Recent reviews by Malcom Heavy

I have been playing PZ since 2011 when I was given access for the alpha tests of the game off of TIS' website way back in the day. Before the leaks. Before the break-in. I am about as close to a day 1 rider for the game as you can get. I have supported this game since day 1 and was one of the first people to be given an Early Access key for the game on Steam. I activated my key on Steam for the game October 16th of 2013 according to my Steam product activation log. So believe me when I say I care deeply for this game.

With that being said, I can not recommend the game at this current moment. It has little to do with the game itself. The game itself is complex, unforgiving, and unique. It is simply like nothing else. My play time with the game does NOT include my playtime on backup copies of the game that I play so my mods don't break. Realistically, I have probably close to 10x the playtime than my profile reflects. I would not have sunk those hours in if the game was not something really special, BUT, here is why I have to encourage people to stay away.

Since the release of Unstable Build 42, the developers have given the players and modding community the cold shoulder and silent treatment. The game with either go MONTHS with no meaningful updates, or get updated 4 times in 3 months, breaking mods, bricking saves, and sometimes corrupting installs all with NO WARNING from the developers that an update is incoming and we should back up our mods and installs.

I hate to be the "We made you" guy, but TIS seems to have lost touch with what has spurred the game into the massive success it has seen lately. The community. Mod developers will spend MONTHS building and updating mods the devs broke only for the devs to drop a meaningless update that adds nothing of value that breaks ALL of the mods for the game while failing to provide us a legacy build of the game, or at the bare minimum share a basic roadmap so we can anticipate updates. The least TIS could do is one of those 2 relatively easy things. But they don't. Whether it's ignorance, hubris, or malice, it makes no difference.

That is all without even addressing the fact that the game has been in early access for 12 1/2 years now while STILL missing features that we promised to us... 12 years ago. Some features that have been REMOVED from the game, like NPC's that never saw a return. The modding community can manage to build massive total conversions for the game in months adding robust systems that the developers promised a decade ago and never delivered on. Interpret that however you please. But I can no longer make excuses for the developers lack of progress and refusal to share any kind of roadmap.

Do not spend your own money to be a beta tester. Hold off on this game for now. The wallet speaks louder than I can ever hope to and I fear the only way this game will see meaningful progress and a course correction in treatment of the community is through financial means.

Well. I WAS really enjoying this game. And then it decided it no longer wanted to even launch on my PC.
Tried everything. Drivers. Re-verifying the game cache. Running as Admin.
Nothing.

How are we so many years after the launch of this game, and it wont even launch for MANY users on PC? This is inexcusable.

I think I'm the most upset that I'm half-an-hour past my refund limit, because the game gave me just enough time to play it for me to not be able to get a refund, AND THEN it decided it didn't want to launch anymore.

The worst part? There's no accessible crash log. it just keeps asking me to send a crash report to the developers. MAYBE, just maybe if you were transparent about what's causing your game to crash, I could figure it out. But no. I don't have access to that information. I guess I'll just go ♥♥♥♥ myself then.

I'm so over buying ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ video games anymore. There's not a single one that comes out of the box working anymore. Hell, there's not a single on that comes out that eventually works either.

The gaming industry can suck my taint. From now on, I will not purchase a SINGLE AAA game that isn't a console version. Not one. So I don't get to use my ludicrously expensive gaming PC for, Hmmm, I don't know. Maybe playing great looking videogames?

And this game. THIS ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ GAME, is the reason. This is the game that finally broke my will to purchase AAA titles. Hell, this game might even be the thing that makes me quit PC gaming completely. ♥♥♥♥ it.

You want a cheap, extremely capable gaming PC, HMU. I don't need this thing anymore.

Good game with tasty soda.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:Shadow of Chernobyl


Now, I am one who started off with Call of Pripyat and jumping to this game I was a bit dissapointed by the very barebones system of game mechanics but with the instalation of a mod, I managed to really get into the universe.
The world is terrifying.
There are few games that scare me but are so alluring at the same time.
This game got everything right about a nuclear wasteland in a very stylized and brutal way.

