Recent reviews by Onatam

**Review of the Multiplayer Starter Pack** First off I should say that this is the first CoD game I have played since MW2. Reading the reviews on the full version of the game I decided to hold off, as it appeared to have pretty bad performance issues. However a couple of my friends are not part of the #PCMASTERRACE and rave about BO3 on their PS4, so I have been curious. When the Multiplayer starter pack was released, I figured to give it a try for $15.

Performance: My PC Specs are pretty decent, but by no means bleeding edge:

• Intel I5 2500k
  
• nVidia GeForce GTX 970
  
• 16gm RAM
  
• 1TB SSD
  
  The performance was perfect at the recommended defaults, sticking at the locked 60fps. To note, the game for some strange reason by default locks the settings to medium and you can't go higher. You can change an .ini file to remove the 60fps restriction and "unlock" a high setting. With my computer the FR goes from 60-120 after doing this, and it cleans up the graphics a decent bit.
  
  Gameplay: Having not played CoD for a long while, and in truth not playing FPS's for a bit I must say it's not a easy start! There is a lot of fun stuff added to the game since I played last. You can double jump to boost jump, you can jump on to walls and run along them, and solders in the CoD Universe have finally taken some swimming lessons. It all works very well. When I watch the killcam after dying, with practice people are really able to use those abilities to their advantage.
  
  They also have specialist classes where about 6 are available when you first start. Each specialist gets two abilities to choose from, which you must unlock. These are pretty cool abilities that periodically open up during the game. Depending on your playstyle there will likely be one to suit your needs. Since it really only adds 1 ability occasionally, its not game changing, but it is fun to use when the ability comes up.
  
  My biggest gripe is that it appears to have only 12 players max for any game mode and no dedicated servers. This is one of those things that do irk me. Any PC FPS should have the ability to run dedicated servers and increased players in a game. Heck CoD4 I think had the ability to handle 32 (and possibly 64) on some maps 10 years ago. This certainly makes it feel like the PC portion was a bit of an afterthought.
  
  Starter Pack Summary: For $15 you are getting a lot of content in multiplayer, which is completely unrestricted except for you cannot prestige your account or level past 55. I imagine if you spend that much time in the game, you will likely be inclined to make the purchase. If you have been turned off by the overwhelmingly bad reviews on the main game, this is a great opportunity to give it a try on the cheap. I've not had it crash, run sluggish, or glitch out on me. Plus you can apply the $15 you spend here on the full version should you choose to purchase it. I will likely purchase the full game to try out the other game modes, but when it goes on a Steam Sale as MP is really what I'm interested in. All the unlocks are available for you to open up as well, and their are a lot of them. I highly suggest a newcommer like myself to watch a couple videos on decent upgrade paths because it does get confusing, and the game doesn't really do much in the sense of helping with that.
  
  TL;DR for $15 this is a very good purchase and a solid way to enter BO3. I do wish they took more advantage of the PC by allowing dedicated servers and increased player numbers to at least 24 on some maps. If it wasn't for this offer, I would not have purchased the game, but at $15 I am certainly glad I did.

My video impressions on the game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-auXo2mVHM

Every now and again a game pops up and surprises you. This was one for me. It is a very casual JRPG game oozing with 80's nostalgia. It features very unique abilities such as a 3 1/2 inch disk slap to the face or a care bear stare. Pair that with active defending and a couple other surprises during combat makes it quite enjoyable.

The game is broken up in to 4 current (5th to be released later TBD free of charge) episodes. Each features a different story line and location. The first episode was about 30-40 minutes and the second was about 2 hours taking my time.

The gem with this game is best equated to the book, "Ready Player One" where the nostalgia drives the story. For someone my age (31) or older, you will love the references from times past (ie: stay off the adult BBS's or The Wizard with a Power Glove).

Do yourself a favor and pick up this game. It's the price of a value meal and will provide you with quite a bit of entertainment, just don't take it as a hardcore JRPG, because that would be doing it all wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIMPs8fbswM

This is an example of Greenlight done right. This game offers a very unique graphic style (completely hand drawn in ballpoint pen) and mixes platforming with space combat for a entertaining package well worth the sub $5 asking price. The control is pretty solid, especially using a 360 game pad. This is one of those games you will want to recommend to your friends to check out, and they will likely oblige since the asking price is so low.

I have enjoyed every minute of this game and if you like space combat and platforming, you will too.

UPDATE: Here is a full play through for the game done by me. I went through it a second time for you guys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDaqY5XSwlA

First and foremost I would like to say that their are a lot of people bashing it just based on what they read from Metacritic, without actually owning or purchasing the game. I have in fact purchased and played through the entire game already. In short I can't recommend it as it is the shortest story driven game I have ever played (1 hour to complete going slowly). Here are my basic points and review of the game.

