Recent reviews by MercurialJester🌡

Yet another entry that needs a middle ground option because truly my experience playing this was loaded with equal parts fun and joy, mixed with rage and frustration.

Horizon: Forbidden West is sequel to the hit Horizon: Zero Dawn from Guerilla Games. It sees series protagonist Aloy out to find a way to heal AI GAIA and save the world from a plague. However as is always the case, things get complicated very quickly and Aloy has to visit a lot of old world locations, face new machine enemies, and 1000 year old mystery.

Story wise, Horizon: Forbidden West is okay. I enjoyed the story for the most part, with only a few aspects that annoyed me. There were some wonderful set-pieces I really enjoyed, including a huge fight between the machines and the antagonist forces in the endgame, but for the most part the story plods on at your pace, with very little impetus to get a move on, as is standard for open world games like this one. The story improves somewhat in the Burning Shores DLC, but not by much. Said DLC however respects your time far more than the base game ever did. That said, it's not a poorly written cliche filled bore fest, and it did enough to keep my playing through my numerous gripes to see where it went, so it has that going for it at least. Characters are...a mixed bag. I don't know what direction Ashley Burch was given for the base game, but Aloy felt robotic and often incredibly cold and rude. It's understandable to a point, but some points just felt as if they were trying to make Aloy very unlikeable and even emotionless. Burning Shores does a LOT to make this better, with Aloy actually emoting and feeling like a human being, but waiting 40+ hours for that just to play a 20-ish hour DLC of Aloy being somewhat relatable in the slightest is taking the piss. On the opposite side, characters like Zo, Alva, and Varl have great emotions, and while slightly one note in their personalities, a symptom of being NPCs, credit should be given for attempts to make them more than just quest givers with a face. They interact with each other and throughout the game you can see how they all feel about each other and their connections to Aloy. I did have some issues with the way the game treated a specific character, and it still bugs me that nobody offered them a better name than they one they have, but it's a minor gripe at the end of the day.

Game-play in Horizon: Forbidden West is pretty much the same as Zero Dawn with some modest improvements. Aloy is much more powerful since the first game, and has some new moves and traversal options. There are new machines as well some old classics, and Burning Shores brings in some distilled mechanics from the base game that really up the ante while remaining familiar. However in my experience the traversal game-play may in fact be the worst thing I have ever seen. I cannot express enough how much this game fought me, to the point where it felt like I was playing one of the original Assassin's Creed entries with their penchant for ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ over the player during climbs (eg This image right here. [i.pinimg.com]. I cannot count all the times Aloy decided to halt her momentum at the end of a running jump, or overshot the jump, undershot the jump, ignored the grapple jump prompt or chose a complete different much lower one, all resulting in a LOT of lost progress due to the way these jumping/climbing puzzles are set up. I was constantly fighting the game to actually do what I wanted, and it was not a fun time. For a game where one of the primary game-play loops is this climbing, it was a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ chore. I truly had to walk away at points from how much anger I had at the game doing this. Because it's the lost time that I hated the most.

Graphically, this game is gorgeous. Truly, a sight to behold. There are varied biomes, each with a singular style that helps differentiate them, while they all still blend together wonderfully. Bright contrasting colours, great cohesive art design, and some truly standout environments like the ruins of Las Vegas really make this game a visual feast for the eyes.

Music is orchestral and bombastic, but nothing really stands out. It all helps sell the experience, but to me nothing really stood out as a track I could grab on to as an example. It's present, and does it's job, and you notice it when you need to. It's functional. There is one very small highlight partway through the middle third of the game, however this is spoiler territory, so I won't be covering it. Needless to say, it stands out from the rest but is all too brief.

Overall, I feel like Horizon: Forbidden West doesn't quite match up to it's predecessor, and has too many serious issues with the game-play for me to really recommend, but at the same time these things can be quite subjective and you may be less bothered by them than I was. Plus, it really does get better in Burning Shores enough to overlook these flaws in my opinion, it just should have been like that from the start.

