Recent reviews by Rustin A. Skully

Space Marine (1) was a fantastic romp as a Space Marine and for a while I believe was the only Third Person WH40K game. I absolutely loved it and it was the game aside from DoW that cemented my love for 40K

And thank the Man Emperor this exists. I went into it blind and I left thoroughly satisfied. Like a Tech Priest and a toaster, or Rogal Dorn and good quality wooden furniture.

Lets break it down. My likes and dislikes about the game.

- This game is very pretty to look at and the effects and shadows are some of the best I'd seen in a game for a while. It is, however, somewhat dull and grey sometimes. It maybe my lighting settings, so do take this as a grain of salt

-I love the soundtrack. It's orchestral and epic. What you expect as a smurf Ultramarine. I imagine there are far more fitting soundtracks for other legions, this one works.

-The sound design is on point, I cannot really think of any real issues. I appreciate the clunky noises, although I think Boltgun did a better job at emulating the weight of Astartes power armour

-Even the voice work is really damn good. Clive Standen does a great job as Titus, even if the absence of Mark Strong can be felt. I appreciate the VA work for Gadriel and Chairon, they were powerful secondaries whom I hope to see in a solo campaign expansion in the future, as we never see the early days of a Primaris Marine

-The Operations mode is a welcome addition to the game, as it expands the campaigns plot and makes for fun replayability. I enjoy being able to mix it up with different customisation and classes, I also enjoy the randomness of it as well. I am also fond of the fact that it contributes to cosmetics and offers more reward than PvP and it seems to be the mode most encouraged to indulge in. I do hope in the future we get something similar to the Chaos Rising portion of Space Marine 1 for this game, as it would be nice to have Traitor Legions in the mix with unique classes and abilities in a PvE environment

-I, for one, feel like the combat is very much a combination of the Arkham games, with a dash of DS1 and Force Unleashed. The executions add a fun twist and I like that Beat Em Up aspect with the melee weapons in this game, even if I don't use them a lot of the time. The gunplay also feels good but I wish it felt punchier and weightier overall.

-The story also feels like it hits the right beats and makes sense, but it also still leaves some lingering questions which warrants an expansion or a sequel. It was also nice that the guard was also featured being a Guardsman guy myself.

-Despite my praise of the visuals, there is no excuse for some of the pre launch/advanced access and the day 1 optimisation. There are people who cannot properly play the game at all in some cases and some of the effects, even with high end rigs, will tank your frames. Even if you set it lower, you will feel the particle effects almost turn your PC into molten slag

-The controls need to be fine tuned before you even start the game, it feels odd some of the keybinds, though this is a minor point

-The constant network issues. I cannot stress this enough, it is frustrating to deal with. It is especially frustrating when your friends cannot do PvE.

-There are some major bugs and glitches that need sorting still, especially pertaining to transitioning to the loading screen on PvE or even Co-op Campaign at times. We are also waiting for Ultrawide and that should've been standard for a game of this visual calibre in my opinion. UPDATE: Ultrawide is now supported but I have heard that Ultrawide gets a nice FOV buff unlike us non Ultrawide users which is frustrating to no end. Please, give us an FOV slider.

-Although I have some reservations and criticisms about the PvP, I will say this: Chaos needs to have some customisation options like the Loyalists, especially with the wide array of Firstborn aesthetics. Hell, I'd like some Firstborn callbacks for the Loyalists, although lore wise, it seems Mark X armour supposedly beats out the OG Mark VII and Mark VIII Errant armour in a lot of ways

Additional Con: Despite my praise of the PvE mode, I am finding that it has a system to unfairly punish you for failing. I am not asking to be rewarded the whole bounty for a victory, I am asking that we get something. In traditional design, the idea is that if you fail, you evolve your tactics and change your gear a la Elden Ring, even change your build. It is frustrating that we cannot get Requisition/Credits but we can totally get credits despite failing in PvP when it doesn't have an active perk system, it has a skin based system for weapons.


