Recent reviews by ɠųąཞɖıąŋ ąŋɠɛƖ!

I liked Machine Game's last Wolfenstein. Nazis are bad. Genocide is bad. Bigotry is also bad. However, what they did to Wolfenstein II is unforgiveable and, despite buying the game, Day 1, for 60 USD, I won't be finishing it ever. I refuse to subject myself to propaganda and I will no longer buy any Machine Games titles in the future. The game is nothing short than ignorant, nasty and vile vehicle for propaganda and I highly recommend everyone avoids it.

What's good about the game? The game is highly Vulkan optimized and runs great at 4K. Despite not being as attractive or graphically inspired as its predecessor, it's still an attractive game and I was able to run it at 4K, Ultra 100 fps, quite easily. Shooting play is still good and the game play system is still muscular, fresh and intuitive. As a whole, the game, mechanically and functionally, is an excellent title.

However, the issues stem from theme and plot and, rather than write paragraphs upon paragraphs of explanations, I'll instead present 5 plot points that were propagandist and, therefore, impossible to swallow.

A. The game is extremely racist, with most of white America painted as KKK Clansmen and Grace clearly describing white Americans as racists. The game is so shameless about the "white man bad" message that's poisoning the entire plotline that at one point, BJ literally calls Nazis "WHITE" as an insult. Obviously being white is synonymous with moral turpitude and evil.

B. Hitler kills Ronald Reagan. Nuff said. This isn't acceptable in any game. If Obama or Clinton was killed in a disgraceful manner or complicit in Nazi machinations, most sjws would be out in force.

C. The second largest faction in the game is comprised of ... communists. Ridiculous propaganda. Stalin says "hi".

D. A topless and pregnant Anya saves BJ, by sliding across the floor, shielding him with her body, and obliterating a Nazi strike force, with akimbo assault rifles blazing. Hooray for meaningless, brainless girl power!

E. Set alluded to how both Americans and Germans were incapable of technological/scientific discovery. Consequently all Nazi discoveries are laid completely at the feet of the Yichud. Ridiculous.

This game is pure propaganda and the next game: Youngblood looks even worse. Nice job torpedoing your own IP Bethesda.

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

6/10.

Banner Saga is a frustrating duality of contradictions. On the one hand, the game is a truly masterful achievement in polished, sophisticated RPG storytelling, involving branching paths, a uniquely flavorful and somber world, as well as excellent music and hand-drawn artwork. You play the role of multiple, unique characters, with differing personalities, motives and ambitions, caught in an event that can best be described as the end of the world. Along the way, you're pressed into making increasingly difficult decisions that truly impact your gameplay experience.

However, the game, much like other hand-drawn RPGs, Darkest Dungeon for one, suffers from many of the same foibles. The armor/strength system pretends to be deeper than it is but in truth just serves to punish player-controlled teams that consist of lower average-statted characters. Enemy AI exhibit abilities that could be incredibly useful for players. On even normal difficulties, the game has a tendency to be stingy with progression, with RNG rolls often making the difference between a successful skirmish and a party full of uselessly injured freeloaders.

The game utilizes renown as a currency for both leveling, as well as the purchase of supplies and items. Because supplies are crucial to avoid starving and catastrophic morale loss and because leveling is imperative, you can expect to miss out on a variety of neat items that you'll scantly afford. In short, the game can be unforgivingly hard and the difficulty is often arbitrary, based on a myriad of different choices. For example, I was stuck on one boss fight and had to lower my difficulty level to easy for it but promptly finished the rest of the game at medium difficulty (including most of the later bosses), but got only the easy game completion achievement.

Because you don't control saving, the game can be increasingly frustrating as failure during a fight, or a bad decision that wasn't easily described during the one sentence reply, can force a player to literally replay HOURS of content. Additionally, the campaign is short, lacking a variety of side quests, while simultaneously feeling emotionally punishing, as fewer and fewer positive events occur, forcing you to scrounge whatever you can to buoy your suffering caravan.

It's these flaws that ultimately detract from Banner Saga and reduce it from a true masterpiece experience of gaming to a more mundane, albeit creatively brilliant RPG experience. That said, Stoic has created a uniquely singular viking-themed RPG with its own distinct identity and the experience is rife with moments of pathos, wonder and tension.

A worthy RPG to obtain on Steam sale.

Recommended.

8/10.

(mini-review).

Favored players are great to a fault. Unfavored players are worse than they should be. Stats don't translate well or mean anything approximately half the time. Controls are overly complex even as players hump the same pick and roll progressions to score against a dumb AI. Some games do a great job to make gameplay extremely intuitive but this game is the complete opposite. Graphics are good. Presentation and polish are good. Netcode is mediocre. The game/publisher server is no longer supported even though it's only about 1.5 years old. Don't expect support.

