Recent reviews by Buff.Top

Broken experience. Enemies constantly try to spawn behind you in areas you have already cleared. The AI or either really dumb with poor path finding and aim or they will try to shoot you through walls and objects and they will be extremely aggressive (that you cannot shoot through).

A mix of FEAR, DOOM 2, and a Metroidvania. Do yourself a favor and buy this.

Probably one of the best games I have ever played

It's good to see Pointman survived the nuclear bomb at the end of F.E.A.R.

Glad to see he is finally having his story continued after the first game, I just dont understand why they changed the name to Trepang2 instead of F.E.A.R. 2

This is what Halo: Reach, 4, and 5 should have been gameplay-wise. The amount of variety within the sandbox is pretty great and I chalk that up to the new abilities which all have their own usefulness within the sandbox (minus threat sensor). This system is much preferred over the armor ability system which had some greats but most of the time everyone would select Sprint, Jetpack, or Armor Lock. With how well the gameplay feels, it is only right that the graphics look spectacular to go along with that and 343 really made the adjustments they needed to since the infamous 2020 Campaign demo. This game looks and feels like a Halo fan's dream on PC (I7-9700K, RTX 2070) running on High - Ultra at 1440p.

Now there are some downsides to go along with all that praise.

The progression system and micro-transactions need a big rework. XP is few and far between because you can only get it through challenges, this in turn can grind progression to a halt with some of the specifics. The challenges are cool and they help break me away from my usual focus of Team Slayer and SWAT but the lack of being able to choose which game mode you want to play really hurts me as I have been stuck on a challenge for killing enemy zone defenders as it matchmade me into every BTB game mode besides Total Control. Speaking of game modes, there are a few Halo classics that are missing from here at launch; notably SWAT, Slayer (FFA Variant), King of the Hill, Infection, and Grifball. Other things that need a rework are the coating system and the emblems (coating system can have a good compromise where you can have the really cool and intricate 343 designed coatings but with a plain coating that has a primary and secondary color option).

But even with the negatives I brought up, I will still recommend this game to anyone, 343 has shown they listen to their fans and even brought on some of the games strongest critics to help guide design. I know a lot of my complaints are mute because they have shown that they are fixing them in their devblogs. If it doesnt change I will eat my words but I have a feeling that this month or so long early release is so they can get more design insight from the larger community instead of only those who knew about the flights.

*THIS IS ONLY A REVIEW OF THE MULTIPLAYER, CAMPAIGN UNAVAILABLE AT TIME OF REVIEW*


TLDR;

+ Diversity of Weapons and Equipment
+ Feels like a natural evolution of Halo 3
+ Graphics
+ Armor Customization (Amount of pieces and what you can)

-Progression System
-Micro-transaction Pricing
-Lack of Core Gamemodes and being able to select

*Edit: 10 more hours since my original review, I still agree with the sentiment and that you should definitely play it but 343 also needs to fix how events work because I dont want classic gamemodes to be locked on a rotation schedule. They need to look at the MCC and really see the really cool event modes that they added for Thanksgiving.

For those of you coming from Mafia 3 only, set your expectations of the open world aside. The city in this game is much more akin to Mafia 2, it functions as a backdrop and as a character on its own. You aren't freely exploring in the Main Story to hunt down targets, this game wants to immerse you in a story, and that is it's ultimate goal. If you go in expecting that and not Mafia 3 / GTA, you will be engrossed in the captivating story and characters that you find yourself in the middle of.

This review is a work in progress.


After about 15 hours of gameplay, I can safely say that this game is miles ahead of Unity and Syndicate in terms of story and presentation. This AC was developed by the same lads who made Black Flag and you can really see the quality that this team brought there.

First of all Bayek is a great character, he has more personality in his finger than Arno had in his entire journey. It's a reffreshing take on the series because you are learning about the Assassins and how their fight started. Yes, modern day is back but I have only encountered two parts of it so far. For the modern day sections they have gone back to the Desmond style of things where you take over a character in 3rd person and learn about what they are doing (witholding name and modern day info as to not spoil it. But when you are playing as Bayek, though you may have a ton of Main Quests to do, the side quests, which serve as a way to help progress through levels so you can take on the high profile assassinations, are very entertaining and some even have numerous parts to them so you can better learn about the area you are slashing your way through.

The gameplay has been greatly refined with a more personal feel. No longer will you be spamming "counter" as a group of enemies encircles you. The fighting reminds me a lot of Dark Souls and The Witcher 3, that being blocking and hitting like Dark Souls but moving with the grace of Geralt like The Witcher 3. The deeper RPG mechanics really allow you to tailor the game to your playstyle with having your Ranged, Warrior, and Seer (Traps, tools, trading, etc.) spec trees. This allows for a greater freedom in completing missions in whatever way you like.

The graphics in this game are simply awe-striking, while it is hell on your CPU with even the most high-end rigs struggling to get 4K 60FPS at ultra settings but even at low settings the game still looks great, though grass and detail pop-in is pretty bad but what can I say, it is a demanding game. The music is great when it is there, not nearly as memorable as Assassin's Creed 2 and it tends to not be there a lot of the time, so for long stretches of traveling, it could be just you, your horse, and the noise of the hooves hitting the hot Egyptian sand. It does take a bite out of the trend of redoing Ezio's Family for the soundtrack which is strange in my opinion, it's the same as "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" using Hedwig's Theme even though it has nothing to do with Harry, that being said this cover is probably my second favorite version of the song behind the original version and just ahead of the Syndicate version.

The voice acting is great as well with a surprising amount of really good voice actors for the dozens of smaller characters who may have a few lines of dialogue for a side quest. A memorable one for me is a character in a town who stutters a bunch and is scared about something he found in his house he just dug out of the sand which he had just moved to because his wife left him for his brother.

Bugs are in the game but nothing game-breaking or really noticible except for a few clipping issues with clothing fluttering through a character's arm. This game is NOT Unity but it is Assassin's Creed so expect the bugs to be there.

The year off was much needed for this storied franchise and I think this game is a step in the right direction for the evolution of the series.



Edit: Typos

Middle-Earth: Shadow of War is a great game, the gameplay is fast and fluid and the controls are more responsive then in Shadow of Mordor. While the graphical update may be minimal, it still has a beauty to it unlike most games now of days. The location variety is astounding and I never felt like one area overstayed it's welcome. The weakest part of the game is easily it's story but I happened to still enjoy it very much. And while you do not get much from the main story in terms of character conflict, when you explore the sidequests and hear the banter more and more, you learn more about the characters and their struggles.

While there may be those who criticize it for the microtransactions, it is very eay to play the game without them, especially if you just let an orc kill you, allowing him to raise a few power levels above you, and then killing him to get the better rewards. The nemesis system makes these microtransactions redundant if you can learn how to manipulate it which becomes extremely helpful in the late game grind for the true ending.

I would give the game a solid 9/10, while it breaks some of Tolkien's lore, it fits it into the Lord of the Rings trilogy nicely and the story is a welcome one especially with a universe so proud on boasting about the heroes who came before.

I've had a ton of fun on the Xbox 360 version before minecraft came out for it. Even though this is still lacking items, it is good to see it on the PC.

Great game with fun multiplyer