Recent reviews by Vandos

Is this game worth your money?
I think the answer to this question boils down to this. Are you a harry potter fan? Or atleast have some love for the world this game is set in. Then this game will not disappoint. The environments in this game faithfully recreate the wizarding world with few exceptions. Such as the forbidden forest being in the completely wrong place.

As a long time harry potter fan I do have some criticism on some of the choices. The story itself is a bit simple and leaves a lot to be desired. Personally I would have liked something more grounded, but this game just had to go with the chosen-one ancient magic gimmick that gets old pretty quickly. It also doesnt seem plausible to me that all these huge ancient magic structures are just forgotten about after this time period. The ancient magic dungeons make hogwarts look like a pretty stupid building in comparison.

The story itself however is acceptable though disappointing in some ways. It seemed the developers wanted to include some choices in your playthrough. And included things like unforgivable curses and allowed you to be a bit of an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in dialogues. But I feel they shouldve left these out. They don't make sense to me. If you are going to include evil choices in your game then let my character be evil and dont switch my character to talking like goodie two shoes five minutes later.

The characters aren't quite there. They're just.. not that interesting. Harry potter is a series about friendships with other characters. And they certainly tried to accomplish it by having a few students with specific questlines which you become friends with. The problem however, is that outside of these questlines you never interact with them, they never accompany you, they never interact with each other either. I think I read a lot of people say the same. This game feels a bit lonely. Despite this there are some shining stars. The sebastian/ominis questline having the strongest characters by far.

The world itself also doesnt make you quite feel connected to it. It's like you are a ghost walking through hogwarts but no one can actually see you. When night time comes the castle is mostly deserted and prefects dont even come after you anymore. Even during cutscenes you will find the great hall only with a handful of students.

The audio is probably this games biggest sin. No hate towards the voice actors, I am sure they tried. But nothing killed the excitement for my own wizard character more than the voice performance. I couldn't stand the voice acting on him. (i dont know how the female one sounds) and then the pitch correction just makes your voice sound metallic likely because they use a broken in game filter. The sound design itself is pretty good, but the voices, the dialogue just has not been done well at all. A lack of integration. it feels like the voices are just put straight into the game out of a studio.

This game also cannot help but to fall into the trap of countless open world games. They create a certain gameplay loop. Puzzles, bandit camps, you name it. But then overdo it. I cannot tell you how many times I found the EXACT same treasure vault in different places around the world. Or the IDENTICAL puzzle I had to do again and again. Whilst yes, a lot of this is skippable. Why do game devs keep doing this? Quality over quantity. This game couldve done by cutting down the map size 3 times over. The further south you go the less interesting it becomes.

Despite all these criticisms this game is worth it in 2 cases in my opinion:
1. You are a harry potter fan and love the world of HP
2. You like standard run of the mill open world games

This game is no more special than any other open world game I've played. A 30 hour or so main story+side quests with 10-20 hours of filler. If thats okay with you. Go for it.

Let me start by saying what I like about this game. I like the narrative, I love how it utilizes old school rpg mechanics with a lot of NPC interaction. Everything is connected.

But the game falls flat on it's face because of game breaking factors. Many bugs and glitches remain in the game, I have crashed times beyond counting. The combat is the most frustrating in any game I have ever played. It's not even the clicking that's the problem. Most of the time you just get stuck.

The animations and actual damage you take are not synced up and thus you often die out of nowhere not knowing where the damage came from. Besides that, knockbacks and stuns are horrific. Stunning you sometimes for up to 6 seconds at a time. You can't help that unless you use the willow potion which you wont always have at hand.

Nowhere is this more clear than the fight with Azar Javed. Knockbacks after knockbacks.

In short, if you really want to play this game sure. But to most people I would say, skip this game it's just going to leave you frustrated.

After 2 hours of playing I have concluded my first impressions are both good and bad, but unfortunately I cannot recommend this game to you. I am a long time chivalry player and was delighted to see these devs created an improved game for the most part. It however did not meet my expectations.

