Recent reviews by NX

Well, well, well, what do we have here?

After several duds over and over, PGG has somehow managed to actually craft something worth experiencing a few times over and over. It's not perfect; Most of the DLC cars just don't make sense for this map style (the majority are meant for Cross Country, yet there is no CC-styled gamemode on the map), pacenotes don't really add much when the minimap exists, and it is also quite buggy at times (no crashes here, but noticed FPS dips in areas where sand is present).

But credit must be given where it is due; the map. The biggest problem I felt with the base map was that it felt stale very quickly, much of it due to its road layout which immediately meant that it was a powerbuild-fiesta (with the exception of some tracks) to the point where even S2 racing felt slow. The Hot Wheels map design exacerbated this, basically being a powerbuild-map. Sierra Nueva is arguably one of the better map designs in a while; Lots of twisty, flowy bits that is sorely lacking in the main map, and it's also not ridiculously wide.

The map is designed as such to the point where it actually makes the slower classes (especially B-class) much more engaging. And while the word "Rally" is in the name, it's really the road tracks that stand out, in the sense that they're unlike whatever we've got in the base game, and it's a real breath of fresh air. The only thing is that the tight, twisting nature of the map means that S1/S2 cars will feel like they're way too fast for this map design, but I don't mind; slower class racing is where it's at.

While criticism towards PGG is (usually) justified, the only bit of critique I can justify towards this expansion is the abysmal DLC car selection. Everything else (sans bugs) is, unexpectedly good...and I can't believe I'm saying this either.

Long story short, it's Forza Horizon. If you've played Horizon 3 and 4, then you'll know exactly what to expect. That means a well-crafted open-world with a vast car roster (that will get bigger like in H4) and plenty of things to do. It's a typical Horizon recipe that has led to success with the last two games and it's not difficult to see that it will do the same for Horizon 5.

So why the thumbs-down? It's because as potentially great the game is, it's marred by a fair number of significant issues that should be patched in the months to come. These include;

- LODs not working as they should on settings below Extreme. Even on Ultra, even textures a few feet in front of you load an extremely low, almost-PS1-like texture.
- MSAA seemingly not doing much even when set to 8x.
- Constant disconnects from Horizon Life.
- Some jarring effects like your car suddenly coming to a halt and traffic/player cars disappearing suddenly due to the constant reconnecting with Horizon Life.
- Some significant bugs including some Accolades being unachievable.

I've not experienced any crashing so far, but I've seen reports of some people being unfortunate to experience them.

Overall, good game, but definitely not worth the money especially for the top-specced Premium version as of right now. Once many of these issues are sorted, then I can comfortably recommend it. Until then, it's best to get it on Game Pass first to see how it feels for you.

SPOILERS BELOW. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

Don't let the short playtime (as of the time of writing) fool you. I've only recently got this game on PC but I've played quite a bit on the consoles. The same applies to both as it pertains to what I'm talking about, but I'll add on the PC-specific parts later.

Call of Duty hasn't quite won me over the same way as they did before Black Ops. They weren't outright terrible, just quite "meh" and seems to veer more on the side of mindless action over much of anything else, which seems to help in terms of sales. However, many in the community held WaW's predecessor, CoD 4: Modern Warfare in high-regard due to it being pretty much the foundation of where future CoDs would iterate from. However, as good as CoD 4 was, World at War stands above the rest in that it is not only my personal favorite CoD game but I'll also errr on the side of controversy and claim that WaW is the best Call of Duty game ever made.

The main reason this is so is due to the overall theme and mood of the game. Even the much newer CoD: WW2 doesn't come close. There is no patriotic marching band-esque song nor is there an overwhelming urge to fight for one's country. Instead, there is dark-depressing music about death, a subdued color palette and graphic depictions of torture and suffering that is likely at the very limit what's acceptable under the ESRB's "M" rating alongside actual archived footage from the actual Second World War itself. World at War does not seem to hold back in its graphic depiction on the horrors of war. From watching your partner getting slit in the throat by the enemy, to watching your fallen comrades being mercilessly shot by Nazis in a fountain and seeing heavy mutilation caused by explosives. it nails the theming on the horrors of war perfectly, in the sense that it doesn't attempt to sugarcoat much of what you're seeing and puts the full view of the dark truth of war up on display. Compared to most other war-themed FPS games, this one particularly strikes as one that's extremely chilling, notably in the flamethrower mission, where you see your enemies that are set ablaze running out screaming in agony and terror. I doubt we'll see such graphic depictions of war in future games moving forward.

Compared to the console versions, the PC version seems to have aged decently, with the game looking pretty decent especially running at 3840x2160 although the engine is showing its age thanks to a hard-FPS lock of an odd 91FPS. The PC version also has modding support, especially for the ever popular zombies mode. Given that it goes on sale often at cheap prices, this is an easy recommendation from me. Just be warned that this is probably going to be the darkest FPS game you've ever played.

2 years ago, I had reviewed this game and wasn't all that impressed. While it was fun and there were upsides, there were also a few too many downsides for me to really consider it a recommendation, especially at launch. 2 years later, whilst many of those downsides remained, I think just enough has changed for me to turn the thumbs down into a bit of a thumbs up.

