Останні рецензії користувача Boomer-Australia

As painful as the achievements can be, the DLC is quite fun and hunting for the achievements (excluding By My Hand Alone (nightmare fuel)) is pretty good. If this DLC had some more time in the oven it would've been excellent. But overall I do recommend it. If you're not hunting achievements the challenges are quite fun. If you're hunting achievements then you're in for an emotional rollarcoaster which brings a lot of emotions when you achieve the aforementioned achievements.

Arena is interesting to say the least. It's a product of its time where quantity was Important over variety. But lets summarise a little bit.

Returning Elder Scrolls Fans:
- Lore wise excluding the Main Quest you're going to get quite a few tidbits of lore and a lot of lore pieces that are discontinued. Most of the lore comes from the Main Quest and the locations that feature in the Main Quest.
- World History (Geography). The geography of the world is relatively consistent through Elder Scrolls especially the location of cities/towns/villages in Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion (only has one location in Arena), Skyrim, Online (plus the travel games). Obviously a lot of locations are scraped due to the large amount of them. However, for the most part the locations remain. In terms of landmass it is virtually untouched. Enjoy going to Morrowind and seeing Red Mountain in the distance.
- Creatures. There's a lot of creatures that appear in the game that would be interesting designs in future games that sadly never get seen again. However, it lays the foundation for a lot of creatures like Atronach's. Its a shame some of these creatures don't return.
- Daedric Artefacts. Quite a few Artefacts are established but their lore is majorly retconned in later iterations. However, artefacts such as the Necromancers Amulet is consistent with the later lore.
- Factions. The Mages guild exists and fulfils a very important part to the players gameplay even for non mages. But otherwise factions are left to the wayside in future games with the Mages guild being the only returning faction that I'm aware of. There's numerous religious groups that never make a return which is fair but a little over zealous in later entries. But these factions aren't fleshed out with them basically being pseudo Christen brotherhoods with fantasy names.
- Races. The races are...very basic in depth. Little tidbits of Information are here and there but not much.

Character Creation:
- Skills. Non existent (yet).
- Attributes. Oh attributes how I miss you. Attributes are pretty straight forward, higher attributes will result in better outcomes, better chances of things occurring (dodging, hitting, etc.) as well as luck which is just a fun attribute to have.
- Classes. Classes are very restricting in Arena, if you play as a spellsword like I did you're going to sacrifice good armour, it's going to take a lot longer to level up and you have to invest in more attributes. But I like it, I imagine if I was old enough to have been alive when Arena was released (1994) the classes would've brought great replayability. While I suffered early on for going with Spellsword by the end of the game I was a levitating demi-god.

Story:
- Main Quest. The story is as an existing Elder Scrolls fan somewhat interesting. As a non Elder Scrolls fan it'd be very very generic. But I'm glad I experienced it. I thoroughly enjoyed the wall of text and the constant threats (via visions) from the villain. Which allowed me to gauge who this bloke was and the humor of the villain basically going through the 5 stages of grief.
- Characters. The characters have minimum depth, don't expect a close shut the jaws of Oblivion speech. Really the only characters that have depth (in this game not future games) is the villan and your ethereal companion..

Side Quests:
- Very generic. Little variety and little fun. It's all about the dungeon crawling in this game and that's perfectly fine.

Combat:
- Melee. Melee is a lot more familiar to Morrowind fans, as a Oblivion onwards fans this is setting me up well to continue playing Daggerfall and Morrowind. Melee isn't a guaranteed hit, it's a dice role. Increase related attributes equate to more hits. You'll eventually get used to attacking by dragging your mouse.
- Magic. Expect to eventually feel like a God to rival Vivec. Spell's Initially are underwhelming and will cost most of your magicka with spellmaking not being worth it. After a few levels it's spell creation is your way of entering godhood. Combining Spell Absorption, Reflection, Levitation and a custom ranged damage spell that adds 10 damage per level. Indestructible. It is incredibly fun and overpowered. So so so overpowered. Enjoy destroy walls and floors to make your life easier and to make dungeons a crusier experience.
- Archery. Sorry I'm not sure as I didn't play as an archer chracter.
- Other tidbits. You won't be especially nimble in these games with limited verticality and world interaction other than keys, doors, elevated areas, trenches, water and lava.

Dungeons:
- Dungeons can be very reptitive but every now and then you'll be pleasantly surprised with bits and peices of world building. But overall they're very repetitive with the main attraction being loot and killing enemies.

Music:
- Get a mod that reduces the early 90s sharpness of the audio. The music is basic 8 bit nostalgia but very limited. However, once again it has some tinitius inducing sharpness.

Sound:
- Very repetive combat noises
- Creature Nosies. Extremely terrifying. Exploring a dark repetitive cave with limited FOV and hearing those noises can be incredibly terrifying.
- World noises. Very limited and a very strict audio budget.

