Recent reviews by justAEA

Don't believe the hate!

The amount of hate this game's been getting since its reveal as a live service game is absolutely insane. I understand where the initial hate came from, I was very disappointed to see a live service game from Rocksteady too, but 10 months after release, people are still talking about this game like it's the worst thing ever made by a human. Funny thing is, most poeple who talk about this game are people who haven't even played the game. They're just bandwagoning. A lot of youtubers made bank thanks to these people blindly consuming all the hate content they can find about this game. There are people out there who have such sad lives, they keep track of how many players this game is losing daily. Pathetic..

Ok, enough of that. Let's talk about the actual game now. Is it really the worst thing ever made by a human? No, not even close. In fact it is not even a bad game. I honestly think this is a good game. It's not a misunderstood masterpiece or anything, it's not great, but it is good. First thing you notice when you start the game is the visuals. They look gorgeous. Character models and facial animations especially look great. Story is very interesting and fun. I really liked playing as the bad guys, and trying to kill the Justice League. The idea of these regular people (except King Shark) taking out the Justice League is ridiculous, and the game knows this, so it leads to some hilarious moments. The characters have really funny reactions to certain things and the banter between them is very funny. Writers were clearly inspired by James Gunn whom I like a lot. Voice acting being great really helps too. All the main characters do a great job but I especially have to mention Kevin Conroy as Batman. Hearing him as an evil Batman was so much fun and it's clear that he had a lot of fun voicing this version of the character. May he rest in peace.

Last, but definitely not least, the gameplay. It is excellent. There are 4 characters excluding the dlc, and they all have a unique movement system that has surprising amount of depth. I almost exclusively played as Deadshot, and flying around in a jetpack over Metropolis never got boring. Combat is also really good. Admittedly, the enemy variety is almost non-existent, but I was having so much fun combining my movement and combat abilities to cause mayhem, it took me a good 25 hours till I started feeling the repetitiveness. Speaking of mayhem, the combat gets absolutely crazy at times. In some missions towards the end, there will be so many enemies all around the place, and you'll need to try to kill them as quickly as you can while also trying to complete your objectives and making sure you're constantly moving and managing your shield. It is an adrenaline rush that reminded me of Doom Eternal, which is probably the highest praise I can give to a game.

In conclusion, I really think this game is worth a try especially if you were discouraged by the negative reviews. It is currently 95% off, while some exceptional individuals may argue 'NoT eVeN iF iT wAs FrEe', it's a no-brainer at this price and I highly recommend checking it out. I also recommend starting as Deadshot, he has the most straightforward movement system and is perfect to learn the game. Thanks for reading my review and have fun!

This is getting out of hand. Now, there are 5 of them!

“Pure Love in Kamurocho” is the best piece of music I’ve ever heard in my entire life. I listened to Akiyama and Hana’s duet of it dozens of times. Game is fine too, I guess.

Tossing Gimli simulator (don't tell the elf)

Reject humanity, return to monke

This is a very special game for me. When they announced this game, I've had never played a Monkey Island game before, but I was very interested because I thought 'if they're making a sequel after all these years, this franchise must be something special.' Kinda like Twin Peaks actually. I was introduced to Twin Peaks with the announcement of its third season, 25 years after the original show. I watched the first two season before the third one came out, and I'm a massive Twin Peaks fan today. I'm happy to say the same thing happened with Monkey Island!

I played the first three games (Secret, Revenge and Curse) in preparation for Return, and I absolutely loved all of them. I think they're all very funny games with really good writing. I love the setting, the characters, the music and the most important of all: the vibe. I have no idea how to explain this but I love the vibe these games give. It just works for me.

Ok, so what about Return to Monke specifically? Is it any good? Well, yes. Absolutely yes! As someone who has no nostalgia for this series, I found this game to be a nice continuation of the first three games. Storywise, they continue from the ending of the second game while also acknowledging the existence of the rest of the series. Because of this, I'd say first two games are essential to play before this one to fully understand what's going on and I recommend Curse of the Monkey Island as well, as a bonus. Gameplay is what you'd expect from a modern point and click game. It's pretty streamlined in a good way. You left clict to comment on things and right click to interact with them. You move pretty fast and can double click to move even faster. There is also a very useful hint system. Music and voice acting are excellent just like the rest of the series. Art style received a lot of backlash when the game was first announced and I gotta say, I really don't understand why. First two games had pixel art, Curse looked like a Disney cartoon, Escape and Tales were in 3D and the Special Editions of the first two games had very stylised hand-drawn art. So this series always changed its look from game to game. I think Return looks absoutely gorgeous and the art style really fits the story and the tone of the game.

