Recent reviews by Leaf / Metalhead33

Now, let's start this review with a disclaimer: despite all the criticms I have of the game, I still 100% recommend playing it, and consider it the game of the decade, if not the best game ever, in spite of the flaws I am going to talk about.

Baldur's Gate 3 is a worthy entrance to the Baldur's Gate franchise: it is more than just a graphical update - it comes with huge quality-of-life improvements, really engaging story and lovely companions. I quite literally fell in love with Shadowheart. The music is awesome, the graphics are awesome, the gameplay is addicting, the story is mostly good, the companions are people you WILL get attached to, etc. It's a great game, possibly the best game ever made, to be honest.

Does that mean that Baldur's Gate 3 is perfect? Of course not. The game has a few glaring flaws, which I am going to list:
#1: Inventory Management: Baldur's Gate 3 kept the same outdated, archaic system that its two predecessors had. Come on, Larian, it's been 24 years since Baldur's Gate 2's release, we've moved past those systems.
#2: Pacing and Act 3: Now, I hope I'm not spoiling much by revealing, that Baldur's Gate 3's story and gameplay are divided into three chapters, or "acts".... and sadly, it's pretty damn obvious that the majority of effort in every department (including sound/music, plot/writing, etc.) went into the first two acts. Act 3 feels rushed. While the first two acts had unique music for every location, Act 3 constantly reuses music from the first two acts. Act 3 is easily the most bugged and glitchy out of the three acts, with the other two being far more polished. The whole pacing goes out of whack, with everything suddenly culminating in Act 3. It just felt sudden and unnatural. Act 3 is to Act 1-2 what Game of Thrones Season 8 was to the rest of the series - a rushed rushed and an somewhat disappointing conclusion to an otherwise amazing series. Now, I still enjoyed playing through it, but honestly... it was a bit of a letdown compared to the previous two arcs.
#3: Forced Wokeness. Now, I once again have to make a disclaimer: it's somewhat subdued, not as egregious as many would make it out to be, with the exception of the highly jarring relationship between Isobel Thorm and Dame Aylin (which can be easily fixed with the mod Ser Aylin), most of the alphabet-people in the game don't go out of their way to advertize their sexuality, and with the aforementioned exception, it's not particularly in-your-face and doesn't take away much from the game. I'm still going to mention it, and state, that Baldur's Gate 3 is beloved not because of, but IN SPITE OF the woke stuff. The forced LGBTQP+whatever representation doesn't add anything to the game.
#4: Small party size limit: This one has always been a pet peeve of mine in the Baldur's Gate series, and CRPGs as a whole. I know that I can replay the game with a different party, I know that party size affects game balance, yada yada yada, but I first and foremost play for the story, and I want to experience everything my companions have to offer. I found myself constantly neglecting and ignoring all companions that weren't Shadowheart, Astarion and Gale, because those three carried me through the entire game - and this resulted in me missing out on hilarious conversations and banter, as well as companion quests as well.
#5: I want more. I know, I know, the game already has a lot of content, a lot of stuff to explore, with many being stuck at Act 1 even after a hundred hours of gameplay.... but I still want more.

With that being said, despite these 5 flaws, it is an amazing game (quite possibly the best game ever made, in spite of these glaring flaws), and I 100% recommend playing it.

Cute and funny 😭

A pretty good game.

This is probably not going to be an objective, unbiased review, because Shogo: MAD happens to appeal to at least three demographic groups I am a member of: weeaboos, FPS gamers and boomers... errr, I mean 90s kids.

It's a great game, provided that you are willing to treat it as a product of its time: the late 90s.
If you are some zoomer born after 2000, and pick this game up in 2022 or any year later, then you're going to be met with horribly dated graphics and janky mechanics. However, if you are willing overlook the graphics, the 90s jank, then you will actually end up uncovering a hidden gem.
Shogo: MAD is not only a fine game, but a very innovative one - as far as I'm aware, the only FPS that allows you to play both as a human being, and as a giant mecha. That's right, you spend around half of the game piloting a giant mecha, so this game is 100% recommended to Gundam fans.
Now, I have to mention it again: this game is a product of its time, very 90s, so there's no reloading, no health regeneration, level design is downright labyrthian and you will be backtracking A LOT, the AI is ridiculously easy to defeat (tho, the game's creators seem to have been self-aware of it, hence the unfair placement of enemies in corridors, corners, behind doors).
Despite being made by Americans, it has a very anime feel to it, with most characters having Japanese-sounding names, the protagonist sounding straight-up like your typical 90s anime protagonist, etc.
It makes me very sad, that the Shogo franchise did not blossom into an entire saga - that's right, sequels were planend for this game, but unfortunately, as of 2022, none were produced so far.

