Recent reviews by ɠųąཞɖıąŋ ąŋɠɛƖ!

Jedi: Fallen Order is a surprisingly successful game. A story of an on-the-run padawan following Order-66, Jedi: Fallen Order is a rich story-driven experience, with several likable characters. The game is attractive, reasonably optimized and is animated extremely fluidly. Gameplay is comprised of Tomb Raider-esque climbing/traversal, puzzling set pieces and satisfying lightsaber combat. Force powers have oomph, if albeit lacking variety, and the game has more than one plot twist. The game is about 20 hours long, with tons of hidden achievements, secrets and collectibles.

While the game is often an excellent experience, the game would have benefited tremendously from more relevant collectible loot. Because all found items are simply aesthetic, exploration often feels pointless. A horde-based multiplayer mode that could be played cooperatively with friends would have been a truly welcome addition. In fact, I often found myself dreamily wondering what competitive lightsaber combat would have felt like, within the confines of this game. Some climbing areas felt unnecessarily difficult and often enemies would string/chain attacks that were so wantonly unfair that I actually lowered the difficulty numerous times.

Despite some small foibles, Jedi: Fallen Order is a solid contender for game of the year and I recommend it.

Recommended.

8.5/10

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is one of the seminal first person shooters of all time. Blessed with a master-class campaign renown for its frenetic energy, realistic military combat, as well as its wide-variety of spec-ops infiltration, Modern Warfare has a mature, surprising story, with numerous plot twists. The remaster is an excellent revival of this title, revitalizing a game that new generations can now enjoy. The game holds up extraordinarily well and the remaster allows it to complete effectively with modern shooters. Additionally, the multiplayer was insanely popular for its time.

Unfortunately, despite having great graphics, some flaws exist in this remastered version. The game crashed for me early on, and I realized that I had to cap the game at 60Hz. This is a shame because the game is spectacularly optimized, with it running flawlessly at 4K, Ultra @ 120 fps. Once I capped the game at 60Hz, all crashing stopped. The game also has annoying stuttering during cut scenes. Game AI is still atrociously dumb at times and enemies can be wantonly unfair as you get swarmed by hundreds of bullets/rockets at a time. Multiplayer is, of course to be expected, a ghost town.

Still, none of these issues detract substantially from what Modern Warfare Remastered set out to accomplish, which is to enshrine a masterpiece first person shooter in a vehicle that newer generations can enjoy with performance/graphics upgrades.

Highest possible recommendation.

9.5/10.

I'm a big Bloober Team fan. I loved Layers of Fear and I thought it was the best horror game of the year, despite the fact that many snob-reviewers gave it unjustifiably critical scores. I enjoyed Observer and thought it was an existentially brain-melting sci-fi ride even if it did have lots of flaws. However, Blair Witch is a definitive step backwards. Blair Witch is a game with an interesting idea, polished production, wrapped in a litany of bugs, flaws and errors that ruin the experience. Despite having great graphics, Blair Witch has poor Unreal Engine 4 performance. The gameplay with Bullet, your dog companion is unique and interesting, however the game is very fragile and relies on a series of key unlock events. If you skip a specific event, or pursue the game in the wrong order, you break the experience, resulting in blocked progress, which happened to me.

Ultimately, if you don't mind paying 30 USD for a 6 hour experience that consists of 3-4 hours of aimless wandering in the dark, glitchy woods, then Blair Witch is for you. But if you have more substantial expectations for your money, pass on this game until it drops to 10-15 USD, maybe less.

Not worth the time. You'll find better games elsewhere.

6/10.

Remnant is strictly an amateur-hour experience. Where do we begin? We can start by its hefty 40GB+ install which provides you with a shockingly small world comprised of about half a dozen contiguous zones, less than 10 armor sets, about a dozen weapons, 6-10 NPCs and a sub 10 hour storyline.

Wait, seriously? Yes. Seriously.