Without spoilers I want to touch on the ending as well. It's a very controversial ending and a lot of people are disappointed by it. On paper, I should be disappointed too. Like, if someone told me the ending before I played the game I'd go: 'That's it?', but actually playing the game and reaching that ending, it worked for me. I felt all kinds of things and I was satisfied. But remember, I'm a newcomer to this series. Obviously expectations of the fans who have been playing these games for decades are going to be very different.

In conclusion, I love this game. I love this franchise. In fact, I want to play Escape and Tales one day even though I didn't hear very good things about them. This is and will be a very special game for me for introducing me to this amazing franchise and I highly recommend it!

I've never been addicted to a game this fast. It makes me wish I didn't have a job or any responsibilities so I could play it 24/7.

This is a very beautiful game. I really liked the visuals, and found the cultural insight very interesting. Unfortunately the gameplay and controls are terrible. Specially the last third of the game is just not fun. What is even less fun is the Foxtales dlc. I recommend watching the documentary on youtube, and not bothering with the game.

This is a horrible dlc. It's basically a 2-hour-long cutscene with horrible storytelling and equally horrible gameplay. Majority of the dlc consists of cutscenes. The parts of the dlc you actually play are some of the worst Metro gameplay I've ever seen. This dlc has none of the things that made the main game fun. No exploration, no customising weapons, no stealth, no nothing. You move through some dark tunnels and fire at enemies with your flamethrower, and that's the entirety of the gameplay. Except for a tiny section where you use normal guns, you are limited to a gigantic flamethrower that covers half of your vision and pretty much blinds you when you fire it. The story wasn't all that good in the main game either, but it had some genuine character moments and it made you care for them. I didn't care about the characters in this dlc one bit. Also the character you play as dies in the most stupid was possible. Yeah, I know I'm about to die from radiation poisoning but let me look at this map instead of injecting the anti-rad, what could possibly go wrong? And then Miller finds his dead body and gives a horribly written monologue (it's not like you are in a heavily radiated area, just keep talking to a dead guy, what could possibly go wrong?)

I congratulate you 4A, you made a dlc so bad, I felt like I had to review it. On the bright side, it was only 2 hours!

I must say I'm impressed. It takes a special kind of talent to remaster a 10 year old game and make it worse in every way. Let's start with the most obvious one, performance. I can play Metro Exodus on high settings with a stable 60 fps but I cannot do it in this game. No matter what settings I choose, game constantly stutters and has fps drops. Even at times when it says it's running at 60 fps, it feels so sluggish. Don't even get me started on co-op, it's downright unplayable. In short, the performance is terrible, while the game doesn't look any different from 10 years ago.

So, what else did they f*ck up? Well, pretty much every change is for the worse. For example, the menus. When you are scrolling down in the menus, instead of stopping once you reach the bottom, they go back to the top. Meaning, you'll have to slowly and carefully navigate the menus if you don't want to waste time. The fact that they managed to break something as simple as this is all the evidence you need to know that this is just a cash grab to capitalise on the hype for Borderlands 3, but wait, there's more! They added a Borderlands 2 style minimap to the game, a change I was really excited for, but don't worry, they managed to f*ck that up too. Every time the minimap rotates it stutters and the arrow that shows your location constantly blinks for some reason, making the minimap distracting as well as annoying. Also, the game constantly puts a custom waypoint to the minimap, so you'll always have two waypoints on your minimap. Even if you disable the waypoint, it comes back pretty much instantly.

First Bioshock, and now this. Leave it to 2k to take beloved games, bastardize them and sell us back. To be fair, if you own the original game you get the remaster for free but just because it's free, doesn't mean we shouldn't complain about it. You can't serve me free poop and expect me to thank you. Also keep in mind the original game is no longer available for purchase, so you are forced to buy this inferior version which is also more expensive. In short, this is a no-effort cash grab intended to capitalise on the hype for Borderlands 3. It's worse than the original game in every way except it has an fov slider.