My biggest issue is in fact the PvP. I cannot stress this enough: It needs to bake longer.
I will elaborate: It felt like it needed more time cooking or at least a beta to figure out the balancing issues. So far, it feels absolutely useless to melee anything that is lighter than a Bulwark or Heavy class, in fact, melee seems to not penalise the other classes at all, there is no staggering and you can just hip fire to counter. I also feel that it should take notes from TF2 and mix the teams up after each round to make it fair, rather than keep the same squad. It feels like this should've been opened up post launch instead of Horde Mode


To sum up, I recommend this game to a casual fan and 40K fans alike. It is one of this years best games, although, I would wait a little while longer until some of the major bugs are fixed or remedied, especially around the point we get private PvE lobbies and Horde mode.

This game's take on TTT and the whole Mafia game is cool, but I feel like it wears quite quick.

Some suggestions:
-Allow the hosts to disable the bar or at least have an alternative variant of it that sends messages (I.E.: "Productivity is up"). So far, catching out slackers inherently works off of whether the bar moves and it doesn't introduce much of a challenge if you're constantly meter watching
-Slacker's shouldn't only have slacker tasks. IMO, there should be at least one productivity task to maintain cover, namely organisation or cat feeding just to keep it fair. An example is Lockdown Protocol. Extreme but it's relevant.

A lot of fun with friends, I recommend it for that reason

For now, this is strictly a first impressions:
I appreciate the effort to replicate STALKER's feel on a Minecraft aesthetic. Without a doubt, a commendable effort. I like the Tarkov-esque modification system for the weapons as well as the gunplay, though it can be given a bit more of a kick to feel more powerful and a shift in terminology (Clip to Magazine for modern rifles etc.).

However, from the first few moments I've played (I plan on playing more and giving a proper rundown), I've some minor gripes that need to be mentioned.

-Some of the controls make no sense and should've been automated (The ledge/climb buttons)
-The fact I can't transfer one char from one server to the other is annoying, nor is the option to skip the tutorial if that is not an option

That is all. WIll update upon further play. Be safe, y'all

Judging from a bloke who never played VT/VT2 and generally doesn't go for those kinds of games, lemme say right now, this is a mountain of mindless, easy breezin' fun when you got a bad day or just want to be entertained. I appreciate the visuals (It's mountains better than say, Fire Warrior's art direction tbh), the soundtrack is absolutely amazing that I sometimes get lost in it during a huge melee. The sound design should be tweaked a bit for the heavier weapons and some additional elements that influence the mission conditions should come forth (It's either constantly Endless or Fewer hordes).

At this moment, wait until they work out some of the kinks, incl. the loading times for certain elements and perhaps some server works if they plan on that. Also, have a group of pals with you

15 hours into this game I can safely say it's a lot of fun.

It's basically an LSD Action Thriller Simulator. I don't need to go further.

Now that I've beaten the story and mostly done all the side content, here it goes


Warning, may contain spoilers and animal product

1) Night City from the perspective of visual is a loving homage to some of this particular genre's great city scapes of cinematic and even video gaming past. There were times I felt like I was genuinely back in Tokyo in 2029: It was murky but you could see the culture there.

2) Despite lack of context and the somewhat rushed beginning, I got the story, and where the emotional moments were, they hit. hard . I'm not normally hit by video game stories because they're all just fluff, but CDPR have a tendency to make great stories.

3) Except for a teaspoon full (Won't say), I did for the most part really dig the side quests and the character story arcs involved. I think that is one of this games major strengths.

4) There's people saying that the shooting feels particularly limp, but I found that the shooting and the mechanics of firearms in this feels a lot beefier than GTA V's shooting mechanics. Obviously nothing will top DOOM's power trip, but the closest we will get are the tech weapons. Sans the smart guns in this case, I enjoyed the shooting for the most part.

5) The car designs, while some I disagree with, are visually quite stunning and well worked on. The details such as the noise of a V10 engine roaring are such a joy to hear, however, the lack of turbo spooling and blow offs are disappointing, especially with two particular models, you will all know which I mean (I hope).

6) The voice acting cannot go without mention, it adds weight to the side quests and character arcs I mentioned earlier. These voice actors did a wonderful job at portraying their characters emotions, and some just made me laugh Goro's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ riot imho.

7) While the actual damage model behind the shooting mechanics I think are flawed, I do appreciate the gun design for the most part, even the more whacky looking tech weapons look mad and sound powerful.


