Recent reviews by Big Huge Dumps

As I take a break from playing Tribes 3: Rivals, I find myself conflicted.
The core of this game is really solid, but very much has its roots in Tribes: Ascend.
For those who do not know, Tribes 3: Rivals is being developed by Prophecy Games, a subsidiary of Hi Rez. Yes, that Hi Rez.


And while there is a solid team behind this game composed of people who have worked on past entries, it's that connection to Hi Rez that I can't really look past.


Tribes: Ascend was not a game that died because it wasn't popular, or due to bad support, or its slow progression, or any reason other than this: It died because Hi Rez wanted it to die.
The game was well-reviewed, critically acclaimed, and had a healthy player base. That is until July 2013, when they ceased all support for the game and left it to die, citing lackluster financial returns and wanting to better support SMITE as the reason.


Then as if to rub more salt in the wound they would come back to the game 2 years later and drop a "Out of the Blue" update on the game. This is the literal actual name of the update. "Out of the Blue.” It ended up being an honestly great update that put the game in the best state it had ever been in. But it was bittersweet, given that this was also the signal that this was the LAST update this game would ever receive. From that point on, the game slowly lost its player base until it was ultimately delisted from Steam.

So that brings us to today: Tribes 3 Rivals is out in early access and seems poised to pick up where Ascend left off.
While the game we have right now is a little sparse on content, the bones here are good. Gone is the insane grind for weapons and gadgets that players of Tribes: Ascend hated. We've got a cross section of familiar locations, classes, and weapons.

There are no vehicles at the time of this review being written.

There are two modes: Casual 16 vs 16 and Ranked 7 vs 7.
I have yet to get into a ranked match, as most seem to be interested in playing the casual 32 player mode. Hopefully as the early access period progresses and the game releases, the ranked mode will populate better.
Tribes has always pushed boundaries when it comes to huge player counts - the original game was capable of hosting 128 players, and that came out in 1998. Tribes 3 does not do this, tho to be fair neither did Tribes Ascend.


I would love to see a 64 player mode added to the game one day, but for now the chaos of a fully-populated Tribes match is preserved through smaller map sizes. I would also like to see them reintroduce vehicles and maybe even cross-play at some point.


Outside of the main versus offerings there is also a gun range and a time trial mode to practice your movement - which you will definitely want to consider doing as the game is as fast as it's ever been.
There have been some nice adjustments to the game just from a quality of life perspective, such as the new drop shadow icon that appears below enemy players. Previously you had to guestimate where they were going to land, this wasn't impossible but this new feature makes it easier than ever to nail those high speed blue plate specials. Or if you're just trying to cut off an enemy's escape you can use it as a guide for where to place those doombringer shells.

There are 6 returning classes:


The high speed capping/chasing class: Pathfinder.
The lightweight Sentinel defender equipped with the useful Nitro charge to knock the flag off a fleeing player.
The extremely versatile Raider who comes equipped with a standard Spinfusor and semi-auto grenade launcher. This is going to be the bread and butter for anyone who wants to take it to the front line or hang out in midfield and disrupt the enemy team's advance.
The Technician is back with their ability to quickly repair base assets as well as throw down defensive turrets. They get a similar build to the Raider, however I do feel their importance has been reduced somewhat. *Anyone* can equip a repair tool and effectively do the job of the Technician at the moment. Would like to see some sort of buff come their way. Maybe an extra turret?
5 & 6. And capping things off, we have the big chungus brothers: The Doombringer and Juggernaut, with very similar weapon loadouts. The big thing separating the two being that Juggernaut is able to passively regenerate health and ammo in addition to their ability to slam into targets for additional damage.

With the time I've spent with the game, I can confidently say this is an excellent entry in the series just from a pure gameplay standpoint. But I am somewhat worried about history repeating itself.

The rather expensive cosmetic season passes being prominently featured on the front page and the fact that Hi Rez is still involved (despite hiding behind another developer) are enough reasons to give me pause.

But if they're committed to bringing this series back and making it as popular as it once was, I'm willing to look past the mismanagement that occurred with Tribes: Ascend.

Tribes deserves to be up there with its peers like Quake and Unreal but has historically been relegated to an after thought both by players and developers alike. Tribes 3: Rivals in its current state is an excellent first start but it's on Prophecy Games and Hi Rez to prove to the playerbase that they’re serious about reviving Tribes. If they can stay away from chasing trends and focus on what made the previous games great, they may have a shot at bringing this once great series back from the self imposed hibernation it was in.

I'm doing my part!

Gonna be honest this was really not what I was expecting at all and it really leaves a bad first impression.

Playing through the opening mission I genuinely thought it was a parody of something but by the end of it come to find out that no, this is all deathly serious.

