Recent reviews by MercurialJester🌡

You know what? I'm not a fan of the Doom series. But this? This is something else. This is something worth experiencing. Fast. Fluid. Frenetic. Funny. As little or as much story as you like.

Has some little issues that don't affect the game so much as just annoy (some levels have hidden collectibles before a PoNR meaning you'll be forced to replay a level from the beginning to get them all. Again, not a massive deal, since the game is so much fun you'll be okay with replaying but can still be a little peevish) but overall Doom 2016 is a perfect return to the run and gun one-man army style of gameplay.

Doom 2016. It's the game Fallout 4 wanted to be.

Unlike a lot of the reviews, I had no physics issues.

Starting at the beginning, the main menu is balls. There's no settings screen to disable your gampad if you have one plugged in. You have to start a new game, wait until the characters in the carriage start talking and then you can pause it and get the settings screen. Poor form from the outset.

The 64 bit upgrade certainly makes the game feel smoother, although the engine still creaks with its characteristic "charm". Volumetric lighting and shadows are nice touches, but they don't do a whole lot more than add some extra oomph to the scenery.

The textures are still a little drab and blurry on closer inspection, and the models don't seem to have been updated at all, as characters look terrifying. Combat is as clunky as ever, and I experienced a few moments where my character wouldn't move at all in combat, despite having full stamina. There could be a few explanations for this, so YMMV.

My game crashed when exiting Alvor's place in Riverwood, with no warning or error screen. Agsin, could be something my end, so YMMV.

In the end, it's Skyrim with some prettier bits and a smoother feel. Once the modding community starts work, the game will jump to life and then you can spend untold hours of your life collecting flowers and butterflies for the interminable drudgery that is alchemy all oer again.

Recommended for now.

Free Weekend Player

I enjoyed this. It has a lot of problems with bugs and some very janky animations, but when it does get things right, the movement is very fluid. Animations are horrendous, characters look like broken marionettes and facial expressions are next to none.

It's basically Far Cry 3 but without the charm. I did enjoy the concept of fitting in with crowds in certain areas, but it fell down a lot in terms of execution. Repetitive activities peppered with flashpoint activities a la Far Cry 4's outpost defence missions, don't hinder the game too much but also don't challenge you much.

Characters are one dimensional and bland. Ethan Brady is like a less charming Gordon Freeman, which is difficult to achieve.

The weapon conversion system is a nifty idea, but you'll end up relying on one or two weapons for the majority of the game (for me, it was the SMG pistol conversion, and the Marksman Rifle Battle rifle conversion, with the Rocket Launcher for the last third of the game) simply because they are more effective.

Overall, it's not an amazing game. It's pretty mediocre really. But I enjoyed it, and honestly I'll probably buy it in the future. It's definitely not a full price purchase though. It's too bland.

5/10

I bought this for half price, but I feel sorry for the people that bought it at full price. I mean, I've bought a lot of crap for expensive prices, but Far Cry 4 takes the cake.

All you do is stare at a table full of food YOU CAN'T EVEN EAT for 15 minutes while this rude a-hole takes a phone call in the middle of dinner. You don't want to be rude, so you wait for him; to show you aren't a rude prick like he is. He eventually comes back and then you take your mothers ashes to be scattered. That's it, credits roll. For longer than the actual game!

Best game ever, 10/10.

Phenomenal. Simply Phenomenal. Yeah, it's "short" but honestly Campo Santo packed a LOT into that "short" time, and frankly I don't regret a single minute of the time I spent here.

I was genuinely blown away by how invested I was in this story simply because of the really organic way the main characters interacted.

At no point do you pick up a gun or engage in combat. This is pure storytelling at its finest, and if you can't handle that idea, walk right on by.

Highly recommended. No question.

It's not Fallout.

It's Doom wearing the skin of Fallout in a Buffalo Bill-esque cosplay.

It has NONE of the depth of previous games. Absolutely none.

It's done a few things very well.

- Enemies are very nicely designed and some of them do inspire genuine fear when you encounter them.
-- Sentry bots are now very intimidating and a nice puzzle to fight at low to medium levels.
-- Radscorpions are now terrifying to fight. You'll see why.
-- It does look very nice, I can't fault it for that.
-- Weapon and armor modding is nicely done, but the restrictions are pretty hard to swallow.

What it does poorly
- EVERYTHING ELSE YOU EXPECT FROM A FALLOUT GAME!

*sigh*

Okay, so I had fun with this game anyway, but I only did so when I stopped playing it like a Fallout game. When I lowered my expectations I found hours of interesting exploration andf fun. Bethesda excels at environmental storytelling and it's here in spades...but it's plots and ACTUAL storylines are about as thin and hamfisted as they come.

If you're a fan of the Fallout franchise and are looking for more, steer clear. This game will infuriate and upset you with how much it takes away from you and how intensely bland and hamfisted the storytelling is, even for Bethesda. But if you're just looking for a more casual or RPG-lite experience, you'll probably enjoy this.

