Recent reviews by ɠųąཞɖıąŋ ąŋɠɛƖ!

(mini-review).

Do you want to play a game like Phasmaphobia but that shipped several years later? Do you want to play a game that is ugly, terribly optimized and really not very scary? Do you want to play a game with a shriveled and toxic community that straddles both lobby kickers and Russians that hammer your PFSense firewall while they have you in game? Boy, do I have the game for you! The game's called called 'Demonologist', and it looks *nothing* like the trailers! The best part? It's already only got about 700 concurrent players!

But seriously, avoid this game, it's K-Mart shovelware.

Not worth the time. There are better games available.

5.5/10.

(mini-review.)

It's as polished, attractive and deep as any online card game that has ever existed. It's also as shamelessly pay to win as the worst mobile game of all time. It lures you with a couple of easy wins to try to get you to spend cash. If you do, it drip feeds you a few wins until your next "payment". If you don't, then it pits you against players that have every card/set in existence, 30 mythics in their deck and you lose, careening, often helplessly, as they play mechanics and cards that you simply can't defend against.

Magic is dead. I'll keep playing with my Revised/Ice Age Block/Fallen Empires cube.

Not worth the time. There are better games available.

6/10.

(mini-review.)

A small, creative, post-apocalyptic horror science fiction game with intriguingly existential musings on life and family. You play the role of Hadley: disenfranchised, alone and pregnant, exploring an abattoir-like base filled with horrors that are trying to kill you and your baby. The plot is pretty obvious, the writing isn't perfect and some of the puzzles are downright obtuse but the setting works and the premise of playing as a defenseless, pregnant young woman can be quite chilling. Definitely worth playing, especially free.

Worth a look.

7/10.

(mini-review).

A eerily beautiful game, with interesting puzzles that is absolutely hamstrung by cataclysmic stuttering and poor performance. Is the game beautiful? Yes. Should it be a stuttery, unplayable mess, even at 1080p, with FSR 2 and medium settings? No.

Might not even be worth it on a deep, deep sale.

Not worth the time. There are better games available.

5.5/10.

(mini-review.)

I want to love this game. I like the GotG comics and love the movies but the game plays as an antiseptic variation of Disney's fare with a litany of questionable game decisions. Huddling up to set attack strategies every five minutes quickly becomes onerous and corny and the game's first few hours feels frustrating as you obliterate most opponents only to be kayoed by the occasional unfair/cheap hit. This of course all pales with the functional lack of game play carrots, as the unlockable skins really lose their appeal once you're happy with your guardians and their appearance. Most damning is that I played almost 3 hours by streaming the game the game from my server to my workstation because I had the audacity to *gasp* have a Radeon VII and Eidos-Montreal figured they'd never fix the game load-crashing bug that prevents you from playing the game if you own that graphics card.

Maybe worth it on a deep cut for Nvidia users but inexcusably perma-broken bugs really invalidate this purchase for everyone else.

Not worth the time. There are better games available.

6/10.

(mini-review.)

This game is Diablo III, with a Warhammer 40K skin on top. If you liked Diablo III, you'll likely enjoy Inquisitor. Will you enjoy it as much? Maybe or maybe not but there're certainly a lot of similarities. The game doesn't have a transcendent story, nor vastly compelling loot and some of the game play mechanics are imbalanced but, ultimately, for Diablo and Warhammer40K fans, this game is worth a pick up on discount.

Worth a look.

7/10.

(mini-review).

Maneater is a fun little game where you play as a baby shark that must consume wildlife and man to grow and evolve. The ultimate goal is to develop into "Mega" status and become the apex predator by knocking off all other "apex" predators. Along the way, you'll find hidden resource caches, uncover tongue-in-cheek stories about your environment and unlock modifications and upgrades, like bony protrusions, bio-electric skin, poison cloud or vampirism. Discovering hidden environments is neat and the combat, while clumsy, can be fun in short doses, as you employ different strategies against different predators. The game runs reasonably well and looks fine but the title crashed more than a few times for me. The game can be a merciless slog at the beginning and shamefully easy at the end so the pacing definitely needs work and the silly tone undermines the fun of being a super predator.

Still worth picking up on a sale as a nice diversion.

Worth a look.

7/10.

***Addendum***
I was able to punch my way through the game with my weak, mid-tier 5090 (massive roll eyes) and what I found was a competent remake of the original. Good design, excellent atmosphere/sound, and expert-level graphics courtesy of the Frostbite graphics engine. Game play is what you'd think it is, with competent camera work, engaging cut scenes and mostly-intuitive gun play. The game still lacks polish, with no less than two invisible enemies coming after me at one point (One was a Hunter) and camera/inventory glitching caused by the Steam overlay. The story is still pretentious gobbledygook. Desperate, last-second grasps at storytelling and plot twists abound (The Nicole twist was telegraphed from space, even if you didn't play the original). Character-work was paper thin and the game could've stood to have been 2-3 hours shorter, in exchange for a more intelligent, nuanced and layered story line.

Still, for $20 dollars and about 18 hours of game play, the Dead Space remake delivers. Too bad my initial experience sullied my impression of the title with absolutely amateurish support for AMD graphics cards, including still-modern Vega models.