I had heard and seen some of the rough stuff that this game launched with when it initially came out and I'm sure that this version of the game is a dramatic improvement over the day 1 release. But the games still got some issues, and unfortunately I feel like most of those issues seem to just be core to the game itself.

Volition seems to be dedicated to updating the game so I'll give it another shot in a year or so. But for now not sure I can recommend it even at the reduced 20 dollar price point.

Mafia 2: Definitive Edition

Definitively the worst.

When I sat down to play Mafia: Definitive Edition I didn't have an intention to then go on and replay Mafia 2. (Now playing Mafia 3...)

But after finishing Mafia I found myself wanting more of that "slice of life".

Mafia 2 is kind of a special game for me, I had lapsed from PC gaming for a few years when it was coming out. I had moved to mostly console gaming as my PC needed to be totally rebuilt to play modern games.

But I remember seeing an ad for Mafia 2 and the, then new, PhysX integrations that Nvidia was bringing to the game. The realistic cloth physics, destruction, realistic snow, this was all new levels of immersion I had never seen.

It might not look impressive compared to today's latest games, or the other games in this series, but at the time it was an incredible looking gaming. I rebuilt my PC just to play this game with maximum PhysX settings enabled.

For the most part the game that was there in 2010 is still intact here and in a lot of ways better than before. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows unfortunately as there are a multitude of technical issues that make this one of the worst ways to experience a classic.

First the good: All the models, textures, lighting, and cutscenes have all been cleaned up. Much of the games original cutscenes were rendered in engine but the few pre rendered sequences the game does have appear to have been cleaned up as well.

Quick point about the lighting: not everyone is going to love this part. Some sequences tone is dramatically altered by the lighting adjustments even with just something as simple as changing the color temp of a scene.

The bad: the performance is kind of horrendous for a game this old. The frame rate is just seemingly all over the place, some sections are rock solid flying well above 200fps and others it struggled to stay above 30.

Pretty much every major gun fight in the game will start out ok but as you progress through the scene you'll notice your framerate progressively tanking until it is unplayable. If you reload a checkpoint this will temporarily fix the framerate.

I'm not sure what exactly is causing this but it could be the amount of AI characters or increased physics objects in the scene that get unloaded when you reload a checkpoint.

The other thing that absolutely tanks the framerate is any kind of particle effects. Smoke, fire, destruction driven particles, colliding with vehicles, sparks, ANY of these things will send your FPS straight to the 20's.

Seemingly all those incredible PhysX driven visuals that I rebuilt a PC to see back in 2010 are broken in one way or another that makes the game either unplayable or those visuals just don't work. The cloth physics on jackets are don't work at all for example.

This is also to say nothing of the numerous AI pathing issues that I experienced with characters either refusing to progress in missions, dying randomly, or T-Posing until I reached the next checkpoint.

Mind you none of what I experienced here is an issue for the Directors Cut version of this game, which also comes with the DLC.

Seeing this labeled as the "Definitive Edition" is just kind of frustrating in the end as it's really a poor showing for a great game. Even more so when stacked up with the incredible Mafia 1 remake.

I would love to see these issues addressed but given that this version has been out for some time and these issues are still unaddressed I'm not sure that will happen.

So for the time being I will stick with the "Director's Cut" when I want to play this game, something I recommend you do as well.

Black Mesa

Remastered, Remade, Redone.

My first memory of Half-Life was going over to a friends house because he insisted he had a game I *had* to see. It didn't take long riding that Tram into Black Mesa before I was out the door on my way to Comp USA to pick up my copy.

Riding the tram to Black Mesa, seeing Barney stuck outside, getting the Hazard Suit for the first time, causing the resonance cascade. These are all core memories that are immediately triggered upon starting Black Mesa.

Over the 20+ hours I've spent with the game I've been thinking about how to describe it to others and I think I've settled on this: Black Mesa is the minds eye version of what you remember.

Remakes and remasters have become common place in the last decade and its not uncommon to see classic titles getting a fresh lease on life.

But how does one classify Black Mesa? Is it a remaster? A remake? In many ways this is a complete *Redo* of the classic game. Things that were frustrating about the original (on a rail) or just plain bad (Xen) have been completely reworked from the ground up.

Visuals, voice acting, the music, they have all been completely redone. The soundtrack (composed by @joelnmusic) to Xen in particular is so hauntingly beautiful this will absolutely become a mainstay on my playlists for years to come.

It makes for a far more polished experience from beginning to end. It is no simple feat to bring Half-Life to Source as noted by the 16 year journey it took to get to this point.

I don't think it can be overstated how much dedication was needed by the team at Crowbar Collective (@BlackMesaDevs) to pull off a project of this scale and scope. For that alone they, and everyone else who has helped along the way, deserve a tremendous amount of praise.

I remember vividly the day HL2 came out and the platinum collection I bought came with HL: Source. I immediately installed that thinking that *it would be exactly what Black Mesa is*, but it ended up being pretty far from that.

