Recent reviews by Sjors

I have not finished the game yet but I would like to get some thoughts out there and update the review in the future if I got anything to accompany the thoughts.

The online hate isn't completely warranted, I thought when first starting the game. Until I hit about the 15-20 hour mark and you start feeling how samey everything is. There's only really about 3 enemy types in the game and the bosses are almost constantly re-used. The combat itself, as a rogue, feels like very basic 2018 God of War without any extra weapons or true combo's and you use 2/3 abilities once every minute or so. It's still one of the better Dragon Age combat systems but that's not saying much. Dreadful stuff.

Now the story is where most people will find their major complaints and I'm kind of torn. It often feels like Bioware sold this franchise to Disney, where topics of deeper thought and contention are kind of kicked out to feature more 2024 accepted representation and avoid all conflicts so they can virtue signal on their social media pages. I think some of the companions could have been interesting but none of them supply real depth. The necromancer is probably the closest one to being interesting but even he is no Dorian, who was no Anders, who ended up being not as interesting as Morrigan. Cheap comparisons, but there's a steady decline of interesting depth.

The themes of slavery, racism, abuse and extreme violence, things Fantasy are able to translate so well to give a perspective onto social issues, are all kind of ignored or watered down as to not offend anyone, losing all intrigue and interest.

Taash, the non binary character, has been receiving most online backlash and I get it. She/They are unlikable, rude and bully others for being different while she/they force others to accept hers, which everyone does. She/They is such a horrible person that I wish you could just tell her to leave the instant she/they joins the party. Nobody would willingly force themselves unto such unlikable company.


But, do I recommend this game? I havent been this unsure about a videogame in a long while. Im a pretty big Dragon Age fan, having finished all 3 multiple times and thinking nothing could be as disappointing as the second game. But then there's this, with some minor moments being nearly interesting but then being lost into meandering nothingness. But yet, I can't fully hate it, which is odd.

DLC is unplayable till patched for certain PCs. You're warned.

Endearing visuals, smooth gameplay and surprisingly fun co-op makes this a near masterpiece. The run and gun levels feel tacked on and thankfully the DLC doesn't have any, so there's nothing but great boss fights in there. Expect frustration and jubiliation.

While simple difficulty is a feature, it's not recommended to be played on that difficulty. The fights lose a lot of phases that are amazing (and can be very challenging) and the game expects you to have played it on regular the further you get in. It's a challenging boss rush game that just seems endearing, the gameplay really is not.

Highly recommended but you might be disappointed if you expect a cutesy easy game.

Pop ups overlap text boxes that ruin anything story. It's filled with amateur design and bugs. Don't buy this.

This game peaked at Forsaken and unashamed greed will be its downfall.

What was once a sloppy, expensive shooter is now so expensive it's unplayable.

I recently purchased The Witch Queen and this is what I received: Access to the campaign (that's a few hours)

After my first mission, this screen popped up: BUY THE DELUXE EDITION. This Deluxe Edition upgrade costs another €40, but will grant me all of the season passes. There's only 3 seasons left because I didnt get to play the first season. Previous expansion, I would get the first season I played free, this is no longer the case. So after I started the game, I still need to pay another €10 if I want actual content besides the meager campaign.

Then there's a bungie pack that's €25 that grants a mode, mission and a dungeon. Then there's a Dungeon pack if I dont want to waste my money on the deluxe edition that's €20 that will allow me access to a whole 2 dungeons.

So a solid €100 investment in a game I might not even play for that long.

Then there's a cash shop. Because you see, there's not really any rewards for playing anymore instead of just static number increasing loot. All the cool cosmetics and things to show off to your friends and rivals is in a cash shop, where prices range exceedingly high for something so mediocre.

Fortnite is cheaper and supplies vastly more content. Let that sink in.

Re-edit: looks like they kinda fixed this, it still plays rough but its playable

Edit after a year and wanting to play it again: They ruined this. It runs even worse than before. I don't know what happened but it went from a rough but semi-playable state to a completely unplayable game on PC. Skip this.



It took me a little while after beating and 100%ing the game to let this experience marinate to write a review, so I took some time. Elden Ring is good, but it lacks the variety and polish to be truly great.

The open world is beautiful, one of the most beautiful worlds in videogaming right now you can traverse through. It's up there with Breath of the Wild as an experience and not much else that can touch it.

Sadly, I feel From Soft wasn't a big enough of a studio to guarantee enough variety because of the sheer amount of content and expansiveness they wanted to bring to the game.

The main drawback of this game as an experience is the amount of re-used content. Not just from older games, that's fine and was almost to be expected if you played any previous FromSoft Titles, no it's the actual re-used bosses in the game itself. Every mini boss you'll encounter you'll probably see at least 3 times and it can go up towards like 8 times. Even some story bosses are re-used with slight movement and ability changes. This makes the latter quarter of the game become very dull and you'll just start skipping content because it's too boring and not rewarding enough.

Then there's the polish. I wouldn't say it's riddled with bugs like it's the fresh new hottest Ubisoft product but it's definitely buggy and there's some brokeness going on. Online co-op is ruined already by invasion cheaters (Hell, it was already ruined a week or two after release) and rampant performance issues that still haven't been solved. Long load times on a m.2, many random FPS drops, sometimes without even doing anything while running it on a PC that should be easily able to handle it, it really is a shame.

It's a special game and there's honestly not anything like it on the market, but unless they expand their studios by 3x the amount of people and leadership, they should go back to how they crafted the older titles, because they didnt feel as repetitive.

It's a solid 7/10 game that could go up a point if the performance was ever fixed, which I'm starting to doubt at this point.

Dying Light 2 isn't as good as the first game and that's disappointing.

The combat doesn't feel as good and in the beginning I was of the strong opinion that the parkour and city felt much better developed for each other, until you reach the other portion of the map that relies heavily on a tool you receive there and 'parkour routes' are less important.

There are some animations copied over from the first game, which is fine but I wish the 'cave a zombie's effin' head in while its down by spamming left click' was still there. It was a gorgeous move.

Now, this is where I wish there was a MEH review option: The bugs. It's so buggy. Even achievement pops don't work. I miss like 6 I should have. Enemies fly off, quests glitch, I got stuck into a wall or stuck behind a chair. I got a black screen for several minutes (on a m.2) thinking it stopped working.
Now after the credits when I presss continue I had a black screen for 4 minutes causing me to alt f4. I dunno if the game is broken now, but yeah. This game is a frickin' mess.

6/10. It's fun but if you've never played Dying Light 1 I'd say go play that.

There is potential but needs a lot of patchwork.

Unclear objectives, fly controls and shooting feels rough, combat is okayish and unexciting. Pixel art is okay.

I like the open world structure and the potential that there is here.

Please, stop the defending BS or make it so I can turn it off. It's annoying to be exploring and having to go back every 30 minutes to some BS island I don't care about.

3+ hours of progress ruined on Mass Effect 2 by loading the game and the camera being stuck in something and freezing. Terrible remaster overall but I guess the games are still good thankfully

One of the greatest videogame stories ever told. Recommended for anyone that likes RPGs, JRPGS, action games and even non gamers that like weird inventive story telling.

For those like me that have played Gestalt before: this is a pretty big upgrade. Looks quite decent/good, combat is massively improved and the new boss fight is quite great.

Ending E makes it worth a replay/makes it worth for Automata fans.