Recente recensies door Henray

(No Spoilers + TLDR at the end)

If you are the type of person who gets really into backstory and ‘lore’ then you will love this game. I was blown away by this element of the game and was not expecting things to unfold as they did. This game has some incredible mind-blowing reveals which shocked me and got me so much more engaged in the whole experience, there are dozens of diary entries and audio logs which really enhance the narrative and set the scene so well, I would highly recommend reading/listening to them all. I won’t go into details as I want to be spoiler free but specifically the reveals and details of Operation Enduring Victory and Operation Zero Dawn were incredible and were delivered masterfully, I was on the edge of my seat and HAD to know more and what happens next!

Graphically the game is incredible, one of the prettiest games I have ever played. The level of detail is wonderful even things that usually suffer like foliage look great, the weather effects and lighting are stunning enhancing every scene/ environment, the level of facial detail and animations are impeccable (especially with Aloy) I’m not sure I’ve ever seen better in any other game. Truly a beautiful experience, I cannot wait to see how good the sequel will look on PC! It already looks insane on the PS5.

Combat focuses on working smarter not harder with targets having many specific weak spots such as gaps in Armor plating to pierce machines ‘lungs’, going for the ‘eyes’, casting ropes to trip large enemies, destroying mounted weapons on beasts etc. The ‘elements’ play a huge role too such as for example fire and ice being more effective against certain enemy types which really adds to the strategy of combat. Stealth works well too and was enjoyable, the mechanics for stealth are fairly barebones (crouch and hide in foliage) but it is a viable and recommended strategy especially on higher difficulties, mounting the machines and using them to traverse ground quicker and fight for you is pretty cool too. I must admit the human vs human combat is fairly bland unfortunately, it is very generic 3rd person shooter/action but the beast combat more than makes up for this negative in my opinion and the vast majority of the game is beast combat.

The most common complaint is definitely the idea of this game falling under the “Ubisoft open world formula” which I completely disagree with. I have seen people say that Horizon: ZD is “just Sci-Fi Assassin’s Creed”. For starters AC Origins and Odyssey were both great games and largely addressed the stagnation problems with the Assassins Creed series, people just love to hate circlejerk anything Ubisoft touch, but also just because a game is open world it is automatically trash to a certain group of people. This game’s world is engaging and interesting with huge differences in the game’s established cultures in different districts displayed through the environment but also through the different tribes and groups (E.g., the Nora villages differing greatly to the Meridian capital being more ‘wild/savage’, differing to the mountain dwelling Banuk tribe ‘embracing technology’ more with their wire threading and views toward the beasts etc). Further the remnants of the “Old Ones” are really interesting and I loved coming across ruins of structures from the past and piecing together what they were e.g., ruins of a sports stadium. The world itself almost feels like a character at times, I don’t see how it can be seen as boring and formulaic at all. I will admit although I liked AC Odyssey it definitely had some padding and was way too big and directly suffered from that, H:ZD doesn’t suffer from this at all and there isn’t any (noticeable to me at least) ‘copy paste’ content to make it seem bigger, everything has a purpose and flows well together.

The Frozen Wilds DLC (free and included with the game) was also brilliant. Following on from the main story (I think canonically just before the final battle iirc) it includes : a deeper look at the Banuk tribe, a vastly different environment (snow and ice), some great new characters, cool new powerful weaponry providing more of an ‘end game’ and of course new machines! It also expands upon many of the core elements of the main story too and gives more context, backstory and explanation behind some of the core events (trying to stay spoiler free). Definitely worth playing, was very fun and I imagine it heavily plays into the sequel.

I am really looking forward to the sequel hitting PC. I will 100% buy it Day 1, I loved this game and can’t wait to see what happens next in the story as well as see the improved new mechanics and new beasts!

TLDR: The game is fun for everyone, very solid smart fun combat and great graphics. If you are the type of person who gets really into detail and lore then you will get so much more out of this game and probably love it.

“Hesitation is Defeat”

(spoiler free)

This is my favourite FromSoft/Souls game and one of my favourite games ever.

This game doesn’t get the love it deserves because too many people come in expecting Dark Souls but Japan. Don’t get me wrong Dark Souls is wonderful, but this game is its own beautiful beast which needs to be handled as such. If you come in and spam dodge like Souls meta you won’t get far. You must give this game a chance and learn and grow with it.

