Recent reviews by AnarKey

Decided to give this game a try when I saw that the reviews had gotten better since the initial launch, and with this new extra content it seemed like a decent deal.

The campaign map is beautiful in this game, probably the best looking one so far in the series, but unfortunately with no agents and the Warhammer style building system it doesn't feel like there is much to do there.

The battles maps are great too, with lots of elevation and cover and variety. The main issue I have with battles is that they lack the visceral feel of the earlier Total War games, but without making up for it with big impactful units, artillery and magic like Warhammer did so you're just left with a wet noodle fight. Definitely a step down and without enjoyable battles, might as well play Civilization.

AI is braindead as always, especially in small settlements where they do not use their defensive advantage at all and just rush out one by one into the meat grinder, it gets boring pretty quickly.

There's a few neat mechanics this game introduces like the court intrigue system or being able to barter resources but those just end up feeling like one more thing to min-max without actually providing fun gameplay.

So overall the game is not bad, runs well and has a lot of "content" but at the end of the day it all feels a bit bland and i'm simply not feeling the irresistible pull other Total War games have had on me.

Very chill gaming experience, gets a bit grindy/repetitive if you want to 100% it but it's good mindless fun overall and it's got great humour.

Amazing value for the price.

Story mode:
Bit underwhelming. The writing simply isn't on par with some other Rockstar titles. Except for a few fun side stories, very forgettable stuff. You won't get any iconic moments here like in a San Andreas. The dialogues are fine and will elicit the occasional chuckle but that's about it. You likely won't feel very invested in the characters or the story, and I think part of that comes from the three main characters gimmick. They tried to innovate with that which is commendable but in my view it falls flat. The map is somewhat big but a lot of areas feel empty.

The gameplay is alright, nothing ground-breaking, gets repetitive after a while and won't challenge you much. Mostly boils down to killing large swathes of weak brain-dead enemies and driving from A to B. Weapons don't have much of a kick to them, not super satisfying to use. Cars are pretty good. There's a lot of missions, enough to keep you busy for at least 40 hours, but a lot of them are simply tedious. Overall I don't regret playing it through but it would never occur to me to replay it.

Online mode:
The main reason to even play this game or why some people have hour counts in the thousands (are you alright?) and oh boy is it a let down. So many issues, four main ones:

First the "story". If story mode writing often feels lazy, here they didn't even try. Think generic mmo fetch quest or adult movie scenario levels of creativity. Of course people don't play online games for the story, so we'll let this one slide.

Second the gameplay, which suffers from the same issues as in story mode, except amplified a hundredfold. While the total freedom and open world is nice, it does mean there is no sense of progression of a main story to distract you from the monotony of the various missions and tasks you have access to. The very basic co-op and pvp aspects aren't enough to make it fun either, when they don't actively make things worse.

Third is money, the closest thing you'll have to a sense of progression (xp lvls are irrelevant). Everything worth having or doing in this game is hidden behind a huge paywall. It's obviously set up that way to promote overpriced p2w microtransactions, which is just gross. All money making methods are extremely grindy and tedious and will take forever, especially considering that while the amount of content to purchase grows with every update, those methods don't get any better. No real form of passive income either so you can't actually invest your money intelligently, though most methods of money-making do require a substantial upfront investment, after which you'll need hours of work (and i do mean work, nothing fun about it) to even just break even. Thankfully there is now one method that, while still tedious, is at least ten times faster than the rest, and it involves doing the same stupid heist over and over again, repeating the exact same actions hundreds of times like a robot. Great gameplay loop, very fun yes. And it's either that or wasting even more time but with slightly more variety of tedium, so choose your poison.

So why even bother? Ultimately it boils down to free roam, which is the closest thing to fun you'll experience in online. The reason you grind for all those hours, is so you can show off your expensive toys to other players, and maybe bully them a little bit while you're at it. After all you deserve it, you bled precious hours of your time to be able to afford this futuristic flying bike that shoots heat-seeking rockets. What was the point if you can't even use it to kill everything that moves? And this, along with a few other insidious mechanics, is how the game actually incentivizes toxicity among players like no other game. And this is the fourth and main issue. Not a lot of communities are as toxic as this game's, and I have a feeling it is of no fault of the players but rather Rockstar and the way they set up everything.

As many others, this game is of course plagued by numerous cheaters. And while I despise people who cheat in online games with no regard for other people's experience, I have to say in this case I kinda understand how it would appear as the only way to have fun with this game to some people. In fact I'd wager to say that most people who play this game a lot are not enjoying their experience for most of the time and are just stuck in an addiction loop. And if your experience of the game is frustrating, you're more likely to lash out and be toxic to others, and thus negativity spreads. Of course I am painting a very dark picture here and if you have friends to play with you might still enjoy this game but be wary, for it is very good at hacking your brain's reward system and keeping you playing past the point of actual enjoyment. Guess that's where Rockstar focused most of their development resources, instead of story, gameplay, balance and cheater prevention.

