Recent reviews by Doskii

Fun and fairly relaxing game. Great with friends.

The game overall is ”meh”. The “feel” of the game is janky, laggy, buggy and overall just bad. Guns barely work, melee weapons have barely any impact and some missions are bugged to the point you have to disconnect and play them solo before continuing online (and even that takes multiple tries). The level design is horrible, it’s hard to do any pathfinding and the game doesn’t help what so ever. The zombies are just annoying especially when in ankle deep water and when their attacks are basically undodgeable/unblockable. They are always in the way (in a bad way) and respawns really quickly.

The story is mostly uninteresting and relies too heavily on just defending against hordes of buggy zombies for 30 minutes straight (if it doesn’t bug out and refuses to spawn the rest). Characters are terribly written and feel like telling you their life’s story on repeat whenever you are nearby. They do nothing other than stand around and all their personalized missions are just “get me 3 packs of coffee” and the like.

The audio is completely screwed up, you constantly hear some weird echoes as if somebody is falling down some stony stairs in a large cave no matter where you are. Guns make weird sounds that don’t come from the gun’s position and a lot of the sound effects sound like repeating 1s royalty free clips taken from the internet. Voice acting is also terrible, they sound generic, stiff and emotionless. Some of the playable characters are slightly better than the NPCs though.

Graphics wise it’s not too bad actually. It has nice lightning and decent texture quality for its time. Though they were a bit lazy and copy-pasted the same corridor and stair case all over the place which is especially noticeable for the rather boring side-quests/challenges.

On the topic of side-quests, it is really hard to find them all. They are not all that visible on the map (if at all) and are often hidden within buildings. You have to literally go though each and every building if you want to get them all which is really annoying. The quest tracker also has all kinds of issues, most noticeably the fact that it sometimes just resets and activates a completely different quest out of nowhere. The active quest also isn’t synced between players during co-op for whatever reason leading to everybody walking in opposite directions.

There are a lot of other issues with it but I can’t be bothered to write them all down. All in all, I wouldn’t recommend this game to anyone unless you are in the mood for playing a laughably bad game with some friends.

I’ve played W3 and W1 before this and it is surprisingly (at least surprisingly to me) the worst one of the 3, but that doesn’t mean it is bad.

The gameplay/controls took a little to get used and was pretty janky. Especially the lock-on was annoying and you can’t hit anything unless you have the lock-on on the correct enemy even if your sword goes through the enemy you try to hit. The combat was somehow worse than W1 simply because in W1 you eventually get used to it. Combat wise this game is not great unfortunately.

Story wise, the main plot was fairly short and not too complicated but does go way more into details to what happened after the books than W1 did, as well as deeper into details of the characters. The characters in general were also much better and alive and detailed compared to W1 (but not as good as W3). The story was overall pretty good and interesting. The main plot is about figuring out why somebody is killing all the kings (hence the title). You go around trying to piece the bits together while helping the people you meet. You can pick and choose which loose cannon to help (the lesser evil style) to achieve your goals while also trying to get some of your memory back. The main story is fairly good but not the absolute best either, it’s everything surrounding it that makes it good, similar to the structure of W3 (though W3 had both a better main plot and side plots).

Visually the game looks bland. It has that 2010’s bleak one-colored look to it and the poor low-quality textures and far too much bloom to match. W1 I could forgive considering the game’s scope and age but this could have been done better. The music was also a lot worse compared to the first game but the sound affects where instead much better. Stability wise W2 wasn’t great, it crashed way too often and had all other kinds of issues that should have been fixed for whatever “enhanced edition” means.

In summary I do recommend this game but it has rough edges and is simply not as good as the others in the series.

Now this is how you do a sequel! The first game was already really good but this continuation is just fantastic. At the start it does feel a little like they’re just doing the first game again but that changes fairly quickly and it becomes seriously good.

