Recent reviews by Spirit

I am loving this DLC so far. When they introduced the anti gravity mechanic in the base game, I was kinda disappointed they didn't go crazy and made a puzzle in the realm of something like M.C. Escher's Relativity. Well they implemented in this DLC and now I'm happy.

Truly love the game mechanics of tearing off components of large mechanical creatures, each with their own behaviors and weaknesses. I really liked Zero Dawn in that regard and Forbidden West doesn't disappoint.

What I liked:
1. The art, world, and character design. Forbidden West is a visual spectacle and I find myself using photo mode a lot.
2. Combat mechanics (as mentioned earlier).
3. Traversal. I like the introduction of the new mount and being able to climb mountains.
4. Performance. The game runs superbly well. I am running a RTX 4080 with an AMD Ryzen 7 3700x 8-core and 16 GB of ram and I get around 100 FPS at the highest quality at 2k resolution.

What I didn't like:
1. Excessive hand-holding. Whenever there was any sort of puzzle I came across, Aloy would just say what I should do next without giving me a minute to think. I tried to see if there were any setting to turn this off (I tried contextual reminders) but I don't think there was any.
2. Side Quests. Some are not bad but most of them are your average fetch quests/find this missing person. I found myself starting to skip dialogue for these as I just wanted to get it over with and get the skill points.

I want to mention, because this is a 3rd person game and how firing arrows work, there is a quirk where if you are behind cover but your aiming reticle is not, you can essentially shoot at enemies with your arrows behind a wall and enemies can even fire back at you. This makes some battle situations too easy (especially against human encounters) and this isn't a hard thing to do. All in all though, I really enjoyed this sequel.

Beautifully crafted world decorated with intricate puzzles. This game is a visual delight and the mechanics remind me of Portal a little bit. Highly recommend for people looking for their next puzzle game.

My specs:
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core
Nvidia RTX 4080
3200 16 GB DDR4 RAM
Windows 11

I beat the game and my experience with it has been mostly positive. I've been running the game at a 2560x1440 resolution at fullscreen with all visual graphics settings set to high with ray tracing off. I get about 40 FPS in the big areas like Koboh and around 70 FPS in smaller areas. I'm sure the performance would be better if I played at a smaller resolution but for me, these frames were fine enough that I enjoyed playing the game. Ray tracing makes it extremely laggy though with my specs which I believe was the cause on why my game crashed once. I turned it off though and it was fine from then on.

As for the game itself, I really liked the movement, enemy mechanics, and combat in Fallen Order and I think they improved upon that in Survivor which was the main reason I bought this game. I didn't really care for the story to be honest. It was like watching a blockbuster film, story was not great but not terrible either.

I do recommend that if you decide you want to play this game, you should get it at a discount if you can.

A fun little competitive round of mini-games that you have to compete against other players to see who comes out on top. Based on the popular Netflix series Squid Games and has similar gameplay to Fall Guys. This game has no loot nor items nor grind to be had. Just pure unadulterated fun. Be prepared for the unrelenting rage and profanity other people will spew in this cage of insanity.

P.S.: It's amazing how fast this one developer (as for as I know) put this game out since Squid Game's release. As a game developer myself, kudos to you good sir!

For the Portal lovers out there wanting more difficult puzzles, I believe Portal Reloaded will scratch that itch for you. The extra layer of complexity added by the third portal really makes for some brain-melting puzzles when you're first introduced to the mechanic. That doesn't lessen the fact that the later puzzles are still very difficult; I would say even more difficult than any puzzle in the base game (Portal 2).

One thing that the game can improve upon is the explanation of the different colored energy fields that you can walk through. You know, like the blue energy barriers that blocks portals but not the player? I remember seeing an orange and green one too and I don't think it was ever explained on what they do. That left me stuck on a puzzle until I figured it out by accident.

Note: There is a bug that I came across in the first puzzle using the light bridge. The future cube did not spawn and I could bring the present cube into the future. What fixed this bug for me was to go back to the main menu and select the appropriate chapter (I think it's called "Light Bridges") to start over.

A satisfactory ending to an excellent game. The new dungeon, puzzles, enemies, and boss does not disappoint and I feel this content is something CrossCode fans will come to enjoy.

Although I do hear that Instatainment is working on a new CrossCode game...

Update: So it turns out I assumed too much based on one cutscene stating that Radical Fish Games might be working on a new CrossCode game. In their 3/20/2021 update message, they have no plans on making a new CrossCode game and are moving on to other projects. It's been an amazing journey and I wish them the best on their new ventures.

First wave: Kill zeds, get money, use money to buy/upgrade weapons, heal your wounds, then face more/stronger enemies next wave. Rinse and repeat until you face the boss. Take on the challenge yourself or do it with up to 5 teammates (can be more if the server you play on is modded to do so).

For me, this is a good game to unwind and not think too much after a days work in the office if you want to kill hundreds of things with any of the 9 classes you could play as.

This game brings to life the fascination of exploring the world of ocean life and what unknowns lurk beneath the depths to where even light cannot reach. It is amazing the kind of atmosphere this game creates in that regard, always wanting to inch further into the void below you while also being frightened by any danger you may come across in all three dimensions. Not only must you find a way off this alien planet, this world holds a secret that is much bigger than yourself.

There is something I want to point out. There are times where you must acquire certain items in order to proceed further into the story and the game does not hold your hand to show you where you will find it. This is a sandbox game where you must feel invested to explore and discover things yourself. If you are bored at this idea or don't have time for this type of gameplay, then this may not be the game for you.

This gets my "Must Experience" stamp.

My PC specs


Performance
I get about 60 FPS on average with 90% of the graphics settings on the highest setting running at a resolution of 2560x1440. I encountered one loading bug where I had to restart the game and one minor visual bug with foliage that cleared away after a short while in my 84 hours of playing the game (as of this writing). Whatever performance issues there were in the past, it seems the Guerrilla team has resolved it.

Game Review
The open world landscape is picturesque and makes you want to use photo mode a lot. Combat is solid and makes you feel like a hunter. I really liked the progression of how the story unfolded. Voice acting and character animations during character interactions were good. Although I felt that in scenes that called for sadness that dealt with death/grief, both of those aspects were very mediocre and never sold it for me. You do see an improvement in character animations in the Frozen Wilds DLC though. I give it my "Must Play" stamp.