Recent reviews by gally

I enjoyed the writing, and the mysterious almost mystical / quasi-religious tone. The character designs are abstract and fun, I'm partial to the Ipod nano dudes myself. Overall I'd give it 4 out of 5 flipped levers, maybe almost too much text to read for A.D.D. brains like myself, but most is optional.

I bought this game in the Orange Box along with Half-Life 2 and Portal 2 from a Best Buy in 2008. It quickly became my main game. I adore everything about this game. The characters are wacky. The gameplay is fun and deep. The community is great. Lime green scoots, offensive furry porn sprays, dancing like idiots in spawn while the rest of the team gets demolished. The experience of Team Fortress 2 can't ever be compared to anything else. I've met many internet friends through this game who even over a decade later I still regularly talk to. At one point my phone ringtone was the TF2 theme song. I ADORED everything about TF2, and everything surrounding it. It's a surprisingly deep shooter which doesn't take itself too seriously.

I stopped playing the game regularly in 2018. Around that time, the bot infestation was just starting. By a year later, it was noticeable but easily contained. In the years since it's gotten so bad that the game might as well be unplayable. I remember the days when a player with 1,300 hours of Spy and a strange knife with 17,000 kills is what made me rage. These days I don't even get to rage at a real person who just displayed such skill, accuracy and experience as he expertly danced around my entire team, planting his thick metal shaft straight into our backsides. It's all just bots. No more fun experiences. Just bots. Endless waves of bots in a game that has lost all of its charm and soul to a corporation who only cares about the bottom line the product produces.

It pains me to leave a negative review, but don't play this game. Don't spend a dime on the shop. Don't engage with TF2 at all until Valve, as they promised two years ago, will #fixtf2.

For the last 4 days I have thought about nothing but this game. I have come to a conclusion; I really wani hug the gator.

Can't knock it. For $2 you get about 2 hours of "gameplay". Just set the character speed to 40 and hit play. It's like an anime, but with less artwork and animation. I say it was $2, but when you factor in the value of the cards I got, it comes out to 83 cents. This is a game where, if you get lucky and get a rare card, you can actually profit.

Storywise, it's a vanilla love story. Nothing really exciting happens and literally 3 of the characters are actually ever shown.

And no, there is no 18+ patch or anything like that.

Short Version - If you enjoy the satisfaction of figuring out a mechanical issue or taking a junker and making it new, this could be the game for you. This is a game you need to want to play. It is very tedious and grind heavy. The end game is where the fun actually starts.

Long Version - As I'm sure you've heard, this game got off to a rocky start. Many bugs and issues, some which still persist. Honestly it should have been called an open Alpha or whatever. Even so, the devs have been constantly releasing updates to fix bugs and add new content. I won't say they purposefully released an unfinished, buggy mess but they have been working hard to fix it.


Essentially, the gameplay can be boiled down to this - you recieve a car and it has some issue. The order might have a list of parts you need to replace, or it might be vague and you'll have to figure it out. It's not hard to find the issue, just look for anything that looks rusted and repair or replace the parts. To restore a junker to pristine condition, you basically have to take the entire car apart, repair what you can and replace all the missing parts.

Honestly, it's not very in-depth. It's incredibly simplified compared to actual wrenching, so much so that I still don't think it should be called a simulator but then again if it was realistic everything would take so much time and effort that nobody would want to play it. So for a game, I think they did alright. Even just some more animations that make it feel like actual wrenching is happening instead of the parts just vanishing would help the immersion factor.

Many cars share generic parts. I can understand if some cars of the same make shared parts but the V8 OHV engine is in at least 4 different makes. But implementing make-specific parts would slow down gameplay more than it already is and make it even more tedious. On the flip side, that would enhance the immersion factor but would also make the game more niche. So again I can see why the devs made it this way.

Once you take a few cars apart, you'll see that pretty much every car in the game is the same and you'll be able to take a fully assembled car apart in under 10 mins. Fully restoring a car might take an hour total if you don't have all the parts you need in stock.

It's basically take part off, put new part back on. Over and over and over...which is also what actual mechanics do.


I'd say the game is pretty good in both ways. I didn't expect Gran Turismo level of realism but it looks good and sounds good. The music is nice until the 3rd hour of listening to it then you're better off muting it and just turning on a Youtube playlist or something. It's a great game to play while listening to podcasts.