It's a nice game, definitely worthy of playing, and also worthy of a remaster (if you are a game developer, or the original developer, and reading this by some chance)

Now that I legally own the game and have allowed it to consume my weekend (back in the good old days, it used to consume my entire summers), I guess it's time to write a love letter to Skyrim, so here it goes....

Skyrim. Is it a good game, or a bad game? If you want a short answer: it's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awesome game. But if you want a long answer: it is neither. It is "one of those games". What do Bethesda Softworks and Paradox Interactive have in common? The fact that they've both realized, that their games will sell better and will be a hundred times more milkable, if they are shipped with excellent mod support. Skyrim is a blank canvas - there are a million mods out there to tailor the whole experience to your own personal tastes. Don't get me wrong, vanilla Skyrim is a great game too, but its replay value is minimal - once you've beaten the game at least once, you have to use mods to spice things up. It's an addictive game, though, it's questionable if the credit really goes to Bethesda, since it's specifically the modding that has kept the game alive for a whopping 11 years and counting.

Whether you're a Skyrim-virgin who has never played this masterpiece, or a(n ex-)pirate like me who has unofficially killed a thousand hours in it, go buy this game. It deserves it.

Decent game with superb artwork, voice acting and music....
.... but the penultimate boss is unreasonably difficult lol
Didn't get to the ultimate boss yet.
Nevertheless, kudos to the artists who made the CGs for the game, kudos to the voice actresses, and kudos to the designers for this refreshing take on the hentai game.

Ho boy.... it's been literally a decade and a half since I last played AdventureQuest, and boy I was surprised to see, that Artix Entertainment is not only still a thing, but is bigger than ever.
Not only is AdventureQuest 3D a worthy sequel of the original (which is still being supported and updated by the way), but boy, is it amazing. I normally don't like MMORPGs, but AdventureQuest 3D somehow manages to be enjoyable to me.

The title is not a lie - it is AdventureQuest, but in 3D (and in multiplayer form). If you haven't played the original, well, first of all, you missed out on a lot, but second of all, this is a kind of RPG that doesn't take itself seriously: it's full of meta jokes, lame puns, memes, etc. While other games desperately try to be serious and be taken seriously, AdventureQuest (3D) decides to embrace the camp and narm, and wallow in the memetics.

Does the gameplay leave things to be desired? Sure, it's a grind-heavy game, just like any MMORPG, but I don't think I have any right about that after having played it for just 5 hours. Being an MMORPG, the most satisfying moment is beating a dungeon with your friends, or even making new friends while exploring dungeons, especially if all of you are on a quest to slay a certain amount of certain types of monsters, helping each other out.

Whether you played any other Artix games back in the day or not, I thuroughly recommend AdventureQuest 3D. It's a refreshing take on the MMORPG genre.

I played this game a lot in my childhood years, and when I revisit it as an adult in 2022, I have to say: this game aged like fine wine. There is no other way to describe it. The graphics hold up quite well even 23 years after its release, the gameplay is stellar, the soundtrack is full of bangers, and the fact that it was produced by my people (made in Hungary) is just the icing on the cake. Yes, I am biased, and I'm not ashamed of it: this is one of my all-time favourite games, and I can only recommend it to everyone.

I wrote a longer review here: https://read.cash/@Metalhead33/imperium-galactica-ii-alliances-35738a7c

I'll be honest and say, that this game is nearly unplayable.
I followed all the guides against the texture glitches and whatnot, but the game still refuses to render many parts of the terrain. Music being nonfunctional by default is just the cherry on top.

A highly polished successor to the second installment, it trumps the predecessor in almost every aspect, except for content - which would be an unfair comparison, given how the predecessor had nearly a decade of development of DLCs behind it.
Give it a few years and a couple of DLCs, and CK3 will be superior to CK2 in every way.
Otherwise, it is much easier to mod than CK2, which is also a big bonus.