Recent reviews by The Dark Salmon

Changing my review because Democracy has won, and we are free again fellow Helldivers! Spread the word, and lets get back on the road to Democracy... TOGETHER!

[Actual review will follow after some more time invested]

I bought it on sale because my PC is just a notch above minimum "required" specs and I wanted to try the wing-suit feature out. Had to refund after 60 minutes of trying to get a playable game by adjusting settings and trying to play.

It's not worth the money, even if it was pennies, if you don't meet recommended specs or above because it simply will not function above 15-20fps which means you will lose every gunfight, because of how laggy the game is due to poor FPS.

Man, how did Battlefield get this janky? What happened? I can play BF1 fine and that game has mandatory fog and smoke effects. This game I can turn that off and it still runs like dog-water.

After a SINGLE 250-ish hour play-through (and I didn't even get to do everything), I can comfortably say if you want a game that is a gorgeous, well-written, well acted, and a story-driven game with incredible game play mechanics then you got it.

Most anything you think you could do inside and outside combat, you can get it done. Want to stack boxes to get somewhere you can sneak to normally? You can! Want to jump in a big hole and see where it goes? Pop feather fall, and go nuts! Want to chain 18 explosives together to start a fight off right, nuking 6 people in an instant? Stack your heart out! Lever stuck, toss grease on it? Toss grease on it! It moves! Fire on the ground? Acid? Dip an arrow or weapon in it, just because you can! Seriously, there's so much stuff (that isn't even explained) you can get done by simply trying to do it.

I mean, if you like RTS or turn base combat, you will love this game. You can even make the world around you turn-based with the click of a button to plan stuff out!

Seriously, watch some trailers, watch the opening cinematic, and see what the first encounter looks like. If it's even a little interesting to you, then you'll most likely love the game. This might be the closest I've felt a game get to 10/10, and I believe a 10/10 game doesn't exist yet. (10 being absolute perfection with no changes that could improve it.)

Man, where to start... This will be a doozy, because I am going deep into what makes this game tick here.

You can skip this paragraph for the actual review, this is just me outlining my "credentials" by outlining my time spent in the game. I put just shy of 150 hours into Dying Light 2, and around 250 in the first game on my PC, 100 more on Xbox for DL1. Anyway, review.

The first game was a game I followed VERY closely. I already knew I was going to like it because I played Dead Island in Middle School and Dead Island: Riptide in High School. I also was a HUGE fan of the EA Parkour game "Mirrors Edge." So hearing the two were basically having a baby when Techland was making a new IP, I was in immediately. The first game was everything I wanted and more. Superior physics, good running and flow (if at times somewhat clunky) and a beautiful style and setting. The map was CRISP. I literally cannot praise the first game enough, it's my second favorite game of all time, I will force friends to buy and try it with me to this day. It has flaws, but I dont have time for that in this review.

The sequel, Dying Light 2, was announced and I was so ready to see a sequel to a game I held as dear as the first game, and to see what's happened since the first game ended. Did I get what I wanted though? Did any of us? Yes & no. Let's break it down into two parts so it's easier to follow. Also, I have a character limit so I cant go too in depth.

PART 1 - GAMEPLAY: Dying Light 2 is exceptional. It is, by no means, a bad game to play. They have added some really cool stuff since the first game, in both combat and parkour, and it all went really well with the map they made. Unlimited sprint? Rope swings? Lache/Bar swings!? Proper underbars!? WALL RUNS! It's all great. I have issues though.

They kept the speed but made jumps a bit unrealistic/float-y/slow, the para-glider (It's cool, but it makes the parkour part of the game fairly useless. After you get the glider, you can skip so much stuff), the climbing stamina (Look, I get it, a man can't climb forever, but in the first game I could and I wasn't all powered up like Aiden. That should've honestly just been left out, as it only serves to gatekeep parts of the game and force you into repetitive content. More on that later). They also made certain moves worse with lock in animations (ledge drop kill...).

