[Paratech]

Gardfield Kart Furious Racing PC/Steam.

I like the game, but with the save bug that affects a lot of gamers, myself included, I can't suggest this game until or unless it gets fixed.

Losing all items every time you quit the game sucks and it makes a fun game less fun.

If it gets fixed, I'll do a new review, but I can't support buying the game as is at the moment.

 

[@ruantec]

A Plague Tale: Innocence
8/10

What a great game!!! Asobo isn't a developer I personally looked to play their games but this game surprised me a lot. From the start its clear the game is a AA game but damn is the game addictive. The action and puzzles were great and the game design in general was not bad either. The story is very immersive and something you want to keep playing to the end.

As a AA game obviously few things to complain here such as bad AI, sometimes weird look and dumb enemies but overall a surprise and a game I personally recommend everyone to give a try. This game is another example why I personally love game pass as I would never come to the idea to purchase it.

 

[Paratech]

Apparently I've edited too many posts in a while, but I wanted to mention the save bug in Garfield Kart Furious Racing has been fixed.

 

[Yeloazndevil]

Dragon Ball Z Kakarot (PC) 8/10

Inferior gameplay when compared to Xenoverse 1 & 2, simple rpg elements (level up, Skill trees), some of the story was rushed, missing, or censored when compared to the anime series. Other than that I had a great experience with this game as a fan of DBZ, but I would wait for this game to be on sale.

 

[@ruantec]

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
10/10

I wanted to play the game in the past but for some reasons I never got my hands in the game. The game is fantastic in every possible way and the graphics and level design are nothing but stunning. It show once again that a good game don't require super realistic graphics to be awesome.

The only downside is that I beat the game using the Yuzu emulator and sadly I can't see the ending as the emulator don't support videos I believe.

 

[Yeloazndevil]

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
10/10

I wanted to play the game in the past but for some reasons I never got my hands in the game. The game is fantastic in every possible way and the graphics and level design are nothing but stunning. It show once again that a good game don't require super realistic graphics to be awesome.

The only downside is that I beat the game using the Yuzu emulator and sadly I can't see the ending as the emulator don't support videos I believe.

youtube

 

[@ruantec]

youtube

That is exactly what I did hehehehehehe.

 

[Paratech]

Moonlighter Between Dimensions DLC.

I haven't finished all the stages, but it is fun and if you enjoy the base game its worth buying on a sale to give you some more reasons to play the game and fight new bosses, obtain new weapons, and enjoy playing the game.

 

[Paratech]

Cat Quest II Steam/PC

Its a fun simple action rpg where you control 2 characters, a cat and a dog battling monsters and other characters.

I enjoyed the not so serious story and finished the main quest in under 13 hours, There are still quests to be played after the story is finished...

 

[snickothemule]

I've cleared the first chapter of Read Dead Redemption 2 (the tutorial basically) and I'm so frustrated waiting for the game to open up. It's a slow game so far, full of canned moments with very small amounts of interaction with the player. The firefights are ok, but for the most amount of time I held the A button and watched a pretty shitty cowboy movie. Standard rockstar really.

It's also sluggish to play, again rockstar design at play, simple things like opening draws and picking up objects is a pretty slow affair, when I'm already competent enough to play videogames being handheld and forced to wait is a bit annoying.

It is a beautiful game, at 4k and mostly set to ultra (no ambient occlusion) I'm getting just around 30fps (heavily in the 20's) on my 1080ti, dropping to .9x resolution fixes it and makes it smoother, but it is simply a stunning looking game. The voice acting is top stuff, the animations are so much better, the cutscenes are more lively and active than previous games, clearly a lot of attention has been put into production.

I'm on chapter 2, the game should be opened up now, let's see how the pacing goes. So far I'm frustrated, but intrigued to keep playing.

 

[snickothemule]

One Piece Pirate Warriors 4

PW3 was the game that got me interested in one piece, the streamlined, tag team nature of the musou beat em up was silky smooth to play with great rhythm. The bright visual design combined with really solid voice acting portrayed some of the emotional highlights of the series and for a complete newbie, it was captivating. Enough for me to start watching the series and appreciate it's unique depth and character. A massive surprise hit.