This game chugs along at about 45fps for me, dropping down to 25 or less if I look at too many cars in the garage at once. This is slightly annoying but not too bad since it doesn't really matter in this game. I however wish there were more graphics options for me to change, as of now it's very limited. That bloom is blindingly bright at times, like I've never seen an engine block with a mirror finish. On higher end PC's this might not be an issue. You can see my build here [pcpartpicker.com] and compare it to your own.


This is a game that you have to want to play. If you aren't into this kind of game then do not get it. If you are, then it's a great thing and fun for the first few hours until you realise how intense and mind-numbing the grind will be to get the good perks that make the game actually fun. I'd say wait for a sale as I did, but the DLC's don't really add much value unless you like rotary Mazdas. Otherwise the base game is just fine.

So even after all of that critisism you might want to leave a comment asking me why I still recommend this game. Well because for what it is, and what it wants to do, it's actually quite good. There are very few other games like this, My Summer Car being the only game with remotely similar gameplay that comes to mind.

Like every GTA game, it has fantastic single player. The story is fun and in depth. Control wise, I won't call it realistic but driving is certainly fun, if limited to low top speeds. Gunplay works as you expect GTA should. Graphics are great even on medium settings. The world is varied with many places to go and see. The multiplayer is just a grindfest for money. I do not endorse hacking but if a hacker comes into your multiplayer lobby and drops you a dozen million or so, that's a huge help. They just saved you many hours of grinding out dumb as ♥♥♥♥ missions.

The multiplayer is also strife with micro transactions.

Now even with that review, I would still give this game a thumbs up because of the excellent, amazing single player campaign and fun lobby games you can do with friends without needing money. But a recent development has changed my mind.

Take Two interactive, the publishers of GTAV, have recently sent a Cease and Desist letter to OpenIV. OpenIV is a free piece of software that is essentially THE tool for modders. Take Two did this right in the midst of E3, which I will give them credit was a smart move because all the rest of the gaming press is covering that (or whining about it). I suspect they are doing this because modding the singleplayer means more people playing singleplayer over multi, and thus not spending money on their dumb micro transactions. It's pretty blantant what their objective is.

If you care about GTAV, GTAV mods or modding in general, you will leave a like minded review, sign the "Save OpenIV" change.org petition and send your complaints directly to Take Two. Remember when Steam and Bethesda tried to monetize modding? That's what needs to happen here.

Wolfenstein: The New Order puts you in the shoes of an American commando 14 years after the Nazis win WW2 and take over the globe. Your task is to find and kill DeathsHead and every Nazi you see.


This game shares the same complaints I had about Old Blood: it's short. Only 8 hours for the story. However those hours are pretty damn good. Each level doesn't feel as linear as it actually is as there is often more than one way to progress, and the designs feel varied and unique to each area of the game. The world has lots of lore to it but it's really only explained through newspaper articles you find laying around. The characters you play along side of seem to have lots of personality but they are given only small amounts of time to be developed. Pleasingly, Nazi iconography is not censored which to me enhances the immersion. The characters are just as evil as you'd expect a group of mad Nazi scientists to be. There are moments of brutal gore and general wickedness shown by them.

In combat, the AI are what I'd call decent. Only a few times did I see them acting stupidly, though one reoccuring instance was that they'd round a corner just to get gunned down, then another would follow suit. However, I died several times to enemies who showed half a brain and actually flanked me through those alternate routes I talked about. They tend to use cover well unless they are a heavy class in which they'd just continuously walk twards me. The variation of enemies is pretty good too, as units from different areas have different uniforms. Twards the end it felt a bit repetitive and I ended up just killing who was directly in my way and running through the level.

For me combat felt good. The ironsights seemed to be on target and the guns felt useful. The common grunt wasn't a bullet sponge but wasn't a pushover either. Tougher enemies required heavier weapons to beat. Switching weapons was a bit of a pain in tight spots as you needed to scroll wheel though a weapon wheel then click to get out another gun, I'd have liked to see the ability to assign weapons to custom number bar keys.

There are many collectables in the world such as gold items, records for music, heath upgrades and Enigma code parts. I doubt I collected them all on a blind playthrough but I got most of them. Weapons mods are another thing you'll find and they amp up you weapons with unique abilities. Most were useful.

