Recent reviews by Snus

This game is indeed pretty Black and pretty Sad. I mean, the story is noire, and is everything you would expect from a movie of this genre. It's not great, but it's ok, and there are a few memorable characters. The story and the setting are the only things I am recommending Blacksad for, as this is the weakest game by Pendulo Studios.

The gameplay is really sad. This is essentially a walking sim with really clunky controls and occasional QTEs which are horrible: while you have enough time to press (or mash) a button, just one mistake leads to a game over, and given the fact that checkpoints are not that often and you can't skip dialogues, this makes all the QTE scenes even more obnoxious.

This and inability to skip cutscenes also leads to not wanting to play through the game another time, which is also sad since there are decisions that seem to impact the story. And it would also be a nice excuse to gather all the collectible cards in the game. But alas, clunky gameplay paired with unskippable cutscences and dialogues make subsequente walkthroughs absolutely unfun.

Essentially more of the same, but with many changes and arguably improvements over Hades.

The game feels harder than the first one, at least I am 17 hours in already, and still haven't managed to kill the final boss, and I even reached him only three times (killed Hades around 10 hour mark in the first game).

And even though this is early access, there is already tons of content, after playing 17+ hours, I am yet to unlock a single weapon aspect (heck, I still have to unlock one last weapon), and there's a lot of story to be discovered.

Overall, definitely a must buy if you've enjoyed the first Hades. And if you didn't play, please do: it's one of the best roguelite games out there, and Hades 2 shapes up to become even better!

One of the worst horrors I ever played, even given the fact that's it's an indie game (visuals, animations, voice overs are all subpar even by 10 year old standards).

Remothered is a mix of broken stealth, horrible running sequences, and absolutely the worst QTEs. I think I've never seen this mechanic implemented more poorly.

The only reason I kept playing was the story, but the ending was nonsensical and disappointing.

Avoid this game at all costs, even when it's on sale with 90% discount.

Scorn is a horrible shooter, a boring walking sim, and a mediocre adventure/puzzle game. Even though it's only 5 hours long, I could barely finish the game because of how sad the gameplay is, and a boss fight at the end just adds to the overall frustration.

The only good thing about Scorn is its gorgeous art style a-la H.R. Giger. And it's the only reason to play it, but since everything else is horrible, I suggest watching a youtube walkthrough.

When I first started The Callisto Protocol, I was surprised by all the negative reviews. The denuvo has been removed, and the performance is great, most of the bugs have been patched out, and the only reason why you might hate the game is that it's not Dead Space despite a few similarities. So overall, the first half of the game is pretty good, and features new locations, types of enemies and weapons, so you are not bored.

However, the second part of The Callisto Protocol is a mess. First the game introduces a new type of enemy, and the next couple of hours you are forced to fight only this type, which quickly gets repetitive. Then you encounter a mini-boss, and while the fight itself is more or less bearable, you are forced to face the very same mini-boss not once or twice, but three more times in the last part of the game!

And just as you finally recover from this nonsense and enter a new location, the game abruptly ends with an absolutely uninspired boss fight and the most ridiculous ending.

I am not even complaining that in-game combat feels like one long QTE, the camera is horrible, the movement is clunky, the UI sux, and checkpoint system is atrocious – that is expected from a horror game. But a lot of repetitions just within a ten hour long story tells loads about quality of the game, and also the state of current AAA-projects. You can grab it on sale (or via Humble Choice before May 7 2024), but to me the game feels bad even with a discount.

Cyberpunk 2077 received a lot of hate on release, and probably for a reason. However, this is a much bettter game now. Don't go in expecting an amazing shooter or a deep RPG, though, since CP 2077 is too linear for a role-playing game and too primitive for a shooter (on harder difficulties enemies just become bullet sponges). Unexpectedly, it reminded me a lot about GTA of all things.

Still, it has an engaging story and a great world. In fact, it has one of the most believable open worlds in videogames, and I liked Night City much more than the cities in GTA V, Watch Dogs, Deus Ex and other games with modern or cyberpunk settings.

CP 2077 also has a lot of memorable characters and pretty good side quests, so achieving 100% in this game didn't feel like a chore. Franky, there's more than enough interesting content for more than 100 hours, even though you can probably finish the main storyline in around 30.

And Phantom Liberty DLC is even better than the original game. It provides another 20-25 hours of story missions and is about 40 hours long if you decide to do everything.

So I totally recommend the game, especially if you are a fan of the setting, or like GTA-style games in general.

The game combines tactical turn based combat, exploration and character progression with a quirky story, and I liked this combination a lot. The writing is whimsical and refers to many cliches in fantasy books, movies and RPGs. This is probably not everyone's cup of tea, but I found it funny, and sometimes the game genuinely made me laugh.

But it also made me angry, especially when an enemy with 20% dodge chance evaded three attacks in a row (probability of that is less than 1%) and then resisted the next hit negating the damage. However, the battle system is built around the fact that your heroes will miss or otherwise fail their attacks. The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk features a unique anti-bad RNG mechanic: when you fail, you get energy that can be spent on positive actions in addition to your heroes' action. The most expensive bonus even allows you to ressurect the whole party, so until at least one of your characters is alive, it's not over.

