Recent reviews by TwoNeurons

I love Stellaris. I love the team over at Paradox. But this DLC is just broken in a bad way. There are some really cool concepts but the broken aspects literally make the game unplayable. Here are the three bugs in order of how bad they are:

1. On launching the game (going from desktop to launcher), will cause system to lock up (at either 5% or 33%, more details below). Literally making it unplayable. The fix is to verify steam files before starting the game... Every time.

2. Multiplayer desync every 5 to 15 minutes. Game the be restarted but the error occurs again.

3. In single player the UI has major issues... Just before midgame, every death was at age -1 and with no name. Sometimes "random name" would be displayed instead of the NPC name. My immortal emperor, who has not had a death event pop up/notification, died once a year for approx 20 years according to the history/timeline.

As for details related to 1. The system always hangs at 5%. The first time this happened I had to reboot. The second time it hung then got past 5%. The third time, it just crashed my computer at 5%. Bergen to verify my files at that point and could get in. Forgot to verify once. It hung at 5% but instead of crashing my system, only the game crashed. Reloaded got to 33% and got the blue screen. Haven't had it yet to 33% again. Still have to verify every time, I want to start up

First time I have ever requested a refund on a game. There known bugs with this game that make unplayable (like controls not working). I tried all community fixes without success (big shout out to both steam and reddit for great communities to help resolve the issue). But for EA not to patch some fairly large issues is a bit concerning.

This game is good, but you have to stick with it - which is to say to do a lot of learning on your own. You have to read up on the game mechanics on your own and teach yourself how to play it without the luxury of any sort of tutorial that is worth its time.

As a trained psychotherapist, working with anxiety and exposure this application is completely inapprioprate. It is not an accurate reflection of what virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) should be. Nor is it an accurate representation of exposure in general. This VRET system is potentially harmful to any one with clinical or subclinical levels of anxiety. I would NOT recommend this to a client and if I did I would open myself up to legal action due to the potentially psychologically harmful content within (i.e., the 'warning' page and the entire antidote thing).

Also to the delivers, please learn the different between rubber hand illusion and general and other proprioception illusions. (You can could both from this environment - not that you do - but what is described is a general proprioception illusion).

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a mixed title, like all sequels in the Deus Ex series. It is neither a game I can recommend nor can I say to avoid it.

If you’re a Deus Ex fan and have not yet bought it (for the same reasons as I delayed; that you were uneasy about the microtransactions and issues with the game), get the game.

If you are looking for a good story line and a great game and don’t know what to play, it isn’t this game.

I think the closest analogy I give to explain how I feel about is by saying, Mankind Divided is to Human Revolution as Quantum of Solace is to Casino Royale. This is a game that railroads it plots, not uncommon for Deus Ex but doesn’t do so in a way that makes it feel you really matter (sure there are forced decisions but you can go either major choice before the last fight and the game will have to resolve itself in predictable ways anyway – joys of a prequal). The game more or less talks at you as the player. Not for one moment, did I feel invested in the game or plots.

There are some interesting issues in the game’s programming. For example on both stealth sections (with relation to the police, I did not kill or incapacitate a single NPC, yet I got in trouble. Now if the former incident was supposed to be an in game cover-up, man they really messed up with the dialogue trees then.

The lip-syncing and eye movements are terrifying. And having come from Mass Effect Andromeda to this, I felt Mass Effect Andromeda had less scary-face issues.

Some of the new augs are cool, and a long over do, but being a prequal to the original game this game is limited by what it can offer.

All in all, it is a fun tactical shooter. It has given up any attempt outside of dialogue trees to appear to be an RP shooter.

This game is a buggy as hell. Also my hour count on steam is wrong (after about 5 hours of play it said 3 hours in steam, after about 8 hours of play it said 21 hours, now it says 18.3).

So in my first 48 hours playing I experienced roughly 12 crashes an hour (if you average them out), 24 in character creation alone.

I contacted their support team, who gave me a response completely unrelated to my issue (they gave me a response about items not appearing after purchase, when my issue was the crashes causing my character to die because I'd get hit by weak monsters while it was crashed).

Then they promised me (and others) in a form letter 50,000 gold for not responding. (Never saw this gold, a week later).

Then I began to have problems where items wouldn't appear after purchase (or would be expired, as if I bought it years ago - sorry been playing for two weeks not years - or just not at all). I followed their instructions from the earlier e-mail (glad I kept that unrelated one). Did nothing.

Sent another e-mail asking about promised gold and missing items... Heard nothing back. Thoroughly unimpressed with this, given how long the game has been out.

After this game was patched. it was a wonderful experience. If you have not played it, do so.