The game is a bloated mess with mediocre performance to match. On a system that runs Devil May Cry 5 at 85 fps, 4K, ultra and Doom 2016 at 110 fps at 4K, ultra, I was getting about 70 fps at 4K ultra in Remnant. Obviously the game must be gorgeous right? Actually, the game looks like a 2007-2009 title with a super-rez texture pack applied on top. No, I'm not kidding and I invite you to check my screenshots and see for yourself. The game is absolutely pedestrian in its appearance and runs modestly at best. Some character animations are great and some are just laughably bad. Most are serviceable but nothing special. Character models look ripped out of the Unity asset store and lip-syncing is practically not there. You would imagine that a game that prides itself on split-second dodging and shooting would be built atop a state-of-the-art fps-based graphics engine but, instead, the game runs on something that even most 2080/VII users will only be able to play at 100-120 fps at 1440p. Kind of disappointing when dozens of modern games look, feel and play better.

The game itself also lacks a compelling story. You're quickly immersed in some nonsense, post-apocalyptic tale about tree creatures destroying the world. You're given no real context or history, the introductory cut scene is laughably bad as you're plunged into Ward 13 after traveling on a dinghy for who knows how long. You then bounce through a series of fetch missions ripped out of the worst possible MMO quest-lines ever, only to hit a final boss fight ... the end. There is practically no character development whatsoever, both with characters in Ward 13, nor your place in the world. There's no surprise plot-twist, satisfying ending or rewarding character interactions. The game literally feels like a coop, offline C-budget MMO. The story is just an excuse to participate in the game's combat and grinding.
Only the most dedicated, focused players will be able to follow the story, much less want to.

But how're the combat and gameplay? Well, the combat's not bad. The game is like Dark Souls Lite, or perhaps a Vindictus with guns. You dodge lots of cheap mobs and use a combination of melee and ranged weapon attacks to dispatch them. Dodging and shooting both feel good, albeit not great since animations and feedback are limited. When the combat works, it really works and at its core, the game's central premise isn't bad, per se. However, the world is just a stitched quilt of moderately-sized zones, much like Vindictus. Very few grunts feel dramatically different. Some rush at you for overpowered melee attacks. Others just take pot-shots from long range. All feel pretty rote and the AI is nigh-nonexistent. Bosses seem very varied and interesting in the trailers but most are just mediocre and very MMO-esque in their application. Some run with large flailing attacks that you dodge. Others jump on pillars and shoot slow-moving projectiles at you. Yet others may move around quickly.

All of them however are cheap and some are very cheap because they summon a horde of grunts at all times. Remnant doesn't just exercise bad game design, it revels in it. Every difficult boss fight is precisely so because you're constantly inundated with grunts. The bosses aren't interesting, per se, or even challenging most of the times, even at higher difficulties. The challenge in Remnant comes strictly from making bosses inconceivably ludicrous bullet sponges (1 billion hitpoints? srsly?), or by having them attack with 3 different attacks simultaneously or by simply flooding the map with grunts that slow you down or chip at your health unceasingly.

This could all be forgivable if the game gave you a ton of great perks, abilities and gear. It doesn't. My friend and I had played approximately 4-6 hours through the game before we picked up any new loot. I'm sure we may have missed some along the way but as a looter shooter, this game is an abject failure. It's stingy with perk points which have a small effect on your character, as well as weapon upgrades which actually hurt you in the long run and new equipment is tough to find and almost purely cosmetic. Perks only give decimal-sized bonuses to your abilities and need to be stacked dozens of times to produce any kind of noticeable effect. This means you need to grind the same, ugly, boring, story-bereft, grunt-infested areas over and over. If the game looked good and ran great, this would be forgivable but since the game is mediocre at best, the game feels like a chore...a job. Weapon upgrades are dumb improvements provided by simple drops and actually hurt you because enemies, even low level ones, scale as your weapons scale. What this means is that your new shiny beam gun, or crossbow or hand cannon will simply feel impotent as even basic grunt health totals skyrocket to make the game "balanced".