Keep in mind, I finished the game on the highest difficulty where enemies have more HP and resistance, so it will be easier on normal, but even then your characters will miss with their attacks, get parried or evaded, or even make critical fails, hurting or even incapacitating themselves in the process. However, failing is a part of the game, and unlike in XCOM or BG it doesn't feel unfair. The only fight I wasn't able to beat on the highest difficulty is the optional boss, and only because he summons unlimited adds which I can't kill fast enough, so they overwhelm the party eventually (focusing the boss doesn't work because these adds can heal him for 20% HP and he already is rather beefy).

Overall, The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk is a great mix of turn based tactics and RPG, and if you are fine with the fact that the game won't take itself seriously and will break the fourth wall all the time, then you should definitely try it.

I am conflicted about this game. On one hand, the shooting is fun, and the level design is mostly fine aside of tons of platforming because bottomless pits you have to jump over are not fun: I died more often falling down than by being killed by enemies. And if you play the game as intended, it has a limited number of saves, so you can't just spam F5 before each jump.

But the main reason I am not recommending Wrath is because it's incredibly repetitive. There are only a dozen different enemy types, and usually the game can't think of anything better than to lock you up in a room and spawn a bunch of monsters around you. This is cheap and was never done in classic 90s shooters so blatantly (even though your memory might tell otherwise). And since the number of enemy types is so limited, the fights quickly become very boring. The whole first episode (realm) that takes 3-4 hours to complete has only ten different enemy types!

Moreover, the game uses Quake engine (which is fine), but copies most of its guns, which is not. There's a double barreled shotgun, a nail gun and a super nail gun (shooting spikes, but whatever), a grenade launcher (with goo, still the same thing), a mix of a rocket launcher with plasma gun, and a railgun (ok, that's from Quake 2, but still). There is a unique weapon, but it's pretty boring to use, nothing groundbreaking like shrinking ray in DN3D, BFG 9000 or cannon from Serious Sam. Also, ammo distribution on the levels is rather uneven: sometimes there are tons of boxes, sometimes there's simply nothing so you are forced to use a specific weapon not because it's the best one against a certain type of enemy, but because you are out of ammo for the rest of your arsenal.

Then, the boss design is complete garbage. It's obvious they tried to make the fights extraordinary and memorable, and they did: I can hardly remember worst bosses in a first person shooter. Completely unfun to fight, not rewarding to kill, and boss related achievements are badly designed (for instance, kill a boss without taking damage when the said boss spams very fast projectiles in wide patterns, and you also need to avoid lava in the arena).

Not only bosses, but AI in general is horrible. Monster are getting stuck in geometry all the time (especially flying ones), but they track you behind walls, and as soon as you strafe from behind a corner, you instantly get a projectile into your face. This is not about getting good, this is about cheating AI which makes the game so not fun.

There are a few good things about the game: sometimes it introduces level specific mechanics like flying and changing level geometry, and it makes gameplay a bit less repetitive, but overall it's a drag. Also it has secret chests that require a key to unlock, and the key is also hidden, so looking for secrets is actually fun, but the fights drag the game down. If Wrath was shorter and had more varied encounters, it would be great. Now, I would rather go replay Quake or Doom.

P.S. I am puzzled why another retro fps released in February 2024 (Graven) has much lower user score than this. To me that game is superior due to enemy variety (including bosses), more interesting weapons, and better level design (except Act 3 which sux, but thankfully it's the shortest and also has some good moments).

P.P.S. Installed Quake after finishing this, and my memory served me right - it is much better than Wrath.

This is a great ARPG, and it's somewhere in the middle between Diablo 4 and Path of Exile in terms of both complexity and visuals (easier and prettier than PoE, harder and less visually attractive than D4).

When the game just left Early Access, there were issues with the servers, but right now they are resolved, so it's all good. And you always can play the game offline anyway, unlike D4 and PoE.

The best role playing game since Planescape: Torment (and, if you are not that old, since Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect Trilogy). The amount of content and freedom you have in BG3 is unprecedented, and it's hard to find another RPG that combines story, character development and exploration so well.

I could talk about how good this game is for hours, and I did with my friends. Mind you, we are all 40+ yo and have a lot of things to do. But for BG3, we managed to find 100+ hours to finish it. Because it's THAT good.

However, there is one big issue (at least for me), and it's the combat system. Obviously, DnD isn't the best choice for a computer RPG, and in terms of battles BG3 feels like a step back compared to Divinity Original Sin series. I don't get why we should limit ourselves by a dice roll in XXI century, and getting those critical misses is incredibly frustrating on balanced, might lead to losing a battle on tactician, and even be game ending in honour mode.

Sure, there are a lot of ways to "cheat" in this DnD implementation, and there are many very powerful character builds, but dice roll rng still feels annoying and unnecessary in a modern computer game. Still, BG3 on balanced is definitely easier than Original Sin on normal, so at least there's some counter balance to using a paper based game system in a CRPG. And other than that, the game is practically flawless.