First off, let me tell you reasons why you should buy it.

• Immersive and terrifying game world
  
• Unforgiving and hardcore gameplay
  
• Interesting universe full of lore
  
• Challenging gunplay
  
• AN-94
  
• Difficult AI opponents
  
• Unique theme, Chernobyl is loads of fun to explore
  
• A large variety of enemies
  
• A unique survival expirience
  
• Convincing atmosphere
  
• Beautiful, creepy, and immersive sound design
  
• Large modding community that includes additional storylines/ areas
  
  Now here are some of the reasons I might not suggest this game.
  
  
• Loads of bugs
  
• Clunky movement system
  
• Poor balance, I had to install a mod for the game to be playable. (S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Complete 2009)
  
• Very badly dated athstetics
  
• Weak/Almost non exsistant story
  
• Dissapointing/Unfulfilling ending
  
• "Open world" is divided into VERY small areas
  
• Built on the most offensively terrible game engine I have ever played a game on
  
• At 8 years old has aged severly
  
• Anomalies are EVERYWHERE killing you almost instantly setting you back to your last save (SO SAVE CONSTANTLY)
  
  The ending of this game throws any fraction of balance there may have been out of the window. I was expecting so much more from the end of the game and all it ended up being was a frustrating shooting gallery, with no final boss fight. I was expecting far far more from this game coming from Call of Pripyat.
  If you have finished this game you know exactly what I am talking about, not to mention the fact that when you beat the game with that terrible ending, thats it. No more exploration. No selling your mad loot for an epic weapon. Nothing.
  The game just send and gives you the chance to replay the ending again. Thats it.
  
  Now S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was supposed to be the game to make up for all of this, but sadly it was killed off just like the staff of the nuclear reactor after the melt down.
  
  The game also has a surprising lack of mutants. That was supposed to me the main horror factor of this game but they stopped showing up to the part about half way through leaving me feeling a little unsatisfied.
  There was only a hand full of times this game really had me scared, and they were short lived.
  
  Would I reccomend this game?
  
  If you are willing to install a mod or two and overlook all the cons this game has then it is for sure a yes from me.
  But only if the good things I listed really interests you.
  If this game does not really grab your attention, then I would reccomend for $20 you hold off on this one.
  If you are not all that interested than you really aren't going to miss out.
  
  
  

--12 YEARS LATER UPDATE--
I <3 CS. But keeping my initial review as a time capsule from CSGO in 2014.
Plus the game is free now.

--MY REVIEW FROM 2014--

The only point to this game is to get you addicted to weapons skins, so that you will force your family to starve because you blew your whole paycheck on that AWP skin you've always wanted.

You starve your family so that you may feed Master Newell all of your cash.

Another thing... Valve could give 2 s** less about the community, therefore, have any suggestions on how this game can be made better? Well to bad, Valve won't listen.

If you think the game looks cool because of the trailer, well, the trailer is a lie. Even maxed out, this game comes nowhere close to that graphically. I mean, come on, it's on the source engine, did you really think it would look like it came out anywhere past 2005?

You know what, let me get into some detail on why I would not recommend this game.

Deathmatch...
This is probably what most newer players will jump into when they first get this game.
The spawns are garbage. This game makes sure that if you kill someone, they spawn right behind you so that they can exploit invincibility, line up a headshot on you, and shoot you in the back of the head.

Casual...
If you want a bunch of 30 year old men yelling at you that you are a waste of life and you should go kill yourself because of how garbage you are at the game, then you have found the right game-mode for you. This game mode ships with more than just soul crushing non-tactical insanity... It also comes with...

- 12 year old kids mic-spamming with their laptop microphones that you can ever so clearly hear yourself, their parents fighting, and the laptop fan blowing ever to mercilessly.

- 25-40 year old men who take this game WAY TO F***ING SERIOUSLY.

