Recent reviews by John E. F. Cruelty

Do you like diversity? Do you like when it's done tastefully and isn't jammed down your throat like some tumblr SJW nightmare? Well this game is probably for you then! Read Only Memories is a cyberpunk point-and-click adventure game that plays like a Lucasarts game, but it's impossible to ignore the period in which it was made. Read Only Memories is an unmistakably 2010s game, and it takes the sometimes flawed and abused aspects of the quasi-social revolution of the time and refines it into something that people believably live with. Things like race, gender identity and sexuality are so often abused, both by their detractors and supporters, as an excuse to belittle and hurt other people, or to call them names, or to silence people. In that atmosphere, it's unbelievably refreshing to see a piece of media that celebrates diversity, not as an excuse to feel smug or 'progressive', or to yell at people for being racist fascist horrible awful reactionary misogynists omg I can't even. Read Only Memories is a diverse game because it just likes diversity.

Yes, the game asks you for your pronouns. It's literally brought up once and you can pick whatever you want. It doesn't force you to identify as a tri-gendered pyrofox.

Yes, the racist guy is a bit bland, given the setting. However, he's treated with a suprising amount of humanity. This isn't any MovieBob "if you don't agree with me you're a failed human and I hate you" nonsense. He's a real character with a reason to think what he does.

Bottom line, if you like point-and-click games, Cyberpunk, or just want to see a diverse piece of media that isn't plagued with SJW ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, give it a shot. It's a nice little game.

Really, it's a disappointment.

Nothing awful. It isn't eye-schorchingly bad, it isn't going to offend you, but it also just isn't fun. Avalanch Studios found a way to make blowing ♥♥♥♥ up not fun.

See, in Just Cause 2, this wasn't a problem. The game was a lot more open, and bases were smaller and designed better. If it was red, you were supposed to shoot it, and it would explode. Do this abot 5 times, and the base was liberated. Add in some combat as a natural obstacle and make traversal generally fun, and you've got a good little set up. Everything in Just Cause 2 just worked.

Just Cause 3 is a different story entirely. Vehicles are sluggish, the wingsuit is thrilling at first but you'll tire of it quickly. The combat is fine, nothing more, nothing less. The base liberation is outright boring as hell. You have a laundry list of small doodads you have to destroy, and the base isn't liberated until you've gotten them all. This wasn't a problem in JC2 with the crates you had to collect, because it had indicators and a minimap. Here? No such luck. If you want to know where stuff is, you need to open the menu which just trashes the pacing. Destroy a thing, check the map. Walk across town and have some boring combat. Destroy a thing. Check the map. Finally, you finish off the town by flying over the walls of a base, pressing two buttons, then going to the center of town and pressing another button to raise the flag. Repeat with slight variations (like in the powerplant, where it adds time limits to press the buttons for added pain) for every base so far.

This really stings because the game has a lot of good stuff in it! The combat is close to being good, I love what you can do with the wires now, the graphics are just gorgeous and so is Medichi. With another year in development, this would have blown Just Cause 2 out of the water. Sadly, it's a bunch of super cool mechanics (and a few not-quite-finished ones, like the driving, the combat) floating in an awful framework. I couldn't even make my own fun. My helicoptor raids ended in me getting quickly shot down by the F-YOU SAM sights, and my planned assault on a city with a tank ended with the tank bugging out of existance and me rage-quitting.

Oh, bad PC port too. Not terrible, just bad. You can't re-bind F without it still doing something else, it doesn't like to be in fullscreen, and you literally can't skip the opening FOV with the company logos unless you have a controller. This might be a good game to play with the Steam Controller honestly.

Hey, maybe it gets better. Maybe the missions later are really good, or the chalenges that I didn't try were fun, or something. But the fact that I have literally no desire to keep playing the sequel to just cause 2 says a lot. Give it a miss, play JC2 instead.

Anyone who felt let down by the dialog and non-combat options in Fallout 4 will fall in love with New Vegas. This is the peak of roleplaying and storytelling in the First-Person Fallout games by far. As opposed to the other two 3D Fallout games, where the 'good guys' and 'bad guys' are pretty clearly outlined, and you're on a rather strict personal quest with limited roleplaying options, New Vegas basically says "Some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ shot you in the head. Go find him. Or don't, I don't care".

But that isn't the end of the story. I should say now that it's SPOILER time, so if you care, stop reading. The *real* plot of New Vegas surrounds control of the Hoover Dam, an important strategic asset in the region, and the key to New Vegas. As the player you basically get to choose who wins this battle and pick your own sides. And there's no Enclave, no easy villain. The NCR are well intentioned but beurocratic and inefficient, Mr. House is a bit of a meglomaniacal sociopath but it's impossible to ignore all he's done for The Strip, the board of casino owners that Benny's on are benign, if a bit selfish, etc. The closest the game gets to a 'bad guy' is Caesar's Legion, and even they have logical motivations and an interesting character as the leader. They're not cackling villains bent on genocide, they're people attracted to the stability and strength of the Legion.