How can players whine and moan about FPS prevalence and repetitiveness, while humping staid, innovation-bereft cash grabs like this? Double standard++. Go play real basketball outside with friends instead.

Avoid unless on super sale.

4.5/10.

The game should be called Socialism 3. Let's sum some of the extremely biased concepts in this game up:

1. Only liberals care about homelessness. Conservatives don't care (literally) if people have nowhere to live. Conservatives don't show up anywhere on homelessness. Liberals do. Therefore, only liberals care about the negative impact of homelessness.

2. Only liberals care about health and education. Conservatives just want dumb, malleable masses to use as cheap labor. You can reduce unemployment by almost 20%, gut the income tax, balance the budget and still have a 21% decrease in popularity due to a 17% decrease in food stamps and unemployment support.

3. Uncontrolled, rampant undocumented immigration will have zero effect on your country other than raising "tensions". If you decrease illegal immigration expect your tourism to collapse (literally) and for your economy to decline somewhat (literally). Undocumenteds don't pay taxes and even as your crime decreases and your employment rates stay the same, just having your tourism decrease will be enough to kibosh your economy. Also expect over 80% of the country to view you unfavorably, even if your GDP rate is in the mid green and your nation is performing stellarly. Crime decreased only 1% by cutting undocumented immigration by over 25%. You decide if that makes sense.

4. Over 85% of all policies that you can enact pretty much are oppressive controls. Tell people what they can eat or drink. Where they can live. What they can say. What they can do. What they can think. Instantiate policies that increase taxes or subsidies, or both. The options for diminishing government are severely limited and you're punished immediately if you do. Percentage swings are disproportional. Decrease crime in your nation by 20%? Great. Conservatives increase in happiness by 3%. Increase oil drilling by less than 10%? Prepare for over a 30% decrease in approval from liberals.

The game's algorithms have a very...interesting definition of how politics work. The core mechanic of the game is balancing your constituencies to keep votes for a re-election campaign. Except conservative constituencies don't exist beyond "'Murica yeah!" military supporters, immigrant-phobic proponents that just hate ethnic individuals and religious caricatures simply don't exist. Oh yeah, did I mention that if you have an even remotely permissive nation that protects religious freedoms, your technology levels will decline dramatically? Because obviously if you're a believer, you must be some technically illiterate caveman. Right? Right?

I can't recommend a game this slanted and openly disingenuous and low-IQ. In fact I'm going to try and get a refund. I recommend every conservative that made the mistake of purchasing this game do the same. A political simulator with only one arm of the political spectrum is like Hearthstone with creatures that only have toughness but no attack. What?

Avoid this joke.

3/10.

**Addendum**


After streaming the game from my HTPC server, which runs a desktop-class Radeon RX, I was able to play through the game at 720p (max streaming speed I could coax out of my wifi). What I discovered was a nostalgic, polished take on the original Resident Evil 2. Viciously charming, eerily beautiful, copiously atmospheric and tense, there's *a lot* to like about RE 2. The characters are fluidly modeled, the environmental progression is spot on and the music is oppressively frightening.

However, frustrating remnants of the original remain. Absurd medallion hunting for secret rooms. Magnum components locked away with a USB-enabled badge key. Cringey voice lines from the protagonists. Characters that still occasionally move/handle like shopping carts. And let's not even talk about little Sherry Birken who cheerily asks to be adopted 10 minutes after escaping an evil corporate base stalked by mutants, undead cannibals and her biologically tainted father. RE 2 can be a bit absurd.

So a masterpiece it ain't. Especially when you take into account that the "B Side" campaigns are often nigh-identical to their "A side precursors". In fact, Claire's campaign doesn't vary that much from Leon's at all (not that it did in the original either). The Ghost survivor tales are melancholy but ultimately cheap, broken filler designed to lure masochistic players.

RE 2 was still a treat. It allowed me to relive memories of the original. It was polished and it looked exactly what I imagined a remake of RE 2 could be. However, technical issues, lack of content and plot limitations keep this game from being anything but a nice diversion.

I still can't heartily recommend it after catastrophic issues I originally experienced. I'm still going to ding the score a hair.

Recommended.

8/10.


**Addendum**


-> Double checks hardware to make sure I can run the game. Check. Intel Core i5 4670, 32 GB of DDR3 RAM and an NVIDIA 7-class GPU with 760+ performance. Recommendation?
Run at low settings.

-> Load the game. Crash.
Check re2.exe and ensure that it has administrator privileges. Check.

-> Load the game. Crash.
Go back to graphics settings. Lower all the settings and make sure v sync is off. Check.

-> Load the game. Crash.
Make sure I skip the cut scenes and try to get straight into the game. Check.