And
- Hackers, oh so many hackers.



Now time to get to the shining star of this game. The only thing that makes it worth a single cent of that $15 dollars you just spent on the game, not including the $200 or so you just spent on about 30 cents of skins.

Competitive...

In theory, this sounds really damn cool. A bunch of skilled players matched up with equally as skilled players to tactically find a way to either plant a bomb, or defend one of two points from said bomb. It's supposed to be high risk, high reward. Sounds like real adrenaline pumping fun right?

Well, first let me address the elephant in the room that everyone who has played more than 2 hours of competitive knows about. The match-making system. To plainly put it. It's broken. So broken in fact, that when I first started off, I was put against a Legendary Eagle Master. A F***ING LEGENDARY EAGLE MASTER! The thing I have heard over and over was "Oh, it was probably a pre-made team of 1 LEM, and a bunch of unranked, that's why that happened". Well fine, then put them in a match with people about half way between LEM and Unranked, NOT AGAINST A WHOLE TEAM OF UNRANKED! Needless to say, we got wrecked.

Second. You would think with a whole wide variety of unique, interesting maps, you would have a lot of unique experiences correct? Wrong. Let me tell you the one, maybe 2 maps will will EVER get to play in competitive. Dust II, and Nuke. But most likely just Dust II, as that is the ONLY map that most of these guys like to play. Maybe, if you are SUPER lucky (And I mean REALLY damn lucky), you will get to see the maps of Inferno, or maybe even Mirage. What's that? You want to play another map? NO! Bored of Dust II? TOO BAD! Dust II is the only map you have played since you got this game? Cry me a river.

One more thing about competitive you REALLY should know. You will probably always be unranked. "Why on earth would that be true? I am really good at FPS games!" Well Jimmy, take a seat and let me tell about a little something called "Newbs".
They are everywhere. For every 1 competitive match you win, you will most likely lose about 5-10 matches unless you get really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ lucky. The community of this game are (In general, not all players) just so very bad at this game. No one uses call-outs properly, No one on your team will communicate with you, and if you attempt to relay information to your team in any way what so ever, you will swiftly be told to "Shut the f*** up!) and will be vote kicked from the match.



WARNING!
Before you play this game, you must know that the hit detection in worse in this game alone, and Battleield 4 launch, and Bad Company 2 combined. So have fun unloading a clip onto someone at 1-5 meters, and only 1 bullet counting for 5 damage.



MY FINAL VERDICT:

4/10

Would not recommend.

This game can provide you will some great, fun, and heart pumping moments should you get past the lower ranks of competitive, but this games overly steep learning curve makes it both inaccessible for old time Counter-Strike veterans, and new players alike. This game has some great features, they are just hard to find over the heaps, and piles, and tons of smelly, nasty, putrid s***.

Do not buy this unless you are ready to damage thousands of dollars in drywall and Sheetrock in pure rage.

The third installment of the Saints Row frachise, this game takes you to Stealport, a booming island metropolis, as the leader of the Third Street Saints. The Saints have become international superstars between the second, and third game. Lost in this new city, you are forced to fight your way through the Syndicate gangs to avenge the death of one of the series most beloved characters (No Spoilers) before you can head back home.
Although the total story only comes to around 12 hours of gameplay, you will find yourself spending many more in this open world searching for Gang Operations, new activities, rare cars, and collectables. Although the game falls short of the second in several areas of customization, you will find most base customization mechanics are pretty much the same. It does not have secret littered about like the Saints Row 2 did, meaning there will be no hidden interiors, no secret islands, no hidden sea monsters, and no hidden CD's. Another area I feel it fell short was the overall depth and beleveability of the map. The interior count was reduced, there were no customizable cribs, several shops, and key features that made the second one unique were all missing. I still enjoyed the story, and the game still was the fun, goofy (Much more out there than the second) and unique experience we all come to expect from the franchise.

Rating...
8/10
Spectacular fun, but less depth than the previous installment.