1) Bugs. Yes, I encountered a few. Sadly, some of these bugs were just plainly too hard to ignore. A couple being related to the Loot description window being stuck, as well as weapon HUD elements being glued to the screen if you don't unequip them. I did encounter a few hilarious bugs including going so damn fast through NC that I made the car I stole become a squished potato.

2) Unfortunately, some of the choices we are given bare no real weight to either character build or story. I'll admit that there is a sense of choice, but not in the same way as say, E.Y.E or Deus Ex give you. Lifepaths in all honesty only unlock some dialogue options and a few unique quests, but no RPG element of giving you a specialty in a particular class which in a Western RPG, I value (even New Vegas had something like this)

3) Looter Shooter mechanics. Simple, they took Witcher 3's loot mechanics instead of just developing a new format, which irks me, I'm not a big fan of collectathons unless there's an end in sight like Dark Souls. I must also complain in this section about the way difficulty scales, making you a glass house while the enemies can sometimes outwardly be brick houses in comparison

4) Some plot points are just plain bad or are written to involve Keanu's portrayal of Silverhand more than having a real sense of plot. As much as I enjoyed Keanu as Johnny, I felt they could've dialed him down in certain story quests and areas.

5) The NCPD jobs are just a pain to go through purely due to lack of variety, same with the fixer gigs given.

6) Honestly, the main story I felt was too short, I'd like some extension of it, maybe if they ever wanted to retry this IP, they could allow us to instead be able to do the things like in doing all those gigs with Jackie in the 6 months before the main plot's occurance

7) A Lack of GEP Gun. Cannot silently takedown Manderley. Everyone else has got 10 seconds before I add them to an NSF Casualties List.

This is a mess. A mess I personally enjoy. As someone who went into the game looking to berate it for not being like Deus Ex. Instead, I viewed this from the lens of GTA SA/4 and Human Revolution. It's got a bit of everything and I appreciate this game as a time waster more than a challenge.

I'd advice anyone who would want to buy this game to get it in May. March is a big patch drop, and we will know what will become of the IP then. Until then, take care, be well and enjoy yourself.

Update : If you can't necessarily wait, and want some sort of Sci-Fi Punk fix, get EYE: Divine Cybermancy and the Deus Ex franchise (just ignore Invisible War). You'll ask for it. May your legs be ok and your Brouzouf gains be strong.

Wasteland 2 is quite a fun game but considering it's age, I wouldn't get it.
I'll get into the nitty gritty of it:
-Unity 5 engine. It's not exactly a looker but I also found that I had to force myself to deal with a lot of filler, mostly in terms of exploration. I'm not sure how to describe it.
-Travelling: Hate the fact you can't rotate the world map while travelling, it makes me feel awkward and stilted, like, you don't grasp the direction well from the standard base overhead perspective
-A few awkward tilesets made the camera really awkward to use, and there's an odd glitch where the game will freeze on you.
-This game in all honestly is More or less a modern retelling of the first game but it ends properly and finishes the last games plotline with the Cochise AI.


Other tyhan that, comin from a completely blind perspective, I've had a blast with the game, I find it super enjoyable despite the shortcomings. No offence to anyone who likes a plot, but comparing this game to games like Mass Effect IMHO is not great. If you want to compare it, Fallout would be easier because it's got a lot of similarities and even right out parallels. I'll go into more detail once I've played the game more, but other than that, go ahead, buy it if you can deal with some of it's obvious age. I'm looking forward to the 3rd game.

I regret nothing. This was the best purchase I made years ago. It's funny and enjoyable. I should mention also that this is good if you're angry or want a distraction.

One of the most entertaining third person shooters to date... with a tragic and compelling story too.

So... I've been waiting for this for a little over a year now, having played Mafia I on the PS2 and playing Mafia II later on the PC, you can say that yeah, I am a pretty big fan of the Mafia games. Both games had magnificent stories, a thrilling idea and it was your classic rags to riches mobster story that feels like Goodfellas more than waht this game felt like.

Mafia III in my opinion is one of those games that you just have a bit of a hunch on. After Mafia II, I thought to myself in all honesty that this could not be topped. And I was half right. This game is flawed, for some it makes the game disappointing, others overlook it for the sake of their own entertainment. People clearly don't like repeditivity, but some do.

