Recent reviews by MercurialJester🌡

Urgh. Where to start.
I love you Spiders, but sheesh. This one is rough.
Okay, the good bits: it looks pretty okay for what it is. The art direction os wonderful, the period-esque costumes and stuff, and yes even the attempts at examining colonialism and the impact of it on the place being colonised is laudable. Some hitches here and there with the nuts and bolts but overall, I enjoyed the world and setting.

The bad:
First of all, this game is too damn long. It's padded out in a lot of places especially with the need to go back and forth, and the placement of some camps that function as fast travel spots are very inconvenient, especially when you need to craft things. The lack of being able to use your companions skills means either spreading your skills very thin and never being to max any of them, or leaning into a very specific build that leaves you lacking in combat versatlity.
Fights get very grindy indeed, and that's with the games biggest crutch, Stasis. Some boss fights take forever and there's not much you can do. They do say you can prepare, but this isn't The Witcher and it shows. Movement in fights is beyond janky, and honestly you'll be spamming the spacebar every few seconds to quaff a damn potion, the game might as well have had turn based combat. Might have worked better honestly. |

I recommend this one only on the basis that I am a lamentable Spiders fan. Much like every game they make (alongside another perennial fave of mine Cyanide Studios) you can see what they wanted to do; they have so much ambition and drive, but lack the ability to pull it off to the level they want/need to. I can forgive a lot simply for these reasons. It's not gonna blow your socks off by any means, and in fact you might get very tired of this game very quickly, but I stil recommend it.

But please, Spiders...if/when you do Greedfall 2, please for the love of everything, work on balance and pacing. Because that last stretch of this game was a slog, and it felt more like a waste of my time rather than a way to tie up all the loose threads. It was not fun at all.

This is an amazing port. I played for 8 hours and barely touched the main story to the best of my knowledge. Swinging around Manhattan and collecting stuff, taking down random events and performing tricks was just too distracting.

Anyway, to the "review".

Let's start with the positives

+ A stellar accessibility menu filled with amazing options that should be standard for all games. End of story.
+ Smooth gameplay, well optimised, wonderful feel to play.
+ Includes all DLC, making the price actually half decent, even if it still feels a little much.
+Re-bindable M+KB controls

And now the negatives

- No native controller rebinding or set-up options. I know Steam has settings for it, but it should be an option natively.
- AI can be thick. Point blank shots with rocket launchers thick. Likely just part of the game, but it's glaringly obvious it isn't okay.
- Peter has a head like a thumb. I'm sorry, he just does. Really wish I could scale his head and neck down just a smidge.
- Some stuttering and audio issues. These may actually be a result of my not running it on an SSD, so YMMV.

Overall, I am enjoying the heck out of this. I pre-ordered to show Sony that PC is a viable platform for their games, and hopefully start knocking down some of these stupid platform exclusivity walls, however unlike 99% of the rest of the reviewers, I'm not gonna use this as a platform to beg for some other games like an entitled child. You know who you are, knock it the hell off.

8/10. May change my rating depending on how I find the rest of the game.

Look, on the whole there's nothing wrong with this game. It's polished, it's stable, it has a nice art style, it's genuinely got absolutely nothing wrong with it...if you like the USP.

I hate it. I genuinely do not like the loop mechanic that makes up the core of this game. It's not fun for me. Especially early on. I don't like working my arse off for a cool weapon, only to have it taken away from me. I get that you can get an upgrade later on that removes this problem, but that doesn't stop me feeling exhausted at the concept of doing it all over again. It's not fun. I don't enjoy that.

If you can get past this, then you'll have a blast. Truly, it will be a fantastic experience. But I couldn't go for more than 8 hours without feeling like I'm wasting my time.

EDITED REVIEW

Decided to give this another shot after the RELOADED edition was supposed to fix a bunch of things.
It only mildly changed my opinion. Movement feels less floaty now, but that's about it really. Oh, the Volatile chases are back which is nice, but they overdo it on the UV tricks making Volatiles basically a non issue once you unlock the UV flashlight and the UV sticks.

The story is still utter garbage. I still hate Aiden, I still think the characters are hollow and empty, and the city while nicely designed, still feels very bland to look at. The zombies are annoying, the in game economy still makes no sense and the class system in the equipment is utterly pointless solo.

The multiple endings just don't matter in the long run, and in effect the "best" ending completely negates the whole damn point of the game, although I do applaud it for being circular and for the whole "learn when to let go" theme

Ultimately, this game is still a disappointment in many different ways. It's so strange, that we went from the utterly awful Dead Island 1, to the marked improvement in Dying Light, only for Dead Island 2 to be fantastic and Dying Light 2 to be dreadful. I can only hope that if there is a Dying Light 3, we get much better than this drek. Choice of protags would be a good start, as well as a genuinely good feeling movement system and for god sakes hire some competent writers that know who to do characterisation. Because the only character I felt any real connection to was Viktoria, a character who ended up being thrown away for some empty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ pathos moment for the MC. This is Jade from Dying Light 1 all over again.

Get this on a deep ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ discount if at all.

My Grind At Portia

OMG this game.
Simple to pick-up, hard as ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nails to master.
A masterpiece in simplicity with super tight controls once you get a handle on them
Prefer the look of this one to the sequel.

Give it a shot. You'll throw your controller when you stack it at the end of a perfect run, guaranteed.

An important game.

Also, those warnings at the beginning and in the description? Yeah, don't ignore them.

This was a real punch in the gut, due to my own personal lived experience.

HIghly recommended...just don't play it alone if you suffer from depression/anxiety.

Simply phenomenal story, loaded with humour and some pretty grimdark themes. No fridge logic, although there are some parts where a little prod wouldn't hurt, but overall the puzzles are satisfying and you do feel clever for solving some of them.

Overall, very highly recommended. Cann't wait for whatever Technocrat Games decided to put out next. Instant buy.

I can't review this properly. To do so would be to potentially ruin it.

So instead I'll just say it looks good, it plays tight, and is worth every penny. It made me want it to succeed for a remaster of the original Nier.

This game made me a Yoko Taro fan.

10/10

Dragon's Dogma looks mediocre. Muddy graphics reminiscent of the PS2 era and the voice acting is often Resident Evil levels of ham.

And yet...

It's Japan's interpretation of a Western RPG and it is glorious.

This is a game that genuinely makes you afraid to go out at night. The lighting engine is probably one of the only ones to get the way light works (MGSV is the other that comes to mind, and probably does it slightly better) and there's a strong touch of Dark Souls here. When I say that, most DS veterans will scoff, but there's a sense of real danger here. You don't lose anything when you die....except progress. This game does not autosave very often, and if you die you WILL feel it, especially because the ability to fast travel is VERY limited for a long time. It does come with manual saving, so make it a habit to save every so often, you'll be thankful for it.

Dragon's Dogma is clunky. It's a hodge podge of design that shouldn't work, yet does. It's obtuse, and it doesn't tell you a lot. But in it's own special way, it's charming and beguiling.

I recommend it if you're after a special experience. It will take some time to really "get" but once it does, you'll find yourself coming back over and over again.