Let's get this out of the way: Removing the game from Steam two weeks before launch and making it an Epic exclusive was a stupid, greedy and anti-consumer decision. Shame on you Deep Silver for doing that. Many people will not be able to enjoy this fantastic game because of you. Now, on to the review.

I love the Metro series. Metro 2033 is one of my favorite games ever. Despite its overall roughness, it has an atmosphere unlike any other game, and a fantastic story. Last Light is in many ways a better game than 2033. It has improved gunplay and stealth, and is a much more polished game. I wasn't a fan of the story and the characters (Khan is a completely different character, Anna is handled very poorly), but it is still a great game. I've played both of these games and their Redux versions multiple times, so I guess you can say I was looking forward to Exodus, and I'm happy to say, I'm not disappointed.

Story takes place one year after Last Light and it is a sequel to the last book, Metro 2035. For reasons I won't spoil, Artyom and his wife, Anna, together with some friends, go on a journey across post-apocalyptic Russia on a train. Despite some problems, the story is overall good, but I think the real highlight of the game is the characters. I genuinely cared for all of them, I laughed and cried with them, and I did everything I can to make sure all of them made it alive to the end. There is an insane amount of optional dialogue you can listen to that helps you understand the motivations of the characters, and I applaud 4A Games for their effort.

During this journey you come across mini open world levels themed after different seasons. I say 'mini open world', but that's not a bad thing. Despite spending a lot of time on the surface, it is still a linear game, but you are given the option to explore if you want. Rest assured, you won't find mindless side missions or collectibles in this game like you would in a Ubisoft game. It is still Metro. Especially that final mission. It's one of my favorite missions in the entire Metro franchise. Level design is great and the game looks gorgeous, which makes the exploration that much more fun. Not to mention, you'll find new weapon parts, ammo and crafting materials by exploring, so it is definitely encouraged. Speaking of crafting materials, let's talk about the crafting system. This game doesn't have the trade system from the previous games, instead you craft your own equipment by finding materials. You can craft medkits, filters for your gasmask, or even ammo. You also need to regularly clean your weapons, because if they get too dirty they can jam, and trust me you don't want that during combat. To clean your weapons, you need to find a workbench, but most of the crafting and weapon customization can be done on the fly. Customizing your weapons is so much fun. Just came out of a bandit camp but now you have to deal with far away mutants? You can turn your silenced revolver into a sniper rifle by slapping a long barrel, a sniper stock and a 4x scope on that bad boy.

Now, let's talk about some problems. For me, the biggest problem in Metro Exodus is how clunky the movement feels. You get stuck on everyting, and climbing objects is very frustrating. Sometimes the object you are trying to climb pushes you back, and you need to repeatedly try the same climb until it finally plays the climbing animation. Another one is the hit detection on your guns. Sometimes, your bullets don't connect to enemies, like a Treyarch game. You can aim perfectly, with a fully clean gun, and the bullet will go to a random direction. This may sound like a small problem, but it can cause you to get detected during a stealth section, so it is a big problem. I once lost 10 minutes of progress on a stealth section, because my gun fired to a random object instead of the enemy in front of me, and he turned and one-shotted me on Ranger difficulty.

Another big problem is the voice acting. Metro games always had bad voice acting but Exodus easily has the worst. What's even worse is, characters talk over each other. For example A and B are speaking. A is asking B a question, but B starts answering the question before A has finished asking it, so there are a few seconds in which they talk at the same time, and this happens more often then you think. Turning on the subtitles helps a little, but it is still annoying. Also, the game has many bugs and glitches, ranging from funny graphical errors to your save file getting deleted. Thankfully, 4A has patched a lot of these, but they definitely have more work to do. The final big problem is the options menu, or the lack of one. You have almost no options to customise. Can't turn off anti-aliasing or shadows, also DX12 causes many people's games to crash. There is no FOV slider, instead you have to config files to change it. Come on guys, it's 2019, please put a little more effort on your options menu.

Metro Exodus is not a flawless game, but then again, no game is. I played this game for 44 hours in 4 days. I literally took a break from life and played Metro Exodus. If you are a Metro fan, play Exodus. The open world aspect of the game doesn't take away from the atmosphere. If you haven't played a Metro game before, and want to start with Exodus, you can definitely do that, I don't think you'd be confused, also the characters are mostly new. Though you should play 2033 and Last Light, I mean come on! I'd say Exodus is better than Last Light but not as good as 2033, but all three of them are must-plays!