PW4 is a little different, it's foregone the bright and sunny look for something a bit more muddled and grey. While not an ugly game, it has lost some of the captivating disposition of 3 and it's a but gloomy to watch. Gone (at least for the first chapter) is the tag nature of combat. Previously you built up special meter for your 3 fighters and when timed right you could do incredible damage and keep boosting your special meter, it became almost guitar hero like in building rhythm and finishing levels timely. It really worked well, but now with a single fighter the combat is more subdued to a point. Perhaps it opens up later, but for the first chapter it feels a bit dry.

The story telling is bare bones and cut back to a point that it fails to achieve the spirit and emotional impact of the main story. Sure the anime series is damn near 1000 episodes, but in this context, the cull of narrative leaves the pacing to be really sparse and really nonsensicle. While PW3 was fairly lean, it still managed to work somehow.

The only real new feature is partially destructive environments, not something that really wows you in the first Alabaster chapter, but it's a cool feature. The load times are a new addition and some of the longest I've ever experienced on the switch to a point where I thought something was wrong with my machine. Curious!

If you are a musou junkie and need your fix this is passable, if you want highlights of the newer arcs this may be an ok catchup, but in contrast with PW3, it feels a bit run down, rushed and incomplete.

6/10

 

[Paratech]

Gris 8.5/10 PC Steam from a Humble Choice Bundle...

It is a walking simulator with some puzzles you have to solve along the way. I got stuck a few times and had to view youtube videos to progress. The story is interesting. It took me longer than the average person will take playing it. I received the game from a Humble Choice bundle.

The game should take less than 10 hours, it took me more as I accidentally left it running when I left my apartment for a period of 2 hours. Some people may finish it in less than 5 hours...

It could be frustrating for people as it was with me, but in the long run it was an interesting journey to experience...

 

[Paratech]

Lego Pirates of the Caribbean PC/GOG 8/10

It was a bit of a PitA to get it from crashing with Windows 10. I lost progress a few times.

I enjoyed the game and had fun playing it. There's nothing special about the game. Either you like Lego games or don't. It doesn't stand out among the many Lego games.

 

[Paratech]

wrong thread.

 

[snickothemule]

RDR2

I spent 3 hours last night hunting, when I finally found a 3 star black bear I shot him in the face with my scoped high powered rifle and mounted his hide upon my steed. Fast tracked back to camp where his skin disappeared and I lost all that progress.

I genuinely love this game now, but fuck me if it isn't quirky with some minor technical bits. Like I've dropped top quality Bison hides to the trapper but he has no record of them in his database or something.

Game owns, I'm at the end of chapter 4 and it finally feels like RDR, the pacing is now tremendous, the world is genuinely gorgeous to explore, atrocities and violence is aplenty, but there is also enough humour that feels well placed. If Rockstar can treat their employees better it's no wonder they keep getting such high regard for their games, this one is particularly amazing.

But f**k me that beginning took ages to get going.

 

[Samor]

Tacoma

It's a lesbian space station simulator. 0/10

 

[Paratech]

Senran Kagura Peach Beach Splash 9/10 PC/Steam.

Its a silly shooter with a silly story and makes me lol. I enjoyed playing it and still probably have a few more levels to play. I completed story mode.

 

[u3L05 vh9jV]

Helltaker 11/10

Abysstaker reminds me a little of Bottles from Banjo-Kazooie, they both "use" the mat... a prize for the most observant players and/or easter egg hunters (...like in some old school galge/eroge).

 

[@ruantec]

And the day certainly has come....

THE LAST OF US 2
7.5/10

I was thinking in a 8 since I believed that it totally deserve it but after my last run I just took my time to actually think about the experience, the good and the bad to give the final note that I believe is fair for the game and what it has to offer.

THE GOOD
TLOU2 is by far the most graphically impressive game I have played on any platform and certainly a benchmark for any game that is in the industry. Besides the very few bugs I encountered the attention to detail is bar none incredible and the animations are not just the best in the industry but the best and smoothest I have seen so far (even though the game got slightly downgraded in that area from the E3 demo shown in the past). Walking through the different areas makes you use the snapshot feature to capture great moments and check the details of certain areas and is indeed a pleasure to the eyes to watch this game in motion.

I have never seen a game that looks as great as TLOU 2 and ND certainly did a job that I never thought a game developer would be able to pull off.

