dudz_fryd の最近のレビュー

So I'm an IT guy that works on cars as a hobby. Naturally that means I have Car Mechanic Simulator and when PC Building Simulator showed up, of course I had to have it!
OK, so the interface is a little clunky but if you've ever played one of the dozens of "insert occupation here" simulator games then you're used to it. There's a set order that isn't always the way things are done in real life but it's a fun and interesting way to learn about PC building, time management, inventory management and even a bit about running your own business.

Almost always goes on sale so try it out.

Codemasters knows how to make a racing game. They know how to find the right balance of realism without going overboard. Grid Autosport was an apology of sorts for the evils of Grid 2 including its intrusive online play system and maps and cars locked up by paid DLC.

It was an attempt at a full court press money grab at all costs. It hurt the series. This game, howeer, made up for much of it. While the Multiplayer action is all but gone now you can still get online and race with your friends just don't look for many populated public lobbies anymore. This game is old now. Old, but still charming, still playable and still every bit a Grid game.

If choosing between Grid 2 and Grid Autosport as a worthy successor to Race Driver: Grid or you just want something a little different than the rally racing bend Codemasters has been on lately then choose Grid Autosport. But be warned. When this game was developed it was with a lot of input from the community which means overly aggressive AI in single and even multiplayer races ( yes the game will fill in empty slots wit AI racers in MP) So make ssure you can give as good as you get. Think of it as a training ground for when you actually do find someone online to play it with and they constantely torpedo you in curves or do a pit manuever on you in the last lap. AI opponents seem to have nitrous at times leaving you wondering how the same car can be pulling ahead of you with the same specs. That's just the AI keeping things interesting.

There is car setup and tuning but not in a cartoonish GTAV kind of way but rather the more race geek way where you worry about soft or hard suspensions, ride height, etc. Also new to this game is the includion os a Drag Racing series which takes some effort to figure out but is ultimately more realistic than Need For Speed Pro-Street's take on it.

I recently started playing the game again and I recognized some of the map assets from earlier games as well as a few new ones. The game still looks good for being 5 years old and should play on just about any PC made during that time. I hear that an Android version is coming out soon. I dunno, something gets lost with a racintg game like this being played on a phone. Part of the reason you play a Grid game is the gorgeous textures and settings. It's not a Forza clone so don't treat it like one.

If you were a fan of the first game this is a must buy. Pretty much the same game with a different story and slightly expanded world. I had the most fun with the DLC, however. Primarily the Brinch the Crunch and Casa Bonita DLC. The Danger Deck DLC is just an arena add-on and not that interesting unless you're really in love with the combat system and beating your head against the wall.
Towelie your Gaming Bud is supposed to be DLC but it's just an annoying pop-up tip to me. All in all like its predecessor the game is set in the 2017 season of South Park and pulls in all the elements found there even PC Principal that offers you his own side quests. I'm sure the next game will include something to do with ManBearPig since that's a major theme in this season of South Park. That's pretty much the gist of it right there. This game is basically like playing a game set in a current season of South Park and it's done well and faithful to the source material. If it's on sale BUy it!

What to say....
Saints Row 4 was more than just a GTA clone to me. It was a rip roaring blast that GTA could never provide. The over the top humor, societal parody of all that is so ripe for poking fun in American society.
So going into Gat of of Hell I expected more of the same.
Did I get it?
Well, yes and no. For the first hour of so I was a bit confused. There was no linear progression of what I was suppoed to be doing so I wandered around aimlessly. It wasn't until I got in sync with the game that things got fun. It's a glorious frag fest with moronic demons and cookie cutter stereotypes of the typical 80's action supervillan except this time they're on your side.
Visually the game is the same as Saints Row 4, Skill upgrades and progression are much the same but if there's one point where this game goes off the rails is the forced attempt at a narrative. The core story is about Gat rescuing the Prez from the evils of matrimony with Satain's daughter.
The gameplay itself is fun but your never really connect with why you're there. Not than any Saint's Row title had anything resembling depth of a narrative but instead of offering a laugh, the obligatory cutscenes get in the way like some unwanted Rock Opera performed a cappella in an otherwise peaceful Sunday at the park.
In short, the narrative could have been toned down because the gameplay itself is adicting and fun. Not to say it doesn't suffer trhe same weaknesses as Saint's Row 4 with it's somewahat convulted controls and vague combat system but somehow Gat out of Hell manages to pull out an entertaining romp.
Not to the level of full purchase price however.
This sequl/add-on to Saints Row 4 satisfies the need for "just a little more" but as a standalone title I can understand why it almost instantly went on sale for a fraction of it's MSRP the same year it was released.
If you're a Saint's Row fan and want just a little more then this is y our game.
I sincerely hope there's a Saints Row 5 but for now this will do for a few dozen hours. Buy it.....if it's on sale...

