Recent reviews by Darkmalice

Honestly thought it'd be too passive for me, as I'm not a fan of 'survivors clones' or 'bullet hells' really. However, while it's not as good or involving as RoR2, there's a lot of fun to be had in grinding out your build and watching it go ham on the screen.

embark seemingly just know their ♥♥♥♥ when it comes to making video games. It's fast, it's fun, it's optimised and looks great. I'm not even a shooter-kinda-guy really, and I've had a ball just flying into rounds with a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sword. My only qualm might be that ranked is just far too sweaty, even at bronze level, for an old blind grump like me.

I was expecting an experience akin to the DayZ days of high-tension and merciless slaughter, but that has not been the case (mostly). I believe the key to how fluid and pleasant ARC Raiders feels is down to 1) the short interludes between dying/extracting and getting back into a map, 2) the great deal of optimisation making the experience very smooth and pretty, and 3) the player-favour design (the game is not 'against' you at every turn, unlike say, Tarkov or PUBG). Unlimited free loadouts, top-up scrap materials from your chicken, and the quick turn-around mean you're never left bereft of options, but still constantly yearning for more.

It's pretty great and I honestly didn't think it would be before jumping in.

After three murders went unsolved and my leads started drying up, the killer began to leave me notes, taunting me. Cursing, I began anew, scouring phonebooks, emails and scribbled calendars for potential suspects, colleagues, contacts, anything.
It was some time before I thought to go back to the original scenes, where I discovered a note, tucked under the bed: the killer had been goading me from the very beginning, a confident-Riddler looking for his Batman. I was 7 deep in bodies before a breakthrough, my Pepe-style clue-board centring on a single suspect.
When I knocked on that bastard's door I could barely restrain myself, knocking him down and slapping the cuffs on him... except, it wasn't him! His roommate, a crazed psychopath brandishing a pistol looked to take me out next as I puzzled over the mistaken identity. by the night's end, however, he was safely behind bars, and I earned my... well maybe I'll take up something more profitable, like walking dogs.

Fantastic game.

I don't think I've ever been this disappointed in a title. The art is really cool, I love the comic panel cut-scenes, so I thought "hey it's a beat em up, it'll be good enough at half price no matter what." Wow, was I wrong there. The gameplay is so static, the controls so awkward. There's no flow to your movement, hell I struggle to jump when I want to, so I just stand and hit trigger over and over until the swarming enemy dies or I do. There was no instruction at all about what my 'skills' (button-mapped moves) do, no hover tooltips. I skipped the dialogue entirely because it's uninteresting, the VA is of varying quality both technically and artistically. The sound, man, I had to turn it all down it was so terribly loud. The dev responsible for gameplay needs to play some Streets of Rage to see what how it's done. Really disappointing, even on sale.

Not quite at the end yet (74hrs on the clock), but this has been a solid, old-school JRPG that scratched exactly that itch for me. Been playing with controller so can't comment on the MnB issues, and the only bug I've ran into thus far has been the music cutting out after a few hours of a play session. Story is, well, a bit better than the majority of these type of games tbh: serviceable and enough to keep you going along. I love the Suikoden vibe with filling out your castle. I was not a fan of how initiative allocation was done, but you get used to it. Some ideas are not as developed as they could have been, with the army battles being particularly frustrating at how limited and linear they are. There's certainly some QoL for a PC game that I would have liked to have seen (being able to individually select characters in battle for orders without having to redo the whole list again, more enemy telegraphing intentions, clearer signposting of how to recruit characters, etc.) More often than usual, I find myself using guides to find things, which means the game isn't doing enough to direct me where I need to go (despite the egregious use of cutscenes), or explain mechanics such as the tedious spin-top game. And please, don't include mini-games which require mashing buttons to progress!

With all that said, it has great visuals, artstyle and music, and is built on some solid JRPG foundations that hold it together. It's a clean 8/10 and I will be looking out for future games in the series.

In short, Astroneer and Elite: Dangerous had a baby. This kid took a decade to mature, but it blossomed into a wonderful being. I played this on launch, and it was not worth your time, now, it certainly is. If you enjoy exploring, managing routes and fleets and settlements, laser guns, farming resources, trading across space stations, or vibrant saturated design palettes, this is for you. The only real criticism I have is the console-focused UI design.

Loved the game, despite the terrible optimisation and occasional bugs, but now after returning to play from a break of over a year, the game STILL has a bug which causes it to not save player progress. I cannot recommend it to anyone, even tho it can be really fun, when you can lose HOURS of progress randomly. Devs, fix your ♥♥♥♥.

Man, I really slept on this one. Now, in 2025, this is probably my favourite purchase of the year. A great party-based ARPG, but your little NPC dudes can be ones that other players uploaded! Great combat, exploration, world encounters, bosses, crafting and a quest-grind reminiscent of old mmorpgs, but in a casual fun way. I got this on sale for less than £4, fn bargain.

What I didn't expect from Elden Ring, was how engaging the exploration aspect would be. Coupled with a finely-tuned design, where even a reluctant 'repeated play' person such as myself can become hooked on playing dungeons until achieving success, has certainly made ER an 8 or even 9 out of 10 for me. I did not think it would engross me for a solid 40 hours (at time of writing), let alone more. As far as 3rd-person adventure games go, it's probably one of the best.
=== EDIT after a few more hours ===
After about 45hrs I think I'm getting over Elden Ring. It's very repetitive, and not just fighting a boss over and over. I like the creature design, but the aesthetic is so washed out and desaturated it's kinda crappy-looking. Exploration's good but, there's nothing driving you in terms of narrative. Solid 8/10. I got a lot more out of it than I thought I would.