I give this a Yes, simply because No feels too harsh.

A very solid 6/10 from me.

No big deep dive review here. Just short and sweet. Because this is a game to be experienced yourself.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, what a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game. A masterpiece. Genuinely.

ATLUS outdid themselves with this one, a culmination of everything they've done up to this point.

Metaphor: ReFantazio outdoes Persona 5 in so many little but important ways.

If you like the SMT series, the Persona and Soul Hackers spinoffs, you owe it to yourself to give this one a go.

It's something really special.

The Outer Worlds from 2019 is often called New Vegas in Space and yet I think this is more a pejorative than a compliment to the game. Obsidian are very clearly not doing a retread of New Vegas but it's easy to see why that's the first thought one might have. An RPG set in what is clearly an homage to the Colonial Wild West era with guns and a dark sense of humour. But The Outer Worlds distinguishes itself from New Vegas in a myriad of ways. For one, it's not shackled to a creaking engine that should have been dragged out behind the back sheds and shot years ago, but instead is on Unreal Engine 4 (which has it's own problems but those didn't really show up for me so YMMV) and for the most part it is all the better for it. It looks stunning, as always Obsidian's art direction is stellar, and though it can lead to some planets looking same-y with the repeated art deco architecture, the argument could be made that it is a cohesive and consistent thread throughout the game. I leave that distinction up to you.

Story wise, you're a Lone Wanderer recently defrosted colonist waking up in the much vaunted Halcyon System that turns out to have fallen apart. In fact, you've been defrosted 60 years later than expected, as your colony vessel was "lost". It all gets explained pretty quickly, and after a neat character creator that explains in-universe why you look the way you do and have the stats you do, you're let loose on the colony to help bring the rest of your frozen cosmonauts to the colony. But things aren't all they seem to be. It's not a new story by any measure, but it's got some interesting aspects that might intrigue you, and it's filled with a very sardonic and darkly funny critique of corporatism.

Mechanically, it's a pretty bog standard RPG/FPS hybrid in the vein of Fallout etc, which should come as no surprise. But as always with Obsidian, the real meat is in the choices you make and how much the game adapts to them. Nothing is ever straight up linear, with patient and explorative Captains being able to solve many situations with often hidden options that aren't otherwise offered. Combat is...present, it's unfortunately not very thrilling or robust, and is often rote with many of your expected ways of dispatching opponents such as pistols, blasters, heavy weapons, and more. If you've played any prior Fallout titles, you know what to expect for the most part. It's the role-playing that is first and foremost here.

The usual companions are here, and they have their own ideas and moral compasses but I couldn't seem to do any wrong by them (not that I tried to be honest). Outside of their companion abilities and skill buffs for being in your party though, there's really no need for them outside of emotional attachment. They will interact with each other and talk about things, but that's about it. They do have companion quests that can give them unique abilities, but to be honest I don't think I ever saw those abilities be of any use. I mostly ran with sweet naive mechanic Parvati and the alcoholic game hunter Nyoka, and they carried me through the game. Changing out for some characters as needed for quests but mostly stuck with those two mainstays

Overall, The Outer Worlds is a solid game. It's got a lot more depth than its comparison to New Vegas would have you believe, but at the same time unless you're into the story and making choices, there's not a whole lot to keep you engaged overall. And yet it is still superior to Starfield so at least you know Obsidian can kick Bethesda's mediocre arses years in advance. I said what I said.

It's not mind blowing by modern standards, and even on release it wasn't a masterpiece by any means, but with the sequel supposedly set to come out this year of our zombielord 2025, it might pay to revisit this one and see how it started.

An easy Recommend for me.

Avowed is one of Obsidian's best outings since Fallout New Vegas with all the lessons learned from The Outer Worlds thrown in.

From the outset, it's clear they wanted tell a very specific kind of story, and while many may feel like they were robbed of a perfectly open branched story that would always agree with their choices, I think this game is very clear that while you can make certain choices, you're not going to be given a pat on the head for them. You will be judged for your decisions by everyone in the game, and if you don't like it then this game isn't for you. Obsidian did make it so that no matter what you chose, you could still progress, but eventually you will face the consequences for it. This isn't a game that holds it's tongue, that's all I'm saying.

