Recent reviews by PsychoPathogen

Fun game. Fun to play with friends. Extremely difficult. Frequent deaths are a part of the game. The game does have a few nagging flaws. The Reload button is more of a "Reload Request" button. You might reload, you might not. Spam R and eventually you'll have bullets and/or be dead. When you do have the ammo to fire, your target reticule sways a ridiculous amount from body movement. They are going for realistic but this just lands as cumbersome. Besides, my aim drifts less in real life.

All that aside, the presentation and gameplay more than makes up for any shortcomings. It's a lot of fun to play with friends.
Overall: 8.5/10

Disclaimer: I'm not a wrestling fan (but I don't have anything against it either). I only played this game because it came for free and I thought it would be fun to make a character. Though the customizations options are a bit more limited than I hoped for, I spent two hours customizing a character I was happy with, then out of no where, somehow accidentally reset everything to default. This occured because the use of the save slots and titles of them. I clicked on entrance, thinking I was going to edit literally how you walk in, but then it took me somewhere I initially thought was a new save slot and I back out and ALL of my changes were gone and the game started. At this point I'm not even sure if it is possible to delete the stupid default character from the save slot, and I'm not keen on trying the game again anytime soon to find out. If you are a wrestling fan or if you are familiar with the series, you may love this game, but for this non-wrestling informed gamer, the counter intuitive UI is a deal breaker.

This game is a blast. Kinda Cyberpunky Streets of Rage with a top-down point of view. The aiming has a slight learning curve if you are not familiar with this play style. The game world is larger than I expected and incredibly detailed. It feels alive. The atmosphere is exciting and foreboding and a bit melancholy. Some parts of the city remind me of Midgar in Final Fantasy VII. Most of the dialogue is well done, The electronic soundtrack is very well made and helps drive the gameplay. The graphics are pretty, Not mind-blowing, but definitely good enough not to complain. The one downside (and the only reason I'm not scoring this game in the 9.5-10 range) is that some of the quests (including the main story quest) can become broken at times, not allowing you to progress, if you do certain things in the wrong order. This issue has only come up a couple times and I was able to resolve it by travelling to another location or progressing further on a different quest. I've read others have been less lucky and it is possible to lock yourself out of completing the main quest.

Despite having a few flaws, I find myself constantly wanting to play again.

Here is my completely arbitrary scoring:

Graphics: 9
Music: 10
Atmosphere: 10
Story: 8.5
Immersion: 10
Gameplay: 10
QA Testing: 6
Fun: 10
Overall: 8.5

An otherwise faithful collection of great TMNT with one huge problem. *They replaced the theme song with the stupid one.* A lot of people don't care about this, and to those people, I recommend this collection. To me it's a deal breaker. I'm not trying to experience groundbreaking new gameplay or graphics with this purchase, nor am I trying to experience cool things from the past for the first time. I bought this game solely to relive the magic of TMNT. Fortunately the background music seems to be in tact, but the stupid emphasis on "Ninja" in the Title theme ruins it for me. I'm sure this has to do with licensing rights. I don't care. The game should have it or come with a disclaimer that it's dumb.

Fun crafting and building. There is a slight learning curve. I had to delete my first two worlds because I randomly got stuck on an island before I could build a paddle, but once i got things going and figured out the crafting system it is a lot of fun. Graphics are acceptable, but don't stand out by any means. My main complaint is that the game is very unforgiving early on, and thirst and hunger bars drain way too fast throughout the game. Even when you have an ample supply of food, you will frequently have to stop what you are doing just to eat and drink.

My Score: 8.5/10

Tips: You need to be able to sustain your character (food water) and move your raft (paddle, sail) as soon as possible. Wood is fuel for many things. The shark is constantly attacking you as well, so you will need a weapon.