As the game begins we find Ronan exploding out of a shattered 4th story window after a confrontation with a shadowy figure. He awakens to find himself temporarily disembodied but that state soon becomes permanent upon the arrival of the Bell Witch Killer. Shot 7 times with his own gun, Ronan must now solve the mystery of his own murder and in the process uncover dark secrets that have haunted Salem for centuries.

Quite a build up eh?

It is and it's worthy of it. The story is intriguing with twists, turns and dead ends to thrill any devotee of the mystery genre. Add in a tastefully done horror component supported by an eerie backdrop of a dark and gloomy Salem complete with lost souls, haunted houses, and frightful demons.

The game is gorgeous even on my creaky old gaming laptop ( circa 2008 ) and the controls simple. You're led on a path similar to the Call of Duty campaign modes on the hunt for clues to your own murder. On the way you'll find ample opportunity to complete side quests but be warned if like me you seek to earn all of the Steam achievements you must be methodical in your approach. For me it took 2 playthroughs as there is no quicksave nor any way to go back once you've completed the final chapter of the game.

It's a casual game but it can be maddening at times. For one, you have no onscreen map nor any way to mark your progress toward achievements. Meaning you'll spend a lot of time running in circles to find the way forward and backtracking for that one elusive clue.

Then there's the demons. I understand that a game in the horror genre has to have some kind of threat but they're all over the place. It breaks the flow of the narrative and it's jarring to go from a casual detective story to a flurry of button mashing every 10 minutes.

Still, even with the more "gamey" aspects, it's still more ghost story than game which explains some of its mechanical shortcomings. My first playthrough was simply for the sake of taking it all in. The second was purely for my own desire to see everything and in the process earn every Steam achievement.

All tolled I've spent a bit over 30 hours and enjoyed every minute of it.

Ok, it's older than dirt...pardon the pun... Yeah, the graphics are a bit...flat...but it's at least as much fun as Dirt 2 with slightly worse car handling but I'll say this for it, the cars handle better than anything in GTA 5!. It's just dumb fun without all the orgy of customizations and tweaks that are modern racing games. The game is just a basic fun racer and that's all I want. I don't know why people think a racing game has to be any more complicated than steer, brake, go pedal these days. Give me a break people, you're playing a game not training for the 24 hours of LeMans. I got this as a part of the humble bundle and I almost didn't install it from all the bad reviews. Glad I found out for myself. If you got it free or cheap just have fun with it. Games are taken way too seriously these days but there's no possible way you can do that here so don't try. Just have fun with it.

I'l be honest...I initially liked this mod a lot but somewhere after chapter 2 it went off the rails..

I usually don't spend much time with fan mods generally because they're either not well thought out or buggy. From the first few hours I honestly thought this one was different.

Is it as engrossing a story as the original game, almost. But then we all know the story so well that we really can't expect too many surprises from a bridge story. Think of Portal Stories:Mel the same way you think of Star Wars: The clone wars. Yeah, a lot is familiar but there's also a lot of questions that get answered. Admit it, when you were running around Portal 2 and found the old test facilities weren't you just a little bit curious? This game fills in the blanks that could only be touched on in Portal 2.