The story, short as it was, felt decently compelling. However my biggest critisism of the story is that it used cutscenes to jump ahead large amounts of time. That made the story seem patched together.

Speaking of cutscenes, they are all in 30fps while the game runs flawlessly in 60fps. That caused a mild amount of eye strain for me.


I wouldn't call this game eye candy but at the same time it's not bottom teir either. On Ultra settings my mid level machine ran it at a solid 60fps and I only saw a handful of times when it wasn't running perfectly. However I noticed some mild texture pop in if I turned the character around too fast. At first it was distracting but I eventually stopped noticing it. The actual graphics options are basic.


This might be silly of me but I'm glad a lot of the speaking is in German. Machinegames could have gone down the easy route and just had them all speak English with a German accent but they did the proper thing. Of course the Aryan master race would speak in superior German, ya? The game has many records to collect which include delightful music. The guns sound good if not muffled a bit. Another sound problem I noticed is that voices would often be muffled by other sounds so I couldn't understand what they were saying.


Overall, I feel as though this game, while short, is very well made. It's optimized well and feels like it was a game that was made by a studio that has love for the game instead of just creating a product to sell. This game gets a recommendation from me with one caveat - get it and Old Blood when they are on sale. I don't think this game is worth the $19.99 full price tag unless you are really into alternate versions of history.

Disclaimer - This review is only for the story mode.


This game takes place in the late 1946' in Germany as the Nazi's are winning WWII. You play as B.J. Blazkowicz who is a special agent tasked with penetrating Castle Wolfenstein and stealing a highly secretive folder which contains the location of Oberst-Gruppenführer Wilhelm "Deathshead" Strass from the commander of the castle, Nazi archeologist and Standartenführerin Helga von Schabbs.

My thoughts in no particular order -

The game is short. Quite short at 7 hours at most. That was a dissapointment to me. However, those 7 hours are top quality entertainment, to me it felt like it was in an action movie that was a cross between Indiana Jones and Rambo (if he were fighting Nazis).

There are many easter eggs and secret areas to find. In those secret areas you'll sometimes find a sleeping bag. Activate it and you'll be transported to a level straight out of Wolfenstein 3D. Those levels are aptly called Nightmare levels and you are equipped with only a pistol. Your task is to find the key which unlocks the elevator while fighting old-school Nazis.

Something I respect this game for is how it didn't censor Nazi symbolism. Many games which take place in similar scenarios do censor the swastika but this one is much better about that.

The gameplay is rather good, shooting feels substantial and the normal enemies aren't total bullet sponges but they also have some toughness to them. It felt like FPS games as they were in the late 90's to mid 2000's.

More tanky enemies such as the heavy soldiers and super soldiers do take some work but there are nifty ways to kill them faster. The weapon variety is decent, and apparently there are weapon mods but I only found the scope for the bolt-action rifle.

I like how the Germans actually speak German. I know that sounds silly but I've not played a Wolfenstein game before this so I didn't know if they would or just speak German-accented English.

I have yet to dive into the multitude of extra content but I'm sure that will at least double the gameplay time.

One thing that irritated me is how easy it is to accidentally delete your save file. In the game, E is the key for general world interation but on the profile menu E deletes your file. No warning prompt or anything, press E and it's gone. Be careful and only press enter. Another small ♥♥♥♥♥♥ is how the weapon switching works. It's a wheel you have to scroll through then click which weapon you want. I would have preferred being able to custom map weapons to the number bar, so Assault Rifle on 1, Shotgun on 2, etc.

Graphically, it's quite good. My medium teir system struggled to run it at max but even on minimum settings @ 1080p it still looks quite good. However the game seemed to have some sort of weird frame drops sometimes but the Steam overlay fps counter stayed at a solid 60. How peculiar, maybe it's just my eyes.

Overall, I would recommend this game but get it on sale. $20 is a lot to ask for 7 hours of story. I like to get more than 2 hours per dollar I spend on a game so this one wouldn't be worth it at the full $20 asking price. I picked it up during the winter sales for $6.59. So it still doesn't pass my criteria with just the story but I'm satisfied with it at that price.

This game is a good time waster as it basically never ends. For a free game you get a lot of content. It's an idle game in which you kill monsters for gold. That gold is used to level up heroes, unlock hero skills and player skills. The game is actually quite complex so I won't get into it here, but you can check out the Clicker Heroes subreddit for more info.