Graphically it's wonderfully colourful, even in places that feel dreary. I think they made some excellent choices in art direction, and the contrast in colours between locations really pops and gives the Living Lands a character all its own.

Companions are all enjoyable and likeable in their own way, and while it's a damned shame we can't convince a certain character to leave their partner for us, we also don't have much romance options at all, and I think that's a positive at the end of the day. Romance almost always becomes transactional in these kinds of games and I am glad Obsidian decided to forgo that rote mechanical way of doing romance.

Obsidian's masterful writing and conversation trees abound, and you truly do feel the weight of some of your choices. However, despite some conflict, nothing you do really makes your companions mad enough to leave which is a little shallow to me, but I also kind of understand why. However, Obsidian still can't quite grasp environmental storytelling, although they do try here. Sadly, this is one area Bethesda still has them beat, but that's about the only place. It would have been nice to see a bit more of it. Still, there are attempts which I appreciate.

One major gripe is the stability of this game. It will consistently crash with seemingly no cause. In a menu, in camp, in combat, idling, it doesn't matter, just "Alabama Game has crashed" and CTD. The frequent autosaves do ameliorate this a bit, but it's still frustrating to be in the groove of combat to have the game crash and ruin it.

Overall, I really enjoyed Avowed. To the point I first played on GamePass, then bought it on Steam it is that good. I plan to play it over again, in a different style and maybe different choices. We'll see.

Give Avowed a shot. The Living Lands are calling.

Kojima needs to be told "no" once in a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ while. Otherwise, this is the ♥♥♥♥ we get. And somehow we're getting a sequel to this? Bite me you underdeveloped loaf of mediocrity.

DEATH STRANDING is pompous, preachy, sanctimonious drivel. It wants to be so deep, but that depth comes from the mind of a man who thinks piss and ♥♥♥♥ are funny, and is thus so shallow his creepy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Bridge Babies wouldn't drown in it.

Okay, enough gripes about the "Director" of this overblown wanna be movie. Let's talk the game.
It's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ LITERAL walking simulator that occasionally has game-play. It's a trek across the tiniest America you've ever seen with the a convoluted story-line about reconnecting the people, that's actually about the mass extinction of the planet or some ♥♥♥♥, it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Kojima, toddlers tell more cohesive stories about fighting Batman in ice-cream with Barney and Ronald McDonald -- actually, that's even more coherent than this games story, never mind -- point is the story makes less sense the longer you think about it, so just don't. You'll get some closure at the very end, but even then it's just nonsense.

Mechanically, it's okay. You're a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ courier, an Amazon driver without a van (until later). Credit where it's due, the basic mechanic of balancing your load, and navigating terrain is neat in the early hours, but becomes a massive slog very quickly. Thankfully, they knew that, and vehicles do help. There's neat ideas throughout, such as equipment that makes travelling easier at the expense of carrying capacity, meaning you can't do everything you want AND have an easy time walking around. The stealth is a neat idea, tying into Kojima's ouevre as it were but like every mechanic in the game gets tiresome very quickly, especially late game when these areas are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ everywhere and you just want to go to bed.

If I'm honest, I also kinda liked the construction system. You can build roads and structures that can be shared by everyone online which does make the journey across the 6 city blocks of Tiny America a little easier to traverse. Everyone can contribute materials and collaborate to rebuild the roads that benefits everyone. And this system does tie into the preachy theme of "connectedness" which is mostly just "ape together strong" but it works, so I respect it.

One aspect that I have no issues with at all, and even actually really like about this game is the music. These choices are inspired, and I really liked how they were used, and the general vibe. LOW ROAR are definitely a discovery I really liked from this game, and I 100% loved every track I heard. If anything, these told a better story through the travel than the actual extant one did.