For me Crowbar Collective has closed a 16 year loop, making good on a promise that Valve initially made.

Seldom do we get a chance to relive our childhood in a way that is as satisfying as it was to us way back when. Black Mesa to me feels like coming home again, seeing friends and family you've not seen in forever.

And don't take any of this to mean that people who have never played the original Half-Life before wont enjoy themselves. Just the opposite, I think that this is now the *definitive* experience moving forward.

Set aside a weekend, take up a crowbar, and start swinging for the headcrabs. You wont regret making the trip to Black Mesa.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Mafia: Definitive Edition is an expansive open world game set into a well executed fictional 1930’s city. But that would be a somewhat misleading description of what this game actually is. No, this is not going to scratch your GTA itch.

Mafia: Definitive Edition is a full remake of the original 2002 game: Mafia. Set in the fictional city of Lost Heaven the developers at Hangar 13 have taken great strides to recreate what I have been calling a “slice of life” of the 1930’s.

Despite the genre it sits in and the fact that you can go anywhere and do anything you want this is *not* an open world game. Rather, not by the standards you are probably used to. You can free roam, there’s even an option right on the main menu for it. But the real meat of this package is its campaign offerings.

This is a highly linear single player game that is set inside of a fully realized open world. The scale of the world that Hangar 13 has crafted helps to immerse you in the story that is unfolding.

You play as Tommy Angelo, a cabbie just trying to make it in the world when you get wrapped up in a job gone sideways. You save the two goons that are on the run by giving them a ride back to their hideout. In return they offer you some money and a promise that if you ever need anything, their boss has your back.

From there it's everything you’d expect from a classic crime film. You’re brought in slowly, taught the ropes of how to be a gangster, become a made man, make friends, and even more enemies.

I’m not sure how the story was changed, if at all, from the original Mafia but there is definitely a feeling of this game being… older. Just something about the acting and cutscenes that never really went away. Paulie in particular sounds so cartoony it can end up being distracting in some cases. But over the course of the 10-15 hours it takes to beat you’ll find yourself growing increasingly attached to your partners in crime. (Paulie and Sam)

The game is somewhat unbalanced when looking at the front and back half of the game. There’s plenty of action to go around but you spend a lot of time doing what I’ll call Mob Jobs. Simple stuff like rigging a car for a race, stealing goods to fence, or teaching some punks a lesson about respect.

The back half of the game feels almost like a sprint to the finish as things start to go sideways before its very predictable end. Anyone who has seen movies like Goodfellas or Casino should be able to see where things are headed. But that can also be viewed as a positive as it punches its own ticket before it overstays its welcome.

Back in the day I’d probably give this a “rent” as a rating, but seeing as we live in an age of Steam Sales and Game Pass I think I’ll say this instead: for 15 bucks you’d be hard pressed to find a better way to spend your time.

Hell Let Loose is the Battlefield experience that you are most likely looking for, you just don't realize it yet.

That's a pretty loaded statement to open a review with but if you give this game some time you will be rewarded. TTK is quick, guns are accurate, the engagement ranges are long, and its not always who can shoot best that is the most important part of the game. Flanking, reinforcing hard points, and supporting your team are often more important than your kill count.

Playing as a unit is required to have fun and if you don't have a group or are unwilling to work with strangers this game may not be for you.

One thing that I do want to point out, and its something I hope the developers continue to work on, is performance. Overall you can expect between 60-80 on most maps with a lot of the bells and whistles disabled. While this may not bother me I can see this bothering a lot of people. It's not for lack of power either, my PC is running a 3080 and I still can't run this game consistently at high frame rates on all maps.

But specifically the Russian maps like Stalingrad and Kursk, while excellent well designed maps, run so tremendously poorly it really sucks some of the fun out of playing on them. The developers seem to be committed to the game however so I have faith that this will improve with time, but for now this is one negative point that needs to be highlighted.

Aside from that I can easily recommend this to anyone who is looking for that large scale warfare fix.

Splitgate shows so much promise but it still needs a bit of work to take it to that next level.

One of the biggest issues that I've had thus far is overall readability. All the levels have tons of red and blue in them, the players are all variations on red and blue, the portals are all red and blue, the walls you place portals on are blue, etc. When players really get moving its difficult enough as it is to track their movement on some of these maps but once you add in the very "samey" looking color palette it can be nearly impossible to see where a player is even with them standing right in front of you.

I don't feel that the portals themselves are used all that well either. It just feels like the surfaces you place them on are thrown up without real consideration for how it impacts the gameplay. The mechanics for Valve's Portal are here, including some of the physics tricks like launching yourself from a high up spot to gain speed. But the maps do not feel designed in such a way to actually support it. Like I can technically launch myself, but why would I? I would love to see some restraint taken with the portal surfaces, maybe try to mold the levels a bit to encourage creative use of them. I'd also love to see a bit more creativity with regards to *how* the portals are used.