Never in a looter shooter, have I encountered gameplay that punishes you for discovering, upgrading and improving your weapons. Before Remnant, that is. Boss fights feel like bullet-sponge fiestas and you often spend inordinate amounts of time replaying areas just to beat an enemy that, honestly, is not only obvious to beat but also boring to vanquish. The map zones are all generated dynamically, which on the surface, may sound inspired but result in you traipsing through 3-4 identical dungeons in one zone instance, each with an important key or item you have to pick up. Where was the Key of So-and-So? Was it in purple stair-ridden dungeon #1, purple stair-ridden dungeon #2 or purple stair-ridden dungeon #3? Not only do they use the same tilesets but often, the dungeon layouts themselves are identical (or nigh-identical), making pointless wandering in Remnant an official pastime. Couple this with practically no in-game or NPC-based direction and you will often have *no* idea what you're supposed to be doing. But, on the bright side, you probably won't care what you're doing anyway. Enjoy passing by the same hotel sign more than 12 times, on 8 different buildings! More often than not, you'll stumble onto a boss by simply pushing forward blindly until the next break in monotony shows up. That, is Remnant in a nutshell.

Remnant is a C-grade MMO, rife with grind, lacking any ambition, soul or style. It is everything that is bad with any MMO you've played in the last decade, without itself ever being an MMO. Boring, amateurish, incomplete story, married to poor graphics, flat characters and repetitive combat, in antiseptic zones that carry woefully underpowered and infrequent loot. The forums are filled with toxic, lifeless tools that think that hours of rote muscle memory and occasional serendipity confer "gamer cred" status.

Remnant isn't worth picking up on a sale, not even with friends. The game works but is boring, repetitive and trite. In short, it's a bore and if you have a real life or other games on your list, you'll want to avoid this complete waste of time.

Not worth the time. You'll find better games elsewhere.

5.5/10.

*I can only do what I am...a loota shoota.

Hunt has absolutely spectacular environmental graphics, rivaling the best I've ever seen. Its wealth of atmosphere abounds in spades.

You'll find yourself running through a dark copse of trees, as lightning flashes above a grassy field ahead, and you will dread the impending doom that could await at the hands of human hunters or a monstrous metaphysical horror that might lurk in a random, lonely barn. In this way, Hunt's core concept is excellent. However, despite having weapon customization, character perks, consumables and character skin options, the game feels remarkably empty and devoid of purpose. You enter the map, find three clues, confront a monstrous boss and kill it. Then you defend waves of human-controlled hunters as you hurry towards an extraction point. Sometimes human players set traps and try to camp a boss spot but for the most part, the game is just endless tension punctuated by brief periods of combative relief.

Your characters die permanently and since you only get about 6-8 per day, the game feels slightly iPhone-like in its artificial bottlenecking of your progress. There is only one map and, while gorgeous and expansive, you will soon be tired of playing in the same environment again and again. The game, while beautiful, is very badly optimized. Despite running the game with a Core i7 8700, 32 GB of RAM and a overclocked Radeon VII, I was still only getting about 65-70 frames on 1440p, ultra or ~ 45 at 4K, ultra and the game would slowly decay in performance wherein after a few matches I'd be looking at 45 fps at 1440p, or 35 at 4K.

Ultimately, the problem with Hunt is that they moved away from the best elements of the original alpha/beta-test, while providing very little content in an online-only experience. The game vacillates between day and night but it's obviously a more oppressively tense experience at night. I like that it has day games but the night games are much brighter than they used to be and that's a shame. Also, with the same map and the same three enemies, which vary surprisingly little in combat, you quickly get a feeling that you've done it all in this game after a scant, few hours. The permanence of death also makes unlocking characters mildly onerous, as does leveling and crafting expensive equipment. I also don't understand why they don't have a single-player mode available (or perhaps offline) so that players that want to practice, can do so without losing everything they have.

