Recent reviews by poluza

First of all, I ain't a fan of DnD. I tried 1.5 times in the past; it was okay for a tabletop game, but I think those mechanics are not very suitable for a video game. The lore is overwhelming, and found it difficult to take seriously. Too much of the "fantasy", if that makes sense?

For me, as mostly a newcomer, the game doesn't help with understanding the new mechanics. Tutorial windows are somewhat useful, but it wasn't easy to learn about new builds, different saving throws, bonuses, and so on. I don't think the default builds are any good, especially for Shadowheart, and thank god you can respec at any moment.

The pacing of Baldur's Gate 3 is the biggest problem for me. Everything takes so much time: the story to unravel, inventory management, leveling up, the battles. Until level 5, battles were a slog. Minimal damage, missing shots, limited ways to traverse the field. DOS2 fights are so much more enjoyable.

I don't like my companions. Gale is good; others range from okay to "I would like to kill them." Everyone is so horny it's ridiculous. But I guess this is the only chance for some fans to feel what it would be like in a relationship. DOS2 did relationships much better.
For most of the bad choices, the game will reward you. You were spanked by some pervert; here is a buff for you. You let some idiot do brain surgery with a piece of metal rod; here is a buff for you. You ate more of those parasites when our entire goal is to get rid of them; here are some powers. Whatever.

Resting mechanics are pointless and add to the tedium as well. I thought managing resources (spells, abilities, supplies) would be fun, but there are so many supplies that you can chill at camp for weeks. I'm not resting in the middle of a dungeon for RP reasons, but you can theoretically rest after every single fight. Which again, if a mechanic is pointless, why even bother?

Still, the game is somewhat interesting, but the tedium is what drags it down for me. I'm honestly surprised by the level of hype for this game.

It's working! It's working!
After Magicka 1, it's wonderful how perfectly good the new game is running. But I was puzzled by the changes to the gameplay. Useless shield spell, slow movement, cooldown on magicka usage even in "manual" mode. Frozen enemies are immune to laser spells. Why try to bring "balance" to the game and ruin it eventually? It seems more suitable for PvP than PvE. And then I found about Magicka Wizard Wars. And it's clear to me they just transferred multiplayer game mechanics to the single-player/co-op game and didn't bother to make it fun again.

I stopped playing with a friend after the 6th chapter, and we went back to Magicka 1 to complete challenges because it's so much more fun. The game field in Magicka 2 is too close and too zoomed in. There is little room to maneuver. And your player speed is slower than every enemy in the game. You can't teleport because of the cooldown, haste runs out too quickly, and there are damage sponge enemies everywhere. The shield is useless; it's only against laser spells, and I didn't see any mob using those spells. It's just not that fun compared to Magicka 1. I love to traverse the game field, I love to memorize ridiculous spell combos, and I like to see that chaos. Of course, Magicka 2 has its own moments. But the humor isn't there. Bosses are just regular enemies with big health bars. And for a sequel, it's a Iletdown, not an improvement. Bummer.

This game has it all: fun and addictive gameplay, bugs, crashes, softlocks—you name it. I can't stand the start menu theme anymore because of how often the game crashes.
It's barely playable even with all the fixes. In multiplayer, you can expect even more crashes and bugs.

I played about 7.5 hours with my last character on OpenMW.
I was really excited at first; the setting is so imaginative and rich. But the more I played, the more frustrated I became.
Traversing is just a pain. It's slow, there's nothing to do except collect some ingredients on the way, and it drains your fatigue, which is crucial for fighting and casting. Cities are lifeless, NPCs are uninteresting, and quests are boring and annoying, at least in the beginning. Mostly fetch quests: collect some flowers, bring this note, tell this person, escort that guy. Finally, I was ready to begin the main story. But first, I had to find the Dwemer puzzle box. This ♥♥♥♥ broke me. I spent 1.5 hours trying to find this junk, then had to look up a guide. It's a small brown box on the bottom of a brown shelf in a room at the beginning of the dungeon. The rest of the dungeon is irrelevant. It's just diabolical.
I thought I'd like the absence of map markers. But the game doesn't respect my time. Unfortunately, Morrowind aged poorly.

Overhyped game. Most gamers didn’t even bother to finish it. Out of 80% who started the game, only 10% completed it.