I give myself an out here though to amend my rating at a later date. The DLC may make things better, and of course the modding community can fix nearly everything given time, but until then play New Vegas. I prefer Fallout 3 to NV, but I have to admit that It's the next best thing to perfect for an RPG.

Another case in which a binary rating system doesn't work well. But from someone expecting a true Fallout RPG experience, this game gets a No from me.

[Edit: Far Harbor is what this game SHOULD have been. And yet, it is still shackled to the over-reliance on shooting. Automatron is a nice diversion, but ultimately disappointing story wise, and the less said about that other one the better. Fallout 4 is a good game, but a bad Fallout game. I can only pray Obsidian gets a go at this build, because we need a true RPG experience in this universe. Please. My rating stay the same.]

An imaginative and intriguing horizontal shooter with a nifty gimmick: you can become your enemies.

This isn't as easy as it seems, since every ship has ammo that can run out, so you have to be accurate as well as fast.

Various factions, all with their own storylines and an overall great early 90's aesthetic, this is actually a fun and very tactical game that is well worth playing.

4/5

There's a few points that sully this game.

Massive SPOILERS to follow, so be aware.

FIrstly, the gameplay is solid. I don't like Zombie games in general, because I find them a chore more than anything else. However Dying Light made zombies a real threat, rather than an inconvenience. The addition of parkour elements really helps boost the survival feeling and the variety in zombie types made for some strategic combat choices.

Once again though, there are serious problems when it comes to some aspects of combat.

It's drilled into you from the start that firearms are a bad idea. They are loud and attract infected to your position, making them a serious 'last resort' weapon. Sticking to melee is recommended and indeed is where the fun is.

So why make human enemies carry guns and cause hell for no reason? It's not impossible to melee enemies armed with guns, but it does destroy the pace of combat when you have to play 'hide and seek' with enemies with guns.

This isn't too bad later on, but early in game it spoils the melee focus of the game, I feel.

Storywise, well...meh.

Typical standard fare of 'hero white man inserted into ethnically diverse region to save them from doom'. Sure they try to play some kind of philosophical message about free choice, in a direct rip-off of Bioshock, but ultimately the bland story still rides on tired tropes and I'm disappointed overall. I'm usually all for story being important, but in Dying Light, the story gets in the way,and is so poorly written it might as well not exist anyway.

I have to mention the treatment of Jade here too. What the f**k? In a scene toward to end, Jade held her own against 4 heavily armed and armoured men and took them out rapidly (something that even the player cannot do at max level) and efficiently, and this bad-ass moment is ruined by her turning? Oh come on, that's lame by anyones standards, and shows seriously poor storytelling ability. Jade should have been treated MUCH better as a character, but instead is thrown away in some cliched redemption/sacrifice story arc that makes little sense to anyone with a brain.

There are fan-faction writers putting stories out for FREE that can write better than this cliched junk. These people got PAID to write the biggest tropey schlock out there and people are giving this a pass? Poor effort, guys.

Gameplay wise, there are some huge improvements over Techland's earlier work with Dead Island (so thankful they didn't tie kicking to stamina again) and while there are some oddities (screw physics, you can fall from nearly any height so long as you deploy your grappling hook in time, Just Cause style) movement within the game is great fun. When you unlock new abilities, it only amplifies things, creating a parkour playground, and they capitalise on this with free-running challenges all over the map.

The weapon system from Dead Island returns too, only more streamlined. Melee weapons are fun to use, and the attention to detail with mods and such truly makes crafting weapons an actual desire, rather than simply another chore to do.

Look, this is one of those games in which I really can't recommend it, but I can't not either. The Yes/No system is too restrictive but I have to err on the negative side here. I simply can't let this tripe of a story get away with it, and in my opinion this game falls hard in that area. Of course, if you're not interested in story and just want to kill hordes of zombies, then you're going to have a blast here. It's satisfying killing hundreds upon hundreds of zombies in a myriad of creative ways, or traversing the city in quick bursts of free-running but anything outside of that and this game just doesn't bear up. Mechanically it's awesome, but ifd you're looking for more than that...look elsewhere.

I need more than this.

It's not for everyone.
But I got something out of it.
...
Recommended.

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Was going to write down a massive review of the game, but I'm not a reviewer and as such didn't take notes. So instead I'll just give a brief rundown.

Let's get this out of the way quickly. The set-up is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid.
A fridged wife and son that sets up a hokey revenge plot.
Terrible writing abounds in many places (usually related to anything regarding emotions) while downright brilliant writing is present in others.

Mechanically superb. Seriously, the mechanics of the game are so damn good, and the Nemesis System is just brilliant.

Is it worth playing? I say yes, it's jolly good fun. Just...don't expect a deep story, because it ain't really there. Kill lots of bad guys and feel like a God doing it, but leave your brain at the door with a good book.

Rating -- 4/5