I think many Souls veterans expected to drop in and destroy everything as they had several games worth of time/ experience with the Souls format, when that inevitably didn’t happen they instantly disliked it and didn’t give it the game the chance it deserves. Again, it isn’t Dark Souls 4/ DS:Japan, it is its own piece so expect to have to learn the ropes again. Looking through my ‘friends who have played previously’ tab on Steam so many people have ~7 hours or fewer on this game, so clearly gave up, which is sad. I don’t mean to invoke “git gud” I just mean there’s a lot to be loved here but just giving it a few hours isn’t giving it a fair chance.

I feel like the game is fun from the start, but it takes a while to really get a feel for the game’s mechanics and understand its “language”. Once you get past the Souls muscle memory and it “clicks” with you it is so satisfying and feels incredible. Fans often joke Sekiro is actually a rhythm game akin to ‘Just Dance’, where timing and rhythm are the most important factors and honestly there is a lot of truth to that. In Sekiro many of the boss fights regularly feel like a dance and the sword play has such a music like flow to it. It is very poetic and works so well with the culture and setting of the game. Whilst I won’t pretend to be a historical expert on Feudal Japan the game portrays the culture and setting beautifully, the fantasy elements lean heavily into Japanese culture which really compliments the environment and keeps the theme/story clear and tight. Especially regarding the use of spirits and animals, how their movement and fighting styles are so different to that of human enemies to reflect their nature, often wilder and more frantic (animals) and more methodical and peaceful (spirits). It really aids the immersion and the art like beauty of the game. Further, the emphasis on respect, honour and oaths are portrayed very neatly here (obviously very present in Japanese culture/media), being pivotal key themes of the whole game and different to the nature of the other instalments of the Souls games (obviously largely due to the Japanese setting in contrast to Souls’ more western theme). This lends very well to the decision-making components of the story and the directions the story/ ending can take with how ‘oathbound’ you decided to be in your roles and decisions for example.

It sounds ridiculous to call a game that won Game of the Year under-rated but what I mean is this game is pushed to the side when talking about the From/Souls games. DS1+3 and now Elden Ring get all the praise, focus and limelight when it comes to FromSoft and Sekiro is treated as an afterthought by a great deal of the fandom/ industry, which is a shame as I feel it is a nearly perfect game and the best of the bunch. I feel this is the only Souls/From game that is consistently GREAT throughout. Whilst I love the Souls franchise, pacing and level of quality consistency has always been an issue. The tail end of Dark Souls 1 is far worse than the front, whilst Dark Souls 2 has almost the exact opposite problem with the first few hours being rough but it eventually finds its footing. This statement probably won’t be well received but honestly the most recent (and widely praised) FromSoft game, Elden Ring, is guilty of this with the latter half not being as good as the first and the ending boss is truly awful and dramatically worsens the whole experience. I feel like Sekiro is consistently great, it doesn’t weaken during the middle/end like most of the other Souls instalments, plus the ending boss is fantastic. The only thing that dramatically effects the pace of the game/ is a dip in quality consistence (in my opinion) is the Screen Monkeys boss fight. I got what they were going for, it was something very different having a puzzle boss, but on sequential playthroughs it is a bit of a chore to get through (but at least it’s only a few mins long).

The biggest complaint I have seen for this game is that “Katana only combat can be boring” addressing the lack of build variety in this game. Whilst the current Elden Ring meta is 2 Katanas and these same people moan about Sekiro being too basic *cough* *cough* ANYWAY, I feel focusing less on the RPG aspects of the Souls formula led to a tighter design for Sekiro, the bosses are more tightly tuned to what you will likely be bringing against them which makes the fights so much cleaner and stylish, there’s less “oh use this one specific aspect of weaponry for this particular boss” which I am a big fan of. Whilst the RPG elements of Souls are great and add a ton of variety and replay-ability to the games, Sekiro works really well without them. Compared to having to cater to a bunch of different builds like in DS/ER, not to bash ER too much, it is also a great game I just feel that trimming the RPG elements from the formula worked well in Sekiro, I’m not saying they should be removed in all future From/Souls instalments I just feel it did work well for Sekiro and is not a negative aspect of the game at all. It especially fits thematically being the ‘skilled Shinobi’ and lends well to immersion opposed to a hypothetical Sekiro spell spamming his way through sword fights, no thanks.