Lets just get into the list of what I personally liked and didn't like


-The Soundtrack and the Original Score: The soundtrack in thsi is a brilliant selection of Jazz, Rock, and a lot of other genres of music from the time period. Let me just say, it is entertaining to hear Marvin Gaye, or James Brown, or for most, The Rolling Stones, Hendrix etc. The Original score gives me a good amount of feels during certain scenes where I just listen to characters talk. I really dig this soundtrack more than I would GTA V's soundtrack for example.

-The Story: Despite not being your typical Italian Mafioso story, this still is in my opinion a good story to follow along too. Jesus, it's written like a real crime doco you'd see on the CI Channel here in 'Straya, and I love this game more for it. I enjoyed hearing all sides of the characters speak about my flawed but interesting protaganist, I even applaud the fact they didn't shy away from the racism theme, and the brutality factor of the era the games set in. This game shouldn't have had the name Mafia IMO, because the game is barely about your typical Mafia, it's a Revenge story. It also reminded me of Sons of Anarchy on ocassion for some reason.

-The Characters: Okay, lets get this out of the way, we all know and love Vito. But personally? I find interest in the other two secondary characters. They both have their reasons, their stories for being involved in the situation they find themselves in, it's a shame they didn't get just a wee bit more screen time, or even better loyalty missions (Vito's was more akin to your typical loyalty mission). Other than that, even Lincoln was an interesting character to follow in my opinion, his heritage being an interesting mix, but also hearing of his morals and service record in 'Nam is what made him interesting

-The Setting: It is a rare opportunity in my opinion to see a city like this. Of course, we know it's a fictionalised New Orleans, but having no knowledge of the state, I couldn't say for sure how accurate it is to the real place, I have yet to go (This part is subject to change whenever I get a chance to actually go there). I love how the Bayou looks like it's set on fire sometimes, tis a shame however that the French Ward is not as lively as it seems, but nonetheless it is still a pretty sight to behold.

-The Gunplay: Okay, straight up, I love old weaponry. It's just something I got a thing for, so when I got a chance to handle the weaponry of the 60's, I can't say I wasn't pleasently surprised by some of the choices. This is kind of an issue too, but we'll get into that soon. But mainly, I just liked looking at em, and they felt like they kick nicely.

-The Repedivity (Hear me out): Okay, this is my good and bad point. I didn't mind the repedivity, I always made it entertaining one way or another. I just shoot up the joint when I have too, but I do have a problem wiht this too. This is a minor point personally.



-The Repeditivity... Again: I will admit and agree that most fo the tasks are quite repeditive, and I wish that there was more variety in the tasks that were put in the game for the sake of progression. The main story missions I will admit were okay, but some really should've had more of an epic impact rather than just the same animations, or the same ways.

-The Game length: I realise that I basically farmed the ♥♥♥♥♥ out of this game and I finished it quickly, but in my opinion, I wish that it had more missions from the past akin to Mafia II (maybe see Lincoln in Nam doing his thing, seeing his runnings with Sammy in the golden age of Lincoln's life). Hell, I could've had a few more epic feeling story missions as mentioned as well.

-The Graphics: I am no graphics ♥♥♥♥♥, I cannot lie about this. I personally would prefer games be cell-shaded because I personally enjoy the more 'unreal' type approach to certain games. People can argue that the Mafia series has strived towards a heightened sense of Realism, but still, it's just a matter of opinion. However, I must agree that the graphics defintely could've been better than the final product has shown. I am glad that they did fix the framerate issue that was first gathered upon by this game. I find it that it is unfair however to compare this to the likes of Arkham Knight's issues, I can understand but at the same time, at least they got the 60 frames out ASAP rather than waiting longer than Day 1 for it.


My final thought is that this game had potential to be like the previous Mafia games but with a new twist, however, it kind of debauches the Mafia namesake in terms of not being truely about the Mafia. Yes, the Italian organised crime syndicate known as the mafia is in it, but they aren't the stars, their the villains which is fair enough. I give this game credit for not shying away from what the 60's was for those of a different culture or ethnicity, the rampant corruption of the sixties.

I personally do not like rating, because thats what people go off rather than reading reviews. But I give this game the equivilant of a B+. It's flawed, yes, but if you don't mind repeditivity, and play it for the good writing and acting, and even the more exciting moments, I think you'll get your moneys worth.