The pros:
- The story, while your two main characters are a bit weird (brother and sister), has some potential. Sort of Indiana Jones'ish.
- The environment looks pretty decent for a $5 title. Recently Indie games have been scaling back the graphics to focus on gameplay, this actually has some pretty decent looking areas.
- It is fully voiced in English and Arabic.

The cons:
- Short! The game is super short. It took me about a hour or so to complete and I could have done it a lot faster. 1 tutorial level, 1 full exploration level, 1 short vehicle combat level, 1 walk around level, 1 quick chase event, and 1 driving event.
- Weird movement issues at points. I would try to interact with a ladder to go down and it would jump me in the air and climb up something that wasn't there.
- AI is dumb. I would shoot someone with a SMG and their buddy a couple feet away would still be walking patrol saying something like "I know he's around somewhere". Also some other nuances like "Cover me, I'm reloading" when no shots were fired.
- The melee combat is awful.
- The driving sequence has you driving around Moroco, but the city just loops around. You will drive through the same streets no matter how you progress.

Would I recommend it? Not really. The game has some glaring issues with it, in many cases to the point of them being comical. However I am curious what they are going to do with the next few episodes. I don't regret the purchase if for anything will make for a good playthrough video. It is a $5 USD game for let's say 1 hour of campaign. There is a survival mode that I unlocked after completing it, but I could take or leave that. The price point is so low that you might want to pick it up just to see what it's about, but you aren't going to miss anything groundbreaking if you don't. Plus it is probably the shortest campaign driven story game that I have ever played.

This is a perfect example of a Kickstarter done right. This is a incredibly challenging game with your fate in the hands of skill and pure randomness. The graphics are exactly how 8bit should be done. The environment feels excellent. There are a number of character unlocks to obtain and with the randomly generated worlds, your playthrough never gets old.

Check out my video review and buy this game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbTC1D3aQoM

Check out SNOW and my thoughts on it in my YouTube video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uHA8pVs8is

In general, the game shows a lot of promise. The mountain looks great and the physics feel balanced. It is not nearly as over the top as SSX, which I like.

What a lot of people need to realize is that this game is VERY Early Access. There is only 1 mountain (and a training slope if you want to count that), no sound, plenty of bugs, and NO multiplayer at the moment (partially untrue as of writing, I could as a Founder create a lobby and invite a friend).

Pros currently:
Crytek engine looks great. The mountain look phenominal.
Physics feel polished and standard movement feels natural.
Quite a few brands have signed on for support of the game (Redbull, K2, etc)
The open world layout feels right for a skiing game.

Cons currently. Keep in mind these will be improved on in later builds, but this is only for current.
No Multiplayer
No Sound
Numerous bugs
No tutorial worth mentioning and controls for tricks are a bit clunky.
Only 1 mountain with only 1 of 4 faces containing spawn points. Many parts of that mountain unfinished.
Lot of goals, but only 3 people on the dev team so progress may be slow.
This is a early alpha build and some could argue this is only slightly more than a tech demo.
No way to provide early backer rewards currently.

With that being said the game is worth checking out if snow sports are your thing. Just keep in mind, you are paying to support the developer on this, as it will be released F2P. DO NOT BUY if you are not OK with the things I mentioned above. Simply wait it out and try it when it's released and F2P.

Talk about a guilty pleasure you never knew you had. This game is great and I don't really know why. Typically these "simulator" games are just cheesy gimmicks with not much thought put into it. This one is quite the exception. The driving feels great and building your own company adds a bit of depth.

Overall, its just a relaxing way to spend a bit of time. Works very well with wheel setups or controllers, but use it with a wheel and enjoy life on the road.

So the game in a nutshell. You are in front of a fireplace. You get a catalog. You burn stuff to get credits to buy stuff from the catalog. You burn those things. If you burn things in order you can make a combo. You will receive a letter often with bits of a "story", then burn that.

Technically the game plays fine, I just got really bored with it after a pretty short amount of time.

**Note** You can burn pictures on your own computer, so I guess if you want to take out some anger over an ex, this is one way that will not send you to jail...

I did a quick YouTube video review which you can view here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSfDLG1WNo8

I am an avid sim racing fan and typically steer clear of any sort of arcade racer. This take on the racing genre is a nice change of pace and great fun. Aerial photography from actual cities are used and then race track objects are added in to make a course. This is quite a bit of fun and well worth the full price of $15. If you catch it on a discount even better.

Pros:
Fun unique design using the aerial photography. Someone referred to it as Google Maps with racing, and its very close.
Lots of cars and tracks.
Multiple game modes: Race, Time Trial, Surivial, Arcade Checkpoint.
16 player multiplayer out of the box.
Cheap buy in with promise of additional content at no extra cost.
Great soundtrack

Cons:
A bit too much motion blur for my liking. I can see some people finding this hard to track.
Multiplayer can be tough to find a match. This can be remidied by increasing the player base.