The combat upgrades towards human enemies is absolutely incredible compared to the first game. Actual melee combat with move-sets and parries, parkour combat, the works. I loved that addition. What I don't love is how OP and over-efficient the dropkick move is compared to the first game. DL1, you stagger the human enemy or just knock the dude on his ass where he stands. DL2 you literally move him to a new area code.

You have all this new stuff to play with, but they made the drop kick almost always an instant kill, it bypasses the need for most combat combos. Why spend several minutes out-playing the AI in combat when I can just drop kick him into a wall, the impact killing him instantaneously? Sure, its satisfying for a while, but if an encounter gets slightly difficult you can escape by just drop kicking and it gets pretty repetitive. Yes, there are a few more moves to use, but the fact that they are bullet sponges due to unnecessary MMO/RPG elements added to the game take away from that, and force you to drop kick, because its the only way to quickly beat the spongy enemies.

Side note: The first game, you got outfits, weapon tiers tied to survivor level, and skill points for combat, parkour, and survivor level. Techland added gear and gear levels, and if I am being honest it feels worse. I don't want the new sword I get taking 5-10 hits to kill. I want to cleave through the horde with my new sword like a human chainsaw like Dying Light 1, not play Tekken against every human and beat every zombie for hours like it's Interactive Buddy on AddictingGames. That's not fun. I dont want damage numbers, I want results.

The combat for zombies was better AND worse, somehow simultaneously. There's new moves, but physics are significantly worse then the first game. In the first game, I got sidetracked just fighting zombies to watch them ragdoll, see how good my weapons were getting, etc. Zombies would stumble over high ledges, benches, they walk off rooftops and fall to their death, I could knock one into a group and make them all stumble and get a breather in a group fight. That doesn't happen in Dying Light 2, they just warp up onto that stuff, no fall.

DL1 you hit a zombie, that momentum carries through. They stumble in the direction your swing was moving. Some swings even bounce off them! The swords dismember with ease and felt great. DL2 has had a LOT of moments where my sweapon felt like Skyrim. Just swinging, no resistance, making a slashing sound over the same combo attack. DL2 lost most the physics charm from DL1 (but I hear its slowly coming back). I dont get lost in DL2 with zombies, I avoid them most of the time. I spent most of my time running & enjoying that, hating combat with bullet sponge zombies. I avoid zombies... in a zombie combat game. Let that sink in.

Other than those few things, the gameplay is great. Now, the story...

PART 2 - STORY: Ripping the Band-Aid off, it's terrible. Sorry, I had to say it. It's so much worse than the first and the first one had a meh story already (but at least I was excited to see where it went when DL1 ended). DL2 was a trainwreck in comparison.

It's not the worst story ever, and the first half is pretty solid, but it gets terrible, it's full of plot holes. Example. Aiden doesn't remember his past, yet before he learns his last name, he tells someone his last name in game. The entire story is told, and at the very end they retcon the ENTIRE story, making Aiden a 100% unreliable narrator. They manufactured a twist, not through mystery, absent of breadcrumbs and hints, but by lying to the player the entire game saying "actually THIS is the story" in the final hour or two of the game.

Side quests? There's maybe 4 unique side questlines, the rest are literal lies. Old couple fighting - "Save our marriage, get us herbs for cooking our anniversary dinner!" Just a disguised parkour challenge, you don't even grab anything, just race. THESE ARE ALREADY IN THE GAME AS THEIR OWN THING. There's dozens of these, a fake story but its just a race to pad length.

Last two complaints, super small but pretty annoying. They took a clean UI from DL1, and made it look like caveman drawings. They also have more buildings to enter, but they are all the same interiors.

Anyway, despite all that rambling, I did enjoy the game. So, why not recommend the game? Easy. Techland has, like many others, cashed in their good faith and trust their buyers have for them to add predatory microtransactions to DL2 just shy of 2 years after launch on top of charging for DLC. Like all predators, they have added in game currency, and the currency is designed to make you spend MORE than what they are actually advertising the items for. The lowest tier of "Dying Light Coins" you can buy is 500, but oh look! A lot of stuff is worth 550 coins! There is no 550 option, so you automatically HAVE to spend DOUBLE the amount of money than advertised because there's no option to get the thing without spending double the cost. That's scummy, and I do not support that. Unless that decisions reversed, this review will stay as a negative one.