The combat system is great, and really enjoyable. And if you enjoy all that just for what it is, great. This is a game for you. But after only 2 hours of playing I felt like I had done everything there was to do in the game already. There seem to be only 3 gamemodes, of which one is a team based map which is far too chaotic due to a high number of players crammed into a small map. There is BR and Horde mode, nice additions but not why I play these kind of games.

I had expected sieges, scripted maps like in chivalry and just in general more content, more maps. There seems to be too little here for me to keep playing. Perhaps I will return to it, but right now I say wait.

Tired of TakeTwo's ♥♥♥♥.
GTA Online has always been total crap, it's designed for their ♥♥♥♥♥♥ monitzation bethods. And now, even after not giving us a steam workshop they ban mods entirely.

Just go f yourself Take Two, not buying your ♥♥♥♥ again

Here is my short review of my first game in civ 6;
The game has changed to such a degree that it is interestingly different, and has fixed many of the issues civ 5 once had. The game definitely has enough content to be worth the money above playing civ 5 and I found myself enjoying it a lot more.

Estaticaly the game looks great, I actually really like the style. Although I must say, the map fog of war got a bit annoying to the eye later on, and I wouldn't actually an option to turn it off, perhaps a mod.

The games soundtrack is probably the best video game soundtrack I've heard in a while, I absolutely love how it evolves throughout the game.

Now, mind you I was playing on Prince difficulty. But the AI was horrible. I hated them. They kept asking me the same proposals after refusing them multiple times. They even started just asking for outright gifts at some point. I'm unsure if this is different on the higher difficulties.

I do not like that it doesn't alert you sometimes of things clearly. But that's about it, everything else has been great. I'd say it's worth full price. But be aware, there will be DLC and expansions in the future. I have no doubt.. And you'll be paying for that if you wish it.

Black mesa is all it promises to be and more. It revamps half life in a way that keeps it authentic and yet fresh. The source engine does the game great justice with it's added physics which is well utilized in different puzzles around the levels.

The game most definitely has a great atmosphere through the levels and truly makes you feel like you are exploring the facility as it explodes around you. The levels look seamless and dont seem linear even though they are. The guns and combat is fantastic and I have found myself enjoying much of it. With minor frustrations.

The added dialog here and there is most welcome, and the game tends to give you those moments of calm and creepiness that the old game allowed much less.

For years now, crowbar collective has been at work on Xen. And I must say that it took a very long time after they released it on Early Access. But I can tell the effort and love that went into it. It looks great, it sounds great and it plays great (for the most part). There are some definite issues in Xen however that gives me a somewhat mixed feeling.

While my reception of Xen is overall positive. There is definite issues with crashes which happened to me atleast ten times as I was going through the levels. Other than that I had several times where I got stuck and I had to reload saves to get out.

There are a few chapters which just suck. The boss fight with the big spider boss sucks. I play on hard mode but the entire game I felt I had control of dying and surviving. With this boss fight it was just a matter of damaging the boss and quciksaving, then dying and try again. It wasn't a fun boss fight at all.

It is made worse by the fact you then end up getting chased by it through the next level. This is probably the worst part of the game. It takes far too long and you end up just frustrated in the ways you die. They somewhat redeem the chapter in the final boss fight with her, but it's still no good.

After this fight however, I was met with what I like most about Xen. The friendly civillian vortigaunts are fantastic, the puzzles and the creative use the the enviroment makes Xen actually a pleasure to explore as opposed to the absolutely terrible version that valve made. The culture is great to see and the final boss fight is superb, I really did enjoy it.

So overall, I do recommend this game now it is complete. Worth your time and money.

My review - From my experience in the early alpha
First of all i wish to state that the community of the game has been amazing and the developers have been listening very well to us. I have been following this game ever since early 2014 and it's grown to a very enjoyable game.