Graphics:
- Compared to Daggerfall which would come out two years later it's not the prettiest of games. But it's a product of its time and being the first of it series. However, compared to games of 1994 it is somewhat lacking. But you aren't playing a game from 1994 for its mindblowing graphics.
- Art Direction. There's a lot of reptitveness in Arena but occasionally you'll stumble upon some uniqueness, some unique landscapes in the far distance or a building that looks wonderful. But most of the NPC's look the same (including other races but this is explained in the lore of future games). In saying that I do appreciate the sprites, they're simple but enjoyable. But the world is very generic fantasy for the most part.

Other Tidbits:
- I especially enjoyed grabbing loot and having to get a mage to tell me if this loot was a magical artefact or just a steel longsword. I liked that the hero in this game is not a master of all and .
- Batering. Batering is top notch and a shame it's not in post Oblivion bethesda games. It's good fun to negtoiate the price of a 10000 gold peice.
- Holidays. God I hope they bring this back to future games. Unqiue holidays is just an amazing bit of world building.

Summary:
I would summarise this game as a game of it's time. It should be appreciated for what it is. It's not meant to compete with games like Morrowind or Oblivion or Skyrim it's the first in the series made in a different era. It's primative with elements of depth and a love for a world with little content which sounds like a contradiction but
you can tell the very small team of original developers (possibly 8) (sadly none of which worked on Bethesda games post Oblivion) poured their love into creating this world which is heavily inspired by D&D. The game is a reptitive dungeon crawler but it is enjoyable and if I was a child of the time I would've loved this game. It's setting up a world that would be incredibly expanded upon in Daggerfall and refined with following entries. It's magic system makes the problem solving more inventive that modern entries ever could. Arena should be appreciated like the 1902 film A Trip to the Moon. It's nothing compared to modern day films but it was incredible for the time and it's a joy to see over a 100 years later (or in
this case 28 years laters).It's not as accessible as Oblivion, as unique as Morrowind, as atmospheric as Skyrim or as in depth as Daggerfall. But it's a game created with a lot of love that will make you appreciate how far Elder Scrolls has come. Plus it' s free you could run it on your BIOS it's that small.

Pros
+ Great Setting. A Rarely Touched Time Period.
+ Compelling Story & Lore
+ Great Dialogue
+ Brooding Yet Compelling Character
+ Interesting Powers
+ Great Voice Acting
+ Strong Gothic Atmosphere.
Mixed
~ Action Is Somewhat Fun (Initially)

Cons
- Gameplay Can Be Repetitive.
- Small World That Appears Larger By Constant Combat Encounters.
- World Feels A Bit Empty & Lifeless.

Score
7.5/10 Game -Good-
(1 Being Unplayable, 5 Being Average, 10 Being Game Of A Generation)

Note
- Highly recommend picking up while on special or near $20 ($70 AUD isn't a reasonable price).
- I managed to get 26.5 hours out of the game. Most players will get 16-20 hours, those trying to get 100% will most likely spend 26-30 hours.

A game of a generation

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is simply a fantastic game and a great sequel to the series in which it ultimately fixes many flaws of the previous game. Its only flaws are very nitpicky which include:

- Moderately lengthy main quest but if it included a couple more missions it'd be perfect
- Grabing an enemy or object can sometimes be cumbersome and difficult
- Some level design is off in regards to the story but in very minor ways. E.g a NPC comments on how clean another NPC's apartment is when in game its pretty damn messy


But I've gotta talk about some of the pros, since I listed minor cons I'm going to include minor pros, I highly recommend you read the other reviews if you want a better picture of the major pros:

- There's always another way around an objective, hell most of the time there's multiple ways to get to an objective
- You don't have to kill unless you want to
- For the most part the stealth gameplay is very solid
- There's always hidden places to find
- Bosses can be taken down non leathly
- The voice acting (while broody) is solid for the most part
- Prague is a very unqiue setting
- A ton of sidequests
- A lot of lore


Its a great game and its very comparable to Metal Gear Solid V minus the...questionable features of MGS V (boob physics anyone?). If you love that game you'll love this one and vice versa, however this is in the end more of an RPG and the only big downside for me was I really wanted it to last another 5 quests but I wouldn't say its a short game.

Buy this game, especially buy it (as well as the rest of the series) when on special.

I'm going to keep this short. Its a Game Dev Tycoon rip off but so much bloody more, this is what GDT should aspire to be its a great game with lots of depth and options making it more than just adding points to a specific group. The game is constantly evolving and I'm honestly amazed that the devs are constantly updating this game with relatively high quality updates. Its massively evolved from how it was 3 months ago even more so from 6 months ago. I'm very happy that I bought this game and hopefully you guys will too because these guys have earned the support in my opinion.