I admit most problems were my own, but only because the game miscommunicated with me. It is my first ever game from Larian. I was leveling up my characters correctly, but my composition was wrong. I had an Inquisitor, Rogue, Crossbow guy, and Enhancer—three physical and one magic damage dealers. And I did not have a good time. Because of the shield system, the Enhancer was useless. Enemies are really tanky, and she couldn’t destroy magic armor quickly enough to use spells. You really need to specialize in one type of damage or divide your group into 2 physical and 2 magic damage dealers. At first, it wasn’t a big deal, but the more I advanced in the story, the more problematic it became. I spent 15 hours understanding that. I think I am close to finishing the first act and escaping from the island, but who knows? The game is lengthy. And now I’m irritated. On the one hand, I want to restart the game with the correct company or push through the first act and respec my heroes later, but I will have to learn new skills again. It bothers me that you have to know this in advance or read some guides, or maybe I’m just dumb. Or all of it.

Obviously, the game isn’t awful; I wouldn’t spend so much time on it otherwise. The world is beautiful, every line of dialogue is professionally voiced, and there are so many possibilities and attention to detail. There is some inconvenience with the interface. I think it was caused by co-op. The inventory is shared, which is nice, but you still have to juggle items around. You see, only one character will receive a discount from the trader, not the whole group. You completed a quest, now the trader likes you more, but only one hero, not the rest. And now your main character got some discount, but your other guy has the barter skill, and you can’t transfer items between your characters in the trading menu. You have to close the menu, say goodbye to the trader, open the inventory, transfer all your crap to the barter guy, switch to the barter guy, say hello to the trader, and now you can finally sell with better prices. Why? It’s so annoying. For example, I could examine every creature or item within the group if some of them have the loremaster skill.

UPD
Ok, I restarted the game with pretty much the same team composition, but knowing the combat mechanics, I did a better job with skills and have now finished Act I.

Amazing game! The story so far is also intriguing. On my first attempt, I missed some quests and lore dialogue options. The game is even richer and more detailed than I thought. I’m even more impressed now. And people say BG3 is better—I can’t even imagine.

What a mess of a game it is.
The gameplay isn’t that great. Often, there are “start with a knife” stealth sections with braindead AI. You have to constantly look at the ground and smash the E button to pick up ammo and health because there is no auto-pickup for some reason. Just let me kill the damn Nazis without distractions!

The story is also absurd, but not in a good way. It’s kinda funny that the Nazis were right about the secret Jewish wizard organization! Those greedy bastards were inventing magic techno crap for millennia and didn't help to Allies to win the war. There are plenty of conveniences, plot armor, and just stupid decisions overall.
From MachineGames, I had expected more, to be honest. And there is no Mecha-Hitler!

From store page:

DOOM 3 - Original Version
Play the original, unaltered gameplay experience from 2004.
A massive demonic invasion has overwhelmed the Union Aerospace Corporation's (UAC) Mars Research Facility, leaving only chaos and horror in its wake. As one of only a few survivors, you must fight your way to hell and back against a horde of demons.

There is no original game included! All you have is a crappy butchered BFG version.

I tried Lost Missions. You can tell it's a cheap console port. Floaty controls, inferior sound design, and an abundance of ammo. This game is worse than the original in every single way.

Just marvelous! I've fell in love with this game starting with a mouse pointer.

Жаль, уже поздно сделать refund.

UPD. Такая посредственная игра, что лень было ревью писать.
Геймплей уныл и не интересен. Боевка примитивная и скучная. Планеты микроскопические, и цветовая гамма режет глаза. Сама карта больше похоже на муви сет, чем настоящую локацию, исследовать ее нет желания. Сюжет и диалоги стараются быть остроумными, но чаще кринжатина. Просто поразительно, что эта та же студия, которая сделала FO:NV, очевидно таланты все ушли уже. Это больше похоже на отполированный прототип, чем настоящий продукт. Есть хорошие идеи, но практически каждая из них имплементирована плохо. Я надеюсь, что этот proof of concept собрал инвесторов и будет вторая часть потому, что у этой вселенной явно есть потенциал, но здесь он не раскрыт от слова совсем. Бюджет у The Outer Worlds, видимо, был мизерный для такого типа игры, и Obsidian откусили больше, чем могли прожевать.

Потрясающая игра, дает невороятный опыт, особенно если помочь себе с погружением.
Персонажи - настоящие люди, ни разу не было желания пропустить ни один диалог.
Сценарий - неворятно мощный, что главный квест, что побочные точно останутся в памяти.
Дизайн города, машин завораживает. Я просто любил гулять по городу с камерой на готове как турист.

Сам геймплей... serviceable? Достаточный? Стрельба, стелс, все это посредственно, если честно. Нет смысла крафтить что-то, скоро в природе найдешь более мощную пушку\шмот. Развитие персонажа тоде оставляет желать лучшего. Совсем не интересно гадать, куда потратить очко умений: +3% к крит урону или +3% к макс урону. Убогость gameloop'a заставила меня сильно скучать по Deus Ex.

К сожелению, не идеальна, но чертовски хороша. Оставила глубокое впечатление, что талантливое искусство и должно делать.