I'd say go buy the first game because it doesn't have that, but they get paid for that too. So unless they wanna un-ruin DL2, you are better off avoiding it or borrowing DL1 from a friend. Vote with your wallet people.

That is all, thanks for coming to my TedTalk.

I spent half an hour in a game, at one objective, and set up a massive base with another squad along side my own. The other squad then used over 2000 munitions firing mortars.... 60 yards in front of them on top of our own base. At the end, I was talking to a team mate about the lack of ammo, and in the background, barely audible from the distance he is away from us, you hear a man say "we need more mortar rounds" and 4 people replied back "no the **** you dont bro!"

I dont get that charm in any other game. I'll recommend. Hard to play but the laughs and moments you have are worth running at that brick wall to do better.

EDIT: First, LOL, the people proving my point about the toxic players. Like, you literally couldn't have validated that part of my review any more than you have in replies. Saying just "skill issue" or just insults is removed. Actual convos only. Be civil.

Second, "Not mad," just honest. I never said I wasnt going to keep playing, just pointing out flaws, its a review after all. I am just saying if you dont like Rust, skip this, its pirate Rust. Its not a good "casual" game. Yes, I play it every night, on a galleon I bought, with 3 other friends. Doesnt mean solo play isnt almost entirely trash for the most part. Lack of people isn't the issue. Its lack of balance for solo players.

Third, no one cares that you never saw a cheater. They still exist, they still mess with people, and all that proof is on YouTube. Game needs a report button. I HAVE 200 HOURS IN 40 DAYS, I SAW 6.

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I'll start by saying I love the game, but it has a lot of stuff that makes me feel like I cant recommend it past "if you're a rust player who wants to be a pirate and abuse certain parts of the game." The game is super fun, super atmospheric, and when you can at least fight people and get in ship battles and have a fair fight it's super fun. Looks great, feels great, easy to pick up, hard to master. It's even better with friends. That said, there's a few flaws with the game. A few, but the issue is that they are very big and obvious flaws within Sea of Thieves.

LAND COMBAT: Combat in the game is really really simple but is infested with people who abuse bugs and mechanics to cheese. This really shows when you literally can't do anything as a solo player against anyone who isn't solo due to these terrible bugs and mechanics people abuse within the combat system. You want to sword fight someone? Well, unless you got a group of buddies the same size as them, prepare to have people animation cancel with the sword lunge to fly 35 yards and one shot you if you were too busy fighting their duo, or the duo just shoots you in the back with a Blunderbuss or pistol. You wanna sword fight 1v1? Nah, they'll just abuse the fact that you can phase through players to just keep running through you and your block to hit you in the back, or reload as they do it to blunderbuss/pistol you in the back. Player collision needs to be a thing, it'd solve a lot of the issues this game has with combat feeling terrible. Why have a constant block? Just make it a parry...

SHIP COMBAT: The second issue is that, in ship combat, people will usually do anything BUT fight with cannons. Usually people do two things, which is they opt to use a bunch of these silly specialty cannonballs that disable steering, force anchor drops, disable guns, disable barrels from being accessed (so you cant repair), put you to sleep, etc.. It goes on. (Those balls should be PVE only, and used less by skelly ships, because the ability to spam those on players makes ship combat a bit of a joke when a Brig can lock your guns down, permanently, because they went around and collected a bunch of "Peace" balls.) It's that, or people will often just not even fight. Instead they launch themselves from their cannon to your ship (bit of a dumb mechanic as well, it should leave you half dead and crippled for balance) and firebomb the whole deck, or they just swim under you with bomb barrels and cause so much damage its impossible to not be sunk unless you have two or more crew mates. Unless you're a 2+ crew on a mid or large sized ship, you simply cant defend against it. The smallest ship basically just insta-sinks when one of those goes off under the deck. Or they put one down below, one up top, wreck the mast and steering wheel and then if you fight, it sinks. You repair, they kill you as you try and it sinks. The small ship is just too weak to the bomb barrels. This is, again, well more apparent when you're playing solo, digging up a chest, and cant be at your ship to even defend it, let alone see the person coming. Then your whole ship is gone, treasures gone, quest maps are gone, and all they had to do was drop on barrel in the bottom deck. Not fun. Sure, you can shoot the barrel as they carry it, but again, im not at the ship. Im following my maps...