If you have Nvidia hardware and plenty of muscle to power through glitches, I'd give this title a worth a look recommendation. If you don't, read my review below and keep walking. Oh, and to all the mouth-breathers and apes on Reddit and Steam, yes Callisto Protocol is still the superior game. It has better plot, pacing, graphics, voice acting/sound and combat. The only spot it falls behind is jump scares, which you quickly get over after the 15th critter crawls out of a wall-fan.

Conditional recommendation.

8/10.

***

The original Dead Space was a scary, if albeit uninspired space horror shooter. It was in the vein of System Shock 2 but with dumber game play. With everyone raving about the remake, I gave it a spin. Everyone complained and maligned its prime competitor: Callisto Protocol but this game is an abject disaster. Not only does it have inferior graphics, but it's horribly optimized. Performance is a slog and the game doesn't even exit the intro cinematic, crashing no less than FIVE times. Yes, I set the settings and resolution to low. Updated drivers. Windows up to date. All .NET installer packages updated. Total VRAM used? 5 GB. What a joke. Only in modern PC gaming can gamers malign the underdog game that was lovingly crafted and iteratively built and improved over time, while the woke, busted, unoptimized unplayable big-company alternative gets all the praise.

In short: Buggy, badly assembled ass game. Unplayable. I'll be seeking a refund.

Avoid this game.

3/10.

Because I've already reviewed Mass Effect Legendary Edition, I will avoid focusing on Mass Effect 3's storyline and single player campaign elements. Needless to say, Mass Effect 3 is a spectacular science fiction RPG experience and I give it a perfect score, eclipsing all but the most masterclass of games. Instead, I will focus on the much marginalized and maligned multiplayer game play mode. I would also like to underscore that I have an additional 750 hours on Origin/EA Play and that my Steam hours do not summarize my experience with the game. The Mass Effect 3 multiplayer mode is a fantastic game mode and is easily worth the 15-20 dollar sale price alone, without even taking the 40-60 hour campaign into account.

Mass Effect 3 multiplayer operates as a 3rd person, objectives-based horde-mode cooperative survival game. You control one of six classes: Adept (psychic), Soldier, Engineer, Sentinel (hybrid psychic), Infiltrator and Vanguard (close combat specialist). Each class, in turn, has anywhere from 8-12 sub-classes. The sub-classes can be built by leveling various skill trees, taking mutually exclusive abilities. Do you want to focus on weapons? What kind of weapons? Do you want to focus on powers? Passive abilities? Active abilities? Do you want to be aggressive or defensive? Would you rather play support? Are mobility, shields, health, melee, stealth important? By leveling various skill trees within each sub-class, you can easily create 150-200 distinct playable character builds. Builds vary wildly from sniping infiltrators, to blundering melee bruisers, to ingenious turret deploying engineers, grenade spamming sprinters, main line fighters, psychokinetic demigods and more.

Adding to this rich, complex depth, is Mass Effect 3's no less than 7 ammunition types, and over 75 different equipment modifications that you can use to add to various abilities. More incredibly is that various ammunition types and powers can react with each other, creating explosive combinations. Prime a target with one power and detonate them explosively with another. Or, instead, detonate them with ammunition (or environmental hazards). The amount of interaction is truly limitless. Adding to this interactive freedom is no less than 5 major weapons classes including sniper rifles, assault rifles, sub machine guns, pistols and shotguns. Each weapon class, in turn, has 10-15 different sub weapons that look, handle and behave completely differently. Do you want the shield-stripping, close range Reegar shotgun? The point-blank Claymore blunderbuss? How about the long-range, armor penetrating Crusader shotgun? Each weapon class has a variety of different sub-weapons that will ensure you can play to your preferred play style.

Weapons feel good, have punch and most are useful. And it's in the game play, where Mass Effect 3 truly shines. With an intuitive, smooth cover/mantling system, you can briskly maneuver through one of 10 different maps, while obliterating 4 different armies. Enemy armies themselves all consist of 10 different units, with different aggressive proclivities, abilities and predilections. Are they shielded? Armored? Fast or slow? What kind of powers/effects/ammunition are they vulnerable to? Do they prefer distance or are they melee-focused? Enemy armies not only behave differently but look and sound differently, providing important cues that can be provided to enhance decision-making. Artificial intelligence scales throughout no less than 4 difficulty levels ranging from Bronze through Platinum.

Yes, some may criticize the game's use of one single button for mantling/cover/storm and others may lament that the game has an in-game currency but, ultimately, these are minor flaws in an extremely compelling horde mode experience. Most interestingly is that the multiplayer mode actually contributes valuable points towards your single player campaign mission, reflecting an interesting prescience that most other similar games lack. Bioware wants you to understand that your battle conducted by no-name heroes represent the desperate survival of various species during the apocalyptic Reaver invasion in Mass Effect 3. It works.

All in all, Mass Effect 3 is a great multiplayer mode and if, you like Gears of War, Killing Floor or any other horde mode, you owe yourself the chance to try out this far superior and highly addictive alternative.

Highest possible recommendation.

9.5/10

(mini-review).

Good fun to be had if you can get the game for sale, in the $10-$20 dollar range (especially so if you can play co-op with a friend). The story is pure illogical nonsense. Characters are fundamentally unlikeable. Movement feels even slower and more ponderous than usual. However, there are a few starts to be had and the graphics are absolutely sumptuous. A nice title to sink 6-8 hours into on a deep discount.

Worth a look.

7/10.