-> Load the game. Crash.
Update my NVIDIA drivers. Run latest drivers. Already had them. Check.

-> Load the game. Crash.
Make sure that the game file integrity is verified in Steam. Check.

-> Load the game. Crash.
Check online. No one having the same problems is running a comparable system. No fix available.

Yeah. Six starts, six crashes in *half an hour*.

Great game. Thumbs up.

(mini-review).

A technically competent, visually attractive, charming game with great character models and fluidly dynamic animations. Despite the game's polished state, the game developers would be much better off making some Marvel super heroes online game than this functionally-incomplete game. What you get with Agents of Mayhem is a dead, lifeless, rote, *boring* game. No multiplayer. No real detailed leveling/character building. No engaging, deep story. No complex, living world. Just tons of nostalgia, some weak tongue-in-cheek humor and lots of flash. The game feels like a slower, more obsolete Vanquish. Having coop alone would make the game significantly worthwile. After all, without a competent story, and with such rote gameplay and uninspired work, why would anyone want to run through this title alone?

I bought the game for 6 dollars. It might be worth it for that amount for some people. It's not even worth that much for me, however. Oh did I mention that it's over 45 GB installed? Yeah. That too.

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

6/10.

(mini-review).

Battlechasers: Nightwar is a manga-filled JRPG based on the Joe Madureira-created comics universe of the same name.
Possessed of a fantastic Diablo 3-esque painterly aesthetic, dynamic model & animation work, coupled with an outstanding pan-asian soundtrack, Airship Syndicate has created a vibrant and beautiful game worth your time. While the game feels like a Final Fantasy game, with its turn-based combat, B:N has tons of tricks up its sleeve, including complex crafting, tiered items, dozens of secrets, unlocks and surprises. The universe bleeds korean MMO-chic, like Black Desert or Vindictus.

My only complaints about the game, are its, at times, repititious rogues gallery and its frequent sheer-cliff-like difficulty spikes, which can prove to be frustrating, especially if you're attempting to complete a dungeon in Legendary mode. That said, B:N is a great game and an amazing first start for fledging developer Airship Syndicate. I am watching keenly for their next foray into gaming and I hope that it will not be too long a wait.

Completely worth your time at any price. A steal at 15 dollars.

Highly Recommended.

9/10.

(mini-review).

An attractive, efficient, faithful recreation of Warhammer 40,000 tabletop. Character models are suitably chunky and detailed. Textures and environments look good. Voices are extremely competent and similar to Dawn of War-fare. Combat is varied and the choice of campaign or skirmish is welcome. Still, I can't help lament at the poor animations and minimal effects. With just a slightly higher level of polish, the game could be a truly memorable winner. Additionally, with only four factions, the game feels far more rote and empty than it should be.

A great title for Warhammer 40,000 strategy fans but it could have been so very much more.

Worth a look.

7/10.

(Mini-review).

(Note: I completed this game with 24 hours on a physical copy playthrough.). Tomb Raider Legend was the long lost return of Gaming Queen Lara Croft after a much needed absence. Staid and overdone, Tomb Raider had reached its nadir after Core failed to make the sixth outing of the franchise work. Now helmed by Crystal Dynamics, Lara returned to do what she did best: exploration through climbing, spelunking and puzzle solving. A healthy amount of combat, coupled with attractive graphics also returned the IP back to much needed form. TR: Legend would eventually revitalize the Tomb Raider franchise and, upon completion of the initial trilogy, Crystal Dynamics would move on to create the more realistic modern Tomb Raider franchise trilogy.

Recommended.

8/10.

(mini-review).

The graphics are attrocious. The cut scenes are laughable. And yet, as a nostalgia piece from the late 1990s, Blood II: The Chosen is a stark example of everything that's missing in today's shooter landscape. Originally released by Monolith in 1998, complete with singleplayer, multiplayer and a fleshed-out DLC, Blood 2 had a gory and brutal campaign, even by today's lax standards. The game follows the protagonist: Caleb, an immortal native american half-breed who possesses the powers of Chernobog, a dark godlike entity that was disposed of during the first game of the series. You're opposed this time, by Chernobog's greatest disciple: Gideon, who now has a megacorporation at his beck and call. Unlike other shooters, every individual and entity within this game is a psychotic monster that preys on the witless chattle of the world. You replenish your health by consuming the hearts of your enemies and even the heroes are cold, narcissistic animals. With grungy, dark music, a twisted world possessed by genetic freak shows and evil spirits and akimbo shooting play, Blood 2 was an impossibly dark yet compelling shooter that represented what was best about the frenetic end of the millennium gaming landscape.

Only one question remains... "How do you like your flesh cooked?"

Recommended.

8.5/10.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMRdxJUSQ8E&index=5&list=PLA62E484F1149383C?autoplay=1