I feel like Sekiro is a perfect candidate to the “can Video Games be Art?” debate. It has so many beautiful elements that all come together so well for such an all-around amazing product. Not just graphically in its environment design but in the messages it brings through its story, pacing, themes and display of culture. I don’t want to overuse the word, but it is truly a beautiful game in every sense of that word.

There’s also tons of content and replay-ability in the game. Like the rest of the Souls games, it features NewGame+ (can keep going as many times as you want, I have seen people at NG+50). The game has 4 different endings which involve visiting different areas/bosses you may otherwise never see. Sekiro also received a challenge gauntlet of bosses in a free update after winning GOTY in which you can fight previous bosses again, including harder versions and cosmetic rewards for doing so. Further if you want more challenge the game has an optional hard mode through ringing the demon bell (TLDR: making enemies stronger) and/or rejecting Kuro’s Charm (the charm disables ‘chip’ damage in which you take damage if you do not deflect attacks with perfect timing). Whilst your first playthrough will likely take you 20-30 hours the game can be speedrun in a fraction of that, once you have mastered the game and know the route of only what is essential, which I found very satisfying seeing just how much I had improved from struggling at the start of Playthrough 1!

If you are struggling at any point, whether that's getting into the game (early) or at a particular boss, take Isshin’s wise words to heart “Hesitation is Defeat”. Combat-wise you want to be more aggressive than Souls but you still want to be deliberate with every attack and not just spamming attack/spam blocking in an attempt to land a parry. Parrying is your best friend and the quicker you get that skill down the quicker you will improve at the game in general. Focus on the rhythm and patterns of your enemy’s attacks and maintain control, do not put yourself too much on the defence or be running away, do not hesitate. Hesitation is defeat ;)

I'll start by addressing the elephant in the room:
YOU WILL PROBABLY HAVE SAVE GAME ISSUES IF YOU HAVE STEAM CLOUD ENABLED. TURN IT OFF!
yes, its kind of ridiculous these problems still exist nearly 4 years later but whatever it is what it is. I turned it off before playing (as is recommended) and didn't have a single issue. Half of the negative reviews are people who clearly were unaware of this persisting bug.

Now to the actual game:
Insomniac have done it again!
I was really surprised how much I loved this game.
I should have known really, I'm a huge fan of 'movement' games like platformers and skateboarding games and this is one of the best, that completely flew under my radar for ages (has been sat in my backlog for years).

This was the perfect replacement for the Tony Hawk remaster that is an Epic exclusive (so I wont be playing it) and I absolutely love this game, especially for filling that gap!

It is just pure fun, it is ridiculous and extremely goofy by nature but it works well and it does not take itself too seriously at any point. It's very daft immature humour kind of like Saint's Row but it is very self aware and mocks itself and related pop culture constantly.
The character customisation is vast and great and I had a lot of fun tinkering around with it, there are a ton of unlockables and you can change body features,gender, hair, etc whenever you want.
The city is pretty big and clearly designed very carefully, the ability to seemlessly traverse the environment and constantly be on the move bouncing and grinding avoiding the 'zombies' on the ground is extremely well choreographed; outside of mission related objectives you never have to walk on the ground and you are encouraged to constantly be zipping around always on the move.
The music is great and fits the nature of the game perfectly, very punk and 'rebellious' rock. The story isn't anything special but is alright, fairly standard "we need to escape the city" plot with some whacky characters and silly 'meta' humour added but it works well. But it doesnt matter as the gameplay is the star of the show. There's also a good amount of content, ~75 challenges/ side missions to do whenever you want, you can replay story missions whenever, the pseudo tower defence base defending minigame/missions and there are 2 DLCs. The two DLCs (included in the PC version for free) were also pretty good, the Oil rig is fun to traverse and explore and the robot factory has some cool new mechanics.

If they ever make a second game (doubtful but we can hope) I will be getting it day one, this is one of the most fun gaming experiences I've ever had. I still hop on now and then just to freeroam the city despite having 100% the game. It's that fun.