The gameplay has roughly the same basis, sometimes you sneak around, sometimes you go on a killing spree and occasionally you get a simple puzzle. You keep being fairly weak in general (which is good story wise) and have to use the environment to make your way through the areas. It’s mostly the same pick-one-off-at-a-time-while-avoiding-detection mechanic but they added a lot of new elements to it like the crossbow and companions that help in different ways. While I’m normally not into stealth games I do think this game strikes the balance between stealth, action and story really well. The gameplay loop feels solid and satisfying.

The story is great (if not slightly predictable occasionally) and continues Innocence’s story without the typical “oh ♥♥♥♥ we need to make a sequel” problems where some games that do better than expected have to suddenly figure out a new reason to keep going (sequel syndrome I think it’s called). You keep going through Amicia and Hugo’s (and co) adventure trying to survive and find a cure for Hugo while everything keeps getting worse. It’s an endless fight against something seemingly unbeatable or unavoidable that just keeps getting darker. You explore and try to figure out the origin of what is happening and if it has happened before. The game portrays the heavy exhausting fight against the world really well and every hurt leaves a scar (mentally and physically). The characters get wearier and more worn down the further they go. The writing also does a good job at having the characters aged a little since the last game and a little less naïve while still acting fairly young with the whole “surviving in a world against adults who just don’t understand” vibe. Probably a poor explanation of what I mean but oh well. It’s good and a natural progression from the first game is all I’m saying.

The voice acting is brilliant, especially the angry whispering (for some reason that stands out to me) and has a lot of emotion. The voice actors really did the characters justice even despite the lip syncing and facial expressions sometimes being a little off (maybe mocap not done by the voice actors? Idk. But that is such a small thing, barely worth mentioning.)

The music is in the same boat, really well done. It fits the game and setting perfectly and is dynamic to whatever is happening on screen. They have a unique and recognizable theme and they are sticking with it and remixing into multiple forms and moods throughout the game. The sound design in general (ambience, sound effects, etc.) are all really good too and there is plenty of details to be found there.

Lastly the visuals. This game is absolutely stunning from all angles you look at it. The lightning is just amazing together with the sharp texture quality, facial expressions and just the right amount of grain. I honestly thought it was built with Unreal Engine 5 as it has that “look” but apparently it’s their own in-house engine, which makes it even more impressive. The techniques they use (and disguise) for rendering the crazy amounts of rats is really well done and doesn’t tank the performance at all. The performance on my i5-9600k + RTX 2070 was splendid with mostly 60-100 fps running on ultra (without ray-tracing) at 1440p (with a little DLSS). Really impressive. The art style and character designs also work wonders. I especially liked the details in Amicia’s clothes during the second half of the game combined with the graphical fidelity of it. Though the front flap thing kept clipping through her legs which bothered me as it is such a visible thing and would barely have taken any effort to fix. HDR looked really sweet btw.

In summary I’m very satisfied with this game. It took me 20 hours (double the length it took me to beat the first one, for some perspective) and I enjoyed it. Can definitely recommend, though you have to play the first game first, otherwise nothing will make sense.

A bit clunky at first, especially the combat, but once you get used to it it's actually really good!

It has the same “soul” as The Witcher 3 (which was my introduction to the Witcher universe) but with a lower budget. Though despite not being as flashy and being a bit dated it has surprisingly much depth to it and looks solid enough. The story is pretty good and it has all the tangents you’d expect from The Witcher (“hold on guys, just gotta become the champion in dice poker real quick before we can save the world”). The main idea is that you walk around trying take revenge on some guys for stealing your secret cookie recipe while also suffering from amnesia so that everything can be conveniently introduced to you bit by bit in case you haven’t read the books (really smart actually). You then have to try and find who and where their leader is while fist-fighting the locals and flirting with anything that moves.

They did skimp a little too much on the character models though, a lot of NPCs look identical to each other and it is really weird sometimes (“what is the cannibal guy doing here? oh, that’s apparently the fisher king now”). You know a character is important when they have their own model. They also sometimes share the same voice lines so you got some minor characters that suddenly change their voice actor entirely from one sentence to the next. Neither of these are complaints to be clear, just thought it was funny.