You will either love or hate this game. There's no in-between IMO. I for one haven't enjoyed anything Kojima has made that I was able to play, it's all just pure preachy bollocks masquerading as "deep philosophical discourse" that I just cannot enjoy. Some people love that Kojima is like this, but like many, I think the man should start making movies instead of games.

I can't recommend this as a "good" game to play. But I do think everyone should try to play it. Who knows, it might be right up your alley, but I struggled the whole way through, and I am glad it's over.

♥♥♥♥ YOU KOJIMA FOR TWO SETS OF UNSKIPPABLE CREDITS, THAT'S NOT OKAY!

I think Dragon's Dogma 2 is a good game. It looks nice, it can be fun to play, and there's some of that real DD fun on climbing around on enemies and stabbing them.

But it's not as good as the original in my opinion. This sequel feels hollow, like they only made it because they felt they had to. There are signs of quests and story-lines that are meant to be longer but got cut for time, romances are chopped down severely to just two women and that's it, the Beloved System is still janky and irritating when the finale is reached and you find out the game decided some rando you spoke to is now your Beloved, instead of the person you chose. Pawns are neat, but their tendency to randomly interrupt you out in the field to sell themselves when you already have a full party is obnoxious and makes me want to avoid those Pawns if I ever need their role., Petty it may be, but to be honest I truly hated this idea.

There's a real feeling they planned to sell you more, and then were shocked at the fan kick back and decided to scrap all their ideas and just finish what was in there, leading to the feeling that a lot just wasn't finished properly.

I can't really recommend it to Dragon's Dogma fans at all. It's a good game, there's a lot to like, but I genuinely can't bring myself to want to play this again in any way. And that's disappointing really.

So consider this a hesitant Recommend if anything, but my heart really isn't in it.

Look, I'm not a diehard fan of Rockstar games. Red Dead Redemption 2 is fine. It's not bad. I didn't hate it. Not having played the original, there's no context for me, which might be a positive overall, YMMV. But knowing this is a prequel did make me a little less invested in certain characters I suppose. But it's very minor and superficial admittedly.

It's not puerile like Grand Theft Auto which makes it marginally better in my eyes, but the setting isn't my thing by contrast, I'm not a big Western fan for the most part.

The writing is solid, characterisation is great (Sadie Adler is a treasure) and the plot while cliche is solid. They handled the lead up to the climax very well, the tension was incredibly well handled, and even the Epilogue was enjoyable for what it was.

Graphically, it is gorgeous, I can't deny. On my middling rig, it ran really well, optimisation was really good. The sweeping vistas make for wonderful screenshots if that's your thing, and sometimes it really is just nice to take a ride through the world and enjoy the views. It's a really pretty game.

Music is neat, I guess. Ambient music is okay, and even I, as someone apathetic to most country music, can't knock the choice to have a Willie Nelson track in there. The music is very appropriate for the theme and that's really the best I can judge it for.

There's a lot of busywork personally, which while I understand the idea behind it, really makes the gameplay feel dragged out and somewhat annoying overall. Again, a personal gripe, some might really enjoy that so take that with a grain of salt I suppose.

It at least got me to be interested in playing the original Red Dead Redemption at some point, as I do want to know what happens to John and his family.

It's okay. I didn't hate it. But I also won't gush about it, or call it a masterpiece. It's just...meh. Not terrible, not amazing to me, just a good solid game.

7/10

Okay, corny header aside, this is a great little game.

Turn based cyberpunk RPG sees you play as Noa, a sassy (not kidding, one of her stats is Sass) hacker from the slums on a journey to take down a megacorp. It's not the most unique of stories, but it gets the job done, and it's all nicely wrapped up for the most part.

A vibrant pixel art style with smooth animations and a lot of charm, Jack Move is a short but very entertaining game. To be praised is its approach to difficulty, in which you can choose how much "random battles" you have at any time. Yes, you can even turn them off. This does mean levelling up is sacrificed, but if you just want to run around exploring the levels and collecting items, you can do it without the constant interruptions. It's a neat idea.