Crytek used to be a AAA developer but Hunt honestly feels like an incomplete AAA title or a budget indie game. The game might be worth playing with friends if you obtain it on a 7-15 USD sale but it's not worth playing alone and the community just isn't there. Unless you get it on sale and group up with chums, I'd skip it and go for something else.

Not worth the time. You'll find better games elsewhere.

6.5/10.

The Witcher 2 is a worthy fantasy diversion and an excellent sequel to the original Witcher. The game has effective set pieces, excellent atmosphere, sumptuous graphics, and copious political intrigue. The Witcher 2 also has a fluid and deep combat system that requires careful planning, preparation and positioning in order to prevail. The game's unique universe stands distinct from other more traditional fantasy fare. Unfortunately, the Witcher 2 is not without some substantial weaknesses.

The game, while pretty, is a bloated pig, releasing in 2011 and still bringing absurdly powerful computers to heel at higher settings (60 fps 4K Ultra with a Radeon VII and 32 GB of DDR4?!). The political intrigue is unfortunately rarely plumbed with many missions feeling like MMO fetch quests. Characterization is minimal and the game answers few of its own posed questions, ending precipitously in an unsatisfying cliffhanger. The game often feels like a linear adventure game, rather than an RPG, and Geralt isn't so much roleplayed as ferried along through a direct storyline. While the combat is challenging and profound, the constant prediction of when to use potions or additives and when not, is draining.

The game has an annoying habit of never telling you where to go, or what to do but the game itself is small and so you end up visiting the same characters/locations half a dozen times wondering what to do.

Overall, the Witcher 2 is a unique and rewarding gaming experience but one that is eclipsed by both its progenitor and sequel. Grab it on sale.

Recommended.

8/10.

A serial title produced by the creators of Until Dawn, Man of Medan has a lot to like. The title is designed to be the first in a series of like-minded QT-exploration horror games. Possessed of great ambiance, absolutely stellar graphics/facial animations, as well as a nice sound track, Man of Medan ultimately fails to become more than a temporary diversion. While it is a brisk title, with a cohesive, cogent story and multiple player options, including both local and online multiplayer, Man of Medan exhibits flaws that belie significant scheduling issues that lead to a rushed product.

The game is short, with a moderately paced play-through taking only a scant 4 hours. I finished the game three times, twice in multiplayer and once alone and I barely logged 8.5 hours in the game. For a $30 dollar title, that's a stiff pricing proposition with limited value. Unlike earlier promises, the game doesn't have different threats and each play-through follows the same beats and plot points, dealing with a psychological horror theme. If you're hoping for supernatural, natural or slasher dangers, don't get your hopes up as they're not here. The quicktime events are especially frustrating at times since the saving paradigm prevents you from having the fine tuned control necessary to truly explore a myriad of decisions that spur multiple play-throughs.

I was able to run the game at 4K, Ultra @ 60 fps but due to a pretty noticeable graphics issue, perhaps a memory leak or the like, the game performance steadily deteriorated to approximately half that by the end of the adventure. The game had small, annoying glitches. I couldn't ALT-TAB without crashing the game, requiring a full computer restart. My friend would routinely have sound issues, disappearing pointers requiring game restarts and we had to jump through hoops to get multiplayer to work. The game is positively massive gobbling up 60+GB of backup space and almost 2/3 of that of HD storage. Positively ludicrous for a game with only minimal navigation, in-game cutscenes and QT gameplay.

The game didn't sell well and that's a shame. I really wanted to play Until Dawn on PC but, unfortunately, Sony had to be greedy and mean-spirited and keep it a PS4-exclusive title. Yet another reason I'll never buy a Sony product I guess. Unfortunately, with the short length, significant technical hurdles and comparatively uninspired story/theme, Man of Medan is simply unlikely to spawn a sequel. If it does, I'd be happy to buy it...at a significant discount. Perhaps half the current price.

But for $30, I can't recommend this game. It feels like a quarter of a title, at half the price.

Worth a look.

If you can get the game on sale: 7/10.

