Recent reviews by dasfrodo

Absolutely worth every penny. Amazing atmosphere, interesting story with a nice twist. This game will make you think about what it means to be human.

If you're easily scared you can just play this game on the included safe mode. Still atmospheric, but you don't have to worry about getting killed my enemies.

You should spend your time playing this game instead of reading its reviews.

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR

Alright I understand that people complain about the main story. It doesn't go very far when it comes to developing anything. Instead of answering questions we already had in the first game it puts you up with even MORE questions marks and doesn't give you any answers whatsoever. It's clear that they either planned a third game before they even started developing Mankind Divided, or Square Enix jumped in mid development and told the developers to cut the game so they can release more DLC. So yes, I do understand why people don't like the main story.

What I do not understand is why people say the writing is bad. Yeah, the game does a lot of "rubbing in your face" when it comes to establishing the world around you. But this is exactly what Deus Ex is about, isn't it? It's about the world around you, the conspiracies, the injustice, the characters and I think all those things were very well established and written. The sidequests in this game are plain amazing. Theres so many little stories, so many things I didn't see coming and so much to discover. I finished the game in around 27h now on my first playthrough and it still feels like I haven't seen half of the stuff and sidemission.

The gameplay is a serious upgrade and improvement from Human Revolution. While I still think some of the cover controls suboptimal (why do I have to hold a button to turn around a corner for what feels like a second?) the gameplay itself overall is ver well done. The new augmentations are very useful and satisfying to use. Graphite Nanoblade? Icarus Dash? Hell yeah, count me in. There's not a single augmentation that I'd call useless. They all fullfill their specific roll for your specific playstyle that you chose. They also did a VERY good job in balancing stealthy and rambo playstyle. I've tried both and both are equally hard to master if you're not careful. This is partly due to the AI that received a serious upgrade. If they notice you being there they will no longer walk to the spot where they've last seen you. They will search the entire area until the timer runs out so you actually have to move around while hiding. When discovered as a threat they WILL try to surround you and if there's too many of them they WILL overwhelm and kill you.
There's even more ways to finish your mission than before. Each and every single (mostly huge) mission area has dozens of ways to achieve your goal. You can either breach through the roof, through the canals, you can shoot your way through, you can sneak your way through enemy lines, etc. The leveldesign is simply amazing.

The game looks great. The textures are all high resolution, the shaders look good, the faces are very well done (remember the Human Revolution plastic skins? Eugh) and sharp and the locations look increadibly believeable and unique. The art team did an amazing job here and that further cements the unique artstyle that Deus Ex had since Human Revolution.
However, the performance is rather meh. There's a couple of problems. The loadingtimes are absurd if you didn't install the game on an SSD (up to 2-3mins for me in some cases) and the game stutters quite a bit AFTER you've finished loading a level until the engine actually finished loading all the assets. This has gotten better with recent patches however.
I don't have the strongest rig for sure, but I've seen games that look a tad bit better that runs just better with less stuttering and hiccups.

I really recommend buying this game. There's a lot of people ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about the ingame store. Yeah, it's a bad joke but if nobody told me I would've NEVER even found out about it. I completed the game with no issues whatsoever. Just ignore the hate.
The game itself is amazing. The flaws it has are so minimal that it's almost not worth talking about them, aside from the main story. I'd say you should skip the game if you look for answers to the story. If you just want to play another Deus Ex with amazing gameplay, good dialogues and fascinating leveldesign: go for it. It's completely worth the 50€ I spent. I definitely asked for this.

I know what they were trying to go for, but the game just doesn't deliver. Changing a formula of a proven concept is nothing bad, but then you have to do it right. Roguelikes are usually relatively fast paced. This game is not. Your character moves super slow, most of the time the "dodging" mechanic feels more like a hinderance than an actual dodge.

Reloading is another fine concept in theory, but it's just super obnoxious in this game. You fire like five shots that do not do any damage at all and then you have to reload for a second. I have the feeling the devs included this only to stretch the gametime out, because mobs are generally just bulletsponges.
The most common mob in the game takes three hits, often times theres at least five of those in a single room. Now imagine you have 5-10 shots in your gun and you need three shots to kill one of them, reloading after a couple of shots. It's super annoying.

You can flip over tables that act as cover. Once again, that mechanic feels more like a hindrance than help. In the 1,5h I've played I've never used it because you can just dodge bullets by walking around them. If you do actually use the tables you basically cram yourself behind that cover because you cannot shoot above it. You have to walk out of cover and then fire your shots.

The core mechanic of the game, the weapons, are the biggest disappointement. From a game that focuses so much on weaponry you'd think it'll give you a huge variaty of powerful guns to play with. I haven't played far, but I can tell you that the weapons you get in the first two levels are mostly just super ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ weak. Sometimes they're even worse than your starting weapons.
Now that would all be fine if the passives in the game actually felt like they had some kind of synergy with your loadout. In the time I've played I haven't found a single item (passive or not) that actually synergyzed with my guns.
This leads to you sometimes having to beat the first boss without actually having ANYTHING useful but your standard gun which again, you have to reload after 5-10 shots. Bosses generally are just spreading bullets all over the place and take ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of damage before they actually go down.

The characters are boring. Their playstyle barely changes at all. The biggest difference between them is usually a passive that somehow changes something in the game (for example a dog that occasionally finds random items or a needle that has a chancee to unlock locks.