The monetization strategy revolves around using actual money to circumvent the time required to grind certain resources to unlock things. Those resources can be gained without paying but can take a long time, so it's not mandatory.

In short - click or don't. Get money and level up heroes to do stupid damage.

There aren't many cons to this game seeing as it's free, but one thing that annoyed me was how the new "auto clicker" is described in-game. I'll copy it verbatim - "Auto clickers can be used to automatically level heroes, activate skills and click monsters for you."

The above emphasis is mine since that's the reason why I spent $9.99 on the rubies required to unlock it. I don't use the skills much or click since I've opted for a maximum idle-damage build. What I was really interested in was the fact that it said heroes. Plural. I figured an autoclicker will automatically apply levels to EVERY hero whenever it can, but that is not the case. Instead, for $9.99 I got something that clicked one single hero level up button 10 times a second.

There are 44 heroes. I'd need to purchase 44 auto clickers in order to get the functionality I believed I was getting. Also, the autoclickers get more expensive after each purchase. The first was 100 rubies. Now it's 150. That will probably keep going up.

I don't believe that the description is intentionally misleading but I think it is vague enough to warrant a change. Instead it should say that the autoclicker only levels ONE hero at a time instead of saying heroes plural.

Conclusion - I know I just wrote twice as much complaining about the one and only time I spent real money on this game, but I will give it a pass for now since $9.99 is still a steal for 100 hours of gameplay. Just be warned that the autoclicker doesn't do what it says on the tin.

Very good game.


Challenging, but in the correct way. Doesn't just give enemies more health or give them extra damage output. The challenge comes from movement. Expect to die to bosses and tougher enemies more than a few times until you learn their attack patterns. It's very worth it though.

The multiplayer aspect is very cool. If you invade, expect to be ganked. You can usually find a friend to summon at bonfires that are closest to bosses.

Deep lore too, if you are into that sort of thing. I didn't really pay attention to it.

Voice acting is superb. Each character feels like they have their own personality.

Wide variety of gear, magics and stats make for limitless build variety. I mean yeah, there are the established meta builds but it's more fun to think of your own idea and run with that. Mine was a Strength-based mage who can buff his Greatsword with several different elements.

Level design is also top notch. This is something I've not seen mentioned much, but each area feels so believable. I wouldn't be surprised if FromSoft got actual architects to work on the buildings. They really are pretty.

Speaking of pretty, the graphics are quite nice. I wouldn't say it's the best ever but it's really good. This game really nails atmosphere.

The game runs exceptionally well. This is a game that I can truly say is a masterpiece of porting. It runs on max settings 1920 x 1080 at a rock solid 60fps on my modest machine (i5-4590, 8gb 1600 ddr3, gtx 970). FromSoft really did an amazing job here, and it's really nice to see a company that actually cares about PC and doesn't just half-ass it for the extra sales and focuses on console.

Similarly, the game is amazingly free of bugs. I've only found a few.

Every weapon and spell feels unique. This is something a lot of games don't do very well, but really every weapon is viable as long as you build around it. And you are gud.


Sometimes, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ happens. I've glitched a few times and died. Fell through a floor, got knocked a ways. It happens rare enough that you forget about it but it's often enough to be annoying because dying in this game means losing time and progress, two of my pet peeves in gaming. I'm fine with dying to a tough enemy but dying to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is just aggravating.

Weapons and enemies can swing through walls. This is probably the biggest con. You'll have an enemy with a weapon that's longer than a man is tall and they are going through a doorway, when they do a horizontal wide swing. Common sense dictates that the weapon will obviously never fit, but this is dark souls. Those weapons find a way.

Connecting to a friend via the password system is slow as ♥♥♥♥. It works but expect to wait around for the summon sign. I've spent 15 mins waiting before.

To me, having online play be tied to a consumable item that's of limited quantity is kinda iffy. But you gain so many that it sorta balances out.

A very small one that's more of a mild annoyance is that fact that you can't quit to desktop from in-game. You select quit, then are ejected to the title screen which prompts you to press start. When you do, you have to go through a loading sequence, which goes to the main menu then you can hit quit.


Worth the full price. Challenging in the right way. Creative enemies that won't make you bored. Great depth to the character creator. Lore! The final installment of the git-gud simulator is the best in the series.