Recent reviews by horrid little goblin

GOTY

SAVE THE EARTH
BE A SUPER HERO

its okay

like Alan Wake, its a boilerplate third person shooter with some vaguely spooky enemies. like Alan Wake, youre not here for the gameplay, youre here for the story and setting. both are highly engrossing, well thought out and detailed. it sucks you in with how weird it is, but its grounded enough to not seem stupid or trite. its not really a horror game because your character, Jesse, is far too powerful to render the enemies truly scary, but it has unsettling, unnerving elements that jar nicely with the mundanity of the Bureau. its like if Aperture Science from Portal or the weird office from the Stanley Parable was played seriously as places that do Mad Science.

its not perfect tho, there are two major problems in my opinion:
1 - the load times can be very long, even when reloading into the same area after dying. this can make some fights frustrating if you die, as you have to sit out a long load screen followed by a bit of a jog to get back to the fight.
2 - the map is garbage. zones in the game are often 4 to 6 stories high, and instead of allowing you to scroll up and down each floor individually, the game has mashed them on top of each other in a confusing mess. whats worse is that there is no indicator of which floor Jesse is on, making navigating the more complicated areas very frustrating, as staircases and corridors overlap multi-layered office rooms. i guess this helps with making the Bureau feel more like an ever-shifting maze, but it often just leads to you bumbling around until you find the right door

its fine? i guess? i didnt actively hate it, but it also never did anything too crazy or impressive

excellent strategy game, good level of depth to the gameplay and mech customisation without it being overwhelming, very enjoyable

its just kinda boring? the combat and mechanics dont really improve on bioshock 1 or 2 in any way.

fantastic graphics, fun gameplay except for a few frustrating sidequests.

problems:
no brightness option - some levels are very gloomy and hard to see
occasional crashes when loading

really very good, constantly surprised with new stuff all the way through

an excellent update to a fantastic game. the wait for Xen was well worth it!