Recent reviews by punchobastardo

In this day and age where reviews are not really reviews, I'll just say for the moment that this is the greatest single-player sAlrpg ever made, with great "survival & crafting" elements that are fully unfolded, utilized and enjoyed on 'serious' difficulty.

s = skill-based
A = ACTION
l = light
rpg = role playing game

What to say about Doom: Darksiders 2... It's not that it simply is not "Doom" at all, the way it is designed is simply a painful atrocity. I waited for a sale to try it out (got it for 8 gold) to... basically confirm what others were saying about an autistic way of playing a shooter with a very bad disconnected flow, i.e. excessive -to the point of ridiculousness sometimes- wall climbing & platforming/flying like Superman and forced chaotical combat designed strictly around glory-kills, chainsaw "ammo refills" and a spray for "armor refill" in-between. I don't think I've ever been so annoyed by a game in my 40+ years of gaming life (~120 FPS in my Steam library alone, old UT/Q3 competitive player) to the point of thinking about deleting it from my library in the first couple of hours.

If you try to play the game more conventionally/traditionally (like I did) be prepared for mental and physical pain until you reach ~half of the game in some 5-6 hours (Ultra Violence difficulty), while getting a limited amount of upgrades that make more sense in getting ammo, like reappearing explosive barrels. That is if you haven't given up already despite numerous attempts to give the game another chance. (Many call the latter "mazochism"). I'm not even sure if it can be completed without those coercions, I had to give up on not using them from some point on to not lose my... sanity.

The 2nd half flows a bit better -though you can't avoid Half-Life's "Xen platforming here we go again"- but it doesn't last much, the game feels slightly rushed in the last levels. The graphics are shiny as expected and there's some nice conceptual art, but the majority of levels reminds of early '00 levels made by modders, trying to look cool but not being really substantial. Had to turn down/off the music as well as it was rather disturbing listening to same monotonous "hardcore" tunes while monkey-jumping.

Celtic Frost in 2D

pure ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ metal beauty

Pro-Epic Embracer Group acquired Zen Studios "officially" in 2020 and is running it under Saber Interactive, a thing only natural to happen after Zen having already taken for one more time and with great pleasure Timmy's chinese bucket of dosh prior to that, refactoring existing tables behind closed curtains for more than a year to make them exclusive to the Fortnite Launcher, leaving everyone in the dark and not fullfilling their obligation to the Williams/Bally -and not only- pinball fans who believed their words about bringing new tables every 2 months when they first acquired the W/B license, and invested money in FX3, only to be presented with petty 3 tables in a 2 years timespan, and to be charged again for the same tables in Timmy's Crap Store where only 7% of freebies collectors spend money on (according to Timmy vs. Apple court documents, where he lost in 9/10 points and will probably lose the last one too), and additionally being forced to use Timmy's Online Spyware now (and from 2023 on Steam) of retrieving all your Steam/PC Data without permission -or with your permission by clicking some new EULA- and doing whatever they please with them in the future.

Unfortunately for those that didn't have the chance to get all the W/B tables available in Pinball Arcade in the past (around 70), this company is currently holding the Williams/Bally license hostage by releasing only stuff that makes visual and thematical sense to the teeny/Fartnight crowd (see reactions to the 3 older tables of the late '80s/early '90s about that), and to their pockets of course. So called "pro-physics" are wildly overrated, probably because of paid streamers, a common practice in the industry as the twitch hack has shown, you can't do basic flipper tricks like you can in real machines, so you 'd better stay with Pinball Arcade or with an alternative like VPX.

Apart from longstanding bugs never fixed, a kiddy UI, lack of proper cabinet support and tweaking, broken servers, scores from cheaters on leaderboards never removed, dozens of recurring complaints about all the above being addressed with the usual fake-happy, empty, suit-PR talk ("we hear you -forwarded to the devs" -for the 150th time already-) and broken promises/logical-sense support like the physics update to Volumes 1-3 marble physics people have been waiting years for and which never came, -instead you will probably get it if you buy it again with the Fortnite Launcher- the rest of their "original tables" is uninspired, mediocre video pinball with shallow/amateurish table design, poor table feedback and audio production/acting performance, and an empty-shell ball without weight with or without some power gimmicks. Some licensed tables seem to be better, but not enough if you remove all the shiny paint and if you are not a hardcore fan of the particular franchises.

Better spend your dosh and support to studios with more dignity and self-respect like Magic Pixel with Zaccaria, not to those blatantly colour-of-money-orientated sell-outs like this one.

So there you have it, the appropriate review for the end of the year and hoping for better pinball days next year with other studios and the real pinball community, not some cheerleaders hanging out in their discord.

Uses 3rd-party online spyware.

The best of its kind so far. Many different characters each with its distinctive gameplay, perfect gunplay, lots of secrets to explore.

/edit 2021: The best got even better with 60fps now :vlambeerYV:

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