THE BAD
The graphics are certainly one of the strongest points of the game but at the same time it is the biggest flaw at a certain degree. At the beginning the game offers a area that looks HUGE and it makes you drool for a couple of minutes until you realize it actually isn't not to mention is the first and last sort of big area you will ever see in the game. The more you play the game the more you realize how they pulled such beautiful graphics and that's at the expense of design and 30fps. In order to get the necessary resources to render the game with such details ND decided to use a chunk of small areas and force you to go through wall cracks or wholes just to have enough time to load the next area. Such a technique by itself is pretty clever but when you have such an ambitious project it can get repetitive and it certainly does. Areas are strategically made so that when you pass a certain area you can't go back killing the whole idea that the place is huge as you can only explore very few places. Because of that you are mostly forced to go through buildings and small places that feel EMPTY unless you happen to encounter the regular repetitive 3-4 enemies.

The animation work is excellent as I already stated but the overall fighting mechanic is very weak when you compare it to other games such as Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Its really sad to have such beautiful water and scenes where you can swim yet you can't hunt your enemies from the water for example. The enemies AI is very aggressive but only when you put yourself in the middle of the action as enemies always do the same and are rather dumb or easy to exploit by killing few and die just to comeback in a better position. Dogs were presented in the demo but in reality there are like 3 places in the game where they are available and with a simple bow you can easily shut them down and get away.

Stealth and crafting are key for the game but crafting feels kinda pointless as after maxing out all my weapons it didn't felt like an achievement nor heavy advantage over enemies as they are too aggressive and fighting them with guns may not always be the best way as they can shoot way faster than you can hold your gun. Stealth by itself feels great and even have a MGS music touch but just as the fighting mechanic it gets extremely repetitive. Button smashing is another issue the game has as you get to the point where you just either press the square button like 90% of the time while in occasions the triangle or L1.

Enemies are repetitive depending in the area and they all do the same and they can be beaten to death with a simple square, square, L1(to dodge), square, square. The repetitive and look alike enemies as well as fighting mechanic reminds me Ryse son of Rome. Something that got me wondering is the fact that they put so much attention into details yet your partner in the game seems invisible to the enemies in almost every case. Clickers and bosses aren't any different and there are just 2 memorable boss fights in the game that are indeed fun and challenging.

THE UGLY
The story is without a doubt a very subjective topic but for me is the biggest let down of the game. Basically they have a perfect story that combined with a beautiful looking game have the potential to create a perfect game and story. To me it all falls flat with the execution ND decided for the story.

First of all there are too many flashbacks for my taste as the story keep going back and forth and the heavy focus in the story kills the gameplay as the game may be 30+ hours but out of that time at least 25 hours are just cut scenes and story. I can't enjoy a game when gameplay is like 3-5 minutes and followed by another cutscene just to provide you 1 minute of walking scene to give you another cutscene probably followed by 2 or 3 more. It gets to the point when you ask yourself whatever you should just have watched the entire game on YouTube and save the 70 bucks I payed for the game.

At the end the game feels like they were out of ideas and repetitive scenarios were put there just to increase the game hours followed by a ending that you may or may not enjoy. Apart from that Ellie and Abby seem to be the most lucky girls in history as they fall in the hands of the enemy over and over yet they always manage to escape and stay alive. If we are taking this game from a real life perspective (like many seem to base their arguments on) then go to a dangerous country and do some nasty stuff and let the enemy capture you.... let's see if you are still alive after being captured several times....

SPOILER: you won't and probably someone will find you into pieces somewhere.

A lot can be subjective but the points I mentioned were highly criticized in lots of games over the past 7 years yet ND and TLOU 2 manages to get a pass in almost every single area. This game reviews clearly shows that journalism is "as false as the love of a prostitute" as my grandpa used to say. We deserve better and we need fairness in the media and that is what i'm asking for because the game is excellent in many areas but it has many flaws that need to be pointed out and not just let the beautiful graphics blind your opinion.

 

[Paratech]

DOA6 PC/Steam. 7.5/10

While the game has too much costume DLC, less modes than DOA5, and I don't think there are many people playing online, I enjoy playing the game and believe it has been worth the money I've sunk into it.

I miss the tag modes, but enjoy playing Arcade and Survival Modes. I've unlocked a few costumes, taken a lot of pictures and had fun playing the game.