Now to the elephant in the room. Everybody complains about the combat and it puts most people off at the beginning but once you’ve done it a while it starts to actually feel pretty satisfying. You have to pick the correct sword and fighting style depending on the enemy and then click on them repeatedly whenever your cursor changes to a flaming sword. Eventually you’ll level up and do all kinds of ridiculous moves and backflips. You can also use some magic, oil up your sword, take potions, throw bombs and eat an entire loaf of bread while in combat to make it easier. I mostly ignored oils and alchemy though because I’m lazy.

I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to start with this game if you’re new to the series. It’s probably not for everyone. You could honestly start with 3 without any prior knowledge and be just fine and then if you still want more, this game can definitely provide, assuming you’re ok with a bit of jank, a weird combat system and walking back and forth a lot.

Ps. I ended up with nearly a thousand saves because quick-save makes a new save each time, which I like of course but at the end it took 18GB of storage and a solid minute and a half just to open the “load game” menu lol. Quick-load still worked instantly though but not from the main menu.

A proper game. No BS, DLC, microtransactions, Sony logins or anything like that. Just a solid game through and through and it gets a well-deserved recommendation.

The story, gameplay, combat, sound design, music, graphics, atmosphere and characters are all great. They feel well-crafted and fresh while also hinting enough to the older titles. The pure hack-and-slash time is over as this game goes more into a story focused direction with proper companions, antagonists, side-characters, character arcs and a good adventure vibe while still ramping up the combat a great deal during the length of the game. It was so satisfying when I unexpectedly got the chaos blades back and started wreaking havoc.

While exploration is fun, re-exploring the same places multiple times whenever I unlocked more things or the places changed made me occasional feel like I might as well have waited until the end to explore. I did not regret doing it this way though, but it did cost some time. There were also some side bosses that were a tat too hard for my level, but I managed. It also has some grindy stuff, including an arena type area which I typically don’t enjoy much, but it’s just short enough to stay fun. Not much of a complaint though, more like an observation.

I liked that they expanded into Norse mythology while not simply dismissing the Greek. The game introduces a bunch of Norse gods and worlds while also giving plenty of background about them in the form of random dialog and some shorter summarized texts. So, if you like Norse mythology than this is a huge plus.

As a soft-reboot they respected the previous games really well while also distancing themselves enough for new players. You really don’t need any prior knowledge of GoW but it does help for certain references. It caters to both new and old I guess you could say. When they originally announced the reboot, I was skeptical at first of the massive changes but it worked out really well.

This game also motivated me to get a PS3 to play the older GoW again (only played two of them back in the day on PS2 and PSP) while I wait for Ragnarök.

It’s the weakest in the series (but not as bad as New Tales of the Borderlands). The game is alright but both the antagonists and protagonist are meh, the narrators are annoying (Tiny Tina is ok though, I meant the other two) and the story is just fine at best. The bosses are too easy and simple and the “random encounters” are repetitive and thoroughly boring. Those random encounters are used everywhere in the game to the point where I just can’t tolerate them anymore. E.g. they are used in Pokémon styled random encounters, in multi-leveled dungeons, in camps you have to beat, as trail runs (in which they are even longer), as side-quests and a few more places that I can’t remember right now.

The gameplay is nice though, they added some interesting classes and abilities. Instead of grenades you have spells with interesting effects that can be really powerful. The gunplay feels just like what you would expect from Borderlands: solid and varied. There are enough weapons that you’ll always find something you like. The DnD theme was fun to return to and the changes they made to accommodate that were really good.

The humor is still mostly there but it has become very careful and dulled down. They watered down the more brutal feel of the older games into a more [insert current year] game. It has some occasional good moments and partially beats the whole influencer/streamer nonsense they had in BL3 to some extent. Emphasis on the “partially” part, the rest of BL3 is still better.

The UI (menus, inventory management, etc.) have been worsened even more than BL3 already did. You can’t even compare items properly because they stick outside of the screen. There were a lot of small annoyances in this area but I can’t remember them all right now and got used to some of them eventually.

