Recent reviews by ɠųąཞɖıąŋ ąŋɠɛƖ!

(mini-review)

Played on Mac OS X. :)

An cerebral and sophisticated horror title that not only has legitimate jump-scares and creep-out moments but also plumbs the depths of a man's frayed sanity/compromised psychology. Similar to Silent Hills in vibe and powered by the Unity engine, Layers of Fear is filled with great atmosphere and excellently executed graphics. Soundwork and music are solid as well and convey the dread you feel as you proceed throughout the story. As a famous painter that has fallen from grace and lost everything he treasures, you attempt to finish a last, opus masterpiece to right the wrongs that the world/destiny have laid at your feet. The game is deeper than it appears and, depending on your choices, exhibits several endings. While there's no multiplayer and no world-bending game play on display, don't paint yourself into a stubborn corner and pick up this simple, effective horror title, to be had on Steam sale.

Recommended.

8/10.

(mini-review)

An exceptionally stylish, cinematic and well-executed third-person shooter with a lot of gritty charm. The concept of a dejected, broken Max Payne is an alluring one, as is his new look, conveyed marvelously through the truly excellent in-game graphics. Bullet time still supports the gameplay efficiently and all the weapons feel good to discharge. The campaign has good length and is sure to please, especially if procured on a hefty Steam sale! The game ships with multiplayer as well, albeit that component is unlikely to elicit many hours from the average gamer.

Recommended.

8.5/10.

(mini-review)

A post-apocalyptic first person, singleplayer shooter presented from the russian perspective, Metro 2033 hits all the right notes thematically, graphically and with great gameplay. The game is eerie and possessed of its own clear vision of what survival horror looks/feels like. Controls are spot on and well implemented, especially from a comparatively small developer and all the weapons feel authentic and satisfying. The plot is surprisingly clever and the graphics are as good as you'll find for games that are its contemporary. As a whole, the game is a satisfying creepfest romp and should be picked up on sale if at all possible.

Recommended.

8/10.

(mini-review)

The madcap, cel-shaded hijinx continue in this Borderlands 2 prequel. Still, Handsome Jack's fall from grace is unevenly penned and the dearth of truly memorable characters interferes with this addition's ability to fire on all cylinders. A fun game if you can buy it for cheap and play it with friends but not nearly the inspired madness that the original or sequel provided.

Worth a look.

7/10.

(Note: I've finished this game on another Steam account.). Many will tout this game as one of the most clever and cerebral shooters of its time but I think that's overestimating its writing and worth a great deal. The game is comprised of clearing a series of first-person puzzles and then escaping the clutches of GLADOS. A portal gun is used to facilitate puzzling, as well as gravity effects and carrying/manipulating objects. Are some of the puzzles clever? Absolutely. Is the game vibe fresh at times? Definitely. But for a game that's a scant 4 hours long, has no multiplayer component and has a nonsensical ending, I think too many people hold this game in excessively high regard.

The title borrows heavily from Human Head's Prey, which had portals (as well as spirit walk), gravity effects (and room manipulation), object manipulation (carrying/moving), and temperature shifts to solve map-travel puzzles. Am I saying that Portal straight-up copied Prey? Not necessarily. Am I stating that Valve probably borrowed heavily at times from Prey? Definitely. Most people never played Prey however and never seem to put two and two together. On a side note I think it's ironic/hypocritical that Doom 3's DLC gravity weapon was accused of being a blatant copy of HL 2's gravity gun, when it was released a scant 6 months later. And yet Portal doesn't get accused of being heavily inspired by Prey, despite releasing a full year and a half later? Double standard much?

Of course we know what happened: Human Head is making iOS minigames and Valve was crowned as the great innovator and that's just unfair and sad. Finally, everyone claims that the "Cake is a lie" meme is clever, but is it really? Assuming that GLADOS had the cake at the end, what exactly is so clever about the ending? Was the whole process intended to serve as a celebratory/affectionate event? The fact that there was a cake was actually irony? Oh yeah, that doesn't work because she repeatedly tries to kill you. So the concept just doesn't work. The plot is just nonsense.

Still the game is worth a download since it's a nice 4 hour diversion, is free, and exists on Windows, SteamOS and Mac OS X.

Recommended.

7.5/10. (Prey would get 8.5/10, btw. Pick that one up if you can for sure.)

(mini-review)

A forgettable, throw-away campaign that does too much to mimic CoD and Battlefield, married to a ghost-town multiplayer landscape. It's not that the game is bad per-se or that fun can't be had from the positively short singleplayer campaign (4.5 hours!), but it doesn't do anything new and what it does do is mediocre at best. You can find better examples of this genre in Steam and the multiplayer is officially unplayable with so few people actually frequenting its servers.

Save up and get yourself some CoD variant. You'll be happier.

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

6/10.

(mini-review)

Note: I've logged more hours into another alt account.

While I paid for the game as part of my Orange Box (now it's free), the TF2 is a fun multiplayer romp still well-worth a 10 dollar price tag. Modest in its system requirements and full of cheeky humor, I highly recommend this game for anyone that is looking for an affordable time sink.

Worth a look.

7/10.

