Recent reviews by YellowAtom

A very unique narrative experience which I found myself getting very immersed in. I would highly recommend it but expect an experience not a "game", at least that's how I'd describe it.

I had a lot of fun with this additional campaign, it provided a similar frantic and stressful feeling inflicted in the original campaign but through a completely different setting and lens. By the end I felt like I just made it, and wouldn't have if I'd made more mistakes earlier which was a very satisfying feeling.

The only city builder that's really sucked me in, it's certainly punishing and took me a few attempts to complete the first campaign but once I got steady it was such an experience. Within the first campaign, the pacing of the weather was just right to always keep me on edge, and make me feel relieved when it let up, internal conflicts were always almost disastrous and the finale sequence was so immersive. And in the end, even though I won, I still felt like a monster.

I was excited for more after the first win, and while the extra campaigns are fine and I enjoyed them a lot, I feel like it peaked with the first.

An amazing game sized expansion. If you enjoyed the base game this will not disappoint, there is a plethora of new interesting story, challenging bosses and a ton of interesting quest characters which will follow you throughout your journey.

Most FromSoftware games can feel like you're wandering through an already very dead world, and while this certainly has that, I actually felt like the world was active and events were unfolding around me for the first time which was an experience I greatly enjoyed.

Some people complain about the difficultly, but if you pay attention to the new mechanics only a few bosses should be ridiculously difficult.

One of my favourite games. It really pushes the FromSoftware formula the next level, bringing the immersive and challenging combat into an open world setting with tons of interesting story, locations, characters and bosses with almost all the open space feeling purposeful. There is certainly no shortage of content, this game is very long.

It is probably the best introduction for a new player into these kinds of games, providing a fairly slow start with an actual tutorial for the first time. But don't get upset if you struggle, you always will at first, maybe for ages, but eventually you'll feel great as you turn impossible obstacles into a breeze. And don't let people tell you using items or character optimising is cheating, though summoning players can lead to them playing the game for you.

My favourite game of all time. When I played this game growing up, on the Xbox 360, it opened my eyes to what games could be, immersive narrative experiences and the idea that narrative and gameplay could be blended together fully. The physics and environmental storytelling create a very grounded world for you to meet characters and fight through, with no shortage of gameplay twists and surprises.

Each gun has its own role in your arsenal creating a tactical combat that's more thinking than just aiming. And the physics based weapons and enemies are a very unique form of combat.

The mod-ability of this game through the SDK is an experience in itself, including great community projects like Garry's Mod, Black Mesa and Dark Interval.

My big complaint is the reduced weapon and enemy variety compared to the to first game, and the abandoning of Episode Three, of course.

At first, without being able to see how everything fits together, professions can seem a bit random and pointless. But all the professions, bar a few, do create a production line which leads to the core gameplay, much like Runescape, which I think would appeal to people who enjoy that. Additionally, the higher level you get the more gameplay opportunities unlock which make the professions more than just linearly increasing a number.

There are currently a limited amount of quests in the game and I think it would vastly benefit from more of those. But so far I've been enjoying myself quite a lot.

In the past I've never played a horror game where including multiple people didn't dampen the sense of fear. But here, using the in-game microphones, it actually felt like a horror game.

Having to figure out how to deal with the monsters when you find them, balancing risk with reward and dealing with the night all create a very unique atmosphere which is actually improved by having other players.

The story is intriguing but, as far as I can tell, doesn't go anywhere past setting the tone and theme so far, though I do like the energy.

Do not. Most of the addons installed are pretty scuffed compared to the base game and, in some cases, significantly break the game's balance. Most notably, there is a buffed set of daedric armour available in Whiterun at any level.

Sure it adds more content but not to the same standard as the base game and you can tell.

I loved Boneworks it was my first VR game and I have very fond memories of it and it's story. This game is more of the same in a higher quality, for the most part, there were a few key features I didn't like which amounts to almost everything that wasn't in the first game. Overall though this game is certainly worth playing. The rest of this is full of spoilers.

The first half of the game felt awesome with the obscure story from the first game being brought to the forefront which was very fun. However, everything past "big anomaly" was uncomfortable for me, I couldn't enjoy the avatar changing mechanic or the vehicles, this wasn't because it made me sick or disoriented though. I knew before the game released that I wasn't going to like the avatar changing. The first game felt very grounded to me since by the end the, compared to alyx, unrealistic physics and gun play felt right and immersive, I cannot get to this point while changing my avatar every few minutes unfortunately. And on the vehicles, it just wasn't very functional. The end of the game went back to being fine with the return to Fantasy Land being a suitably dramatic moment which coincidentally did not require the avatar mechanic.

Also, despite pushing the modding scene they didn't offer steam workshop support which is a bit strange.

Edit:
The original review was written immediately after finishing the story.
After a while of playing this game now I don't think any of it is that bad, the post-game is much better than Boneworks and I guess that's the main reason to buy it. I've since come to enjoy the avatar changing, the solution I found to get around my discomfort was to slot a peasant into the BodyLog so I had a default state when I didn't need one of the abilities. However, I stand by that the new mechanics weren't introduced very well.