For example: maybe only one or two players on the team can actually set portals. This would create an interesting team dynamic and force players to work together to push flanks and take objectives. Or maybe portals are static and already placed in the environment, they activate at round start and can be temporarily disabled with the grenades. This would allow for some rather interesting level design. Or lastly maybe the portal ability itself is a gadget, gun, or cool down ability. Reduce the amount of portals that can be out at any given time.

I know this all sounds crazy, its a game about shooting and portals and someone is actively advocating for *reducing* the amount of portals that can be used. But as it stands the portal mechanic is not being used as well as it could be and I feel a large part of that is due to there just being too much of them. Showing a bit of restraint here I feel will only help the game long term as it's going to push players to rely upon their own ability and creativity rather than what lame portal peak spot they can come up with to camp in a corner all match.

Lastly that brings me to the weapons which I think is rather divisive. Some love them, some hate them, but I'd say I'm somewhere in between. Near as I can tell almost every gun in the game save for the Rocket Launcher and Plasma gun are hitscan. Hitscan guns in Arena Shooters are nothing new, and its entirely possible that they need them to make this game even work given the high mobility of the players. But more often than not when a portal doesn't go right, or a jet jump leaves you hanging, or SOMETHING leaves you out in mid air exposed you are dead from all angles by hitscan weapons.

Whether its the AR, the BR, the Sniper, the Rail Gun, the SMG, it can come from any angle and you have very little hope of getting away from it. I should not be able to take a fight against someone with a Sniper Rifle and win with an AR from clear across the map. Should I be able to suppress them opening up a team mate to flank them? Sure definitely. But I have found very little need to use anything other than the AR, BR, DMR, and SMG because all of these guns just absolutely shred anything in front of you at any range. A serious balance pass needs to be made on every gun in the game because as it stands it's not just messing up the gun play but its also messing up the movement as well. When you can't be in the air for more than a second before everyone hitscan shoots you down there's no point in doing it anymore. Then this game just turns into a lesser version of the game that everyone seems to want to compare it to. (Halo)

I hope the developers are still reading reviews, and still taking some of this criticism to heart. I'm glad that they're now finding success having moved the game to free to play and also embracing cross play as well. But try to shed the shackles of being called "Halo meets Portal". This game so frequently reminds of of playing UT2K4 and using the Translocator to cover huge amounts of ground, telefrag, and get objectives out quickly. On the surface level if you just take this game for what it is in trailers and screenshots, how it looks, yeah it is Halo with Portals.

But it could be so much more than that.

Good start but not where it needs to be.

There's a clear attempt to evoke those feelings of COD1/COD2/CS here but I don't think it's quite there yet in terms of handling and map design.

Given the community efforts to bring in some of the classic maps via the workshop I think its only a matter of time before the maps situation gets sorted out on its own. But I'd like to see the developers take another pass at tightening up the gameplay a bit more. Make things feel less loose and also take another look at balancing some of the weapons. As it is there is very little reason to use anything outside of the STG44, the Kar98, and the BAR.

Will most likely check back in with this game in a few more months to see how things progress as I'd love for a modern take on the classic COD1 style gameplay to exist, I just don't think this one is quite there yet.

Still seems a little too early access.

What you would get if you combined PUBG, Fortnite, and Smash TV.

First off I'll say this: I can see what they are going for and in its current state its actually kinda fun.

If this was truly only in development for 5 months then I guess I'm impressed but as it is this is really undercooked even by Early Access standards.

Things I like:

- The guns feel good
- The map design is fresh
- Cash pickups for loot.


Things I didn't like:

- Visuals look like the 80's vomitted on a tire fire.
- Movement feels bad.
- Physics feel off which is likely contributing to the movement feeling bad.
- Map design, while fresh feeling, isn't the most consistent.
- Getting microtransactions shoved down my throat as soon as I sign in.

All these things are absolutely things that will get worked on as time goes on but I question why they rolled this out so soon. I get being passionate about something but it feels less like they had a really solid playing alpha build and more like they realized they need some cash flow to actually get this rolling and were afraid to turn to Kickstarter. They've already got guns that feel great and if they can tighten up the movement then theyare already there. The combat roll reminds me so much of Gears it I think they should just lean into that. Hell go full on Gears style cover system. It's something that no other BR game has and would bring some freshness to the genre.

Also while I think that visually the game is a mess I think that if they really lean into it and go crazy with that aesthetic they might have something here. They are clearly inspired by things like SmashTV and The Running Man but they are not really comitting to it. I need to feel like this is more SmashTV, The Running Man, Total Recall, and Robocop and less Nickelodeon goofball antics.

In its current state I can't recommend it. But I am extremely interested to see where it goes from here and will be checking in on it as development continues.