Recent reviews by Anhel

Pretty creative development of HoM&M ideas and gameplay features in every aspect. Bright demonstration, that this genre has great potential to improve.

An Elegant Game for a More Civilized Age.

Good port of one of the best shooters of 90-th.
Only con: Still lacks of eluder/deluder modes for multiplayer.

Well. I started to play this game with a portion of skepticism. I tried "Age of Wonders III" in 2014, and played near an hour, and closed it forever (I don't clearly rememeber reason: Not intuitive ingame explanation of game principles, ugly ui or something else). But I love interesting TBS, so when I saw "Age of Wonders 4" is preparing to release, I decided to give it a chance... and it even exceeded expectations.

Deep customisation of everything (races, heroes, game worlds etc.), leveling and development of everything (races, heroes, magic etc,), deep developed diplomacy and wide variety of relationships with fractions and free cities, interesting world exploration, pretty good random quests and events (not great like in "Eador", but still good), worthy and deep combat system (where you can combine armies of several heroes), awesome UI, pretty intuitive ingame explanation of game principles and last. but not least - replayability.

This game gave me the thing I needed - interesting and enjoyable experience I wanted to get from TBS, and even exceeded it. At moment of writing this review I completed only one scenario, and sure I didn't tried even near half of what this game have to offer to player. It immerses so great, that hours of your playing runs unnoticeable, and this is a mark of good turn based strategy.

The only problem I noticed - crashes. I had same crash in second scenario, when done same sequencing of deeds. Also, my friend told me - game crashed a lot in multiplayer, but still was playable.

Even with this I can recommend this game. Not every day we have great TBS released. I wish developers to fix bugs soon, because when the only problem game has are crashes - it's an epic joke on themselves.

Finally, some good f**king TBS.

Me: "Mom, can we have The Legend of Zelda?"
Mom: "No, we already have The Legend of Zelda at home."
The Legend of Zelda at home: 🦊

+ Last game in series with a current regulation rules on chassis and aerodynamics of F1 open-wheel cars;
+ Last game made without huge influence of EA on Codemasters;
+ Awesome Co-op career;
+ Interesting Solo career and "My Team" mode;
+ Career can starts from F2 (2020 or 2021);
+ Pretty good music in main menu;
+ Tracks and cars feels better than before.

- Removed old cars and retro races by invitation;
- AI sometimes acts itself more mastermind than God of Motorsport - Mahaveer Raghunathan;
- Bracking point mode. The idea of it - was great, but linear realisation with playing with character you don't like - sucks. Also there was lack of directed episodes.
- Still can't joking in radio with engeneer. Where are "Engine feels good! Much slower than before. Amazing!" when you have lack of engine power, "Don't forget to stay hydrated." when nothing happens, "GLOVES AND STEERING WHEEL! COME ON, MOVE!" on pitlane, and "I am stupid..." when you crached? Still waiting for it!

"Apathy is Death." (Criss Avelon: Kreia - "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords")

"King's Bounty II" is not a game. It can't entertain you. It can't give you useful experience. It can't give you interesting gameplay, challenge, script or story. Even graphics, level and character design, music and acting are pretty bad.
Only thing that it can give you is boredom.

You'll not give a heck about story, because scriptwriters even didn't try to create interesting story, creative dialogues and motivation. You'll not give a heck about world exploration, because world is dead, boring and has huge level-design mistakes. You'll not give a heck about battles, beacause they are monotonous, you need to use only methods that wants developers, you haven't got any choice, and developers punishes you for trying to create your own builds and tactics. Nothing can fix this game, cause basic game concept and gamedesing of this game are broken.

Why playing in original "King's Bounty" 1990 you can feel creative and endeavors of Jon Van Caneghem and developers from New World Computing to create interesting game in all aspects? Why in reboot: "King's Bounty: The Legend" (2008) you can see, how Dmitry Gusarov, developers from Katauri Interactive and all people, who worked on developing different elements of game - made every element close to masterpiece, and payed huge respect to developers of original game?
Because it was important to them to create the game, that makes players enjoy it. They cared about their legacy in our world. Developers from 1C just wanted to make money, and nobody cared about - for whom they make this game.

First of all, I should go mention, that this review will be divided on 2 parts:
* Legendary edition, differences to 3 original games: what became better, and what became worse.
* Few words about Mass Effect Trilogy itself, and about ending under spoiler.

I wrote my previous review in release day. It was negative bcs game itself didn’t work further than launcher. It was so until I found specific solution in my OS language settings. Developers fixed that problem in 2 months. Let’s talk about how changed games in Legendary edition - their pros and cons to original ones.

+ Gameplay and shooter mechanics now feels much better than they were in original game;
+ Graphics in general looks better (bcs of new materials etc);
+ Local in game changes (like changing Elanos Haliat’s race from human to turian that is more lore accurate and makes more sense for his motivation);
+ Photo mode (Works good in a whole trilogy, but I mention it only once here).
- Lighting in some scenes placed not correct, and it ruins scene composition and makes faces of the characters looks scary in those scenes.
- Deleted DLC “Pinnacle Station” (Can’t tell I miss it, bcs it annoyed me in original ME, but still - missed content isn’t a good thing).

It has much less changes than first and third games. The only moments reasonable to mention:
+ Loading time much increased. Optimized loading screens;
- Faces looks not so beautiful than they are in original ME2. I don’t know what they’ve done to materials, but faces looks worse. Not horrible (like Andromeda), but worse.

+ New materials looks much better than in original game;
+ War assets is now easier to get;
- No multiplayer;
- A lot of minor bugs: with characters and enemy animations, or with scene uploading faster than cutscene begins. That don’t ruin experience, but still things like this shouldn’t be in remaster. It’s obvious there was luck of testers, and it’s not good trend.
Verdict: If you want complete experience of Mass Effect trilogy – it’s good version. I can recommend it. But w8 until sales. It’s not tested enough to buy it on full price.

This is the games can I highly recommend to those who likes RPGs with really interesting and intriguing story, awesome sci-fi worldbuilding, well developed and deep characters, and one of the best scene directing in game.
Gameplay evolved in every aspect from game to game (beginning with combat, shooting mechanics and controls, ending side quests) so it has replayability not only to make another choices, but to try another builds and classes. Sound directing and music also executed on highest level.
Few words about ending of Mass Effect 3: First time I finished ME3 in 2012, and it’s ending for me was one of the worst in fiction arts at all. But after recent play of whole trilogy – I changed my mind. Yes, ending is pretentious and overcomplicated to understand (bcs it requires to listen attentively most of dialogs in the game, and notice core ideas that scriptwriters tell us), but pretty good and very relevant in modern days. Now I understand: “the traffic light” at the end is not a choice of ending. It’s a test of the player on understanding narrative of the game. There is only 2 ending options: To be harvested, or to pay your price to win existential war. Main idea of whole narrative of Mass Effect 3 was “existential wars never wins with easy solutions and without sacrifices”. And now with this idea listen, what catalyst (as your enemy) offers as a solution.

Great experience, great games. Thx to old Bioware developers for this awesome adventure.

No ping compensation, ugly graphics, unoriginal clone of the ww2 Normandy bandwagon with nothing new besides a p1ss-poor art style that's not even consistent with itself.