Visage is a mixed bag of tricks. On the one hand, the first chapter, dedicated to daughter Lucy is a harrowing, albeit scarcely fleshed out probe into a hellish home imprinted with the vestiges of a child possession. The atmosphere is thick, although not entirely unlike Silent Hills: PT. Spectacular graphics and rich atmosphere abound and the game offers both simmering dread, as well as pointedly sharp jump scares. Truly tense moments like the first meeting with "Friend" in the closet and the truly twisted ending provide the player with great payoffs. However, the second half of the game, dedicated to Dolores, the mother, is far less frightening, with a wider array of dramatic and creative environments that, simultaneously, lack the punch and claustrophobia of the first chapter. Additionally, the second chapter is far, far larger with recursions taking place outside the house, depositing you in a variety of areas. This makes the game hard to navigate at times since you rarely are indicated clearly as to what to do or where to go. Coupled with a weak inventory/use system and the game can become frustrating at times.

The second chapter lacks much of the tension of the first and feels far more exploratory and puzzling. On the surface, this may not seem like a big issue but without a truly unique and surprising story, the game's atmosphere and graphics must hold the player tight and that simply doesn't happen as completely within the second chapter. Also, the game is still in early access and will remain so for a significant amount of time. I'm sure newer chapters will be released eventually but with only 4-6 hours of game play in Visage so far, the game has to be evaluated as-is.

I don't want to make it seem like I didn't enjoy the game. Visage, especially in its first chapter, is perhaps the closest thing to Silent Hills: PT we're ever going to get. Its tremendous tension and awesome atmosphere are not to be discounted. Neither are its sumptuous graphics.

The game is a worthy foray into typical spectral horror tropes, for fright fans. It's just unfortunate that the over-puzzled second half, weak plot, excessive meandering and lack of guidance keep it from culminating into a horror masterpiece.

Pick it up on sale if you can. 10-15 USD is a great scare bargain for Visage.

Worth a look.

7/10.

(Note: I completed this game and logged 26 hours on the physical edition.). A compilation of first person shooters: Doom, Doom II and Doom 3. It goes without saying that Doom is the patriarch of all first person shooters and a masterpiece. The second is the classic for gamers that want more. Doom 3 is the much maligned sequel that to this day has some of the most incredible atmosphere and advanced stencil shadows ever seen in a game, even 15 years later.

If you're having trouble loading the game, with an Open GL issue perhaps, simply take the following steps:

1. Set the compatibility mode for the binary to Windows 7. Make sure compatibility mode is active.

2. Create a desktop shortcut of the binary on the desktop and append the following command in the Target pane: +set r_fullscreen 0

3. Once you're loading the game in windowed mode, make sure you enter the game's settings and select your correct resolution (remember resolutions exist with various monitors 1, 2 & 3... try them all). Oh and enable full screen if you like.

A great deal to be had, especially on sale. Too bad the port is sloppy.

Recommended.

8/10.

(Note: I completed the original Bioshock, logging 20 hours on Games For Windows.) Bioshock is the spiritual successor to the masterpiece System Shock 2. The concept is ultimately the same. You're effectively alone, completely isolated in a complex, with mad and dangerous enemies all around you. Like System Shock 2, the game is full of overwhelming and masterful ambiance/atmosphere. Like System Shock 2, the game also affords the gamer with various options to vanquish enemies, from ammunition types, special powers, perks and various environmental interactions/combos. Also like System Shock 2, the game is possessed of one of the most wickedly clever plot-twists in gaming history.

Unlike System Shock 2, however, Bioshock has a unique Art-Deco world built on a plausibly surreal foundation that is rife with political intrigue and conflict. The game's roots are intelligent and plumb the questions of capitalism, governance, control and the essentialities of human nature. The universe itself is incredibly unique and imaginative and the voice acting is some of the best I've heard anywhere, much less a video game. Gunplay is solid. Graphics are more than serviceable, even over a decade later.

Look, it's simple, Bioshock is a video game masterpiece is the truest sense of the word. Play it. Now.

Must buy.

10/10.