I know this is in a lot of reviews, but again, they should've just looked at a lot of the (working) mechanics of Nuclear Throne. Everything this game does wrong Nuclear Throne does right. The guns (even the damn starting revolver) feel increadibly powerful. The movement is fast and rewarding. The passives synergyze EXTREMELY well with different playstyles and characters, depening on what you go for. Enemies are NO bullet sponges. They're dangerous because they have interesting movement, different patterns and weapons. The characters play EXTREMELY different because they actually enable you to play the game in different ways.

The game is not all bad though. If you're into pixelarts the game is really well done, the performance is fine and the soundtrack and sfx are really good (but ♥♥♥♥ that damn enemy death sound that plays for every single kill you get). There also seems to be A LOT of content overall.

Again, I really feel what the devs were trying to do, but sadly they failed. Ultimately the game fails in his core mechanics: guns and movement.
For a game that basically CONSISTS of doding bullets and shooting guns this is not acceptable.
Other people might like the game, sure, but it's not for me.

Thus, I cannot recommend this game.

OF COURSE I RECOMMEND THIS ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ GAME. IT'S LIKE BINDING OF ISAAC ON COCAINE AND ECSTASY!

There's one thing though that I'd like to tell you: If you do rage or get frustrated fast, do not buy. Unless you love Roguelikes. That combination doesn't make sense but there's strange people on this planet.

The RNG in this game doesn't give a single flying ♥♥♥♥. It doesn't assist you, it doesn't have mercy. Sometimes it even feels like it just decided to end you.
Oh you've just ended that level where you barely survived with 1HP because you had a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ revolver and the game decided to not spawn any useful weapons in the levels before at all? Well ♥♥♥♥ you then, have fun with this spawn right inside of an entire army of enemies without any cover whatsoever!

I gotta say, the RNG is just extremely frustrating sometimes. But oh boy, if you have a good run with great weapons and mutations!

Yeah, I do suck at the game (haven't even looped once) but I'll sure as hell not stop playing it.

P.S.: ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ LIL HUNTER FFS

Pros:

- Game looks amazing and runs really well
- It's pretty long for an AAA title nowadays
- The action is solid. Guns feel different and can be upgraded. Enemies are actively trying to flank you all the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time.
- Movement such as climbing, jumping and balancing feels solid and rewarding but punishing.


Cons:

- Waaaaay too ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ easy. I played it on the hardest difficulty on my first run and I barely died.
- "Puzzles" are not really "puzzles". Most of them are way to easy and obvious.
- Not really a Tomb Raider game, more like Island Raider. The exploration aspect came too short.
- Enemies don't vary enough. You basically play against three types of enemies for the entire game (with the exception of bossfights).
- Story is meh.


If you want a third person shooter with lots of action and climbing, an interesting world and a touch of RPG elements this is the game for you. If you expect a Tomb Raider game like it used to be: avoid.

Pretty good game overall, although it has some flaws. Pick it up in a sale if you can.

Pros:

• Weapons feel powerful
  
• Interesting leveldesign
  
• Nice mix of sneaking and full rambo mode
  
• The game looks great

Cons:

• Story is super predictable
  
• Main character is killing people left and right and still cries nonstop about the cruelty of war
  
• Weapons are pretty much all the same
  
• Bossfights are uninspired
  
• Performance to requirements ratio is meh at best
  
• Short (around 10h depending on difficulty) and no replayability value

This game is what Simcity should have been. It didn't crash once (yet), the performance is amazing, you can mod it till it breaks, it's well balanced and actually feels like it's a simulation. You ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up your roadnetwork? Well too bad, you're gonna have loads of traffic jam. Built your industrial complex to near to the city? People will complain.

Every single one of the city's inhabitants has a job, a way to work and back, goes shopping, etc... It really feels like a simulation.

The game still has it's rough edges: the streetconstruction is a bit wonky, it could use some more indicators (like showing which way one way roads are built) etc.
But I'm 100% certain that this will either be updated or modded. There's already tons of amazing mods in the work shop.

Go. buy. this. game.

This game is ♥♥♥♥. Let me tell you why:

Campaign takes around 4h to finish, if at all. You'll never come back as it gives you NO absolutely NO replayvalue.

Multiplayer is a joke. There are around 2 or 3 weapons that are completely overpowered, the rest is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ useless. Enjoy being sniped by a SMG accross the entire map without any recoil whatsoever, while your assault rifle takes twice the hits to kill an enemy at close range. Also: Onehit Sniperrifles. Who came up with this ♥♥♥♥? It's not fun to turn around a corner and get killed by someone who barely shot your leg. Talking about ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥: There is this ONE perk you ABSOLUTELY need to play this game or otherwise you WILL die over and over and over and over. Assassin Pro is it's name. It hides you from the minimap and UAV's. Completely. Because otherwise you are a bright red dot on the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ minimap as soon as you fire a single shot.
Yes, this game has basically built in wallhack.
Oh and if you happen to play against players that use Headphones: good luck coming even CLOSE to them without being heard. But hey, there's also a perk for that. Too ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bad you can't use any others because they are basically useless if you compare them to those I just mentioned.

And don't let me get started about the Matchmaking. The algorhythm, if there is one at all, is a joke. You get matched with people that can't hit a static target while the enemy 360 noscopes your entire team across the map.

This game is crap. Don't buy it. I regret buying it. I don't understand why people buy any game of this franchise over and over and over again. The last good CoD was Modern Warfare 1. After that... well you know.

"Do it yourself" Survival for hardcore sadists!

This game is hard. And it has permadeath. If you die, your entire savegame is gone. But I have to admit: that only makes the game better and even more thrilling. If you like looting, collecting and exploring, this is the game for you!