Compared to HOI3, AOD and HOI2 it still holds up however its put a huge effort to streamline itself. It removes several niche things (automated names for military divisions based on their country, for example I produce a marine division its named 1st Marine Division 'Old Breed', etc). The A.I is more of the same compared to the previous games and while it does introduce some great things like equipment production all of the other systems have such a focus on automation and less micro management that it saps my enjoyment. Its hard to recommend this game because while its a great game it doesn't have the depth that the previous games did nor does it have the level of replayability the previous games did for new and experience HOI fans alike. Ultimately I'm not recommending this game however it'd be worth picking up when its on special.

If you're a veteran HOI fan I recommend sticking with HOI3 and downloading the BICE mod, for newcomers its 50/50.

To say this mod/overhaul is worthy of its own game would be an understatment its worthy of an entire series, you'll never experience cooperative play on such a well detailed level teamwork is more important than kills. If you love Red Orchestra 1 ,2 or Rising Storm pick this up because its a bargin costing only $0.

Dishonored - A stealth adventure which no gamer or fan of action adventure games should miss out on

Dishonored is a great game if your willing to invest in the story and look at the game from a non linear perspective. Do I take the choice of running along the rooftops? Do I use my blink ability alongside the slow time ability to travel in plain sight without the guards noticing? Or do I kill everyone in sight?


You play as Corvo a bodyguard of the Empress and her young daughter Emily. The Empress is murdered and her young daughter abducted and your framed for her murder set to rot in the prisons of Dunwall for the crime of Regicide. Within a day of your execution you receive a letter and a key letting you escape from your prison cell and allowing you to redeem yourself. Later you receive magical abilities from an all powerful being who brands you with his mark and with the help of loyalists of the Empire your set on a quest to find out who really murdered the Empress and more importantly to find and rescue Emily from her abductors.You can either kill those who wronged you or punish them through bloodless intrigue this in essence is where your journey begins. These are the choices you as Corvo the silent protagonist face and depending on the route you choose the game will either reward you for taking the stealthy non lethal approach or make life harder for taking the violent non stealthy approach. These decisions can be taken lightly or for the player with a 'gamers' conscious these decisions can weigh heavily on the player requiring the player to either forgive his former enemies or go for an eye for an eye these kind of decisions engross you in the story and heavily influence your decisions within the world of Dishonored and will affect the city of Dunwall forever.


Does the gameplay match? Simply yes it does...for the most part the gameplay is fluid and fun but at times it faces some clunkiness which ruins the feel of combat but thankfully these moments aren't commonplace however in saying that non stealth based combat while fun does feel underdeveloped and basic it could be argued that it is a stealth game and non stealth combat shouldn't be a concern but it is in the game so it is a concern as the combat can feel repetitive and unrewarding. However in turn stealth gameplay most of the time feels very enjoyable and never lacks excitement it'll be guaranteed to engross you during every multilayer mostly non linear level. Another great feature of stealth is it's balanced! You'll never feel overpowered and you'll have to use your wit on a multitude of occasions as your sleeping poison tipped crossbow bolts run out and you have to rely on knocking out your enemies rather than picking them off quietly at a distance this is where the game becomes superb, you HAVE to choose the right moment to knock out a guard to make sure their fellow guards won't notice and you have to make sure you have a place to dump the body if not everything goes out the window and it's guaranteed you'll be constantly saving and reloading. On top of the great stealth gameplay is the new layer that Dishonored brings with it's abilities which adds a new element to the already fun and interesting stealth gameplay incorporated and for the most part its well balanced with the mana system ensuring you don’t abuse your new powers.




Visually the game is great if you enjoy the slightly cartoonish art style Dishonored and the city of Dunwall is a beautiful world and perfectly fits what I imagine a depressing steampunk world to look like everything is suitable to the art style from the water to the architecture and clothing visually its great and fortunately the audio quality goes hand in hand with its great voice acting which never sounds poor in anyway and the talented voice actors in this game will really help incorporate you into this intriguing world full of political backstabbing and totalitarianism never once did I feel a voice actor did not portray their role poorly or without suitability.

Pros

Great stealth gameplay
Wonderful voice acting
An interesting and visually appealing art direction
An intriguing story (if slightly cliche at times)
Dynamic level design
A location with character

Cons

Repetitive and sometimes frustrating combat gameplay
Limited to a good or evil story ending

If you’re looking for a great stealth game you've hit the gold mine it might not be perfect with its sometimes frustrating combat gameplay but the stealth gameplay, voice acting, art direction, story and dynamic level design easily makes up for that single flaw and makes this a must own game for anyone who loves action adventure games or stealth based gameplay. You are the master of your destiny and Corvo is who you want him to be this is a purchase you will not regret.

9/10

Bloody amazing game a really gem and a true sequel to Europa Universalis III give it a shot its more then worth it or at least watch the Lets play series on youtube, if you love grand strategy games and making your own history this is the game to play.