To be clear, there are still downsides to this game that you should be aware of. The narrative is hugely cringey with the enormous focus on social media, followers, "LOOK AT ME" millennial-type trends and such. The 60FPS hardlock is still in place and despite running this game on very powerful hardware (a Ryzen 7 3700X and a GeForce RTX 2070 Super), pop-in can still be an issue. And if you are used to Forza Horizon's "throwing money at you" form of progression, The Crew 2's GT4-like grinding to earn enough to get cars may sour you, especially since this game also has micro-transactions.

However, a number of the core downsides were addressed in the numerous updates this game has received over the years. The handling has improved over launch, which makes it easier for me (a seasoned Forza player) to hop into this game without needing a significant adjustment time, more races were added (including more long-distance sprint races for street racing), The Summit and more customization vanity items were added on-top of the already quite-deep visual customization system already available in the base game.

To be clear, I still think Forza Horizon 4 is the superior racer. It looks and runs better, feels better to drive and race in, has a much larger car roster and seems to know that it doesn't need a cringey narrative to stay relevant. However, after 2 years, I got back into this game and despite the downsides, I do actually think it has improved just enough for me to say "Give it a try", especially since it does go on sale at regular intervals.

Take-Two, I really hope you're going to do something to ease the raging inferno that's going on throughout the GTA modding community.

I love the game, but I currently can't recommend it until some form of solution can be made so that modders can still freely mod the single player portion as they wish while allowing the multiplayer portion to run with fewer risks of running into cheaters.

Here's the headline: BUY THIS! Especially if you're an aviation enthusiast and/or have a disc copy of FSX and are running Windows 7 or newer.

FSX has been my favorite flight sim for some time. I purchased the Gold Edition a few years ago and I enjoyed it. Unfortunately, FSX is nearly a decade old at this point and it hasn't been supported for years. Naturally, this meant than when I loaded it on my nice, shiny new Windows 8.1 machine with a powerful CPU and graphics chip, it ran poorly and in worse cases, caused it to bluescreen.

I was initially skeptical of purchasing another copy of a game I already own but since it was on sale for $5, I figured "Why not" and bought it. Did not regret it simply because of how much the game is an improvement over the retail version performance-wise. This game takes much, MUCH better advantage of the power of a modern midrange-high-end graphics card from a GTX 960/R9 270X to a GTX Titan X/R9 295X2. Furthermore, it natively supports Windows 7 and above, meaning that there will be no unpleasant effects playing the game on a machine running that or Windows 8.1.

Of course, FSX is not FSX without its planes. The default plane list is pretty okay-ish. Some airliners, fighters and whatnot. But where FSX truly shines is its unparalleled support for third-party content, both free and paid. The FSX modding community is one of the largest and most active ones out there and you can easily find your favorite plane and either get it or buy it. Free planes are decent and some are actually pretty good but if you want the true experience, payware planes are the way to go, offering outstanding realism both in terms of visuals and physics. Oh, and did I mention that FSX has graphics mods that turn it from a 2006 game to one released in 2012?

Another important thing that has been added is online support. This is a HUGE plus, since my retail version did not have online after GameSpy shut down. Simply put, it's fun as heck to mess around with other pilots or impress them with landing skills and aerobatic moves.

All-in-all, I highly recommend this game to anyone who loves planes in general and/or is a seasoned veteran pilot, either in real-life or in FSX. Online support is a big plus and it's still compatible with the hundreds of thousands of planes made by talented people. For the best possible experience , invest in a joystick and some payware planes of your choice. Or if you really wanna go nuts, build an actual cockpit. :P

Planes that I usually fly in FSX are the Boeing 747-8i in Boeing Sunrise Livery, Boeing 777-300ER in Japan Airlines/Cathay Pacific livery, Boeing 777-9X in Boeing livery, Boeing 757-200 in AA livery, and a McDonnell Douglas/Boeing MD-11F in FedEx livery. Yes, I'm a huge Boeing fan, but I love each and every plane out there.

Adds some humor to a serious game.

I loved Demolition Derby back in GRID 1 as a way to kill time or to vent my anger when I lost a race. It was extremely fun.

Loved how they brought it back and made it Mann-ified with TF2 goodness.

As a free DLC, this is pretty good and anyone who has the base game MUST download this. It costs nothing, aside from hard drive space and adds some more fun into this racer.

Although a decent sandbox by nature, APB Reloaded has not been updated in months and is now pretty much a hacker-infested mess.

Aside from being infested with hackers, this game is also pretty buggy, and does have some pretty long load times.

However, the main issue are the hackers. Stay away from this game unless you want to ruin your day, even though it's free.

If you have a passion of making videos from Valve games and uploading them to YouTube, SFM is your pick. While it's not as hilarious as GMod, it's worth a look and while it may seem complicated at first, it's pretty simple once you get the hang of it. Plus, it's free!

Note: You need a half-decent PC to run it. Running a video-editing suite that's running on a game engine requires a pretty good GPU. If you have a GTX 650 or Radeon HD 7870 or above, you should be fine. Anything lower can run it, but it won't look as pretty.

If you have some cash and if you're looking for a good zombie game, put this game on your list. It's fun, gory and sometimes, hilarious.

And playing with your friends makes the experience even better. Add in mods and fantastic community-created content and what you have here is a game that redefines a zombie apocalypse.