CHEATING: The third issue is hackers. Given the age of the game its kind of surprising, the lack of ability to actually report someone (that I've seen). I had some 16 year old following me around, flying to my ship and spawning/dropping bomb barrels at my location with less than a second on the timer left and you literally, cannot defend against it. They fly over head, drop them, you get blasted. If you arent on a bigger ship, you're just done. I tried to leave and find a new game, same server. I literally cannot play the game when that happened from the barrel hacker. Then they just sit on the beach as my ship is sinking with me in it in voip spamming "hahah you're bad" while their voice cracks and they laugh about sinking you using barrel hacks. Super fun. Oh, report the dude? Can't, there's no way to see other crews unless you spyglass them, but they just fly away before I can get a name. Its pretty rare, but it happens. Super fun.

PVP: PVP, while being a draw to the game, is also a factor that costs this game MOST of the new players it gets. As of now, you get sunk, and you spawn nearby and can be attacked endlessly. If there is a cheater, they can bully you endlessly. Currently PVPers can come at you, just trying to enjoy the narrative content of the game, and steamroll you endlessly while risking NOTHING at all and stealing quest items they cant even sell. You know what would fix these issues in a heartbeat though? PVE only servers. Another thing that would fix it? Your ship sinks, and you go to a new server. I hear that may become a thing, but right now? Nah. A third fix? 2 servers, PVP double rewards, PVE normal. Fix four? PVE servers that make you use a different pirate than PVP servers so you can do casual stuff in PVE and trick the PVE pirate out, and have a PVP pirate and do stufff there to trick them out on a PVP server. So you can do both depending on what you wanna do at that time. PVP purists dont like that though, they claim that it would make the game worse or kill it, but it wouldn't. THEY do. All it would do is force them to do more than grief people, because it would require they need to be face people who know how to PVP/Arent new, and they want easy loot so they cry about people just wanting to enjoy the game. PVP should be end game, not THEE game in its entirety.

GREIFING: The game, for PVP, is (at least 75% of the time) people greifing you while they spam slurs/insults at you in voice chat. You spawn on your ship to fire in the spawn spot and being shot. You scuttle the ship and try to move on, but it spawns you 2 minutes away, so they rush over and sink you for literally nothing then complain when you dont interact with them. Its not a fun game because the older players make it unfun.

I cant recommend it to casuals being that its very unfriendly to new players with the odd mechanics for combat, ship fights, bad PVP/PVE balance. I just cant say it doesn't make the game somewhat unplayable, because it does. I know a bunch of people who abuse said mechanics/Grief are just going to say "get good" or whine about suggesting they should be gone or nerfed, but that's the truth. If you dont like gimmicks in your games that make the interesting parts worse, this game probably aint for you. If you can handle that its not balanced and the current player base tries to make new players quit, and cheaters that can ruin a lobby sometimes, then hit this game up. Its still fun, just annoying when it all happens, and it happens a lot. If they fix the silly mechanics, and bad PVPVE balance, I'll for sure swap my review but yeah those are just not fun parts of the game, and they REALLY NEED a way to report cheaters and toxic players easily.

This ones a hard pass for me man. I wanted to give it an honest shot but literally can't, the games super buggy and broken and just doesn't work at all. It looks like it could be interesting but it is so poorly optimized playing it just ins't possible. I have an i5, I have a 1070, I have 16GB of RAM, I have all up to date drivers. It just doesn't work.

