bladed weapons, blow them up with homemade grenades, set them on fire with molotovs, swing your two-handed weapons around in a circle around you to kill off the horde surrounding you, and, like I said before, much more.

Dead Island’s weapon modification system returns with even more ways to modify the game’s arsenal of baseball bats, katanas, Egyptian swords, cricket bats, wrenches, machetes, pickaxes, etcetera, with electricity, fire, nails, and even toxins if you so desire. Though, sadly, gun modifications like those found in Dead Island do not return.

Dying Light’s Chrome Engine 6 provides stunning displays of graphical fidelity and beauty despite the supposed downgrades given to the game as well as the orange filter and film grain added over everything. Weapons will get bloody and broken with use, zombies’ bodies will become damaged as you fight them, and occasionally heads will explode when a bullet passes through them making the game’s gore and weapon durability system responsive and detailed.


In summary, Dying Light is an experience you should pay the 60 USD or whatever your country’s equivalent may be. Who will love this game? Fans of Dead Island,Horror, and zombies in general. Who will hate this game? Those who are easily motion sick, tired of zombies, or those who strongly disliked Dead Island.

Left 4 Dead 2 is the sequel to 2008’s critically-acclaimed co-op zombie FPS, Left 4 Dead. But most of you are likely to already have known that. Upon launch, the game was praised by critics for its improved combat system, new special infected, the addition of melee weapons, and the change in locale from the northern US state of Pennsylvania and its surrounding area to the the southern states of Georgia, New Orleans, and Louisiana. On the other hand, some of the fans of the original attempted to boycott the title, claiming that the art style and overall feel was too sharp of a contrast from the original. Now that this game is nearing its eighth year on Steam, how well does it fare compared to today’s FPS/co-op titles?

In Left 4 Dead 2, you play as one of four survivors, an ex-con with a suit obsession, your stereotypical southerner, a food-loving American Football coach, and… Rochelle. Each of these characters has their own personality and backstory, but they all play the same, which isn’t an issue as it keeps players from scrambling for a character they believe to be superior to the others. Valve later added the original campaigns to the game in an update which also includes the original survivors from the original Left 4 Dead exclusive to those campaigns: Bill, Francis, Zoey, and Louis; though from my experience they seem to have the same AI as their L4D2 counterparts and not their original AI.

The core gameplay of Left 4 Dead 2 is simple, you go from point A to point B in a map all while fending off waves of the infected and the occasional special infected, 3 of which, The Jockey, Spitter, and Charger, were introduced into L4D2 with the Smoker, Hunter, Boomer, Witch, and Tank returning from the original game.These special infected will range from annoying (Jockey) to challenging (Tank and, to an extent, Witch). In each level there is usually a crescendo event where the horde spawn rates are increased and you are required to push forward to stop the countless hordes from spawning. These crescendos usually appear near the end of a level and send you to a saferoom where you can gear up for the next segment of the campaign, which usually consists of 4 or so levels on average that builds up to a finale where you are tasked to either hold out in an area until a rescue vehicle arrives or run a gauntlet to the rescue vehicle all while fighting more hordes special infected and infected.

Left 4 Dead 2 ships with 13 campaigns, 7 of which are new (Dead Center, The Passing, Dark Carnival, Swamp Fever, Hard Rain, The Parish, and the community-made Cold Stream) and 6 returning from the original game (No Mercy, Crash Course, Death Toll, Dead Air, Blood Harvest, and The Sacrifice). These campaigns are all unlocked from the beginning but have a set chronology not dependent on their difficulty. There is also versus, an asymmetrical Infected vs Survivor PvP mode which has built up a large following over time; Scavenge, another PvP mode in which the survivors must find fuel to power a generators whilst the infected attempt to inhibit their progress and ultimately kill them; Survival, a time-based co-op mode where players must hold out against a limitless horde of infected; and Campaign; the standard Left 4 Dead experience where you go from point A to B. Both Campaign and Versus have a realism option which will turn off player outlines, make the infected stronger and more resilient, remove rescue closets which bring back survivors who have died, and make certain infected instantly kill players upon hitting them in an attempt to increase the teamwork required. In addition to all of this, the game comes with 20 mutations which change the rules of the game to alter the player’s experience. Some of these mutations include Gib Fest, where everyone is given a light machine gun and a magnum with infinite ammo; Last Man on Earth, a mutator where you are unassisted by bots or players and must fight only special infected; and Confogl, a mutator mainly used for competitive versus matches.

The game’s arsenal was expanded from the first game to include firearms such as the IMI Desert Eagle, Mac-10, Franchi SPAS-12, Kalashnikov AK-47, FN SCAR, and an H&K MSG90A1 sniper rifle as well as melee weapons ranging from crowbars and baseball bats to katanas and police batons. The game also includes a new throwable, the Bile Bomb; a new healing item, defibrillators; and a new secondary healing item, the adrenaline shot. These items alter the gameplay in ways the player wouldn’t expect and add to the possibilities introduced in the first game.

With official workshop support, a active (but sometimes toxic) community, and 13 highly-replayable campaigns without counting the ones online and on the workshop, Left 4 Dead 2 is well worth the 20 dollar price tag and, like always, is definitely worth the money when on sale.