Build a spear first. Apply it to an inventory slot with a left hand number (1-4). When the shark starts eating your raft poke him with the spear until he goes away. Eventually he will die and you can harvest the meat, but he will respawn soon after. Second Item you should build is the hammer. This lets you repair your raft and build more components. Your grapple is your lifeline. It also wears down very fast. you can minimize wear/damage by leaving your rope out and timing it so you grab multiple items on the way in. By the time you build your spear and hammer though, your grapple will likely have significant damage. For this reason I recommend making a backup grapple third and a backup spear fourth and then make a stone hatchet. If you want to get off your raft (to explore an island) make sure you have an anchor, or your raft will float away and the only way to get back is to die and lose 2/3 inventory. Make a water purifier as soon as you can, and then a cooking pot. From here you probably need some storage containers. At this point collection nets are very useful. you can build them into your raft bottom (they don't have to be on the edge). I recommend an X or T pattern so your raft will capture anything it floats over in any direction. I don't know if these tips are meta, but this is what worked for me.

I found nothing enjoyable about this game. The gameplay is boring, the character movement is stupid, the graphics are bad, even by 2015 standards, and the player base is as toxic as they come.

The one thing I just can't get past, is the ridiculous way your character tries to drag his ass around the map with his back on the ground and feet in front of him. Why would anyone do this? Anyone who has ever made it to the final round of a limbo competition knows this is a compromising situation that does not avail itself to combat.

Setting aside my dismay (and the absolute asininity of said shoot-and-scoot-boogie), the combat just isn't fun, and the players just aren't fun to play with.

Pros:
The game installs and launches without any errors.

Cons:
Just about everything else

Score:
1.5/10

Verdict:
Guilty

It's Red Dead 2, but Onliner.

I'm not typically a fan of Westerns, but the cinematic experience throughout the game, combined with exceptional game play, cleverly staged events, beautiful photo-realistic landscapes drew me in. For the most part it's like Grand Theft Auto: Wild West, but there are some things about it that remind of Breath of the Wild (notably shops, crafting, fishing, hunting). Among the few drawbacks are occasionally stupid horse AI. For example when you are near a cliff, backing away sometimes makes them fall over the edge. Other times they will walk right in front of a carriage and get trampled. The save system is a bit of a guessing game. Even if you load a manual save there is no guarantee you will have everything you did before, especially if you were travelling with captured horses. Finally, it is a GPU intensive game. You can adjust the settings, but you will need at least an RTX 3070Ti (or equivelant) for consistently playable framerates at max settings. Even then, expect an average of hi 50s. This also depends on other factors such as CPU, Memory, etc. (for Reference I'm using the previously mentioned 3070Ti with a Ryzen 3600x, 32GB DDR4).

Overall Score: 9.85/10

Fun game

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey puts you in command of a Hominid gene pool. Your apes advance by growing new neurons and forming a synaptic connection. You can grow these neurons by exploring the world around you, discovering new objects, smells, and sounds, figuring out new ways to use tools, and performing new actions. Reproduction plays a major role in the game as well (PG rated). Babies are necessary to sustain the population first and foremost, but they are also needed to collect energy to grow the axons and dendrites when synapsing with new Neurons. An adult ape simply needs to piggyback carry a baby ape in order to generate energy while playing. When new new neurons are connected, they have to be locked in, or the next generation will have to re-learn it (though the node will still be there). Each baby allows you to lock in 1 new neuron. When everything is locked in, you can advance to a new generation. Eventually you take evolutionary leaps as well, which can land you millions of years closer to modern day.

The game looks nice. The graphics aren't groundbreaking in complexity, but well-designed and placed. The landscapes are convincing and immersive.

Sound plays a pivotal role, as audio cues tell you when to perform certain actions. If you are using a controller, force feedback can assist with this as well.

The controls are somewhat complicated, but they make sense and become intuitive. Mouse and Keyboard controls are definitely playable. I played at least 20 hours before trying controller. THE CONTROLLER IS MUCH BETTER FOR THIS GAME. Aside from the force feedback assistance, It feels more like you are controlling an ape and just plays better.

Overall, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is a fun and exciting adventure survival strategy game with just the right amounts of action and problem solving.

Score: 93/100