Here's how my time went in this game, and it was identical to how it went in the beta to a T. To start, in the beta, I did the tutorial part you start in. Super choppy, playdough textures (by this I mean... think back on PUBG, when houses didnt load in? Thats this entire game for me most the time), the works. I get it done, do a drop, EVERYTHINGS playdough and worse than the tutorial and I cant play the game AT ALL. Decide ill try full release.

I get to the tutorial in the full release, and it was just as choppy as it was before. This time around I skipped it in the full game but from what I saw dropping in, a little less playdough-y but similar to beta. After that, I tried to party up with a friend, no dice. I was unable to be seen on his list, I could see him on mine, but I couldn't invite him and it said I had a blank name. I also noticed that the frame rate inside the little collective area is already choppy and many textures simply did not load, at all so playdough city. I knew it wasn't going to bode well already because of that, but went ahead anyway and started the first drop with the simple helmet, armor, and a pistol. Took the mineral scanner too. I drop in.

After landing I look around and everything looks OK. I start moving and the sound is choppy, the frame rate is choppy, some stuffs playdough, some isnt. So I try to make my way to the nearest named area on the map, and on the way I run into two little beetles. I took my knife out, saw they were the exploding kind of beetle, and I tried to take my gun out again. I couldn't switch back to my gun, because I had yet to even bring my melee out, despite hitting the button to do so a full 4-5 seconds prior, then the switch weapon command goes through, and I'm stuck pulling a gun out with nothing in my hands for another 3-5 seconds. The beetles explode, I die.

I give it one more chance, I drop in, more playdough when I leave my drop area, I find some striders, go to pull my knife. Nope. the four of them run about a blocks distance, and have killed me.... Never got the knife out, spent 15 or more seconds waiting.

The game is NOT worth your time right now, and honestly it releasing like this is just.... well, typical now days I guess. Hope it gets better for others in the future, but I'm out indefinitely. That left a pretty bad taste in my mouth as far as gaming experiences go.

Heard my Team Commander scream "LETS COOK THESE TURKEYS!" Then he called Napalm in, and proceeded to kill 17 people on our team and get auto-kicked for it. Right after the person who assumed control said "we're not going to do what that dude did." Then his helmet flew off his head as he was shot in the temple.

10/10, will play more.

It's just as great as the first. I mean, I would prefer to NOT have a voice in a game like this to really put myself in it, but I am enjoying the VO and the story so it's kind of a nice surprise.

People like to hate on the sequel here because technically the map is smaller, but once you realize that all they did was more or less streamline the game its actually really nice. Most of the first game is what people would call "dead space." The map of the first being the size it was only made sense to accommodate the Cyclops (which is absent in BZ), and this map being smaller means there's less dead space (although there is some) and not having to make a massive drive to any kind of story areas. It honestly flows better and makes the relatively small map feel very well utilized.

The map being smaller means, yes, the game is technically shorter, but the first game was only as long as it was because of the aforementioned dead space. So far it feels as though there's essentially the same amount of time in story content in both games. I think the first game average play time to beat was around 60, and this is like 46 and some change hours long. Those 20 hours are that dead space, and honestly when you play through the first game a second or third time you really do feel that dead space. Its a nice change I think, the map size.

The Biomes in this game also tend to be more noticeably different. As in, you'll pretty much always know when you change biomes, and in the first one the biomes were a little more blended, like safe shallows to blood kelp. There's not much place, underwater, where you are unsure what biome you're in. That's also kind of nice.

All-in-all, this is a solid sequel to the first. I am enjoying it a lot so far, and will play through again for sure. Its great to be able to experience a Subnautica game for the first time again, actually researching stuff and making new discoveries.

Have fun guys! It's worth the $30 for sure.

If you want open world, free roam, RPG, gore, great story, great characters, and a big iron on your hip, then this is the game for you.