At the time of writing this the game is on a 75% off sale and is only £3.74 which is an absolute steal for the amount of fun you will get from this game.
Buy it now!
It was also featured in the recent Humble Support Ukraine Bundle so I assume it is now in many people's steam backlog,
Try it out, its great!

To sum the game up in three words: Inconsistent but bold

The ‘black sheep’ of the Dark Souls series. In my opinion this should not be your first Souls game, I would not recommend starting on this entry, but if you like the series I would 100% recommend playing it. It is certainly worth your time. Just be aware it has very high highs but also some truly awful lows.

Be aware it has a slow start and is very different with completely different pacing to the other two Souls games and some mechanics which will take a while to get used to, but give it a shot, there is a lot to love here. I really did not like it for the first few hours, as I was playing it too much like DS1/3, but when I had spent enough time with it and got used to the differences I really enjoyed it overall.

FromSoftware really tried something different with this game, which is commendable. DS2 could easily have just been DS1 but new areas and bosses and that would probably have been received well but they really tried many new things with this entry, which is bold and the right step for videogames in general in my opinion. Some of these new elements were great, whilst others were clear misses, but it is great they took those steps and tried them out, I see a lot more of this game in Sekiro (probably my favourite FromSoft game) than I do of DS3. Without the risks they took with DS2 we may not even have Sekiro or Elden Ring today. I haven’t played Elden Ring yet, but I have heard it includes several elements that were previously exclusive to DS2 such as Twinblades and the Powerstance mechanic, which is neat.

As mentioned, DS2 introduced a lot of new elements some of which were great and became staples for the rest of their games such as:
• Ability to respec skill points
• Ability to teleport between bonfires from the start of the game
• Estus shards to upgrade the flask
• More of a focus on the ‘hub’
• New elements for NG+: new rings, new items, new NPC interactions, some new moves/elements in some boss fights

It also introduced some which haven’t returned but I thought were great ideas. For example:
• Bonfire Ascetics: essentially reset an area including its bosses but at +1 difficulty equivalent to 1 level of NG+ on whatever playthrough you are on, good for farming or the ability to fight a boss again/ obtain its unique soul again if you wish.
• (as mentioned above) Powerstancing: dual wielding certain weapons (doesn’t have to be the same weapon twice) allows new unique animations and move sets as long as you meet the strength requirement for doing so (usually 1.5x both weapons strength requirement).
• Enemies despawn permanently (for the current playthrough) if they have been killed 15 times in total (unless you join a certain covenant to prevent this) this can really help people if they are stuck or want to make a path through a certain area/ path to a boss easier for themselves.

This game also has some incredible bosses, some of the best in the series, especially in the DLCs, I particularly enjoyed : Velstadt, Sir Alonne, Fume Knight, Burnt Ivory King and the Smelter Demons . It also has, arguably, the best plot of the three Dark Souls games.

However, at parts, this game has some of the most malicious game design I have seen in gaming which, whilst somewhat on brand for FromSoftware with the whole ‘difficult game, “get good”’ ethos, it can sometimes feel unfair and like it is designed just to be frustrating. You really must treat this game differently than the other two when playing, the old classic strategies will not work, I would recommend taking it slower and picking your targets/ managing them more deliberately, if you rush you will likely get overwhelmed by a mob very quickly. I always felt DS1 was somewhat difficult but fair, some parts of DS2 strayed from this and were ridiculous. For example:
• Decaying max hp upon death (kicking you whilst you’re down)
• Slower healing (not necessarily a bad thing but paired with less max HP leads to a rough early game and is why many players end up leaving and hating this game)
• Less than half of the I-frames on your dodge roll (I may have the exact numbers wrong but it is something like you have 5 I-frames rather than the other two games’ 13 I-frames per roll, unless you take a new stat called adaptability to 99 which gets you back to 13 I frames for a ‘medium’ roll) so it takes a while to adjust to/ you feel like your roll isn’t anywhere near as useful as it is in the other entries
• No I-frames for opening doors/chests/most interactions
• Many more traps and ambushes than DS1 and 3 (not necessarily unfair but worth mentioning in this section of the review)
• Higher density of enemies in small spaces
• Some very questionable hit boxes, especially with some bosses performing lunge attacks
• Some of the worst areas in the series with upwards of 8 enemies in what is essentially a narrow corridor
• Some areas having upwards of 30 enemies between a bonfire and a boss so every attempt takes you over 5 mins to get back and try again, these high numbers of enemies often include situations where you are being mobbed by melee based enemies and also being sniped by archers/ mages often with elemental effects etc, not ideal Shrine of Amana, Frigid Outskirts and Iron passage are the worst offenders.