(mini-review)

The game isn't pretty, doesn't control exceptionally well and doesn't have the best plot/theming available. Performance is shockingly poor for the game that it is. Heck, even the maps aren't stellar. But the concept of a multiplayer zombie game, where *you can be infected and become a zombie* is unique even by today's standard glut of zombie-based games. In the hands of a better developer, with some key game play tweaks, this game could ascend to become something truly revelatory and special. As it stands, on sale, this game is worthy for a few hours of fun.

Thanks S.

Worth a look.

7/10.

A profoundly surprising and openly ambiguous game that clutches at the darker, more fundamental pillars of our most primal fears. Humans are never quite so afraid as when an offspring is lost or in peril and The Park is an excellent analysis of the impact that such loss can cause on a psyche. Set in The Secret World universe, The Park is richly voiced, well-written and possessed of lavish, creepy atmosphere, with truly dreadful imagery that bespeaks of unsettling evil that festers in the darkest corners of both our physical world and darkest recesses of our minds. The game is absolutely gorgeous and Unreal Engine 4 is used to great effect.

Everything from the hallucinatory episodes, to the imposing power of the ferris wheel, to the strangling darkness of the roller coaster all present a horrible playground of suffering and darker passions. The game is very short, averaging about 2 hours with careful exploration and, yes, the ending isn't conclusive or definitive. The game forces you to be mature, adaptable and careful with your analysis of concepts and events. The story must be carefully pieced together from logs, article clippings and journal snippets that you discover in your examination of the park grounds but thorough players will soon crack the nut of The Park's labyrinthine ending.

The game isn't scary, per se, but it does induce dread and it definitely has occasional jump scares, like those near the Octatron, and in the midway. What The Park does offer, is a clever, expansive world, more atmosphere than most games can ever hope to have in campaigns that are ten times as long, and a gorgeous aesthetic that is sure to please discerning gamers. The Park is an art piece advertising a game with far more inspiration/content but, sadly, far less style. Pick The Park up on a Steam sale, turn the lights off, dial up the volume and enjoy the experience.

In The Park, the ride may be short but it's certainly bittersweet.

Worth a look.

7/10.

I want to like this game. I truly do. While I could see myself recommending it on the cheap (20 dollars including all the DLC content) to shooter fans/Warhammer fans, the title simply isn't worth its 30 dollar price tag at all. A cooperative/singleplayer L4D 2 campaign mod with various classes, the game uses the carrot of ever-increasing loot drops as an impetus to keep playing. The premise isn't to survive and make your way through the map but, instead, to complete some rote objective (destroy xyz, exfiltrate abc items in a wagon/boat/caravan). Think Dead Center Map 4 over and over and over and over. Consequently, despite the fact that the game is wonderfully atmospheric, graphically impressive, reasonably well-assembled and has moments of fun, the game can also feel suffocatingly repetitious and grindy.

To be honest, if I'm going to be playing a grindy title like this one, I'd much rather concentrate my focus on a more open, massive title like Diablo 3. While the first person elements somtimes feel reasonably good (combat), often these self-same first person paradigms impair the feel of the legitimately diverse character classes. Character movement is the most clear and egregious offender. The trailers show characters moving around, bounding, acrobatically and colorfully but this information is completely obscured in first person and perhaps a third person view would be much more effective at conveying such class variation. Additionally, the community is quite vacant, with only about 30 or so server instances populated by approximately 45 players at any given time.

With the dearth of players using microphones and a lack of clear procedural map-strategy, players mostly do their own thing and only help each other when it becomes absolutely necessary. In this way, Vermintide feels terribly lonely (and dark...holy crap, give me a flashlight!). You play alone, you level alone, you forge gear alone and only on brief crescendo events do you ever work together, with the exception of an occasional cap clear. Unlike a title like Left 4 Dead 2, where each campaign is divided into maps with clear and differentiated events that mandate specific responses/strategies, Vermintide's mapping, while pretty, is simply an uninspired, maze-like mess of constant scurrying/front-running towards the next crate full of potions.

The inclusion of treacherous terrain where specific Skaven types would have improved efficiency is just one minor suggestion that could add significant variation to the title. In light that Vermintide lacks vs multiplayer, the need for dynamic, reaction-inducing maps is oh so vital. While I only have a scant few hours in the game, the title update erased all my progress and bugs seem to be crawling in this title. The title runs reasonably well but crashes on occasion and somtimes demonstrates issues during combat, like clipping, animation glitches or the like. While blatant animation problems never occur, being unable to hit a Skaven in front of you because you've already missed twice, and needing to change your position completely to actually connect a blow, can sometimes dull the intoxication that this game purports to elicit during combat.

It's not that Vermintide is a bad game or that it's badly made. Vermintide, with the right group of friends can be good fun. The issue is that the game has deep paradigm flaws in its core gameplay that render it less than what it could be and allow so many other titles to be so much better value for the money. Ultimately, this game can be lonely, boring grind without the right group of people and even then...the game has limits.

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

6.5/10.

Side note: I've disliked PC Gamer since the beginning of time. Once again they showcase what incredible noobs they are. They gave Doom 2016 an 88 but this game a 90? Wait what? Clueless wannabes.