As are the systems in place, where as you level up and gain money, you can adapt your deck to have more programs or a few more powerful ones. There's even a sort of 'Limit Break' system where as you take damage, you gain a little meter that when full let's you pull off the titular Jack Move of which you can get a few that are animated in fantastic, if slightly too long and unskippable, little cutscenes.

It's also loaded with references, some dated, some not. But even just having them brought a smile to my face as I cringed at them. YMMV.

Give this one a shot if you fancy something simple but charming and interesting.

This game is garbage.

First of all, the game has no way to restart because of Ubisoft's ♥♥♥♥♥♥ MMO justification, so if you played on release years ago, forgot what was going on and how to play, there's no way to get back into it. Even actual MMO's let you make ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ alts, Ubisoft's excuse is ♥♥♥♥.
Second, the driving is arse. Floaty as hell, yet somehow more overtuned for arcade than Need For Speed. Cars simultaneously feel both weightless while also turning like tanks. Drifting is iffy when you want to get the back out, but when you need to take a turn the cars decide that's the right time to chase their own tails like a puppy. Maybe this improves with new cars, but so far I'm not impressed so I uninstalled.
The game is also just the Ubisoft open world formula turned up to 11. Hundreds of icons across the map that ultimately don't do anything but make your "Popularity" meter go up, which is just the pinnacle of Ubisoft's ethos towards gaming. You're better off playing Forza Horizon than this heap of ♥♥♥♥, at least that game the driving feels satisfying as it pushes a high school popularity mentality on you.
The original The Crew wasn't high art, but it was far and away better than this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Which is probably why Ubisoft canned it, because more people probably played it than their ♥♥♥♥♥♥ sequels.
Seriously, stay the ♥♥♥♥ away from this. It's so undercooked and just not fun to play.

I enjoyed this entry for the most part. But I need to stress that this game is an exercise in frustration and rage because the rubber-banding is simply atrocious. Worse than in any other game in this franchise. In one A class race, my vehicle, topped out at the borderline of the class, pulling 270kph at the top would sometimes get passed by the three cars behind me doing what can only be called 350kph, or S+ speeds. I understand the rationale behind rubber-banding, but as always, they just cannot balance it right in this franchise and it ruins the fun by being so blatantly cheating. It doesn't always happen, which is kind of why it is so egregious when it does, but when the game decides you've had enough winning for that session, it will push your ♥♥♥♥ in with no remorse.

It looks great, I know some people didn't enjoy the effects but I dug them, they added a bit of extra flair to racing and driving around that I think really upped the enjoyment. Customisation was a little weak but passable, and judging by some of the reviews, I'm one of the few that actually loved the in game music, and found a few artists that I am now a huge fan of, from poutyface to clipping, and ash b, to name a few. I think the soundtrack is excellent, and while I can imagine not using some better known acts for the vast majority of it might upset people, I actually loved the global feel of it, rather than sticking to the usual USA Uber Alles direction of most every other soundtrack in gaming.

Storyline is...present. I didn't hate it, but I also found myself skipping cut-scenes because I just wasn't interested in some try-hard urban writing that felt forced to be "hip with the youth". While dialogue is far from as cringey as Need For Speed (2015) it comes real close. Just ignore it and focus on the racing.

I'm putting this as Not Recommended because my god, the aforementioned rubber-banding is just too much here. In S+ races (380kph+), some cars will quite literally break the sound barrier to pass you in their cars that clearly cannot do that. This game does not value your time when it does this, and while you would think the retry system somewhat makes up for it, when the game bulls that ♥♥♥♥ with a "No retries" challenge active, you will need to take a cold shower for the blood boiling rage you will feel. Or not, that might just be me, but it's still frustrating.

Overall, if you can deal with some of the worst AI cheating in Need for Speed history, and don't mind the format of the plot, you might enjoy this. We're still chasing a proper follow up to Need for Speed Underground 2 but you'll still get some racing thrills out of this one.