Don’t get me wrong, it is a good game, it isn’t impossibly hard or anything like that but at times it does edge on being unfair, it is by far the most frustrating of the 3 games. The aforementioned run between the nearest bonfire and boss being horrendous is a great shame as it unfortunately takes place before some of the best bosses in the game, in my opinion, and greatly takes away from their enjoyment.

The game certainly has some missteps and flaws, but it also exceeds in many ways different to the other entries in the series. All I would say is be patient with the changes. It took me a while to enjoy it but a few hours in it clicked for me and by the end I really did enjoy it a great deal.

Extremely unremarkable, not worth your time.

The first game is better in nearly every way, it still holds up, I would recommend that instead if you like the idea of this game (freerunning in a dystopian city as one of the 'rebels')

If you know you definitely want this game then wait for a huge sale.

If you have played #1 and really want more Mirror's Edge then this may do for a little bit but just note it really doesn’t offer much more content, it is short and there isn’t much to do: the open world is very limited and becomes repetitive very quickly, the story is ~8 hours long and would be substantially shorter if it didn't have you going back on the route you just took essentially fetchquesting for most of the game, aside from the story the only other things to do are a few side missions (~6 of them total), time trial 'delivery missions' and collecting the hundreds of collectables; calling the later 'content' is questionable at best.

The story is very boring, lacklustre and anticlimactic. Pretty much every character is generic, two dimensional and annoying: (hacker girl who is quirky and socially awkward, arrogant rival who took your place whilst you were 'away' and tries to antagonise you every 5 seconds, leader of your little rebellion is essentially just stepdad etc). The story wasn’t anything special in the first game, but I don’t know why they felt the need to completely retcon it entirely for this ‘reboot’ which was far worse. Obviously, the main attraction isn't the story for this game but as I mentioned above there is very little content aside from the story, so it is worth mentioning. You can only get so much fun out of free roaming the city/ time trials.

The stylised graphics of the first game (that still look decent now; 13 years later) have been replaced with 'realistic' graphics which already don't look great and somewhat aged in this 2016 title, I also had quite a lot of objects randomly popping in and out too, changing graphical settings didn't help. Audio lagging behind/ cutting out is also a very common bug lots of people seem to have, especially in cutscenes.
The combat is dreadful, I made an effort to avoid it wherever possible (like you are supposed to in the first game). Unfortunately, there are several sections in which you straight up have to fight and they were extremely frustrating and boring. Enemies have ridiculous lunge range and hit you around corners, you no longer have any weapons (unlike the first game) so when an enemy has a gun you must just bait them out with a mix of hiding/ freerunning. Many of the forced fighting sections included multiple waves of multiple enemies where if you die you go back to the start, you have something like 3hp by default and basically have to resort to trying to isolate them as best you can as they rush you with their ridiculous lunge or shoot you from afar. Not fun.

The freerunning is near enough the exact same as the first game (great and undoubtedly the star of the show) but some moves are locked behind a levelling system. Kind of silly but not a huge deal. I had the occasional bug where Faith would just yeet herself into the abyss when I pressed something different (like Ezio back in the day) but it wasn't very frequent. I had a few bugs where I clipped through objects I had to climb and the game wouldn't let me pull myself up so I just had to jump to death which was frustrating, having to listen to the annoying characters repeat themselves again.
They also added a weird sci-fi grapple hook which I personally really don't like. I liked the idea of Faith, and by extension all of the runners, just being very skilled freerunners traversing the city in creative ways, having a grapple that at points of the story launches you over 50 meters in the air took away from the 'realism' for me and had me eyerolling at parts. ( I'm, aware this may be too nitpicky but I really didn't like this addition and I am probably not alone in this view).