Conclusion, TLDR:
All in all, this game wouldn't be the highest grossing entertainment product of all time if it was completely awful. It is after all unparalleled in its ability to appeal to our basest human instincts. Which is not a bad thing, I'm a big believer in catharsis as a net positive for humanity. For me the biggest appeal of this game is the vehicles, but in story mode the selection is very narrow, and in online you have to deal with all the aforementioned issues, so ultimately the enjoyment potential is very limited even in that aspect. Overall this isn't a bad game, however I can't recommend it as I sincerely don't think it would be worth your time, nor would it enrich your life in any meaningful way, and therefore you can safely skip it if you haven't already played it.

This may well be the only game I can just watch other people play for hours on end. That should give you an idea of how freaking good it is.

Not quite sure what it is but there's just something about AoE2 where every game is different and leads to funny, interesting or fascinating situations, never boring. What's even more impressive is that it's just as entertaining to watch or play at a competitive level than it is at a beginner level.

In some ways it may not be as smooth and polished as other RTS titles, looking at you Starcraft 2... But I think that's precisely what makes its charm. The at times janky pathing leading to moonwalking units and other shenanigans, the weird map gens, the fact every civilization basically looks the same in many ways even when it doesn't make sense (persian paladins?!), the sound effects and voice lines that stick in your head... The monks. It all weirdly adds up to something that just feels like home.

So whether you're a returning player or have never picked up a strategy game before, you should definitely give this one a try, it might just change your life.

A cheap and easy 100% completion game.

Really not much to it beyond that.

This game makes for a pretty good clicker but a terrible idler. I suppose it's called Cookie Clicker and not Idle Cookies for a reason.

The reason why is that progression in this game is extremely slow, especially at the start, unless you're constantly paying attention to it and clicking the golden cookies that appear every two minute or so on the screen.

Unlike in many other similar games where you can sorta choose between the active and the passive route, in this one the only way to get any semblance of progress at all is through big combos, which, while they are quite satisfying when you pull them off, are almost entirely reliant on RNG, which can make for a very frustrating experience if you're not the gambling type.

So this game takes up a lot of your time and attention, but it's not like it offers anything riveting in return, and most of the time you'll just find yourself blankly staring at the screen waiting for something to happen, occasionally spamming your left click, and the rest of the time it'll be in the back of your mind, distracting you from your other activities, but not in a good way.

The fact that there isn't even any offline progress until you unlock it through the ascension mechanic, and even then it's only a pitiful fraction of what you'd make with the game open, that was the nail in the coffin. To me the whole point of this kind of game is that comforting feeling of having something running in the background, progressing without needing input, and never feeling obligated to check back on it but being happy to do so because I'll know I'll be rewarded for my patience. I didn't find that with this game. It was fun for a few hours, maybe from the nostalgia factor as I remember playing this on browser many years ago, but it got old pretty quick.

As for the fact this game isn't free-to-play unlike most clicker/idlers, that's actually one of the few positives for me, as in this case it means no tantalizing micro-transactions. Its price is very cheap anyways... However if you value your time, I'd stay away from this one as it'll eat up a lot more of it than it ought to.

Hand Holding Simulator 2019

This game isn't for everyone. It should go without saying but don't let the overwhelmingly positive reviews lead you to think you'll enjoy this regardless of your personal tastes. If you enjoy laid-back, chill gameplay that won't make your heart do things it's not supposed to, you won't like this at all.

With this out of the way, let's just say this game is a classic for a reason. It's an experience worth having in my opinion, very different from most other games. Stressful but in a good way. Makes you feel like you truly overcame something, yet it's not frustratingly difficult. It's fair.

The campaign is fairly short, played through it in 16 hours whilst taking my time. Make sure to get it on sale.

A few potential downsides/deal breakers to look out for:
- Multiplayer seems to be pretty much dead, so replayability isn't great, you'll most likely play the campaign once or twice and that's it.
- No manual saves, only checkpoints but there's enough of them imo.
- Ammo management can be a b*tch in the first missions, part of the fun though.
- Backtracking is often impossible in levels so if you miss something... Gotta restart.
- Likewise if you finish the campaign but are missing a rune, you can't unlock it anymore. Not sure how it works with other collectibles, didn't bother to try.
- Lots and LOTS of gore. To me that's a plus, but if you're squeamish...
- The monsters and combat can get repetitive after a while, but with the game being short you probably won't have time to get bored of them.

To sum up this is definitely worth a buy on sale if you're an enjoyer of video game violence and the few points above don't bother you.

This minimalist platformer is -ironically enough- a platform, for you to do whatever you desire with it. All it does is provide you with a stripped down nexus of rising shapes, a few bare pillars of varying dimensions, a jump pad here and there... What to do then with all this is entirely up to you.

Explore every nook and cranny, marvel at the colorful view of shifting planes, somehow find a faster way of going from A to B, strive to reach some seemingly unattainable height so you may paint it with the mark of your passing... The whole of the game is, quite literally, a playground for you to do as you see fit.

There are some goals, some collectibles, some achievements, but those feel optional, and in a way that feels right, and the end that you can reach isn't really an end, but rather an invitation to keep on playing, to keep exploring, to keep searching for new roads and new pathways through an environment that derives its complexity from its utter simplicity.