Now the combat is terrible. Real poopy log. It's clunky, easy to abuse, there's just no grace to it. It's pretty clear that the devs want you to use V.A.T.S. a lot, but while you're waiting for it to recharge you'll be a bit bored. You can win all but the hardest fights by just backpedaling and V.A.T.S. aiming for the head of your targets.

But other than that? It's a great experience. The characters are great, the story is great, there're lots of ways to play and you feel rewarded and taken care of no matter which one you pick. This isn't like Fallout 4 where combat was the only thing anyone on the Dev Team thought about. You can play a Charismatic Rogue, a scavenger, a soldier, or just some really lucky dude. Hunt the man who shot you, or just try to make it big at the slots. Help the NCR, or the Legion, or Mr. House, or just help yourself. Charm, sneak shoot or bludgen your way through the chalenges the game throws at you. It's one of the best games I've ever played. Totally recomended.

You will need to spend a few minutes doing technical stuff to get it to run respectibly. Fair warning.

This is a fantastic game. I have about 2000 hours in it, and I don't at all feel like I wasted that time. It's a bit old and clunky, but if you're willing to look past that, mod it a bit and learn the mechanics, it's well worth it. It's a bit less complex than Hearts of Iron 3, but I feel like that's more of a perk than anything. This is a strategy game, not a logistics simulator. Order of Battle and supply lines are not as important as your plans and your armies.

If I had to say one bad thing about this game, it's that it has a pretty poor domestic focus. Food is not simulated at all, and anything that doesn't contribute to your war effort is lumped into the non-descript "consumer goods" category. Diplomacy is also a bit weak. Without an event or a specially coded AI tick, the AI is highly unlikely to agree to anything you suggest. War really is the best way to solve anything, and that's fine. The game accells at war. It is a bit frustrating that the belligerance mechanic punishes you for going to war, when it's often the only way to progess, but it would seem weird to leave it out, so that gets a pass.

But for the love of god, do not play vanilla. It's fine. Vanilla Darkest Hour is a very good, enjoyable game. But you're seriously missing out by not playing Kaiserreich, Boneparte Legasy, New World Order, Fatherland and the mirad of other awesome mods you can get on the Paradox Plaza fourms. It's worth the small headace of installing.

It's like Hatred, except it's not a cringey, un-self aware, overhyped piece of garbage.

Also, it runs on a potato.

There isn't much to this game, really. You click on stuff. Sometimes the stuff moves, or the mouse moves, or the camera moves, but the extent of the player's involvement is hovering the cursor over a target, and clicking. It's like if someone made a whole game out of the tutorial level of Modern Warfare 2, then made it an arcade shooter, then ported it to the PC.

But you know what? It's... really fun. I have no clue why, no idea what makes it satasfying, but it is really oddly fun. It's just five bucks too. If it looks fun, get it.

This game is really fun. It's not like a lot of multiplayer shooters, but it's a really enjoyable and unique experience. It would be more enjoyable if anyone played the thing. This game's servers are dead as doorposts most of the time, and it's a real shame. That said, if you can get a group of friend on LAN, this is worth a try.

And it's free. Das cool.

Don't get this game. Don't. I know what you're thinking, it's hilarious, and you can't wait to find all the secrets or play with the wacky physics or whatever, and it'll just be a relaxing mindless game you sometimes come back to play for a quick dip of stupid humor. Trust me, I thought the same thing, and so did all the friends I asked.

That's not going to happen.

You're going to buy it, play it for 10 minutes, maybe come back to it after a day or two, and then you will never touch it again. This game is not worth your money. I get that that's the whole joke, but it seriously isn't. Think of all the other things you could do with $10. Seriously, list them. Unless you've done every single other thing you can think of with these ten dollars, I don't recomend this game. Unless this goes on sale for a dollar or less, skip it.

Absolutely awful PC port. Following the long and storied Rockstar tradition, this game has insane framrate and frame skipping issues, bizarre graphics options (you can disable things like night shadows, but you can't turn down bloom or change model detail) and hiddeous controls. This game is 6 years old, it should run on a toaster, but the same PC I use to run much more graphics intensive games struggles to handle this greately mismanaged mess of a PC port. If you don't have a top-of-the-line PC, an Xbox 360 controller, and some patence for homebrew troubleshooting, I'd pass.

Oh, but the game's fine. A couple poorly-aged mechanics hold it back, and it lacks a real difficulty spike, but it's more than solid. Just get it on the 360 or PS3 if you know what's good for you.

Amazing cyberpunk FPS. Very strategic and lots of room for customization. The maps are wonderfully designed, and beutifully realized. If you liked the original Deus Ex, you'll most likely like this.