Unfortunately, once you get to the actual tests it's all downhill...

Are the puzzles difficult? Yes and no which is absolutely wonderful at least at first. I spent almost an hour just trying to get out of the first chapter. Know what, that's ok because it was exactlythe same in Portal 2. It will take you just to the brink of exasperation and suddenly you see the solution.

At least that was how it started out....

The visuals are good and worthy of a few screenshots. THe voice acting is ok. However, I prefer the REAL voice of Cave Johnson (J. K. Simmons )

The lack of GlaDos starts to become evident when what is apparently her predecessor tries to actively engage in killing you. Just another ominonus male robotic voice like something out of a bad sci-fi movie

The problem with this game is that it got too ambitious like most Portal Mods do. They were right on track up to about the middle of chapter 2 then things got stupid.

Stupid as in presenting puzzles that weren't evident from your immediate surrounding. It seems the game suddenly switched from brain teaser to masochism. It was less about portals anmd more about hopping over desks so as not to get electrocuted. Too much time spent on things that had little to do with portal games. After awhile it got annoying.

The main difference between playing this and a REAL portal game is the thought that went into the maps. In the entirety of my time with Portal and Portal 2 I can count on one hand the number of times I had to go look for a walkthough vid. This game drove me to activating the cheats just to get out of an area (sv_cheats 1)(noclip)

My mind doesn't like to work on needlessly complex puzzles. This game crossed the line from challenging to abusive. Portal was never easy but you always had everything you needed right in front of you even if it wasn't immediaely obvious. None of this going back an forth into rooms 3 times to open a door only to have to do it all over again to open another. That's a mark of bad level design. If I have to keep going back to the same place just to finish that means there wasn't enough imagination involved to create a complete level.

I call those "Boomerang" maps and unfortunately, this mod is full of them. It almost seems like the first half and the last half of the game were designed by different teams. Almost as if the game itself developed multiple personality disorder mid way through its development.

Meaning I can only recommend the first 2 chapters of this game and maybe half of the third one.

The puzzles aren't too hard, they'just feel like the result of some level designer being mean.

Lately it seems that everyone's got their own take on the classic racing game. Some are no more complex that Pole Position while others claim absolute realism and physics.

The problem is that so many games are either plagued with confusing AI or buggy controls that it ruins the experience. Others do everything right but constantly have a hand in your wallet for DLC that should have come with the base game.

Sonic isn't that way. Yes there's some paid DLC but you don't really need it unless you just have to play as your favorite classic gaming icon.

It's an arcade racer and requires a game controller ( Xbox controller) to get the full effect. You could use the keyboard but that kind of ruins the experience doesn't it. This game is console port on all counts and suffers all the afflictions that come with it even with the Steam Overlay.

For one thing if you want to race against someone in the same room they better be logged into steam and you'll need to be patient as you switch between the game UI and Steam to get them connected. Nothing is intuitive about it even to a console gamer when you throw the quirks of a PC into the mix.

So I must hate it right? Wrong.

Maturity has granted me patience and once the game's quirks were figured out I was having a blast.
There's a single player mode that is really just practice. In it you can unlock new tracks, level and unlock new characters and earn achievements.

The tracks themselves are whimsical and as gorgeous as any arcade racer you'be seen with a myriad of racing challenges that include not only the ability to battle your firends with powerups you collect along the way but also race cars, boats planes and spaceships.

It's a great casual racer with gorgeous visuals and hours or replayability. Everything a racer isn't in most racers these days.

It opened with my character seated in a rowboat being taken to a secluded dock at the base of a lonely lighthouse. Hmmm, seems familiar but I soon found that's where the most obvious Bioshock reference ended.

Columbia...

OMG, this was incredible. I was hooked, hours melted away. A rich, lavish, utopian world and you just knew something was going to screw it up. That something was you.

I love that!