Towards the end of the game, they don’t give you enough money to upgrade everything like they did in other Borderland games which made it really annoying to get the final achievement. Me and my friend ended up spending a good 20 hours just grinding the trail runs until we found an exploit that involved hitting dead sharks with a pickaxe for 20 minutes per shark. We did that for 6-9 hours until we found a duplication glitch to get the final 200 million dollars we needed. This process really killed the game for me. Of course, I know it’s optional but the other games made the money system way more reasonable and all these small annoyances add up. I think it might be this way because the game is much shorter and has a much lower level cap while they never bothered adjusting the pricing to compensate. In the previous games getting all the achievements were a lot more fun, even running around aimlessly searching for red-chests in BL2 was more fun than this.

I was looking forward to this game as the BL2 DLC that inspired this game was amazing. I really wanted to like it but it ended up being somewhat of a disappointment for me. It’s alright, not bad, but not as good as what I expected from a BL game. There are just too many small bad things that add up to a “meh” overall experience. I recommend it assuming you have played the other Borderlands games first and that the game is on sale, otherwise no. Don’t let this be your introduction to Borderlands.

I played this game more than 10 years ago and it felt different back then. It felt impactful and beautiful in the way of storytelling and presentation. Now that I’ve played it again it felt kind of meh. You walk incredibly slow which is fine until you start exploring a little and finding a dead-end, and then the story is alright I guess, same with the voice acting, but nothing exceptionally noteworthy. The atmosphere is where it’s as good as I remember though. The wind effect on the foliage and in the air together with the sound, somber colors and almost-dark setting really sets the tone. The cave also looks really nice.

Would I recommend it? Nah, probably not but this is not a negative review either and Steam doesn’t allow neutral reviews so I guess I’ll just mark it as recommended.

A fun, high octane shooter that doesn’t take itself too seriously. I played it twice back when it came out and now that I’ve played it again all those years later, I can say that it holds up surprisingly well. I feel like this game never got the attention it deserved. It’s really good.

This game is excellent, and easily the best of the Bioshock game series.

I played Infinite when it came out and recently decided to play it again after 10 years plus the original Bioshock 1, 2 and all DLC that I never played before. So, this time I had way more context to the game and being 10 years older also helps understanding the story better. Replaying this also made me understand why I loved this game so much back then. It was entirely justified.

The story is smart with some really cool twists that you can figure out and puzzle together before the game tells you directly, but still leaves enough for you to think and put the pieces together afterwards. Listening to all the voice recordings you can find throughout the game (called voxophones) also give additional context and details about what actually happened.

The main gameplay loop feels really good and definitely made me explore a lot more powers (vigors) compared to the powers (plasmids) in the first two games despite there being fewer of them. The gun play feels great (though ADS is a bit awkward but you’re not supposed to use it that much anyways) and has enough variation. The game also forces you to switch weapons due to ammo at a rate that felt well balanced. It made me want to use all types of guns, but maybe that is also because the guns just feel really good.

The atmosphere of the game is definitely different compared to the first two, which were near identical in that regard. It feels fresh, nice and warm and features the type of music I started enjoying thanks to Fallout 4. It’s kind of like Rapture but not at the same time, which is a big theme in the game.

Elizabeth is probably the best companion of any game I’ve ever tried. She is useful, doesn’t take damage and has plenty of reactions and dialog to keep it interesting. It also helps that the voice actors are really good for both Booker and Elizabeth and that they both have a lot of character.

The story DLC is also really good. The first part felt a bit cheap-ish, kind of like Bioshock 2’s DLC but together with part 2 it felt amazing. Really nice to be back in Rapture too.

Infinite is also infinitely buggier compared to the first two games though. I got stuck a lot and had to return to the most recent checkpoint each time. There is also the problem with the FOV which is limited to toilet paper rolls by default. You have to go into the “C:\Users\<Username>\Documents\My Games\BioShock Infinite\XGame\Config\XUserOptions.ini” and change to “MaxUserFOVOffsetPercent” to e.g. 50 for 90 degrees and then turn up the FOV in the game settings to max (the 50 means 50% higher than the default 60 degrees). I would also recommend changing the launch options to avoid the stupid 2K launcher, just follow this guide: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3003566535