PLEASE NOTE: This game is not made for the impatient
The game requires atleast a decent interest in ship combat and sailing, you need to navigate yourself, the combat is made realistically. It is not an arcade, note that if you just want to kill, kill, kill this game won't be a good game for you.

First of all, the graphics look fantastic. Probably the best looking game I've ever seen in the Unity engine. The Open world currently does look a little worse than the battles, but this is understandable for performance reasons. The game runs decently, haven't had any issues to achieve a solid 60FPS. Yet the dev's stated they would improve performance in the future so no worries about that.

The ships are beautiful and detailed, just look up the trincomalee in the game, and irl. It looks identical. Honestly amazing how detailed the ships have become. I hope to see more crew on deck in the future. More activites there would be nice.

The sound design is AMAZING, it sounds like you are actually in an 18th century sea battle, the smoke really adds to the battles aswell. Couldn't be more perfect.

Overall the battles feel very complete already, it is the open world which does require a bit of work. Of course, the UI can be confusing at first, and it does not look the greatest. It is not the priority, and we understand this. The UI is something to improve on definitely. Another negative thing about the game is that there is currently no tutorial. So finding out what to do can be a bit tricky at first. So please use the help chat in game, someone almost instantly helps you on there.

The open world is a WIP and that is clearly visible, and this is most likely where the developers will focus on in Early Acces, so you will mostly see that progress.

Overall, I bought the game on a Thursday and within a week I had played over 100 hours. A recommendation for sure, dedicated dev's, good communication with the community. Best Naval game out there right now!

"War thunder is one of the best siege weaponry games out there with aspects for casual arcade and simulation"

War thunder definitely hits a lot of good marks. Firstly the game carries a wide choice of realistic vehicles which are extremely detailed to the smallest of details. The game looks beautiful on both the airplane and tank gamemode, the port is quite good. It runs fairly well and has a lot of options.

The game is not pay to win, it definitely keeps the balance of different tanks and planes well. The grinding in this game however eventually ends up getting quite tiring and you will get bored because of this. Unless you pay your way through EXP. I found the game itself in Arcade to be quite easy, the controls are solid, animations very good. The damage system is realistic and not like WoT where it is simply about healthbars. You can actually fire at parts of the tank.

The customization of the vehicles are good, however if you want to make your own 'skin' you require basic photoshop or pain.net knowledge to actually do so at all. It isn't very user friendly. The game sometimes encourages players to camp in their bases, this is not good. Certainly since the addition of depositing planes in a tank battle. Which made me quit tank battles, it is a stupid change. You have to stand still, meaning you have to camp to deposit planes. Before this update people were already going way too much for the kills rather than actually winning the battle.

I think there is definitely a lack of solid content like maps. Even with the latest addition the maps are still in great lack. I'd also like the crew team stats to change as it does not explain the user what to upgrade.

Overall the game is quite solid and will entertain you well. Certainly for a free to play game.
I rate this game an 7.8/10, well worth your time.

"This game is a rainbow of possibilities without limits that will make anyone laugh"

Garry's Mod is one of the best humoristic games I've ever played. It consists of a large diversity of different gamemodes which offer many possibilities of adjusting the game to your liking completely. The usage of the Half Life engine is really put to good use in Sandbox but also so many other modes.

Because of the community the game remains interesting because of the additions they bring. My favorite gamemodes are TTT, Prop Hunt and Sandbox for sure. But other gamemodes will certainly entertain you, and new gamemodes keep popping up aswell.

The downside of the game however is that there is a lot of downloading, you require Counter Strike Source to actually play without having failing textures and errors unless you download it from the internet. Sometimes maps or gamemodes require games that the common person does not own.

My final conclusion would be that the game is worth the price, you get a lot of content from that small fee. But remember that if you do not have CSS you will have to go through some copying and pasting.

I'm rating this game a well deserved 8.5/10, it uses a lot of other games, so rating it higher would not justify it.