It was still only a DirectX 9 game but they used every bit of it. Did I still trip over invisible curbs, get stuck in Velcro shrubbery and occasionally have to contend with controls as sluggish as an Atari 2600 joystick?
Yes, of course, just like any other DirectX 9 game but it didn't matter . The story was good, the environment every bit as immersive as Battlefield 4 or Call of Duty. Again, I was hooked.


I liked the way the developers let you get a feel for the place before people started shooting at you. I also appreciated how they let you take a breath between bullets as well. The themes were clear. Hyper religious zealotry driven by megalomania with a side of racism just for good measure.

Fascism was there as well but more of the nationalistic breed than Andrew Ryan's corporatocracy. The good of the state or at least the idealistic society it purported to be were paramount.

It was engrossing.

I remember strolling through a cobblestone street with a barbershop quartet singing, "God only Knows" in 4 part harmony on the Victorian equivalent of a land speeder. Which I accepted till it occurred to me that this particular song was actually released by the Beach Boys in 1966. This was supposed to be 1912.
In another section of the map I heard CCR's "Fortunate Son"

Amusing. Just an Easter Egg but it seemed to fit the now uneasy backdrop of what was rapidly becoming a dystopian world.


Just like the first game I was pulled along. Learning new abilities and gaining new weaponry to further my cause. Unlocking puzzles and always keeping a sharp eye out. In games like these you learn to look in every nook and exploit every cranny.

It's how I survived...

Twists, turns, heart wrenching morality and outright slaughter, you never knew what was coming at you. History buffs would chuckle at the distortion of their tomes. Stone effigies of the likes of John Wilkes Booth and Jefferson Davis alongside George Washington.

Looming larger than them all was the primary antagonist, Zachary Hale Comstock, the Prophet as he preferred to be addressed.

So the game continued on with the story revealing itself like the layers of an onion.

Brilliant....

Sadly, it all had to end. The final crescendo, the answer nagging for your attention throughout the entire game was at hand.

Except...

The devs screwed it up. Cheating me out of a hard fought and anxiously anticipated conclusion.
Irrational Games decided to cheap out on the end and instead of leading you to a natural conclusion placing a final "God Battle" in the way of unlocking the secrets I'd invested so much time in learning.

What the hell?!

Instead of seeing the end credits I was forced to defend some blue jar on the deck of a floating air barge from hordes of invading foes I was ill-prepared to dispatch.

I was sent scurrying to YouTube to find an answer. After a dozen attempts and just as many failures I relented. I've been defeated by a game mechanic. It was like getting to the last chapter of a book and finding someone had ripped out the pages and locked them in a box then thrown away the key.
Life's too short...

The game became a grind and one that took me further away from the story. It broke the immersion and for that sin I cannot forgive Irrational games.

Again, just as in the first game and all of Bioshock 2, the idea was to protect something defenseless with less than adequate means.

I don't have any patience for that. Challenge? yes! Stupid? No!

Again I was resigned to YouTube to see what was denied me. Gracious souls either more skilled or more lucky than I had posted the footage I would never see from my own efforts.

All of the failings that were mere annoyances became impenetrable barriers to me. How could I go through the entire game without the need of trainers, cheats or hacks only to be thwarted at the end. So much for being a straight shooter.

At least you had console commands in Bioshock 1 and 2. No such luck in Bioshock Infinite.

Take the irreverant antics of South Park, mix in some light RPG and you get South Park the Stick of Truth.

This game is a must have for fans of the long running animated series. The best part is that the game isn't some lame adaptation but rather a faithful complement to the TV series. If you remember the great PS4 versus Xbox1 conflict of 2013 then you have the backstory for this game.

It was co-developed with South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone with game voice overs performed by the current series cast. In short playing "The Stick of Truth" is like having the starring role in the TV series.

Gameplay is typical RPG but greatly simplified. There's ample options to customize your character, level him/her up, collect ever more powerful items and choose your destinty be it good or evil.

Don't expect bragging rights or leaderboards though. That's not what this game's about. Enjoy the 20 or so hours like you would a season of South Park.