Overall this game feels kind of pointless, a sequel should improve upon the first game or at the very least offer more content and this doesn’t really do either of those things. Just play the first game.

I felt compelled to write a review for this DLC as it has mixed reviews and I dont think that's fair.

This DLC is incredibly short, yes, but it is very good and definitely worth playing if you like DSouls.
The Painted World is beautiful, this DLC has great scenery.
Many of the new weapons and armor sets look really nice.

The fact there are only 2 bosses, and one is incredibly easy and basically a glorified normal enemy, is a huge shame which I imagine is the main reason for all the negative reviews.

In my opinion this DLC is worth it for the final boss alone, one of the best bosses in the series and definitely the best of DS3 (so far at least, I havent played the 2nd DLC yet but the final boss of this DLC is better than 90% of the main game for sure)

I would definitely recommend grabbing this on a sale though if you're worried about it being short, it really is £12 for ~2 hours of content (way less if you just rush it I imagine)

who up playing with they worm?

I loved the Fancy Pants flash games as a kid and this was a great nostalgic nod to them.
This game is VERY short (~3 Hrs) but is fun and worth playing.

Looking forward to the Fancy Pants Classic Bundle coming out on Steam at some point this year!

This game has been incredible value for £2/$3 since it launched in early access.
BUT I wanted to wait a while before reviewing the game, many people are skeptical about Early Access games in general and I wanted to see if it would be further developed at all, as many Early Access games are never finished and the Early Access system is frequently abused by many developers to make a quick buck and release a product that will never be finished.

It’s been about 6 months since this launched, I have played it on and off since launch, and there have been consistent developments to the game!
This game has grown substantially since the start of its early access launch, at the time of writing this review the game has 7 stages compared to the 2 it had on launch, 24 characters and over 60 items, new difficulties and new mechanics (Hypermode, Arcanas, Skip, Reroll, etc.)
It is being updated and built upon frequently and a roadmap is listed on the storepage detailing the end goal for their content. A rare Early Access game that is actually worth it!

TLDR: A great game at a shockingly low price, would highly recommend to fans of roguelites, consistent updates lots of fun!

EDIT: voted for relaxing in the GOTY awards (+1 for next year!)

Probably my most played game that came out in 2021 (and therefore my vote for GOTY for 2021; if it counts as it is DLC, also a little late I know haha)

I love Isaac and have played it on and off since flash on multiple platforms. I knew this was going to be an official adaptation of the popular fan mod Antibirth (which I hadn't played but was familiar with) and I was excited for more official content for the game having already put ~500 hours in and 100%ing the game at each of its previous states with DLC.

This DLC honestly exceeded all of my expectations.
I expected a new path, a new character, some new floor variation, some new items and some new enemies/bosses.
(Roughly what the other DLCs have brought to the game).

Instead we got:
- 2 new characters and then the whole character roster doubled through the tainted character mechanic ( totalling 19 new characters with this DLC, which completely blew me away, I was not expecting anything on this scale at all for this DLC and many of the tainted characters are really well designed and add so much variance to an already hugely diverse game).

- 2 new paths with crazy new mechanics and fully fleshed out endings that exceed anything in the game prior to this DLC, the path ascending up to home to Mother is really neat and very unique, Dogma is probably my favourite new boss in the game it has such a cool style and theme to it and the Beast boss fight is like nothing else in this game playing almost like something out of Cuphead! A great send off for what is supposedly the final final (no for real this time) content for this game.

- Tons of new items and re-balancing of old items. After Afterbirth/+ many argued the game began to suffer from item bloat as over the years more gimmicky items were added meaning meaningful stat upgrades were harder to attain on an average run. Repentance attempted to address this and did a pretty good job of doing so imo (yes this is kind of a controversial subject as some feel there were unnecessary nerfs to some items and it its still possible to be flooded with gimmicks and struggle to get meaningful items/stat increases but whatever its better than it was in Afterbirth+ for sure).

TLDR: Its more Isaac, more than I expected, a ton of great new meaningful content that highly improves the state of the game, many of the new characters are really fun to play and the new paths are really diverse and very different to the game's previous state. If you like Isaac definitely buy this DLC.